Balanced Brawl Public Preview *GENESIS UPDATE*

[noradseven]

n-air stuff

I like n-air the way it is, and doing this would change the way it is used on a more fundamental level, buff its damage if you want to improve it.

 

[YagamiLight]

Out of curiosity, how much stuff can be done with throws? Is it possible to just add damage to them? Is it possible to make one character's throws function like another's? I ask because I know that throws are extremely limited codewise, so I'd like to know the boundary of what suggestions should be like.

 

[Swordplay]

OOooh, I see. I was only thinking of them in terms of off stage attacks. The arrow's rapid release and speed definitely works well on stage. Hmm, still, I wonder how well this maintains as players adjust, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

(p.s. don't give Kirby our arrows!)

I realized this too........

Links arrows won't be used all that much offstage because he has better or equal options in most cases, usually involving zair edge hog and flying dairs......(especially since you can just AD the arrow or avoid it in another way which is easy because he can't mobile with them and it has limited control.)

However, the onstage applications are what should be focused on. The arrows help his onstage game more so than his offstage game primarily. Link's arrows are simply an AMAZING TECH CHASE tool. This is what should be emphasized, I find it much more useful in tech chase situations than offstage and that is mostly due to Links amazing ability to knock opponents down and force people into these situations with the boomerang.


Overall, I'd say they are more useful for getting people offstage and killing than flat out gimping.......not what the OP emphasized but that's my take......




Unfortunately the primary use of the boomerang was to Knock down and often set up for Locks, With those gone now you just force a get up and F-smash......Also, the boomerang doesn't really Knock people down at a certain distance because the move slows down so the situation above won't happen as much as you like..........................................................

A adjustment to do that to put people in this scenerio more would have been really nice and complemented your arrow buff but whatever.......I won't complain or campaign for anything. Infact, it probably won't happen since the Knockdown is dependent on the speed of the boomerang I believe according to Havok (Susa) and I know speeding up things is not something BB will do.......(though I do hope for a response on this paragraph, I don't exactly know where Think and AA drew the line so I may be wrong) Please respond AA/Thinkaman I am curious

Also don't understand why you bothered to change d-tilt. =slowest move=shortest move=most unsafe move=never used

BTW <3 you Ich :D

 

[Syde7]

I'm not entirely sure what off-stage buffs you are talking about. Ike is the only characters who realyl gians any substantial off-stage ability, since he never wanted to be there before. Yoshi KIIINDA gains a bit off stage, but that's really a stretch.

Could you elaborate?

Addition of sonic's spring being a weak spike as opposed to just a projectile. Attacking during the up+B would allow an aerial to "cancel" it out when its used from a distance, but still keeping it effective if used in close proximity.

Ivysaur vine whip buff (which, I feel was needed- and in all honesty doesn't change things THAT much, just listed as an example)

Luigi fireballs "spawning" faster results in them being able to take advantage of the lack of ability to attack immediately out of up+B to cancel them with an F-air, which can possibly lead to literally fireball chaining him and making running out of fuel (fireball->hit->fireball->hit->run offstage->fireball->hit->dropdown a little->fireball hit->2xjump+fireball->recover on stage and hit, allowing him to run off and do the same when reversed). I'm by no means a luigi main or proficient Luigi player, but if a similar (less effective) tactic can be performed currently, with faster fireballs, its a plausibility.

Yoshi jump refresh, not that big of a deal due to his lackluster off-stage performance, but if the whole SA on the 2x jump is still there, it becomes increasinly problematic.

Falcon with no free-fall after >B allows the possibility of using it to chase offstage... using a spike AS the chase

Ike, as you mentioned

In essence, they aren't necessarily *huge* problems, but it changes how ROB should be played. He shines offstage, designed to essentially trump almost the whole cast. A +/- facet, now shifts to a - one.


Essentially, increased speed and effectiveness of several char options leads to ROBs strength (great recovery and generally superior offstage play) to be turned into a bit of a weakness.

Again- just my thoughts, and I'm more or less just throwing things out there as something to consider.

 

[Revven]

I just wanna chime in and say that even though the recovery buff to Wolf is probably lovely, he is still going to relatively suck.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

The first post now has a video section. It only has one video for now, but expect more in the future.

 

[Turbo Ether]

I just wanna chime in and say that even though the recovery buff to Wolf is probably lovely, he is still going to relatively suck.

Wolf not getting chain grabbed and tilt locked anymore is a huge deal, but I still wouldn't say he's on par with Diddy Kong.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

So I've tested the actual game now, and my opinion stands: while fsmash hits a lot harder, it's still only useful after a dsmash. After talking it over with some (very smart) guys in the #ZSS channel, we think that if you're going to buff fsmash, it needs to have something else in addition to damage.

The problem is that fsmash is incredibly unsafe on block (and actually, unsafe on hit, too). Giving it higher damage won't do that, and it also won't encourage us to take risks to use the move. The damage isn't that high. We're not going to hit fsmash hoping for an early kill, because at 103% we're pretty close to getting the kill anyway.

