3.6 Changelog for Snake

[FlashingFire]

Ladies and gents, we have Snake buffs. From the PM website:

[collapse=Changelog]
Fsmash
- Adjusted animation to match hitboxes more accurately.
- Second slash's damage increased (6% -> 8%), Knockback compensated.

Nair
- All hitboxes now last 4 frames each, instead of being 4-4-3.

Fair
- Landing lag decreased from 30 frames -> 25
- Auto cancel increased to 43 frames from 36

Bair and Uair
- Reversed hitbox priority, making the sweetspot easier to hit

Dair
- All hitboxes now last 4 frames each, instead of being 4-3-4-2.

Grab
- Increased size of grab boxes a bit (3.185 -> 3.6), then moved them down/inward by the same radius. Result is that they have the same upward and horizontal range, but slightly more downward range to help grabbing in some odd scenarios, but still prevent grabing against low-crouching opponents.
- Fixed a bug that caused his grab to interfere with charged specials.

Tranq
- Bullet is now intangible.
- Fixed a bug where the bullet would not function correctly on hit.

C4
- C4 creates a small flash graphic when it stickies someone.
- Aerial C4 drop has IASA on frame 23 instead of frame 28
- IASA on sticky moved from frame 20 to 14

Other
- Aerial mobility stat increased from 0.02 - > 0.045.
- Backwards getup roll (while facing up) invincibility: 31 -> 25 (matches face-down getup back roll).
- Powershield size multiplier increased from 0.73x to 0.75x[/collapse]

Lots of small touches, but the standout buffs include a Fair landing lag reduction (which I think translates to 12 frames of L-cancelled landing lag), intangibility on tranq (no more weird clanking and zooming along useless curved trajectories), better IASA frames on C4, and increased aerial mobility!

 

[cisyphus]

The one thing I'm not too crazy about is the changes to back air and up air. The weak hits are actually interesting combo tools and shifting the strong hits so much actually makes it hard to hit the combo stuff lol. Maybe it's a proxy to reduce crazy aerial combo strings via higher air mobility. Overall Snake feels mostly the same, although f-air might be relatively safe on shield now? Or maybe useful as a spacing tool?

ALSO: Nobody sleeps under Snake's grab anymore. Just tested every character (Fox, Kirby, Wolf, Mario, Luigi, Squirtle) and not one of them could do it. As for crouch, the list just got a whole lot smaller:
Jigglypuff, Kirby, Snake, Sometimes G&W, Sometimes Squirtle.
G&W seems to duck standing grab but for whatever reason a JC grab catches him. Squirtle just seems to randomly get caught sometimes. I don't much understand it.

Speaking of which, tranq may have gotten an indirect buff via the sleep mechanic tweak? The endlag on sleep (the waking up) got 15 added frames, whereas the base sleep time got reduced by 9 frames, and "sleep start" is 1.5x speed? Not entirely sure what it all means but it'd be nice to test that as well.

 

[Arrow (Kyle)]

Can confirm, yes the new sleep mechs is a slight buff for us.
I dislike the Uair change, Bair i'm indifferent about but with the Uair change you lose falling Uair into regrab on a lot of the cast. Overall Snake got a really nice buff.
Still not crazy about the tranq change since It was funny to shooting Arua bomb's with it and clank lol

Also someone teach me how2delete thread cause def posted this as well last night and didn't realize rip.

 

[cisyphus]

I'd like some numbers for the sleep changes nonetheless. Maybe after my shift today I'll dive into it (assuming tbird doesn't get 3.6 on our other setup)

 

[$heen]

The total unmashable sleep time is increased by about 5 frames. The mashable sleep time has been decreased by 9 frames.

If the opponent mashes slower than 6 inputs/second, then he will sleep for longer in 3.5. If he mashes faster than 6 inputs/seconds or doesn't start mashing by frame 10, then he will sleep longer in 3.6.

 

[cisyphus]

tx_u $heen I love you.

Also You don't really "lose" falling u-air -> grab, I definitely got that in my playtesting session this morning. It's just harder.

 

[Professor Pro]

The one thing I'm not too crazy about is the changes to back air and up air. The weak hits are actually interesting combo tools and shifting the strong hits so much actually makes it hard to hit the combo stuff lol.

You do realize that with the U-air and Bair changes, it actually makes the feet hitbox stronger?
Meaning his killing power is now better.

Before the sweetspot of the move was basically the inside hitbox for both Uair and Bair, and now the hitbox priority has been reversed so it's his feet.
It's definitely not worse lol.

