A Smash Bros Spinoff MOBA

[The Sparrow]

Last night I had a dream I was playing a Nintendo MOBA Game with characters from Nintendo franchises and a few characters that aren't first party Nintendo characters, the idea was cute and I thought that the closest thing to something like that was Smash. What do you guys think of a Smash inspired MOBA? Would it be something worth sinking your teeth into and would it not garner a toxic community like most MOBAs cause of how strict Nintendo is on that?

 

[Keeshu]

I remember people thinking there was a Nintendo MOBA at some point. Though that hasn't happened.... yet at least.

I had a blast playing League of Legends, at least against bots. The only place in League where random people don't give a dang what you do.

Spoiler

All my favorite champions just happened to be void champions. Cho'Gath being my starting champion, Kog'Maw being the mindblowingly cute champion, and Kha'Zix being my favorite. I think I stopped playing around when Vel'Koz and Yasuo got in, and I loved playing Yasuo a bunch but didnt get to try Vel'Koz much. I don't think I'll ever go back to LoL, I've seen enough of my friends get furious to not want to bother going back to it. I am curious about other MOBAs though, since they don't have as many in-game mechanics that will make them yell at their teammates.

Nintendo could easily do a MOBA with how interesting their characters are. While Nintendo likes to have competitive trolly fun in co-op games, I think they'd avoid all the mechanics that make people angry if they wanted to push the PvP side of the game. Though knowing Nintendo, they'd probably make a MOBA that barely classifies as a MOBA.

 

[Rocket Raccoon]

I have no interest in MOBAs. I think fighting games are one of the few ways to do a successful crossover. I don't know another genre that hypes up crossovers like Smash. Heroes of the Storm is a good example. I don't know anyone who plays Heroes of the Storm. You can type in "Heroes of the Storm dying" on Google and dozens of threads show up about the game potentially dying in the past months. "Melee dying", on the other hand, yields results from about a year ago. Nintendo would have a hard time trying to get someone to play it as Smash is gigantic forest fire compared to the small fire pit fire a Nintendo MOBA would create.

 

[Deleted member]

I think the MOBA ship has sailed. It's too late for that now. The genre is oversaturated, and LoL is bleeding players fast. MOBA as a genre as well isn't particularly suited for consoles either, and Nintendo are not the type to chase trends, or just copy a popular genre without putting their own spin on it. I mean, look how long it took them to jump on the comprtitive shooter genre with Splatoon, and how radically it deviates from the core concepts. If a Nintendo MOBA ever gets made, expect it to come out well after the trend has died, and for Nintendo to deviate a lot from what naturally defines a MOBA in people's minds, because that's what Nintendo does. They set trends, they don't follow them.

 

[Zawaz132]

Heroes of the Storm is a good example. I don't know anyone who plays Heroes of the Storm. You can type in "Heroes of the Storm dying" on Google and dozens of threads show up about the game potentially dying in the past months.

Funny enough I literally just finished some rounds of Heroes of the Storm, closed the game, opened Smashboards, and saw this post. Pretty much every game older than a year old is always "dying" according to forums, so I take that with a grain of salt.

I don't think I'd trust Nintendo to make a decent Moba anyways, since they don't have experience in that department (or competitive online in general). But if they got someone like Blizzard to develop it, with some Nintendo oversight, I think it'd turn out real fun. And they could utilize some a different character pool from Smash as well, meaning that they could use cool characters that have combat experience (like some Metroid hunters, Shiek, Zelda bosses etc) rather than just popular mascots (like Villager or Wii Fit Trainer). The wacky diversity of Smash is a great thing, and I wouldn't change it for the world, but a Moba would just have a different atmosphere.

With all that being said, I wouldn't ever expect it to happen in my lifetime.

 

[Rocket Raccoon]

Funny enough I literally just finished some rounds of Heroes of the Storm, closed the game, opened Smashboards, and saw this post. Pretty much every game older than a year old is always "dying" according to forums, so I take that with a grain of salt.

This is the best coincidence and I'm glad to have someone who plays HOTS on this thread because just some Google searching isn't enough insight for me. I think why they say it's dying is because the playerbase isn't as big as Blizzard's other games. It's really odd because you'd expect the game to be bigger than it is, seeing how it's a crossover.

