Balanced Brawl Public Preview *GENESIS UPDATE*

[momochuu]

Sooooo now there's Brawl, Brawl+, and B-Brawl? :x How many times are people going to change this game? haha.

 

[ffdgh]

to each his own^

 

[Adapt]

Zero Suit Samus Jab:

I've been testing an angle buff to jab2, and it does make jab a true combo against all characters.

Frankly, early indications show this being dangerously good, more so than I expected. ZSS automatically becomes one of the best close-range fighters in the game; if the enemy is up close, you just have to hold A and you will always beat them unless they have a frame advantage, and even then it had better be a substantial frame advantage.

The combination of frame 1 jab and an unblockable combo really is potent. ZSS becomes largely indifferent to characters getting close to her since it is trivial to swat them away.

Meanwhile, buffing d-tilt seems to be quite effective too, but in a more interesting way much more in line with her existing game; simply put, setting up an aerial game with d-tilt is quite nice. I'll tweak it some more to investigate further.

I have also investigated paralyzer, including increasing the stun time the tiniest bit to allow a grab. It has potential, but I worry how much it will effect Falco and the other matchups ZSS players seem to struggle with. It may impact other characters much more than them, we will have to see.

lol, well if it's too good I can understand not using it. Thanks for trying it. I find it hard to believe that nothing can beat it though. Shielding the first jab should still result in a grab.
At least we ZSS mains know the character. We have been going on forever at how it keeps us back.

 

[Ripple]

no I haven't got the chance to play it yet.

but why can't you add bomb jumping? is that considerd a physics change? oh, oh, oh, just had an idea..

have link's gale boomerang move him also when he is in the air. that way link can throw the boomerang down and away from the stage, then he can up B, and when the boomerang comes back to him in the air it gives him a boost like when it sucks people in. it wouldn't be broken because he would still be in helpless animation.

 

[TLMSheikant]

Sure, TL can pressure shields to an extent with proyectiles but Ive always felt like having an almost 50 frame laggy grab on miss limits the tethers characters way too much. But thats just me. :/

 

[Thinkaman]

no I haven't got the chance to play it yet.

but why can't you add bomb jumping? is that considerd a physics change? oh, oh, oh, just had an idea..

have link's gale boomerang move him also when he is in the air. that way link can throw the boomerang down and away from the stage, then he can up B, and when the boomerang comes back to him in the air it gives him a boost like when it sucks people in. it wouldn't be broken because he would still be in helpless animation.

Things like this we have no way of implementing. It's not that we are against it, it's that it doesn't matter because it currently cannot be done.

 

[Rouenne]

Question: Does Link's Spin Attack remains as awful as it was in regular Brawl?

 

[Thinkaman]

Question: Does Link's Spin Attack remains as awful as it was in regular Brawl?

On the ground it is now his best KO move. In the air, it is unchanged.

 

[Anonano]

I think link still needs a buff to his recovery.

I think that you should put in bomb jump recovery like in melee(aka, being able to hit his own bombs in air). either that or make bombs explode a lot faster. (like 25-50 frames faster)

I don't think this is what Link really needs. Honestly, I kind of laughed at the improvements that were made to Link (particularly the arrow as a "gamechanger"), but the more I thought about it, the better an idea the changes seem to be.

Rather than focus on Link's weaknesses, the BBrawl creators thought to drastically improve his strengths (spamming and killing).

I doubt the arrows will actually be very good at gimping. Seriously, most Link users can just airdodge and make it back onstage, which is telling you a lot about how effective arrows are at gimping anyway. But, I can certainly see this giving Link a nice breather, especially when combined with Link's AC. I can also see it leading into some DACs, or other combos. It might actually become (kinda) useful in regards to spamming now, too.

The boomerang damage increase is much appreciated, but I also feel that the bombs need a 1% buff as well. Link relies so much on his spamming game (and he is so bad at it) that every % is absolutely essential to Link. (In that regard, the loss of Link's jab lock is a really nasty blow) Bombs are Link's most versatile spamming tool by far; approximately half of his ATs and quite a number of his mindgames rely on bombs.