Our suggestion is to give it more shield degradation properties. Not "shield breaking" properties, maybe, but it needs to hurt shields bad. So, OK, you can block it, but you're gonna pay a little bit. If you want, put it on the sweet spot (tip area) because the tip can't be charged. So you'd have say 75% shield break on block at the tip hitbox, making it a scary move to block and a scary move to get hit by. That makes it worth the risk and very rewarding.

So, in review:

1. Fix the jab!
2. A little more stun on baby paralyzer hitbox
3. Stronger fsmash with shield degradation properties, if you must touch fsmash
4. ???
5. Profit

 

[Browny]

Reposting (and will keep on reposting) until this is adressed

---------

Except the % buff on dtilt and dair could be so much better used on ftilt and uair. those attacks are far more common. sure it might increase his damage overall but when you land maybe 1 of those attacks (dtilt/dair) per stock... its hardly effective at all

This

Sonic almost never uses dair to attack, so up-ing the damage on that doesn't really DO anything. It has a bad hitbox, a lot of ending lag, and subpar knockback. It's only use is in movement so I don't know why you'd even think adding damage would do anything to it. Gonna have to agree with DJbrowny on that one. I don't know how the other changes would play out for the other characters that are getting negative feedback, but seriously, Sonic's dair is NOT useful for attacking. It's not it's damage that was the problem with it and you left everything BUT what was actually decent to start with exactly the same. Oh btw, Sonic's spring is not a meteor smash (unless you suddenly found a way to make meteor smashes. Changing the angle to 270 actually makes it a true spike, not a meteor). It's just pathetically weak which is why you can recover from it. The old angle is arguably more useful in practice because it puts the opponent in a less favorable position (it sends them out which makes it take longer to get to the stage, giving Sonic more time to get back down and finish the edgeguard). Straight up giving it a bigger base would be far more useful (this is currently just a gimmick that would only affect a few matchups at best).

and this

GAME CHANGER in the form of a buffed spring spike (which already spiked) which is completely avoidable by MC'ing and +1 damage to some rarely used attacks?

and this

Its equivalent to nerfing Wario utilt and saying 'we nerfed him, hes balanced now' after removing the GR problems. but no you reduced the damage on two of his most high damage spammable attacks (good ) because that actually WILL make a difference. Sonic needs a buff just like every other low tier character. his current changes are pathetic. no offense or anything, you just didnt buff the right moves imo (unlike ike, ness, link, PT etc).

You say buffing sonics attacks by 1% adds up a lot over time as he has to land a lot. No doubt in my mind whatsoever these current buffs will total 10% per stock AT THE ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM. every single character that DIDNT get nerfed got buffed wayyyy more than that. you MUST consider how often these attacks are used. I cant comprehend how on earth you came up with the current changes. did you even talk to any sonic users who would tell you that dtilt and dair are VERY rarely used? in some matchups you wont even see a single on of those attacks... ever

 

[rekrapadept]

I am a supporter of the plussery and I recently tested bbrawl out and i am not convinced. There are too many glitches: air-dodging into aerial moves(I can't do this consistently but the computers can); aerial moves above water = drowning death. I think this was a great way to make suggestions for the plussery: yoshi ground-pound, Ganon's Tricks etc... I'll be going back to the plussery now. Thanks guys.

++++Edit: Sorry about the confusion: " air-dodging into aerial moves." What actually happened was that i performed a nair and the computer air-dodged it. Then, because BBrawl doesn't retain aerial momentum, we fell down and the computer then hit me with fair during my own cool-down lag.++++++++++++++++++++++

 

[ph00tbag]

1. Fix the jab!
2. A little more stun on baby paralyzer hitbox
3. Stronger fsmash with shield degradation properties, if you must touch fsmash
4. ???
5. Profit

This can be looked at as something of a priorities list. Fsmash buffs are low on the priorities list. The basic gist is, if you want just one small buff. Fix jab combo. If it helps to make the buff have less of an impact, you can nerf the knockback to make it less able to lead into dash attack, which it can do at some percents.

 

[noradseven]

I am a supporter of the plussery and I recently tested bbrawl out and i am not convinced. There are too many glitches: air-dodging into aerial moves(I can't do this consistently but the computers can); aerial moves above water = drowning death. I think this was a great way to make suggestions for the plussery: yoshi ground-pound, Ganon's Tricks etc... I'll be going back to the plussery now. Thanks guys.

has anyone else experienced this stuff I mean what???

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I am a supporter of the plussery and I recently tested bbrawl out and i am not convinced. There are too many glitches: air-dodging into aerial moves(I can't do this consistently but the computers can); aerial moves above water = drowning death. I think this was a great way to make suggestions for the plussery: yoshi ground-pound, Ganon's Tricks etc... I'll be going back to the plussery now. Thanks guys.

You are the only person to ever report a method to cancel air dodges into aerials. I'm really unconvinced it's in the game. Didn't Brawl+ make airdodges laggier or something? Maybe you're just used to that. Of course, tether attacks can be used directly out of airdoges as well, but that's just a standard Brawl feature.

The water mechanics are not a glitch. The water is dangerous, and it's intentional design.