 

[cisyphus]

I never had trouble hitting the sweetspots before, though? I didn't say it was worse either, just not something I particularly enjoy. I liked using weak hits to combo into strong hits or other follow-ups and that function is diminished since it's so much easier to get the strong hit instead of the weak hits. That's all

Also are you saying that knockback values got increased? I didn't see that noted in the changelog. As far as I remember, the foot hitbox was the strongest in 3.5 too, soo?

 

[Professor Pro]

I never had trouble hitting the sweetspots before, though? I didn't say it was worse either, just not something I particularly enjoy. I liked using weak hits to combo into strong hits or other follow-ups and that function is diminished since it's so much easier to get the strong hit instead of the weak hits. That's all

Also are you saying that knockback values got increased? I didn't see that noted in the changelog. As far as I remember, the foot hitbox was the strongest in 3.5 too, soo?

Remember I am part of the backroom and have been playing with the build for a while lol.

So yeah, the feet now have more knockback due to the hitbox priority being reversed on Uair and Bair.

Test it out yourself.
It's pretty self evident if you remember how the knockback was in 3.5

 

[cisyphus]

That's why I had to ask! I knew you probably had that sort of insight.

This means I have to redo my KO%s </3

But still, it diminishes the diversity of the move, which was my point all along. "Repurposed" is the word I'd use. Less of a combo move, more of an outright kill move.

EDIT: I just checked Falcon and the KO%s are the same..? 145 for u-air on Battlefield's first platform and 141 from the center with back air. No substantial knockback change if there is one. Marth shows the same effect.

 

[moonfolk]

It's pretty self evident if you remember how the knockback was in 3.5

Definitely my personal favorite Snake buff. Overall, perfect amount of tweaks. I sure hope more people pick him up. I love me some Snake vids.

 

[FlashingFire]

I'm pretty happy with the Snake changes. I got almost exactly what I asked for 3 days ago in another thread:

"Specifically, I'd love it if Snake received slightly greater air speed/weave speed, had slightly better hitbox durations on Nair (so it could be used to reliably clank with projectiles a la Falcon's Nair), and I'd like other characters like Fox, Kirby and Mario to not duck grabs when hit by a tranq. Seriously, that's just silly and makes some difficult matchups arbitrarily more difficult."

Plus other cool things like the Fair/Tranq/C4 buffs. Can't wait to actually try it out tonight.

 

[BND]

Fsmash finally works properly now [?!]

(On a more serious note, C4 seems too fast now, though that's not for me to decide.)

 

[ZGE]

SMH Snake got way buffed.

Flafy I couldn't beat your Snake before and I really won't be able to now zzz.

 

[BND]

...Just noticed, but RIP the glory days of double tranqing in doubles .-.

 

[FlashingFire]

HNNNGGG THAT AERIAL MOBILITY BUFF FEELS SO GOOD!

 

[BND]

...I'd really like to know how the PMDT set up the hitboxes for the tranq dart. Lots of interesting properties on the new projectile, but I can't actually think of any configuration that gives the tranq dart its current properties.

 

[LupinX]

For the tranq dart being intangible, does it mean when for example, Zelda f-smashes the tranq, it will still hit her? Because in 3.5 it would just curve away.
I believe f-air is now faster. Oh gawsh, the gimp potential is too good <3

Also is the sticky hitbox smaller from 3.5? Cause for some reason I can stick when I am "touching" the character. Maybe it's placebo, who knows lol

 

[Timic83]

i only wish we finally had a good metal gear neutral to wreck with snake on

 

[moonfolk]

HNNNGGG THAT AERIAL MOBILITY BUFF FEELS SO GOOD!

Seriously. I just got to playing for the first time this morning, and man, that mobility is awesome. It's going to make me play Snake seriously again. Also, the changes to his aerials are amazing. It's so much easier to time stuff, and the new fair looks awesome! I'm so happy Snake got some tweaks, and I hope he stays this way. He also looks a little more buff, but I might be hallucinating.

 

[cisyphus]

I assume that the tranq would now function as Falco's lasers do.

 

[BND]

For the tranq dart being intangible, does it mean when for example, Zelda f-smashes the tranq, it will still hit her? Because in 3.5 it would just curve away.

Basically.

I assume that the tranq would now function as Falco's lasers do.