The knockback and damage increase on a few of Link's kill moves, and some of his non-kill moves, is appreciated. I won't deny that the boost to dtilt has very little merit, as a Link that is trying to score kills or spikes off of it ought to rely on his other, stronger, and (now further improved) kill moves.
It feels as if Link will become overreliant on only two or three kill moves now. In regular Brawl, Link is simply desperate to land a move- any move (Yes, even dtilt has a little niche for an occasional lucky spike)- on an opponent and hope to get the kill. Its not like Link can actually make a deliberate effort to force the opponent into an fsmash; Link has to rely on a variety of moves to get the kill. So now it feels as though Link is supposed to be like Bowser or Charizard- rack up some damage, then use that thar OP UpB.

I haven't had a chance to play BBrawl yet, but my community is organizing a BBrawlfest right now.
So I guess what I'm saying is my opinion here is tentative, and I'd love to come back after I've played BBrawl and reanalyze.

EDIT: So, an overview of my hypothesis:
Link has had some nice improvements, although there are still some things that may or may not need to be tweaked around to get him up to the other characters' level.

 

[NintenJoe]

So i've officially play tested Sheik and Captain Falcon and there is are a few changes that I believe should be considered:

Captain Falcon:
-Decrease the insane lag on aerial raptor boost. The amount of lag CF has after this move is ludicrous, making the change where he's "no longer vulnerable" a tad incorrect. This move has a ton of start-up lag as it stands, so I think aerial raptor boost should have a lot less lag and allow him to follow up with Nair or Uair.
-Tone down his knee. Although I do like the ****, I don't think it should be THAT good.

The little changes to his approach game would make up for his terrible priority and change the basis of his game to not solely consist of grabs.

Sheik:
-Dtilt has a really weird effect. It will occasionally hit behind Sheik, allowing a Bair follow-up at lower percentages, but other times it will hit the opponent directly above Sheik and leaves her vulnerable. I think there should just be a damage increase or something similar. That or make the angle a bit mroe manageable.
-Zelda problems, but you're taking care of them.

I'm just going to bring this up again... any thoughts?

Oh, and the reason why Link's bombs and his boomerang don't hit him is because of their friendly properties. They would need to be a neutral entity like Mr. Saturn in order to be able to hit Link. Plus, think about changing his boomerang: Link uses it to get someone near him and finish them off with spin attack. The unfriendly boomerang pushes him off the ledge and he dies.

 

[Epic Kovumon]

Also, any input on DK's d-tilt?


I will be tricky, I'll mess with it in an hour or two.

You should probably test to see if other character's tilts lock against walls, like ROB, or Wolf before you mess with just DK.

 

[Thinkaman]

I don't think this is what Link really needs. Honestly, I kind of laughed at the improvements that were made to Link (particularly the arrow as a "gamechanger"), but the more I thought about it, the better an idea the changes seem to be.

Rather than focus on Link's weaknesses, the BBrawl creators thought to drastically improve his strengths (spamming and killing).

I doubt the arrows will actually be very good at gimping. Seriously, most Link users can just airdodge and make it back onstage, which is telling you a lot about how effective arrows are at gimping anyway. But, I can certainly see this giving Link a nice breather, especially when combined with Link's AC. I can also see it leading into some DACs, or other combos. It might actually become (kinda) useful in regards to spamming now, too.

The boomerang damage increase is much appreciated, but I also feel that the bombs need a 1% buff as well. Link relies so much on his spamming game (and he is so bad at it) that every % is absolutely essential to Link. (In that regard, the loss of Link's jab lock is a really nasty blow) Bombs are Link's most versatile spamming tool by far; approximately half of his ATs and quite a number of his mindgames rely on bombs.

The knockback and damage increase on a few of Link's kill moves, and some of his non-kill moves, is appreciated. I won't deny that the boost to dtilt has very little merit, as a Link that is trying to score kills or spikes off of it ought to rely on his other, stronger, and (now improved) kill moves.
It feels as if Link will become overreliant on only two or three kill moves now. In regular Brawl, Link is simply desperate to land a move- any move- on an opponent and hope to get the kill. Its not like Link can actually make a deliberate effort to force the opponent into an fsmash; Link has to rely on a huge variety of moves. So there it feels as if there is now an imbalance in Link's playstyle.