 

[Thinkaman]

I just wanna chime in and say that even though the recovery buff to Wolf is probably lovely, he is still going to relatively suck.

Wolf not getting chain grabbed and tilt locked anymore is a huge deal, but I still wouldn't say he's on par with Diddy Kong.

Right. If you guys are noticing a theme, a lot of the mid-tiers are in this "wait and see" camp. The lowest tiers had big changes, the top tier was shaken a bit, and we really want to just take it slow to see what to do next.

Please, don't think any character is being ignored. The purpose of this preview is to start the data collecting cycle.

So I've tested the actual game now, and my opinion stands: while fsmash hits a lot harder, it's still only useful after a dsmash. After talking it over with some (very smart) guys in the #ZSS channel, we think that if you're going to buff fsmash, it needs to have something else in addition to damage.

The problem is that fsmash is incredibly unsafe on block (and actually, unsafe on hit, too). Giving it higher damage won't do that, and it also won't encourage us to take risks to use the move. The damage isn't that high. We're not going to hit fsmash hoping for an early kill, because at 103% we're pretty close to getting the kill anyway.

Our suggestion is to give it more shield degradation properties. Not "shield breaking" properties, maybe, but it needs to hurt shields bad. So, OK, you can block it, but you're gonna pay a little bit. If you want, put it on the sweet spot (tip area) because the tip can't be charged. So you'd have say 75% shield break on block at the tip hitbox, making it a scary move to block and a scary move to get hit by. That makes it worth the risk and very rewarding.

So, in review:

1. Fix the jab!
2. A little more stun on baby paralyzer hitbox
3. Stronger fsmash with shield degradation properties, if you must touch fsmash
4. ???
5. Profit

This can be looked at as something of a priorities list. Fsmash buffs are low on the priorities list. The basic gist is, if you want just one small buff. Fix jab combo. If it helps to make the buff have less of an impact, you can nerf the knockback to make it less able to lead into dash attack, which it can do at some percents.

Thanks for testing and the input guys. If you have any more thoughts on ZSS's matchups agianst the other changes characters, or on changed stages, we'd love to hear them.

Reposting (and will keep on reposting) until this is adressed

I have addressed you. You say you want a +% buff on uair, when Sonic has a +% buff on uair. You say d-tilt and dair shouldn't be buffed because they are bad moves but that is exactly why they are buffed. You say Sonic needs a buff just like every other low tier character, but Sonic isn't a low tier character!

You seem to be ignoring every reply we make, and then accusing us of not replying to you.

 

[Power of Slash]

In all the time I've been playing BBrawl, I've never seen an airdodge cancel -> any form of aerial.

There's only really one thing that crosses my mind that affects the character I play. Is there anyway to adjust TL's Fsmash so that I can actually hit the opponent with both attacks instead of it being escaped so easily, as to sort of give it a use? If that's too much, I understand, but this would really expand on a form of reliable kill move for Tink. Punishing rolls for a kill or a spot dodge with this move was what I think was intended with it in the first place, but it's basically deemed useless, and we're left with the weaker Dsmash. One could argue Usmash could do this, but it doesn't do it nearly as well at all as most of the time it ends up being shielded, or it doesn't really kill where Fsmash would have.

I understand if that's a bit much, but just throwing that out there. If it's against something please inform me. If you guys have already done so inform me of that as well, for I'm only aware of the grounded Up-B fix(which I appreciate as well)

On a side note, I'm <3'ing D3's tech chase.

Also, I wouldn't count out Wolf that early. That huge deal makes up alot of Wolf's bad matchups imo even though I'm not a Wolf main. I'm not saying now he's the shiznite, but with all this gone I believe he can shine in this environment as a very viable character. (Well, part of the reason I dropped Wolf in the first place was the insanely crap recovery, the CGbait deal, and after getting tilt locked. that was the last straw)

Same goes for Fox.

Another thing to throw out there, any thoughts on changing that crappy thing Falco's loathe so much, that when they're stuck at an angle, they can barely recover? Or is that a weakness that should stay? Y'know what I mean? Like when they're recovering uh... Diagonally. that's the word. Their recovery is shortened by like a ton, as opposed to Fox and Wolf who recover just fine.

 

[ksizl4life]

I love using falco. his back grab combos and baiting is so much fun. and you guys did a great job with mk's tornado and d smash. keep it up.

only thing that bugged me were the camera zooms on stages like spear pillar, and hyrule

 

[Melomaniacal]

Are there any videos of Hyrule or Spear Pillar in action? I'm a bit unclear on how they were balanced out.

 

[adumbrodeus]

I have addressed you. You say you want a +% buff on uair, when Sonic has a +% buff on uair. You say d-tilt and dair shouldn't be buffed because they are bad moves but that is exactly why they are buffed. You say Sonic needs a buff just like every other low tier character, but Sonic isn't a low tier character!

You seem to be ignoring every reply we make, and then accusing us of not replying to you.

I think his point with the bad moves was that the buff was simply not significant enough to make them usable regardless.

Utilt is significant, because it helps it kill, so is dash attack.