Not exactly true. Snake's tranq has a grab box overlaid with a regular hitbox, hence the weird pinkish color you see in debug mode. Back in 3.5, the tranq functioned a lot like a mortar: it shot a projectile, which was actually a character detection box. Once a tranq made contact with an opponent, it would disappear, producing an explosion (which could be powershielded, but not reflected, or spotdodged if you made the input the frame before) which would then stun the opponent. (This was the 1-frame delay that PMDT was talking about, which happens in many other cases as well. Not sure why they removed it, but I guess it's a tranq buff so huzzah)

Falco's lasers are easy to figure out; they're just hitboxes with transcendental priority. On the other hand, Snake's current tranq has a bunch of weird properties that seem to conflict with each other. For example, if you tranq a grenade, it explodes the grenade completely (which means it's special, but I won't go into detail about it), but trying to line up and tranq Sheik's needles, which purportedly have hurtboxes on them, does absolutely nothing to them. (http://puu.sh/iCeWi/a218d4bd77.jpg)

As a side note, it completely pierces the grenade and hits the Snake throwing it (http://puu.sh/iCfbR/e08e9bf7c1.jpg), unlike Falco's lasers, which disappear upon hitting the grenade. I sort of figured out that this was related to the fact that it destroys the grenade before going through it (If you hit a blastbox with a dart and it doesn't explode, it consumes it, but if you shoot the blastbox with a dart and it does explode, it goes through and hits the guy on the other side), but I can't think of any reason it would do that.

There are a bunch of other weird properties that you encounter as well, though I won't go into detail about those due to lack of context.

(The jank properties of the tranq also mean that you can't actually powershield and reflect tranqs, which is great but probably subject to nerfs)

EDIT: It's possible that the grab hitbox, which could be cosmetic and checks for disappearance of the dart, is checked after the actual hitbox. It could be that this is the reason the powershield makes the dart disappear. This could also explain the bit about the grenade, but there's a frame in which the "grab box" overlaps with the grenade. Admittedly, at that point it's about to explode, meaning that it might not be a normal hurtbox (Too lazy to test this), though I'm still not sure about all of this.

EDIT2: Never mind, forgot to verify whether or not Sheik's needles actually had a hurtbox: http://puu.sh/iD42b/4e183aba38.jpg. Seems like they don't anymore.

I think it's probably safe to assume that the tranq itself is now covered by a 1 damage lingering melee hitbox with ID0 and hurtbox detection with ID1 (Do grab boxes even have IDs?) that causes a 0 damage explosion [??], or something of that sort. Still doesn't fully explain the aforementioned unmentioned weird properties, but it's probably not worth testing anymore.

 

[Arrow (Kyle)]

Sticky hitbox isn't any smaller no, lol tho it might be polished by the looks of it in debug mode. Prob placebo more than anything.

And yeah Tranq will hit Zelda when she's using FSmash and beats nearly every projectile flat out. it goes through shine as well iirc though don't quote me on that, I might be remembering that from a build where Tranq was accidentally unreflectable.

 

[BND]

Sticky hitbox isn't any smaller no, lol tho it might be polished by the looks of it in debug mode. Prob placebo more than anything.

And yeah Tranq will hit Zelda when she's using FSmash and beats nearly every projectile flat out. it goes through shine as well iirc though don't quote me on that, I might be remembering that from a build where Tranq was accidentally unreflectable.

Tested that yesterday as well; Tranq's reflectable through standard means where it doesn't touch a hurtbox.

 

[moonfolk]

As a side note, it completely pierces the grenade and hits the Snake throwing it (http://puu.sh/iCeWi/a218d4bd77.jpg)...

Same pic as previous! Just FYI

 

[BND]

Same pic as previous! Just FYI

Fixed; thanks for the heads up.

 

[moonfolk]

Fixed; thanks for the heads up.

I don't know if it's just me, but the pic is still the same. The name is different, but it's still Snake shooting at Sheik.

 

[BND]

I don't know if it's just me, but the pic is still the same. The name is different, but it's still Snake shooting at Sheik.

Oops, it kept the same hyperlink after I pasted over it. Fixed again (though it's not too important of an image)

 

[wiiztec]

EDIT2: Never mind, forgot to verify whether or not Sheik's needles actually had a hurtbox: http://puu.sh/iD42b/4e183aba38.jpg. Seems like they don't anymore.

Debug mode doesn't show hurtboxes

 

[BND]

Debug mode doesn't show hurtboxes

I know; I was just referring to the fact that Sheik's needles pass cleanly through Falco's lasers, implying the lack of any hurtboxes. Debug mode was just to confirm that the apparent location of the supposed needle hurtbox actually passed through Falco's laser hitboxes. Double checked in Melee where Sheik's needles actually definitely had hurtboxes on them (I used Fox's lasers since I don't have Falco unlocked, but close enough), and neither projectile passed through each other.

