Advanced Techniques in the future of Brawl+

[Shell]

As I'm sure that many of you have read the insult/spam-fest that is the "discussion" of advanced techniques, namely Manual L-canceling, in the Nightly Thread, I thought I'd bring up some points here in a more civilized environment, starting with our general goal, how that relates to advanced techniques, and what kinds of things that might entail.


The Goal

First, our goal has been, and should continue to be, to make Brawl as competitive a game as possible while maintaining it's easy to pick up nature. While the idea of advanced techniques might initially sound counter-active to this cause, I believe this effect can be minimized.


Maintaining the Goal

The key to not ruining the easy to pick up nature is to keep techniques situational. This makes it increase the gradient of mastery rather than being an entry level barrier. Here are a few guidelines I thought of...

1) A skill that is easy but rewarding, yet still somewhat situational. An example I commonly use is RARing.

2) A skill that is mildly difficult and more situational, yet still rewarding. An example of this would be moonwalking, or possibly DACUSes.

3) shanus pointed out that a technique doesn't need to be more presses, it can just be more precise presses. Think power shielding, for example

4) Bonus points for cool character specific things and/or entirely Brawl+ original techniques (!)

Just to reiterate, it's important to keep things situational. Thus, knowing what situations to correctly apply a technique in is important, if not more important, than the actual skill needed to perform said technique. One way to keep something situational is by pairing it with drawbacks, such as the possibility of being left in a worse state should you mess the technique up.

I think that if done correctly, such techniques could add a lot to Brawl+: making it look flashier and hopefully adding something to the core gameplay which may help to give it a unique identity from its predecessors.


Some ideas

+Power Shield Reflecting: Ryoko and I were discussing this and we agreed it could be a good tool to fight camping. In order to make up for the relative ease of PSing, though, make PS reflected items return at a lower velocity and possibly lower damage.

This follows the precision over more buttons mentality, and is an easy to pick up, mildly difficult to master technique which would also address current worries of camping.


+Magus-Canceling: The concept, for anyone who missed it, is that you leave everyone at 50% ALR, then allow them to manual l-cancel for 0 landing lag. However, messing up gives you full 100% landing lag. Additionally, it comes at a price. Magus originally suggested sacrificing some part of your shield, possibly 1/3rd. I think that the trade off would have to be more significant, as 1/3rd would regenerate by the time you've completed you grab/combo anyways. I'd say make it take 45% of your shield, then make shields a little stronger but regenerate slower.

Frankly, I haven't fully worked out what the penalty should be yet, but it should be sufficient that M-canceling is a thought-requiring exception, rather than the rule. I think the primary use for M-canceling would be approaching, turning a hit on shield into a grab, into a combo. The penalty of M-canceling successfully needs to be such that it remains after the action it leads into. In other words, losing x amount of your shield doesn't usually matter if you can use it to do a combo, during which time your shield regenerates fully. The penalty needn't be limited to shield strength, either, it could be a percent sacrifice, etc.

This is something that, if made to be a rare, thoughtful enough technique, wouldn't necessarily be something that a beginning player needs to learn immediately, but successful implementation of it would create a larger gradient of mastery. We've already decided against normal manual l-canceling, so let's not even bring that up, by the way.


+E-Z Waveland (tm): Wavedashing was shunned largely due to the AD associated with it (and vice versa) and the way it homogenized player movement speed / choices. Wavelanding, however, is a more situational technique. If you simplify the input to being something such as FFing, then rolling the stick to the horizontal position as you hit the ground, you have something that could augment mindgamez, look smexy, and be really noob-friendly for learning. People will cry "Watered down Melee." Well... they'd be correct. I still like it, though.


+Perfect _______: Take the idea of perfect shielding and apply it to other phenomena that require timing. Such as perfect teching. If you tech within the last 4 frames of the window, you recover faster, or something. Just a mediocre example to get you thinking.


There are plenty of faults in those, I'm sure, but if any sound interesting we can talk about them and try to flesh them out a bit more.

Sure, the easiest and safest thing to do would be to leave Brawl+ alone, but I think that implementing one or more of these kinds of things would go a long way in furthering its lasting appeal, creating its own identity (except the stolen waveland, ), and providing a greater separation of mastery while keeping the low entry level intact.