Dtilt and dair however, are trival changes that result in the moves still being non-viable.

Do note that his techchasing game applies to the whole cast while his cg game did not (his dthrow in general was almost useless against some characters like Mr. Game & Watch). I don't feel he's nerfed overall, though it's hard to say.

I disagree, the extra damage polarized more then enough match-ups to overall improve him significantly.

Granted, the tech-chasing game IS powerful, but the few match-ups where he lost out are nothing compared to the overall lack of chaingrab.

Ganondorf's "Murder Quake" actually HITS really fast; it just has horrible recovery time. It is definitely something to be seldom used, but the fact that he has the ability to hit at that speed means he has some protection from certain kinds of pressure. In other words, it's something you only use once in a while but are glad to have.

Honestly... murder quake is not fast, at all. Dtilt is faster. With that as our benchmark, I see no reason to use it unless you can cut it's activation down to around 3 frames at most. If the opponent is behind me, turn-around grab is a better option.

As per the water, we're really limited in terms of implementaton. If I had my way, water would be percentage independent and act like it does in this version of the game at about 40% always. We just don't have the code resources to do that though, as always, any competent coder who happens to read this could do us a great service. Auto-drowning would not really be a good idea though possible since the water is so close to some sections of Delfino and it would generally be really dumb on Jungle Japes.

Jungle japes, definately, but it reduces the reletive power of vertical recoveries, and honestly, I can't think of a stage that's a direct counterpick to vertical recovery. There are stages that are more horinzontally-friendly or course, but there are stages that obliterate the horizontal (Yoshi's island), but nothing does this with vertical.

It's an idea to toy with.

I do want everyone to understand how few choices we have here. With the current codeset, we have basically two options. We could go back to standard Brawl water mechanics, which would require the Pirate Ship to be banned, or we could do what we have now. A middle ground is simply not possible with the current codeset. It might (and I stress might) be possible to extend the time you have to jump out at arbitrarily high percentages (like make it a 5 frame window instead of 1 frame at 90%+), but that's not good either. That basically re-introduces water stalling; the design idea here is that, once you hit the water, you should have two options. You can return to the stage, or you can die. Just hanging out in the water should be a non-option. Sadly, we can't quite get this since we either need to mostly remove the first option at high damage (you really don't return to the stage when you hit the water at 90%+) or leave the last option in (hanging out in the water, gamebreaking on the Pirate Ship in standard Brawl). It's hard, and I think we can agree that a coder in shining armor would be lovely. In the meantime though, I do strongly feel our changes are more positive than negative and thus justified to include... even if not without their own problems.

Also, there's no basis to believe any character drowns more often than others. I've simply seen no evidence of this, and until someone provides some, I'm going to assume it's not true. I have no idea where this claim originated, but my experiences and non-scientific testing do not suggest it's true.

My point was more that it inordinately hurt some characters.

I dunno, I'll see if I can learn the code (I code in C and Java, so I've got some expirience that might be helpful).

 

[hankydysplasia]

Love this idea. My brother didn't play much Brawl because he was so mad that his mains from Melee, Link and Captain Falcon, were nerfed so badly. I texted him about this and he's going to give it another shot this weekend.

I've actually "read" all 47 pages thusfar. Other than the fact that occasionally comments of the leadership here appear contradictory at times (like saying Ike's main problem was his recovery so we fixed it, and then later saying to another person that their main's glaring weakness shouldn't be removed without changing the feel of the character) I really, really like where this is headed. (I'm sure you guys can come up with an explanation for my particular example, I just think you need to be aware that stuff like that is going to give people a tougher time.)

My only input to the project right now is from a branding point of view. I know right now there's vBrawl (of course), Brawl+, and now BBrawl going. I think the BBrawl camp should start just calling itself "Brawl #.#.#" with the version number inserted.

Here's my reasoning. This project is most analogous to what Blizzard has to do with it's games. I'm thinking back to my high school days when I played Warcraft III all the time. Blizzard was frequently coming out with new patches because someone's Hero's aura was too strong or little balancing things like that. Much like someone now would gripe that the Snake's ftilt hitbox is too big. If this is going to become standard, the obvious problem is that the games can't be patched in a "legit" fashion so Brawl is stuck at 1.0.0. If this version BBrawl is known as say B1.0.5, then it will greatly reduce confusion in the community after patches are made because people will always be referring to their copy by the version number. This is pretty standard among most balancing games. Most importantly naming this way will give people the mindset that they need to upgrade to have the best version, even people who would be less inclined to do this. Who want's to be play 1.0.0 when someone has created 1.2 with the entire spirit of 1.0 intact? Not me. I'm banner bombing!

You of course can come up with your own numbering scheme according to how often you make the releases. It could be 1.1.0 then 1.1.5 then 1.2.0 for the first 12 months of the public 3 releases. Or just go 1.1.0, 1.1.1, 1.1.2, with the 1.x changes for big developments, like the what the heck were we thinking when we messed with the water in 1.1.0.