In any case, any ideas as to what the stats on the tranq's explosion hitbox is? I've never heard of a 0 damage hitbox, and verifying seems somewhat complicated and inconclusive at best.

 

[wiiztec]

It's intangible

 

[Arrow (Kyle)]

K so went over to play with Gallo last night for a while, noticed a few things.
For one, Tranq can't be Power Shielded. I know there was a build where Tranq wasn't able to be reflected at all by accident so this could be a carrier over from that? idk but I highly doubt it is supposed to be like this and should be changed.
Tranq's hitbox is also a lot larger than the actual animation. If you shoot a tranq at point blank, the dart will sometimes go past someone, and yet they'll still be hit by it. The tranq still travels it's set distance and the person is sleep. Not major but I think that the hitbox should better match the animation if it's possible.

FSmash has some realllly janky reverse hitboxes, I couldn't really get it consistently, but one sent at a pretty disgusting angle off the 2nd hit lol

Air mobility still feels amazing tho <3

 

[jtm94]

I'm already salty about the new tranq..... I spot dodged it and dodged it cleanly, got put to sleep, and the tranq kept on trucking past me as if it didn't hit.............

Yeah Sheik needles in PM are no longer transcendent/have hurtboxes.

Is being intangible better than being transcendent? I'm going to assume so and that it can only interact with other hurtboxes. That's pretty good...

Has anyone tested reflecting it? What happens?

 

[Arrow (Kyle)]

lol. Why spot dodge it? That has nothing to do with the new tranq tho, that was cause you choose a bad option to deal with it.
Yes, intangible is better.

Yes it can be reflected no issue in the current built with no issue.

 

[jtm94]

Why spot dodge anything? Why not just powershield? The option I chose has nothing to do with bad/good. I'm just saying that I shouldn't be able to be hit by it and have it continue to exist as a projectile.

I was having a hard time reflecting it with some moves like ROB's SideB, and Pit's DownB. Mario's cape also would stop the tranq sometimes, but not reflect it? Mewtwo SideB and Shine always reflect it though. Hmm.

 

[BND]

I'm already salty about the new tranq..... I spot dodged it and dodged it cleanly, got put to sleep, and the tranq kept on trucking past me as if it didn't hit.............

Yeah Sheik needles in PM are no longer transcendent/have hurtboxes.

Is being intangible better than being transcendent? I'm going to assume so and that it can only interact with other hurtboxes. That's pretty good...

Has anyone tested reflecting it? What happens?

Just clarifying, but intangibility and being of transcendental priority are two different things: intangibility just means that the projectile's own hurtbox can't be hit, and transcendental priority just means that the projectile's hitboxes can't interact with other hitboxes.

That being said, I actually looked into the game's files yesterday; in addition to being intangible (according to the PMDT, at least), Snake's tranq dart is also transcendental. This explains why tranq darts go through each other.

Setting the clang bit to 1/making it not-transcendental makes tranq darts clang with each other. It also makes darts clang with other hitboxes; for example, jabbing a tranq with not-transcendental priority resulted in the entire tranq disappearing upon clanging.

On the topic of why Mewtwo and Fox's reflectors work but other reflectors show inconsistent results, I'm relatively sure that it's because those two reflectors are more disjointed than the others.

It took me a while before I realized that I could actually edit PM's files now, so I just checked. The tranq explosion dart is now purely cosmetic. The meat of the tranq is now coded into a hitbox wrapping the tranq itself. (Seems like the tranq has some weird interactions with shields: http://puu.sh/iHDr6/66764192e1.jpg shows an instance in which the tranq probably should have been powershielded.