TL;DR: Go back and read it you lazy ***.

 

[shanus]

Magus Canceling I still think is a bit odd taking away something invisible like that. I think if you make it a tighter window, make it so you can get 35% lag reduction, if you mess up in a certain window, it gives you 100% lag. That alone is reason enough to use it, and practice it.

 

[Deleted member]

what shanus said. doing a Mcancel correctly should not eat away on you shield.
and I'd say 25% lag correctly, 100-110% wrong, and 50-60% normal.

we could make the perfect teching so the speed is based on how well you time it. so not normal teching and perfect teching, but the better you time it the better it becomes.

 

[Shell]

I still think that there should be a trade-off for doing it successfully, or else there isn't as much of a situational nature to it. Once you get good enough, you're back to 35% lag all of the time, and it becomes just that much harder of a hurdle that all noobs will immediately have to face. In my opinion, there should still be consideration for whether or not to use it even if you have perfect tech skill. Also, if you don't like something invisible, perhaps taking a percent hit is more your style? (Is it worth taking 10% if I think I can combo him an extra 15%? etc)

Additionally, one of my qualms with the old manual l-canceling code is that the window felt awkward. I suspect that the code's window was fine, and that it was actually due to the lack of analog triggers. If there's anyway to shift the window back a bit to get it to feel more natural (albeit with a possibly smaller window) I'd like it a lot more.


Perhaps after letting this stew for a bit here we could devote a meeting to it, either this Friday or the next.

 

[shanus]

Well, it would have thought behind it. With the prevalence of AC moves, if u do it (as the input would be frames before landing) it could end up giving the move lag instead of no lag. I'm not sure if that would work or not, but cool idea in principle.

 

[_Yes!_]

The only thing I agree with is the PS reflecting to be honest. You're completely changing the game with the other changes.

 

[Dark Sonic]

The only thing I agree with is the PS reflecting to be honest. You're completely changing the game with the other changes.

The ability to nullify projectile camping would not be completely changing the game?

 

[Revven]

I liked the idea of adding movement specific ATs since we lack a wavedash. Existing examples: Squirtle's shellshifting, Sheik's and Luigi's crawldashes, and Glide Tossing. There are a few characters that lack those type of movement options, so for Captain Falcon for example let's just say his movement option is moonwalking, that right there adds some depth to the character AND tech skill, we wouldn't be touching other character's.

Just an idea. >_> (Obviously moonwalking would be really ****ing hard to hack).

 

[_Yes!_]

The ability to nullify projectile camping would not be completely changing the game?

No sir. I said that PS reflecting was the only one I'd agree with, and the OTHER ones would change the game.

 

[Dark Sonic]

No sir. I said that PS reflecting was the only one I'd agree with, and the OTHER ones would change the game.

This implies that PS reflecting wouldn't change the game <_<

I personally think all of them are pretty good ideas except for that perfect teching example. That's just my opinion though (and it would depend on how we would balance M-Canceling). For the waveland, I wouldn't necessarily want the slide that wavelanding gives, but rather just how it makes transitioning to platforms smoother. It'd be cool if we could do something like that instantland that you can do on moving platforms...on NON moving platforms.

 

[_Yes!_]

ugh you're too technical. Relatively it's not as game-breaking as the other two.

 

[Shell]

I don't think we should be afraid of changing the game a little as long as the community generally likes the changes. We'd have to run the ideas by the public before we got any coders looking into it, but I wouldn't throw anything out because it would change things.

There will, of course, be a group that likes the changes and one that doesn't. The key is that if the majority like it, try to make compromises with those that don't. If it's still a big **** storm, then just drop it. But don't kill it before presenting it to people just because it's different.

Also, I think that the addition of more "Perfect" techniques wouldn't change much, only compliment and add. Perfect teching was the first thing I thought of, but I'm sure there are other things you could do... ideas?

SMK, ideally I completely agree with you that character by character movement options are awesome and the best way to do things. However, we are limited by coders -- 30ish more custom codes just won't happen. Although a few more smaller, general ones could work for different characters.

shanus, I'm not sure I completely understand what you're saying by giving AC'd move lag, could you clarify?