 

[Stealth Raptor]

BTW anyone reading this who is going to genesis, i will have a dedicated setup there for BBrawl. i should also have handouts for yall to fill out with your impressions of it

 

[Melomaniacal]

Dammit, I swear Genesis gets better and better every day, and I'm more and more annoyed that I can't go.

 

[ReesesPieces67]

Is it possible to adjust the hitbox for Link's spike?

 

[NeonTogepi]

I like this, however, Hanenbow > WarioWare. Warioware is unplayable, even when just for fun.

 

[Thinkaman]

I've actually "read" all 47 pages thusfar. Other than the fact that occasionally comments of the leadership here appear contradictory at times (like saying Ike's main problem was his recovery so we fixed it, and then later saying to another person that their main's glaring weakness shouldn't be removed without changing the feel of the character) I really, really like where this is headed. (I'm sure you guys can come up with an explanation for my particular example, I just think you need to be aware that stuff like that is going to give people a tougher time.)

I've actually addressed why Ike (and Luigi) is an exception many times in this thread.

The problem with Ike's weakness in particular is that it is polarizing. It isn't a big deal at all in some matchups, but in others his lack of mobility and safe approach means that campy play, especially with projectiles, can really shut him down. It would be impossible to buff Ike enough to be fair in these matchups without ruining his other ones that are less effected by the weakness. (Make f-smash kill at 0%? Double the damage on jab?)

For this reason, Ike is a case where we are forced to address weakness if we want the character to be reasonably balanced. For other characters who do not have such decisive attributes, we can stick to buffing strengths or unused parts of their moveset.

 

[Epic Kovumon]

I still suggest it should be called something less generic and simple as "Balanced Brawl."

 

[Nefarious B]

I'll have to echo the other ZSS mains here, while the fsmash is nice because it makes one of the worst moves in the game marginal, it doesn't buff her in any way since it doesn't really effect her game play.

Of all the ideas I've heard so far, making the third hit of our jab guaranteed is by far the best idea for improving her gameplay that I have heard. Buffing nair's damage is also a good idea, if it was brought from 10 up to somewhere like 12-13 that would be ideal.

 

[hankydysplasia]

I've actually addressed why Ike (and Luigi) is an exception many times in this thread.

The problem with Ike's weakness in particular is that it is polarizing. It isn't a big deal at all in some matchups, but in others his lack of mobility and safe approach means that campy play, especially with projectiles, can really shut him down. It would be impossible to buff Ike enough to be fair in these matchups without ruining his other ones that are less effected by the weakness. (Make f-smash kill at 0%? Double the damage on jab?)

For this reason, Ike is a case where we are forced to address weakness if we want the character to be reasonably balanced. For other characters who do not have such decisive attributes, we can stick to buffing strengths or unused parts of their moveset.

I appreciate the response! However, I think you might have missed my point. I was thinking of an example off the top of my head where you made "contradictory" statements. I'm not saying you didn't make a good case for it. I actually don't really care about Ike that much.

My point was that at now, and many times down the road, everyone is going to have to realize that each matchup is never going to be 50:50, and that's ok. Eventually you get to the point with many characters and say, "they will never be as good as diddy [your standard] because of _______" [and as you said, without making most other matchups ridiculous], and you are left with 2 choices - violate your first principles of allowing bbrawl to be a quick switch from vbrawl, or decide that the character is worth redeeming. Once you make that choice one way for some characters and another for others, you're going to have people upset - even if you have good reason. I would tend to err on the side of letting a few characters be bad rather than violating those principles that make this project so much better than Brawl+ in my opinion. That was my point - more of a commentary on the whole situation than a useful insight really. (Now I know you're not fond of so-called "theorycraft," and I understand that my point is based on the presupposition that you cannot balance perfectly 39? characters when in reality your team may have done such a great job that you identified Luigi and Ike as the only ones who needed the special treatment.)

P.S. Sorry I'm having have a tough time articulating at 2:30am.

 

[hankydysplasia]

Here are a few videos of some of the new additions. (I skipped Ike's Side-B because there have already been several videos of that.) Feel free to put these in the megapost of a first post.

DeDeDe's Throw-Spike - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X__ZNNJi2ls
Luigi Dash & Fireballs - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7KI4v2_tjw
Captain Falcon Weird Trip - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmR6-OCSUuk
Sonic Spike (at 15% and 99%) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuLPCT5y1vU
Nerfed MK Down-Smash in Action - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGF3jOd9sKg

These videos were for illustration purposes only, not explaining how the metagame would progress with them.

 

[04r]

Don't know if it's been said but, Ness' fsmash has Ike like power. Not as much but in the regional area. I was killed at 74% w/DI

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

The Ike and Luigi changes are very natural; they really aren't that big of a violation of anything. Also, yeah, we don't really plan our responses here out so we might occasionally goof up in what we say. If anything is pressing, we'll confer together and give a more solid "official" response.

