6-Frame Jumpsquat Characters

[Abeebo]

I was pondering about Bowser's flaws and what tasteful changes could be done to improve his neutral game/match up spread. I recently played an older version of Bowser where he had 8 frames of jumpsquat. My lord, am I ever glad PMDT reduced that to 6 in 3.5 (plus the SCD fixes). It opened up Bowser's movement options very nicely. Perfect Wave Lands/Dashes give significant distance that have since given him more opportunities to approach in neutral.
I then remembered that Ganon was another character in 3.5 that got his jumpsquat frames reduced from 6 to 5. Not a character I practice, but of course his movement immediately felt tighter as well.

I ended up hitting the debug lab to see what other heavyweights/superweights had 6-frame jumpsquats. Unless i'm missing someone, it turns out that only 2 characters out of 41 fall in this category:
-Bowser
-ROB
-Dedede

Most other 'heavyweight' characters, such as DK, Yoshi, and Wario, have 5-frame jumpsquats. Other heavyweights have less than that (e.g. Charizard has 4 frames, Samus has 3 frames).
Now i'm wondering if reducing the jumpsquat frames of these 2 characters to 5 frames would make a positive impact on their design and the developing metagame. Just have 3, 4, and 5 frame jumpsquats. The reduction alone means M will have 3 tiers of jumpsquat frames and should help Bowser and DDD even out some match ups. I don't know too much details about ROB, but I know his airdashing and projectiles are hot topics. I have played some solid ROBs and that character does not make a straightforward match up. I can imagine a faster ground game would be a fair trade-off for some air game nerfs. More importantly, I think, it may help with some of the balancing attempts since these 2 are usually in discussion for possible changes. Some of their 'unorthodox' tools could be toned down while more subtle improvements can make more of an impact.
Maybe this is more wild than I see it, but i'd assume a game with a heavy emphasis on movement, positioning, and a relatively balanced roster should have global options in line and homogenized to a point. Only then can unique attributes really shine while maintaining a nice match up spread. 3.5/3.6 definitely goes in the right direction.

EDIT: ROB has 5 frames of jumpsquat.

TL;DR - Bowser and Dedede are the only characters left with 6-frame jumpsquats. I think reducing the frames to 5 and some balance changes will make them better to play as/against in the long run.

PS. Say Jumpsquat 10x fast or until it loses meaning

 

[Strong Badam]

ROB's jumpsquat is 5, although his first airborne frame looks quite similar to his jumpsquat. Verifiable by holding an option (A or B move) before advancing to frame 6 in frame advance.

 

[Abeebo]

Touche, although that is a little disheartening to read that only 2 characters currently have this limit.

 

[CORY]

It would also be a nice quality of life touch to normalize heavy landing to be a universal 4 frames, IMO. Especially since the characters who have longer than 4frame landings also tend to have longer jumpsquat...

#imo

 

[DrinkingFood]

I mean this wouldn't really make a very tangible difference, why worry about this when there's 50 other issues with those two characters

 

[Abeebo]

Perhaps changing these values may not make a major difference, but it would definitely make a positive difference. I agree that Bowser and DDD need multiple changes to improve in the game, but I like to think this value is one easy and clear step towards fixing those 50 problems.
Besides, if reducing the frames from 6 to 5 is considered minor, then changing this limit would be ideal.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Being a clear and easy step doesn't mean there aren't other clearer and easier steps. You've just become attached to this one difference in particular when 6 frames can work just fine given everything else about the character isn't ****.
also, no, minor =/= ideal

 

[ECHOnce]

Being a clear and easy step doesn't mean there aren't other clearer and easier steps. You've just become attached to this one difference in particular when 6 frames can work just fine given everything else about the character isn't ****.
also, no, minor =/= ideal

That was acknowledged. By ideal, he just meant that nothing bad could come from it, so why not just throw it in? If it's so unnecessary, would you care to make an argument for changing Ganon's jumpsquat back to 6 frames? No, because it's nbd as you said. But by all means, that doesn't mean they'd sit back and get stuck with their 6 frames. So why should Bowser/D3? It'd be ideal.

He's not attached to anything lol, chill. Normalizing the 6 frame jumpsquats is an idea that has been around for a while, and it's not a bad one.

 

[Abeebo]

Being a clear and easy step doesn't mean there aren't other clearer and easier steps. You've just become attached to this one difference in particular when 6 frames can work just fine given everything else about the character isn't ****.
also, no, minor =/= ideal

You don't like the idea. Gotcha.

ECHOnce Glad to hear the idea has been around. If you happen to remember any reasons for or against the frame change, i'd enjoy reading up on them.

 

[Life]

Food for thought. Why would you ever increase the jumpsquat a character has?

 

[Abeebo]

I like that question. Jumpsquat frames directly affect a character's transition between ground/air in addition to affecting their wavedash window.

As far as ground/air transitions, more jumpsquat frames on a character would probably have significantly more change in offense than defense. Your character's aerial follow ups and combo percents would suffer the biggest hit. Your character would be stuck recovering from their launcher move while your opponent gets one extra frame to continue flying in their optimal DI angle and out of your follow-up range. If your character has very effective options on the ground AND in the air, then this could be a way to diffuse that a bit.
Wavedashing with one extra frame in jumpsquat isn't as big a deal since there are other factors that make up a wavedash. The problem is squarely in the fact that the jumpsquat animation keeps you in the same spot, so that means your character would be idle for one extra frame before any movement. This should slow down a nice chunk of characters that rely on wavedashing for stage presence.

To me, a one frame difference is not unlike a 1% damage difference in any given move. The change would be quite minor on paper, but still holds enough potency to make differences in practice.
I remember watching PM at Paragon, Jason Waterfalls was explaining the significance of 1% damage. I think he was explaining a moment where someone chose to pummel one more time before throwing the opponent for the follow-up. 1% seems so minimal, but this percent is still the core variable in the whole knockback algorithm that the game uses. This means that 98% and 99% will end up having solid differences in the ways your opponent gets launched since there's so many other numbers that depend on that damage percent.
Jumpsquats are similar in that they are linchpins in a character's follow-up/combo tree and core movement options since so much of any character can be defined by those 2 attributes.

 

[G13_Flux]

I mean this wouldn't really make a very tangible difference, why worry about this when there's 50 other issues with those two characters

just because theres others issues doesnt mean this shouldnt be addressed. aside from balance, theres also design, and i think having two characters that are absurd outliers in both their jumpsquat and empty landing lags is a very poor design choice. if there was some correlation with weight, maybe it would make sense. but DK is heavier than DDD and has a standard 4 frame land lag with a frame 5 jumpsquat. yoshi is in a similar boat, and samus, who is very heavy, has a frame 3 jumpsquat. Im sure you already knew these things, but when you look at them all together, it honestly just doesnt make sense atm.

but for the record, taking a frame off their jump squats, and taking 2 frames off their empty landing lags can add up to subtle, but important speed differences, especially with DDD whos neutral game is based around a proper transition from the air to the ground, and also whos fastest move is his grab/dtilt on frame 7, both with considerable endlag for most characters quickest grounded moves. high jumpsquat also affects the effectiveness of your escape OOS, and for fat clunky characters, to have a weakness in something that is a very fundamentally important maneuver in this game can certainly make a difference. Theres a lot of situations in the game that can be turned one way or another with the difference of one or two frames.

this is something ive been pushing for for awhile, so I am glad that others are starting to see this and post about it too.