Also, this isn't meant to be purely a critique of my / Ryoko / Magus's ideas, please feel free to add your own ideas to the discussion and I'll throw them in the OP. Let's brainstorm.

 

[shanus]

As in, if you tried to Magus cancel an AC'd move, it would do 35% lag instead of 0 lag as you should have used ur MC then. As in it wouldnt be a reaction move, you'd have to think to magus cancel

 

[_Yes!_]

As much as I like magus, I dont like the idea of magus cancelling. More logic and reasoning later, but for now, I'd vote against it.

 

[GHNeko]

Dashing Backwards out of crouches = Movement technique.

Techjumping of the ground that actually works the way we want to = Teching technique

Jumping out of Techrolls while keeping horizontal momentum = Teching technique

JC+ Grabs (JC Grabs, but if you miss, you suffer more lag than a standing grab, but less than a dash.) = Grab Technique



Off the top of my head. :V

 

[goodoldganon]

I'm tired but I will stand against any changes to teching that don't make it worse. Tech chasing is already way too difficult and we need to address it character by character rather than the global increase we have now.

Also, how about instead of JC stuff we just decrease the crouching lag across the board? How many frames does it take to crouch during a run and then initiate the grab? It's JCing, but Brawl+ style. The only negatives I could think of would be off putting animations for crouches, and it doesn't have the risk JCing had. Miss a JC and you are suddenly in the air. A poor negative, but one none the less.

 

[GHNeko]

The only reason why I bring up JC+ is because DC during Intial dash was shot down a while ago when I brought it up. :V

IIRC, it was seen as too beneficial towards good characters with Good DC options, but cant really use them due to long initial dash. (Marth, Falcon, etc)

 

[JCaesar]

DC during initial dash plz. And reflecting powershields.

I really like the idea of teching/powershielding being better or worse depending on how well you time it. Instead of a window where it either works or it doesn't, it rewards you for having better timing than your opponent and gives B+ a tech skill to practice while still being intuitive and relatively easy to pick-up.

I'm not keen on M-canceling at the moment. Losing shield is not a real penalty, and getting full lag if you try and mess up is essentially no different than Manual L-Canceling, just with a bigger reward for lazy people and noobs.

 

[slikvik]

I'm not fond of many of these ideas. The only one I would really consider is powershielding reflecting but with strict timing(1-2 frames) for the reflect to happen. Otherwise, it would completely nullify any sort of projectile spamming

 

[kupo15]

Make the ledge not so stupid. Reduce the ledge grab range, remove all AS unless from the top. Consider removing backwards grabbing except for flip recoveries like DK or just keep reverse grabbing during up bs and not for the freefalling afterwards or the IDs afterwards like ike and kirby. That would make the game more technical

 

[Dark Sonic]

Make the ledge not so stupid. Reduce the ledge grab range, remove all AS unless from the top. Consider removing backwards grabbing except for flip recoveries like DK or just keep reverse grabbing during up bs and not for the freefalling afterwards or the IDs afterwards like ike and kirby. That would make the game more technical

Except that Ike uses his reverse up B for edgeguarding purposes because it allows him to spike with it (avoiding the landing hitbox...by not landing) and then immediately let go of the ledge and continue edgeguarding <_<. Kirby can do it too (not as cool though).

That and the current autosweetspots are write-protected remember?

 

[Shell]

Guys, try to remember that this is constructive brainstorming here. None of the ideas I / others proposed are set in stone. If you don't like something, try to make it better first, then drop it.

For example, GoG sez "I don't want teching to be any better," he should then suggest, "Why don't we slow down the default tech a little and reward good timing with the current(ish) tech speed?"

JCaesar007 sez, "I don't think shield is a good penalty for M-canceling, and I didn't seem to acknowledge SHeLL's suggestion of taking a percent hit... M-canceling's no good." He should have then said, "M-canceling needs a better penalty, such as X, or Y."

JC+ sounds interesting. GHNeko, would you mind fleshing out the mechanics of the rest a bit more? I feel like they're cool ideas, just very dependent on execution.