Below the squiggly line is something I started typing up before I realized this. Some of it may be right, some of it may be wrong.
~~~~~
Preliminary note: Not sure when PMDT did this, but powershields can now only occur in the first two frames. This means that projectiles cannot be powershielded without reflecting them. Sort of important for the paragraph below.

I also double checked the animations produced when a dart is regularly shielded, powershielded, and hits a hothead. Regularly shielding the dart results in the dart entering the shield for a frame then transforming into the tranq explosion. Hitting a hothead gives similar results. The interesting bit is that if another character camps behind the hothead, waits for it to hit the hothead, then shields, it results in a powershield. On the other hand, if the character chooses to run into the hothead on the frame the tranq transforms into an explosion, they fall asleep, taking 1 damage. The implication is that the explosion hitbox, which lasts for a frame, still does 1 damage and causes sleep. It's fairly obvious that the tranq also has a normal hitbox covering it, which also does 1 damage and causes sleep. I'm still not sure why they don't stack, and it doesn't feel like hitlag since tranq hitlag is 3 frames while the sleep hitbox only lasts for 2 in total.

EDIT: As proven above, the tranq does actually last for 2 frames if it hits a shield.

It's also possible to normally powershield a tranq dart, as shown in http://puu.sh/iHBGI/97dc785f63.jpg. The next frame is http://puu.sh/iHBQq/469a27a11c.jpg, which shows the tranq dart disappearing normally. The implication of this is that the dart grab/explosion trigger box needs to detect something in order to disappear, and since grabs don't detect powershields, the actual hitbox of the tranq dart can be considered a non-projectile hitbox.

EDIT: Apparently it's considered a projectile hitbox, according to the internal files. It seems that the grabbox is also checked before the hitbox judging by the code in SubRoutine6.

 

[BND]

Seems like setting the reflectability bit to 0 results in the tranq reflecting consistently, and powershields sometimes allowing for tranq reflection with good spacing.
There are two downsides to this fix:
1. Characters with reflectors that don't cover them sufficiently may get tranqed even if they do reflect the projectile. It may be possible to fix this by shrinking the actual tranq hitbox, though I'm not sure if that would result in whiffing.
2. If the projectile reflects through a powershield, it still makes the melee attack powershield noise.

Guessing that PMDT thought of this already, though it doesn't hurt to reiterate.

I still think that the 1 frame delay on tranq was fine back in 3.5; might as well fix the 1-frame delay on mines if the tranq delay's being fixed.

 

[ATLAScx]

You do realize that with the U-air and Bair changes, it actually makes the feet hitbox stronger?
Meaning his killing power is now better.

Before the sweetspot of the move was basically the inside hitbox for both Uair and Bair, and now the hitbox priority has been reversed so it's his feet.
It's definitely not worse lol.

ProPro! You were my inspiration to main snake! Your matches with Leffen were amazing

 

[jtm94]

@ BND Thanks man, you do good work.
So with it being intangible on top of that can it not interact with other transcendent hitboxes? For instance would it stop if it hit blizzard? Not near my setup at the moment, but been wanting to test it. I'm fascinated by the dart's weird interactions.

Also, my hypothesis on the dart putting me to sleep, but not terminating is that when I came back into the interactive plain after spot dodge I think that there may be a way that I glanced the grab box that puts people to sleep while avoiding the hitbox that registers whether or not the dart terminates and should explode so it didn't sense that it made contact and kept moving.

 

[BND]

@ BND Thanks man, you do good work.
So with it being intangible on top of that can it not interact with other transcendent hitboxes? For instance would it stop if it hit blizzard? Not near my setup at the moment, but been wanting to test it. I'm fascinated by the dart's weird interactions.

Also, my hypothesis on the dart putting me to sleep, but not terminating is that when I came back into the interactive plain after spot dodge I think that there may be a way that I glanced the grab box that puts people to sleep while avoiding the hitbox that registers whether or not the dart terminates and should explode so it didn't sense that it made contact and kept moving.

Quick clarification: it's the grab box that registers whether or not a tranq transforms into an explosion. In 3.6, the explosion does absolutely nothing at all; it's the hitbox coating it that deals 1 damage and sleep.

Also, in 3.6, it seems that there are two conditions for the dart disappearing: It has to touch a hurtbox, and it has to make that hurtbox not disappear by either destroying it, or, I guess in your case of a spotdodge, it needs to go through the hurtbox it had just touched without actually being in range for the grab box to touch it on the next frame. This explains why tranq darts pierce grenades, don't interact with needles, put people to sleep instantly, and don't pierce larger objects like blast boxes.

EDIT: I tried a different setup; I tranqed a character, but on the frame they went to sleep, I made them disappear with debug mode's character switch. The tranq still stayed in play.

(Still not sure why the hitbox interactions work this way, though the theory seems largely consistent. There are a few edge case items that make slightly less sense than usual when applying this, but I can't make complete sense of said items anyways, so it might as well be correct)

As for the blizzard, if I remember correctly it makes transcendental hitboxes (Which would make sense, since blizzards can't clank with each other), and has no hurtboxes. With that being said, 3.6 dart goes cleanly through the blizzard since ICs are the only hitbox in the blizzard.

(Before you ask, the interactions of ice blocks and tranq are a little different and I'd rather not explain the full rules for certain reasons, but it seems to follow the general theory listed above fairly well)

Note that in 3.5, the tranq dart disappeared when it hit a hurtbox of any sort, or its own dart hurtbox was hit. Depending on the attack, it would cause the dart hitbox to immediately "explode" (I think), or it would cause deflection.