Also, we are aware that not every matchup can be 50-50 (if such a thing is even desirable). However, we feel that, less a few game changers which are really extraordinarily tame to have such a title (they change a major part of those characters' games or add extremely significant new options, but even with them, none of the characters really "feel" that different), we can get everyone pretty close to evenly balanced. My personal point at which I could be really satisfied would be the point at which every character could, used ALONE (not with secondaries), win a major tournament (90+ people). Due to a limit of the number of top players not every character might actually do it, but character should not be a wholly preventive factor. That would definitely still leave room for character superiority; it just means being the game's worst character and being a bad character don't have to be the same thing, more like "overall still virtuous but just in a lesser way than some others".

Balance doesn't declare itself anyway, and we figure we'll know we have something good when no one can any longer agree on a tier list. We believe it to be possible, and we believe our initial release to have been true to our general principles of not changing the core principles of Brawl. There is some inevitable change in the sense that "if you change things, things will be different". However, I feel as though we have made a quality product without violating our principles, and I reject as false the dichotomy between balance and our principles.

As per general matchup ratios, my ideal would be everything in the range of 60-40 to 40-60. That's a lot of wiggle room, and given that we expect a web of matchups and not just "good character tends to go 60-40 while bad character goes 40-60", it could even be healthiest in the end.

 

[Browny]

AA can you please address the issues i brought up twice, 2 pages ago latest one.

your reason of 'Sonic has to land lots of hits, so a 1% increase to attacks adds up quickly' is quite wrong...

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Thinkaman already addressed you multiple times (we are co-developers). My response is his response.

To go more in depth, uair is among the Sonic moves that has a damage buff so your complaint on that regard is just bizarre. His dtilt also hits with more useful knockback and launch angle so it's not just a damage buff (like Mario's). Even if dair isn't useful in the end (though I think "situational" is a better way to put it than "bad"), who cares? Sonic got moves he is going to be relying on a lot buffed, and some of his bad moves have more utility even if they are still not staple moves. I don't want to be mean, but honestly, I don't even understand what you are complaining about mostly because your primary complaint appears to center around wanting a change that is already in the game.

 

[Chaco]

Okay sooo, more Yoshi time. I'm on my phone so this will be brief. This is going to be solely directed at his new fair. I'm still not convinced at all with this. Honestly the only time I personally use a stage Fair is upon recovering, and only thennif they are standing to close and don't expect it. Which brings the point: When this occurs at a moderate high percent I use their inability to regain movement yet for a Uair snag. I like this MUCH better than the new effect. Upon comparison, it beats it badly. At lower percents you can pivot grab them and follow up. If anything, I feel Ganon's Dair properties added to the fair would be much better, this way a stage hit Fair can kill on it's own. Just speculation though.

 

[auroreon]

I am going to back up and explain a general design idea that is coming up again and again.

There are three ways to buff a character:
1. Enhance Strengths
2. Decrease Weaknesses
3. Improve the In-Between

Each has pros and cons. Enhancing strengths makes the characters more unique, but threatens to polarize matchups and reduce matchup balance. Decreasing weaknesses does the opposite; it homogenizes characters but reduces matchup bias. Finally, improving the character in general (in ways other than their existing strengths) buffs them without skewing matchups... but the effect of these changes are very small because they do not play to the character's existing playstyle.

Yoshi's fair and ZSS's f-smash are in the third category. It buffs them a little bit without adding onto their existing strengths, by design. For Yoshi, this was because we didn't want to simply make him a character about nairs, eggs, and pivot grabs. ZSS meanwhile, was already a good character all-around... but just low enough to need a little something extra outside of the ordinary for her.

Only playtesting experience by intelligent players (like yourselves!) will show if these buffs do work as intended. I appreciate the discussion, but ultimately it is playtesting will trump everyone, including me and Ampharos. I hope you guys can be a part of it.

I think you make a very good point about their being 3 catagories of character improvement. However, the problem I am having with the change to Yoshis Fair is that it simply does does offer much, if any, improvement to Yoshi as a character.
Whilst the grouding property could be slightly more of an incentive to try with it, what I think you don't understand about the Fair is that adding the grouding property is mostly futile on account of how unrealistic it is to actually land the attack against a skilled opponant.
The Fair is just a very poor move and has no real place in Yoshis playstyle because of this, the reason for it being a poor move is solely the difficulty in hitting with it, even with perfect spacing. If you wanted to make the Fair a more viable move that actually has some worth within Yoshis playstyle, giving it a grounding effect is completely the wrong way of going about it. Even when you do hit with it, the grounding part is not gauranteed.
As long as the other properties of the Fair remain as they are, it simply cannot be a particuarly useful move.
I appreciate that you are trying to offer more options to Yoshi instead of just buffing what he already has, but in order to improve the Fair you will need to modify it to eliminate or at least limit the crippling flaws it actually has.

I hope to play as bigger role in this project as I can, this what I have waited for since the beggining of Brawl and I will do all I can to support it and help it to grow. When Panda made that thread on this subject all that time ago, my hopes for this becoming a reality were boosted but I was bitterly disapointed when Brawl+ proved to be an entirely different and very Melee-inspired game and I am exstatic to finally see the project take shape.

I understand that Yoshi's shield is a large flaw, even huge. However, this key is that it is not a polarizing flaw. It is the sort of flaw that doesn't ruin a couple matchups for Yoshi, it just makes him bad in general. That is the sort of flaw we can work with and improve around.

