Alternate Characters - A Idea I Had A While Ago

[Tepig2000]

I tought of this: what if, before beggining the battle, at the character selection screen, you could chose between alternate characters? They would be the same character, only some different stats and maybe one or two different moves. Here's some examples:

Mario's alternate is Dr. Mario. Dr. Mario plays exactly like Mario, but he is stronger, slower, and has megavitamins instead of fireballs.

Mewtwo has two alternates: Mega Mewtwo X is a stronger, slower and heavier version, while Mega Mewtwo Y is a weaker, faster and lighter version.

Link's alternate is Young Link. He is weaker, lighter, faster, can wall-jump, and has better recovery.

Would you like if this was implemented in the game? I personally would really like this. Vote in the poll!

 

[Jumpman84]

I think this would be a great idea. Then people won't complain about clones taking up roster slots.

Though I think Young Link would work better as Toon Link's alt. Just saying.

 

[DakotaBonez]

Yeah, I'd like it. I love clones. The more clones the better. And by clones I mean character's with the same moveset but with different attributes. It was fun proposing ideas like this before the game trailer was revealed. But now we bein flooded with new info every day.

 

[Tepig2000]

I think this would be a great idea. Then people won't complain about clones taking up roster slots.

Though I think Young Link would work better as Toon Link's alt. Just saying.

The purpose of it would be stat changes, and Toon and Young Link seem like they would have the same stats.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Nah, usually characters like this end up with one obviously correct choice; Dr. Mario was just obviously right while Mario was just obviously wrong as an example. These characters do take real development effort, and I'd rather it be spent making normal characters as good as they can be since when you end up with an obviously correct clone, you just spent effort and added nothing to the game. Worst of all, this model wouldn't really work for a lot of characters; how do you propose they make alternate Mr. Game & Watch? Ice Climbers? R.O.B.? It's really not "fair" if some character get twice as many chances to be good as others, but a lot of characters just don't have these secondary forms that would come naturally.

 

[Tepig2000]

Nah, usually characters like this end up with one obviously correct choice; Dr. Mario was just obviously right while Mario was just obviously wrong as an example. These characters do take real development effort, and I'd rather it be spent making normal characters as good as they can be since when you end up with an obviously correct clone, you just spent effort and added nothing to the game. Worst of all, this model wouldn't really work for a lot of characters; how do you propose they make alternate Mr. Game & Watch? Ice Climbers? R.O.B.? It's really not "fair" if some character get twice as many chances to be good as others, but a lot of characters just don't have these secondary forms that would come naturally.

By "correct choice" you mean that Dr. Mario was better than Mario, so it would just be better to let Mario have Dr. Mario's positive things?

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I mean for competitive purposes, Dr. Mario was just about strictly superior, and there was no reason to pick Mario. From a design standpoint, regular Mario might as well not have existed since picking him was just a mistake (it's actually worse than him not existing because it's a "noob trap"; naive weaker players might not realize that Dr. Mario is just the better version). Balance is a tricky thing, and the goal is definitely for the overall merits of each character to be on rough parity. In Melee's case, yeah, it would have been better if Doc didn't exist and regular Mario just played exactly like Doc, but it could be that the game would have been better with some hypothetical clone case if only the weaker one existed (if there were an alternate Meta Knight that was still good but across the board worse, it would be great if only he existed in Brawl and the current MK did not). I'd rather they spend the time making each unique character as close to the goal of good balance as possible instead of make two versions of each character and just hoping you get a good balance out of that.

 

[Rocket Raccoon]

I honestly don't know, I feel like alternate costumes and a Special Brawl can do the trick.

 

[Tepig2000]

I mean for competitive purposes, Dr. Mario was just about strictly superior, and there was no reason to pick Mario. From a design standpoint, regular Mario might as well not have existed since picking him was just a mistake (it's actually worse than him not existing because it's a "noob trap"; naive weaker players might not realize that Dr. Mario is just the better version). Balance is a tricky thing, and the goal is definitely for the overall merits of each character to be on rough parity. In Melee's case, yeah, it would have been better if Doc didn't exist and regular Mario just played exactly like Doc, but it could be that the game would have been better with some hypothetical clone case if only the weaker one existed (if there were an alternate Meta Knight that was still good but across the board worse, it would be great if only he existed in Brawl and the current MK did not). I'd rather they spend the time making each unique character as close to the goal of good balance as possible instead of make two versions of each character and just hoping you get a good balance out of that.

I think I got your point. But maybe there is some casual player that likes Mario more, while Dr. Mario is better, there may be some people that don't like him for some reason.

 

[APC99]

This is pretty cool, but of course we need balance:

-Mario's got better recovery & a better grab game, but weak Fireballs and is slower.
-Dr. Mario's got amazing Megavitamins and has speed on his side, but his grabs are miserable and can't recover for sh*t.

All I got so far.

 

[Tepig2000]

This is pretty cool, but of course we need balance:

-Mario's got better recovery & a better grab game, but weak Fireballs and is slower.
-Dr. Mario's got amazing Megavitamins and has speed on his side, but his grabs are miserable and can't recover for sh*t.

All I got so far.

Yes, I would not like if some alternate was the definitive best. They should have both advantages and disadvantages against the original character.

 

[Ryan.]

I thought about this as well, I really like this idea.

 

[Souless_shadow]

This is a great idea!!!! It's a good way to have clones without them taking up roster space