 

[Zawaz132]

I think why they say it's dying is because the playerbase isn't as big as Blizzard's other games. It's really odd because you'd expect the game to be bigger than it is, seeing how it's a crossover.

While it didn't really have a huge player base to begin with, it has kept a pretty consistent population. Blizzard only had one Heroes of the Storm commercial for a very short amount of time, and o think that's all the advertisement it got. Overwatch, WoW, and even Diablo have gotten a lot more promotion over the years.

As much as I like Mobas, and as much as I'd love to see a Nintendo one... I'll admit they just aren't geared towards a mainstream audience. But they do have dedicated players.

 

[Al-kīmiyā']

I like the idea. The genre would allow some characters to have more canon movesets, such as flying characters.

 

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Back in my League days, which was during Smash 4's pre-release hype cycle, I definitely fantasized a Nintendo MOBA with some friends. I don't think such a game would be hard at all to translate such a diverse roster of characters and their power sets. Finding just three core abilities, an auto attack method, and an ultimate move is extremely easy and can open the door to even more characters that you couldn't see having a fleshed out moveset for Smash. The only real snag in the idea is Nintendo only makes console games and controllers are no way to play this genre. Suppose they could go the Mobile MOBA route but I dunno if that market holds the level of success they would expect from such a crossover game after Smash.

I think if Nintendo wanted a non Smash Bros. crossover game, they'd take the easy way out and just have all the characters in a Mario Kart game since that series still sees massive success. But given their game development is console and mobile locked I'd personally choose for them to do some kind of Hearthstone competitor with made up nintendo character trading cards

 

[KingDoop]

I think one shouldn't limit oneself to thinking of this as Nintendo making a Heroes or LoL clone. Think of it as nintendo tackling the genre in a way only they can. Kinda like how they put their own flare on fighters, racers, and online shooters. With that in mind, I'd be interested in what they could come up with

 

[ZeroJinKui]

MOBA as a genre as well isn't particularly suited for consoles either,

smite is a MOBA, it's on consoles... and it works perfectly fine.

course, it's very different from typical MOBAs, so that might be why.

honestly, that's the only way i could see a smash-like MOBA working... following in the footsteps of smite, where you control an individual character in third-person action, etc.

 

[Chiroz]

I have no interest in MOBAs. I think fighting games are one of the few ways to do a successful crossover. I don't know another genre that hypes up crossovers like Smash. Heroes of the Storm is a good example. I don't know anyone who plays Heroes of the Storm. You can type in "Heroes of the Storm dying" on Google and dozens of threads show up about the game potentially dying in the past months. "Melee dying", on the other hand, yields results from about a year ago. Nintendo would have a hard time trying to get someone to play it as Smash is gigantic forest fire compared to the small fire pit fire a Nintendo MOBA would create.

The problem with games like MOBAs dying is that what they mean when they say that is that the game's whole population is decreasing substantially, bit it is still something ridiculous like 200k or something like that. When you compare that with how many people actually play Smash 4 to this date, you will realize that even a dying MOBA has a much bigger (competitive) scene than Smash.

The thing is MOBAs are played 5vs5, so a match needs to have 10 players. When you're on the highest levels of play, this means it needs to wait for 9 other players of your level to queue up. If the game doesn't have thousands upon thousands of players playing concurrently, it means your queue times will become excessive and you just won't be queued.

I myself have had queues of 15+ minutes in HotS Hero League and 30+ in Team League.

HotS does get me hyped for new character announced and being an old ass Blizzard fan, I have a group of 15+ friends whom none play HotS anymore but they still post videos and fan girl(boy) over characters being included, lol.

 

[lizard1929]

While a smash bro/Nintendo themed MOBA is almost impossible I don't see a reason why we can't theorise how it could play (including characters).

 

[Mgl]

I wonder if the community would be more or less toxic with the smash branding

 

[Khao]

I'd enjoy it. Would be nice to see a "newcomer-friendly" approach to MOBAs, like Nintendo's already done with Mario Kart for racers, Smash for fighters, or more recently Splatoon for shooters. Even the "easier" MOBAs have a ridiculous amount of things you have to actually learn before being somewhat competent at the game, and that's just not how Nintendo does things. A more intuitive MOBA with unique mechanics, a low skill floor while allowing for a lot of depth, and a Nintendo theme with a good amount of characters, I could actually see becoming pretty successful.

 

[smashingDoug]

If Link can play like how he does in HW sure