Yoshi already has the best spotdodge in the game (tied), so that's a start. I think the Egg Roll upgrade is also an appropriate answer, by increasing survivability. At the end of the day, I am confident that Yoshi can have this weakness and still be made a great character.

I understand your reasoning for not wanting to change Yoshis shield, I would also agree that it is a very character defining attribute.
But I don't think you reckognize the magnitude of this flaw with Yoshi. It is his single biggest weakness and hounestly I don't see that you could make compensate for it in other areas without signifcantly more improvement.
I'm sure most Yoshis would be quite happy for the weakness just to be made less of a problem, there is no reason why you cannot preserved the weaknesses with Yoshis shield for character identity but just make it a less crippling character flaw.
I think the importance of maintaining a single aspect of a feature that helps to further distinguish a character that is already probably the most unique in the game, is lesser than that of increasing the characters viability in the most effective way possible.
If you were to make changes to Yoshis shield to make a less limiting factor, I don't feel that it would change the way Yoshi is played in a very noticable way at all. Good Yoshis already make use of the shield reguarly simply because they must, spotdodging is not a suitable replacement for a shield as the two mechanics are completely different in their usage.

I really hope you will continue playing and develop that idea of where Yoshi stands so you can share it with us. Only with input like this can the project advance.

As mentioned earlier, I will do my upmost to support, promote and contribute to this project. This really is a dream come true for me, and I'm sure many other low-tier mains. I can only hope that the other Yoshi mains can offer you the same kind of support.
I am quite an influential member of the UK tournament scene so I will be doing as much as I can to promote it there and try to gain support and widespread knowlegde of this project.
I will continue to playtest and offer my feedback on Yoshi.

 

[Browny]

Also, in general, a 1% damage buff is a lot. It adds up a lot as you hit with the move, and furthermore, it does increase the effectiveness of the knockback growth. Note that with a character like Sonic who lands a lot more hits than normal characters in exchange for his killing problems, that adds up a lot more than normal. Also, him having a notably better dash attack that is actually rewarding matters so much...

My complaint is this.

a 1% damage increase on 2 attacks that are very rarely used does not add up a lot more than normal. like i said before, You would be lucky to find more than 1 dtilt or dair hitting per stock. thats a whopping 3% buff he gets from those. uair and DA are good they will actually get use. But when i look at every other character who recieved buffs its clear they are going to get a massive boost in % dealt per stock from a whole varitety of common attacks, far more than the few sonic has (uair/DA)

the only useful damage buff sonic has received is his uair (which would be better spent on uair 1 imo) and DA. the others are negligible. there is no way Sonic can be classified as having 'major buffs' when you look at how much other characters had USEFUL moves buffed by a reasonable amount. you could buff dair by +5 it wouldnt make it any more useful than it is already

Seriously... I think just swapping the +2 and +1 buff from dair to uair (1) would be perfect. it would at least have a meaningful effect to bring his buffs in the same order as all the characters around and below him. and 9% on the uair really doesnt do it justice, its already weak enough a +2 to it still would leave it as one of the weaker uairs in the game...

 

[The Sage of Shadow: Darklink]

I dont think the tiers should be changed in this game, but rather the gap between the tiers to be a lot smaller.
thats why I dont think there should be any nerfs, especially with all the buffs the other characters are getting

And I noticed that you didnt really look into the gameplay of every characters, for example the sonic main above proved how you didnt look at how sonic is played at a high level, and thus you gave him worthless buffs (comparatively)

 

[ffdgh]

lol another replacement stage i noticed yesterday XD the training stage that only mario can play on is used as another bridge of eldin on the melee stages.

that stage has a really screwed up camera angle tho

 

[ChronoPenguin]

Played around with Yoshi some to see the changes.

3. Yoshi
GAME CHANGER: Lower hitbox on fair now grounds opponents

Wait, what? The part of Yoshi's fair that spikes opponents will now pound them into the ground if they are not in the air, just like Donkey Kong's side special. It's not the easiest thing for Yoshi to do, but getting to land behind them and swing around with a forward smash makes it all worth it. Yoshi has a few small changes too:

This isn't a game changer.
Seriously.
This doesn't correct any issues with the move either.
It was already possible to F-air someone (in the air) to the floor, and granted the **** up their tech/AD or your close enough to them...you may get in another hit.
This just means if you do hit them you do get that other hit.
Still not a game changer.
The move is so....lame, that this doesn't matter at all, I use F-air a lot in my game already...probably a bad habit since it's not a good move, and this buff...while a buff....doesn't change much.
I hit them, wow now free F-smash, D-smash.
Thats not new, I've done that before with the previous. Just it wasn't guaranteed.
Think Ganondorf and following up with flame choke (normal brawl), a follow up (well he does on quite a few characters, but its like frame perfect ****) wasn't guaranteed.
Guaranteeing it now though doesn't make this move so much more favourable, because the risk is still absurd because of the hellish range, and the time before the sweetspot frames.