 

[Almas]

I don't believe techs should be put in place if they are balanced under the principle of "if you do it wrong, you'll be worse off". At high levels, that will not matter unless they are so difficult that they are not worth attempting.

 

[Deleted member]

what almas said.

PS almas, can you get on IRC today?

 

[_Yes!_]

I don't like the idea of timing and guessing games in brawl+. There should be a reward for timing it right, but not a penalty. Too many things can go wrong in that sense.

 

[Shell]

Almas I completely agree. Which is why I was pushing for some sort of trade-off or penalty for M-canceling correctly.

Yes!, I can see either way about the penalty for messing something up specifically (the extra 100% ALR), but for some techniques there has to be a penalty (i.e. you take 10% when you M-cancel etc.) so that even if have perfect tech skill you think about whether or not you'd use it rather than being mindless.

And can you elaborate on what would be so terrible about adding reward for good timing or adding more mindgame potential (I assume this is what you're talking about guessing games) in to Brawl+? Which ideas exactly would create these guessing games?

 

[Veril]

I said that PS reflecting was the only one I'd agree with, and the OTHER ones would change the game.

I'm not fond of many of these ideas. The only one I would really consider is powershielding reflecting but with strict timing(1-2 frames) for the reflect to happen. Otherwise, it would completely nullify any sort of projectile spamming

I agree completely. Powershield reflecting, if the shield was damaged and the timing is perfect, sounds like a great way to further reduce projectile spam / campiness.

The other ideas are terrible, especially the M-Cancel. These "ATs" are gamechanging... for no god d*** reason. How can we say we aren't trying to get melee 2.0 with BS like this? 0-landing lag? No! Wavelanding? No! M-Canceling doesn't need a penalty, cause it doesn't need to exist. I can't believe we're wasting time on this crap.

 

[VietGeek]

Veril...I want JC+.

I...I want to fly like the wind!

Seriously though, I really want PS Reflecting and some sound form of JC+ Grabs to get in out of our current suggestions.

 

[Shell]

I hope we can all agree that the addition of tech skill, so long as isn't mindless and it leaves the low entry skill level intact, is an admirable thing.

With that said, the amount that any given technique would change the game is directly proportional to how situational and powerful they are -- which we have complete control of.

I'm really trying to stress being constructive here, and I'm not getting a lot of help. Please try to work with ideas. If you don't want a technique to change the game too much, but think it might have interesting effects on gameplay, suggest ways to tone it down. If you really don't think it's salvageable, attempt to bring something new to the table, please.

I realize the E-Z Wavelanding has a certain degree of "Melee stigma." If you don't think it's additions can balance that out, I'd understand. But don't dismiss it based on that alone. Dark Sonic, for example, suggested a way to mold it more into the Barwl style and make it new, and not too game changing.

Edit: It also looks like we're pretty much universally in favor of PS reflecting, so let's start hammering down the specifics of that. Roughly, I'd say the shield takes normal damage, and reflects the projectile at 2/3rds speed and damage. I'm not sure that we can make the window any smaller since PSing is already "technically" set to a 1 frame window, I believe, even if other factors make it easier. (Veril, PS reflect doesn't carry Melee stigma, for some reason?)

 

[Blank Mauser]

Make the ledge not so stupid. Reduce the ledge grab range, remove all AS unless from the top. Consider removing backwards grabbing except for flip recoveries like DK or just keep reverse grabbing during up bs and not for the freefalling afterwards or the IDs afterwards like ike and kirby. That would make the game more technical

Grooann.

I support PS reflecting, and don't see much need for JC grabs or better DC'ing but they wouldn't do anything but help I assume.

I can't see M-cancel or anything similar making much if any of a difference except for heavies, in which case we could just plain help them in general anyways. Among the top tiers, there are very few characters who actually have any lag on their aerials at all.

 

[Shell]

With low enough lag you can have more of a frame advantage on shields, leading into grabs (for any character). This has the potential to be a powerful, game-changing technique, which would require sufficient penalty / trade-off to keep it a mildly rare occurrence (That brings an "OH ****!" moment when used correctly). But yes, it would have the biggest change to heavies. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 

[kupo15]

Except that Ike uses his reverse up B for edgeguarding purposes because it allows him to spike with it (avoiding the landing hitbox...by not landing) and then immediately let go of the ledge and continue edgeguarding <_<. Kirby can do it too (not as cool though).