I haven't had a chance to play BBrawl yet, but my community is organizing a BBrawlfest right now.
So I guess what I'm saying is my opinion here is tentative, and I'd love to come back after I've played BBrawl and reanalyze.

EDIT: So, an overview of my hypothesis:
Link has had some nice improvements, although there are still some things that may or may not need to be tweaked around to get him up to the other characters' level.

First, thanks for your thoughts and I hope you report back with matchup impressiosn from the smashfest!

Link's arrows are huge. Like, really huge. Like, last-night-someone-messaged-me-demanding-they-be-nerfed-or-else-****-you huge. (<3 Fino) Don't underestimate these suckers. Legan's Protip: Boomerang to ground them, partially charged arrow to catch the roll. You'll have to see how huge they are.

bombs were intentionally unnerfed, sicne they are already about where they need to be for Link to work well. Testers show decent Links using about 30% arrows, 30% boomerang, and 40% bombs with these changes; it seems to be a good balance.

We really need to figure out where his matchups stand though.

 

[Revven]

You should probably test to see if other character's tilts lock against walls, like ROB, or Wolf before you mess with just DK.

He has to get the following Dtilts to never wall lock:

Marth, MK, Zelda (does hers wall lock? I'm pretty sure it would as in order to get out of it normally you need to PS or DI away), and G&W. He should also fix any jabs that may or may not wall lock.

 

[ffdgh]

make link's/t link grab like their dash grab in melee as it had decent start up and cooldown

 

[Thinkaman]

I'm just going to bring this up again... any thoughts?

We'll consider more changes to aerial Raptor Boost as the Falcon matchup data comes in; it already hits at a much more favorable angle, and I'm very hesitant to start introducing timign changes where they aren't critical.

As for the knee, I think I mentioned that it really hasn't been made that much stronger; I don't even think it got a knockback increase outside of the natural increase caused by more damage. Of course, it will be addressed if the matchups show it is called for, make no mistake.

I'm going to be doing a lot with Sheik later today, and I'll give the d-tilt a second look.

Zelda is being taken care of; things look very promising.

You should probably test to see if other character's tilts lock against walls, like ROB, or Wolf before you mess with just DK.

Yes, we have already looked at some, and will probably include somethign to address Mr. Game & Watch's at least. I'm continue testing.

 

[ffdgh]

lol the manhole on corena is still a game breaker

 

[¯\_S.(ツ).L.I.D._/¯]

So will this be changing at all? Like if you feel that X is overpowered will X be tweaked?

Also, is the goal of this to make EVERY character viable, or just more characters? I'll assume everyone.

Kudos to you guys, I play vBrawl but I might want to get into this, it looks very interesting. I was one who was interested when SamuraiPanda posted this months ago, it's a great idea. I applaud everyone who worked on it, the amount of time you spent working on this is quite impressive and it turned out well.

 

[Anonano]

First, thanks for your thoughts and I hope you report back with matchup impressiosn from the smashfest!

Link's arrows are huge. Like, really huge. Like, last-night-someone-messaged-me-demanding-they-be-nerfed-or-else-****-you huge. (<3 Fino) Don't underestimate these suckers. Legan's Protip: Boomerang to ground them, partially charged arrow to catch the roll. You'll have to see how huge they are.

bombs were intentionally unnerfed, sicne they are already about where they need to be for Link to work well. Testers show decent Links using about 30% arrows, 30% boomerang, and 40% bombs with these changes; it seems to be a good balance.

We really need to figure out where his matchups stand though.

Alright, I can't debate something if Legan has said it I'll wait until I've actually seen it in action.
I guess you are correct about the bombs, if you boosted them any more they might become... da bomb.
I think we've got a solid range of users where I live, so I'll reserve further input to his match-ups.

 

[Shady Penguin]

I hate to sound melodramatic, but this would ruin Fox. He's a glass cannon, and Up Smash is the epitome of everything that makes him awesome to play.