If anything you buffed the move, but didn't take care of its flaws. So it's still a poor move just because none of it's flaw's have been corrected, and the buff is not great enough to make up for those.
Instead the buff while nice, isn't great enough to make the average person want to use this anymore than usual. It's relatively slow, it's poor ranged, what more needs to be said. You buffed the sweetspot....big deal the sweetspot was already nice when it hit, hitting the sweetspot is already difficult due to it's flaws.

-More damage on all tilts and pummel (+1% to all)

In my personal opinion utilt does not exactly need anything that will hasten it's growth.
It should be used as a juggle move, not for sending them away. +1 buff only mean's the knockback will increase that much better than vbrawl.

-No helpless fall state out of Egg Roll; it instead refreshes his double jump

Love this one, seriously.

-More damage on down-B stars (4%) -> (7%)
-Slightly more knockback on down-B stars (40/50) -> (40/56)

Fine if a little....eh. You made the move a bit safer to use, but I don't exactly recall safety being the issue with it, and it's not going to be a kill more so....

Yoshi's competent but lackluster ground game has been bumped up to par with the rest of the cast. The changes to Egg Roll should greatly enhance his survivability; Egg Roll has the same momentum canceling properties as Mr. Game & Watch's bucket after all.

Egg roll also has HELLISH lag to get out of as far as I'm concerned.
If your using Egg roll to recover....good luck to you.
You just made a point where you are more vulnerable than ever so that you can refresh your DJ? If anyone knows that you'll try this, your dead without question.
Survivability? Eh naw.
Maybe the other yoshi's feel different, but to use this to recover feels so.... eh.
If Egg roll had decent horizontal momentum in the air.... sure hell ya, still risky because it's so vulnerable when entering, and leaving the egg but...
Anyways just to tl;dr
Getting in and out of egg roll is SLOW.
While IN egg roll yoshi is EXTREMELY vulnerable, something he isn't normally.


I feel you handled F-air wrongly, and the u-tilt buff was unecessary. Sure it does more damage but I dont care because it only had one purpose, and unless I can chainwith it, it's not seeing more use than a u-air followup.

 

[daisho]

Played around with Yoshi some to see the changes.


This isn't a game changer.
Seriously.
This doesn't correct any issues with the move either.
It was already possible to F-air someone (in the air) to the floor, and granted the **** up their tech/AD or your close enough to them...you may get in another hit.
This just means if you do hit them you do get that other hit.
Still not a game changer.
The move is so....lame, that this doesn't matter at all, I use F-air a lot in my game already...probably a bad habit since it's not a good move, and this buff...while a buff....doesn't change much.
I hit them, wow now free F-smash, D-smash.
Thats not new, I've done that before with the previous. Just it wasn't guaranteed.
Think Ganondorf and following up with flame choke (normal brawl), a follow up (well he does on quite a few characters, but its like frame perfect ****) wasn't guaranteed.
Guaranteeing it now though doesn't make this move so much more favourable, because the risk is still absurd because of the hellish range, and the time before the sweetspot frames.

If anything you buffed the move, but didn't take care of its flaws. So it's still a poor move just because none of it's flaw's have been corrected, and the buff is not great enough to make up for those.
Instead the buff while nice, isn't great enough to make the average person want to use this anymore than usual. It's relatively slow, it's poor ranged, what more needs to be said. You buffed the sweetspot....big deal the sweetspot was already nice when it hit, hitting the sweetspot is already difficult due to it's flaws.



In my personal opinion utilt does not exactly need anything that will hasten it's growth.
It should be used as a juggle move, not for sending them away. +1 buff only mean's the knockback will increase that much better than vbrawl.


Love this one, seriously.


Fine if a little....eh. You made the move a bit safer to use, but I don't exactly recall safety being the issue with it, and it's not going to be a kill more so....



Egg roll also has HELLISH lag to get out of as far as I'm concerned.
If your using Egg roll to recover....good luck to you.
You just made a point where you are more vulnerable than ever so that you can refresh your DJ? If anyone knows that you'll try this, your dead without question.
Survivability? Eh naw.
Maybe the other yoshi's feel different, but to use this to recover feels so.... eh.
If Egg roll had decent horizontal momentum in the air.... sure hell ya, still risky because it's so vulnerable when entering, and leaving the egg but...
Anyways just to tl;dr
Getting in and out of egg roll is SLOW.
While IN egg roll yoshi is EXTREMELY vulnerable, something he isn't normally.


I feel you handled F-air wrongly, and the u-tilt buff was unecessary. Sure it does more damage but I dont care because it only had one purpose, and unless I can chainwith it, it's not seeing more use than a u-air followup.

Could you do fair dair before? Do you know how much damage that is...

You don't understand egg roll. It cancels momentum. When you get sent offstage and would have died from the attack you can use an aerial to cancel hitstun and then eggroll to cancel ALL momentum. Yoshi will probably live the longest of all characters in the game now.

You don't understand how big a buff the pummels is.

 

[ffdgh]

cpu yoshis are annoying now lol. they spam that buffed d smash alot now and pit fall me into the ground and dsmashed me off the boundaries lol