That and the current autosweetspots are write-protected remember?

I am talking about no side b sweetspots and no sweetspots when up bs hit shields or ppl.

 

[Blank Mauser]

Yes, characters being able to recover makes this such a horrible and nontechnical game.

 

[Shell]

Kupo, I think that fixing side B sweet spotting would be nice, if it were possible, but I'd rather see something small, new, and interesting added before fixing something up like that, (again, even if it were possible).

 

[_Yes!_]

You guys are changing too much. PS reflecting is fine, but this game is losing more and more interest by the public as it takes longer to finish, and completely changing it, which will lose your original fan base, will take even longer to finish.

Why don't we finish what's actually a part of the game first instead of changing the gameplay mechanics?

IMO there should be no discussion of penalties in a fighting game for messed up techniques. In every fighting game I've played (street fighter, tekken, other smash games) there is no such thing. I'm opposed to M-cancelling and wavelanding.

Edit: Imagine how much m-cancelling would suck on wifi or lcd tv's lol.

 

[Dark Sonic]

You know how on moving platforms you can stop your vertical momentum completely and instantly land on the platform by doing an aerial as you pass through it? That's basically what I want to happen on ALL platforms.

And I support PS reflect. M-cancel sounds mad cool...but then we'd have to balance everything AGAIN.

 

[Revven]

Ledgeteching (SDI'ing into the stage obviously, not the generic ledgetech). Gotta need it, need it gotta it. Why? There are moves that do cause stage spikes in the same way they did in Melee. i.e Peach's new Dsmash. I think that would add JUST enough technical skill along with PS reflect that we wouldn't need anything else.

 

[Shell]

You guys are changing too much. PS reflecting is fine, but this game is losing more and more interest by the public as it takes longer to finish, and completely changing it, which will lose your original fan base, will take even longer to finish.

Why don't we finish what's actually a part of the game first instead of changing the gameplay mechanics?

IMO there should be no discussion of penalties in a fighting game for messed up techniques. In every fighting game I've played (street fighter, tekken, other smash games) there is no such thing. I'm opposed to M-cancelling and wavelanding.

Edit: Imagine how much m-cancelling would suck on wifi or lcd tv's lol.

While I agree that we don't want to change a game too much, I was under the impression our popularity was growing, not shrinking.

If we present ideas to the public, and they like them, then we don't have to worry about losing their interest, now do we. We're not about to force something down people's throats.

And very well, so there isn't a penalty for messing something up, but there should still be some part of the mechanic that makes it situation AKA not mindless.

And I refuse to cater to WiFi and LCD tvs.

 

[kupo15]

Kupo, I think that fixing side B sweet spotting would be nice, if it were possible, but I'd rather see something small, new, and interesting added before fixing something up like that, (again, even if it were possible).

I disagree. We should finish the several mechanical fixes that were present before and are screwed up first before the new stuff. Things like better MC, ledge teching, better ledges, AS problems, momentum techning etc should be attempted first. They have been put on the back burner for too long

 

[_Yes!_]

While I agree that we don't want to change a game too much, I was under the impression our popularity was growing, not shrinking.

If we present ideas to the public, and they like them, then we don't have to worry about losing their interest, now do we. We're not about to force something down people's throats.

And very well, so there isn't a penalty for messing something up, but there should still be some part of the mechanic that makes it situation AKA not mindless.

And I refuse to cater to WiFi and LCD tvs.

Well this game will never get big if you only plan to have it with CRT capability. Game stores don't use CRTs. You'd have to rely on smashers holding tournies and so far Jceasar and Chibo are the only noteworthy TO's in brawl+.

I dunno who you're talking to but everyone I talk to says they're tired of waiting for a gold version. The game isn't mindless, since the better player always wins, which wasn't the case in vbrawl.

L-cancelling on it's own is fine with me since I play melee alot, but I doubt the people who've only played brawl will like it. PS reflecting isn't a game breaking mechanic relative to your other ideas, so I'm all for that.