Concerning Fox in general, I haven't had the opportunity yet to extensively test his new bBrawl match-ups, but I will be surprised if he has to be changed at all. Almost all of his bad match-ups went away completely or will be far more manageable due to nerfs. I strongly suspect that he is exactly where he needs to be power-level wise.

See, that's one thing I don't like about Fox though.

I second Fox on the side, and I hate how he has to rely so much on one over-powered move. No character should have to do that ideally (except maybe a gimmicky character that is using a signature move from one of his games or something).

As for Fox's weight, it just doesn't make sense for him to be light in terms of his actual size. Keep in mind that all my balance suggestions are going with the OP's intention of making everybody around as good as Diddy.

Fox having a worse u-smash is a big hit, but having around average weight would be a huge help that would more than make up for the u-smash and make him overall better like he should be (if you're trying to make him as a good as Diddy Kong).

 

[Pierce7d]

I noticed Ryko didn't get a chance to post it before he departed this morning, so I'll link you to his channel. He had enough time to upload 10 singles matches and 1 doubles match, though we have over 70 recorded matches, and hopefully many of them will be uploaded. Once again, I remind you that while we were not playing at full steam and should not be judged off these videos, this is reasonably high level play that one would expect to see in tourney.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Rykoshet#play/uploads/8/jU17Egzb_xM

Link is amazing now. He hits like a truck. His learning curve is extremely high, but I think you'll find that once you master using all of his projectiles, his sword, and his clawshot, he's extremely competent. To be honest, a lot of people seemed to be hyping his arrows, but I really appreciate his ability to punish with really powerful kill moves. Spin attack in fact, is extraordinarily better.

Fox is fine as is. If anything, I'd buff the nair to +1, the dtilt to +2, and the ftilt to +1. This allows Fox to better serve his damage racking purpose. Perhaps I'd also boost his already competent grab game as well, making the thrown lasers have +1, similar to Falco's buff, but this isn't really necessary. Lastly, I'd +1 FireFox. With that, and illusion's already implemented +1, I think you'll find that a master Fox is highly formidable.

 

[ffdgh]

i like the new link and spin is scary good now O_o

 

[Thinkaman]

So will this be changing at all? Like if you feel that X is overpowered will X be tweaked?

Also, is the goal of this to make EVERY character viable, or just more characters? I'll assume everyone.

Kudos to you guys, I play vBrawl but I might want to get into this, it looks very interesting. I was one who was interested when SamuraiPanda posted this months ago, it's a great idea. I applaud everyone who worked on it, the amount of time you spent working on this is quite impressive and it turned out well.

Thanks for your support!

This is a "public preview", letting us gather community feedback and get wider impressions of matchups (this is very important) so that we can make further educated decisions.

I wanted to take a break from testing to share with you guys just how involved the cahnge-making process is. It is much more complicated than simply thinking of a move one likes or dislikes, and changing it in a random way.

Step one is to look at what matchups a character is struggling with; you only make a change if it helps in problem matchups, period. Otherwise you are jsut as likely to hurt balance as help it. We try to look for patterns in problem matchups and see trends; is it projectiles the character struggles against? Gimps? Disjointed hitboxes?

Step two is to identify potential moves in the moveset that have the potential to help in these specific matchups. Many times moves that might help are underused because they are unrewarding. How could these moves be changed to help in these matchups? What other moves can lead into them, or could they lead into? Does this fit the existing playstyle?

Step three involves testing a specific change after we have a rough draft. This must be done against as many characters as possible, but all of them would take too long, instead, I test against several specific characters: Fox, Jigglypuff, Bowser, and King DDD. Depending on the results I may investigate further on Samus, Wolf and Sheik, or a mid-weight. Further cases require other specific study: Escapable combo? We have to see if MK can dair out of it too. Results in an enemy slide? Time to test Luigi too. Is it a good gimp attack? Sigh, time to test with Mario and Olimar frame-by-frame... Trips must be testing against Falcon, grabs have to be tested EXTRA against Bowser, grab releases have to be tried against Ness, Lucas, and DK... And of course, ALL of these chagnes must be tested at different levels of damage and usually with different levels of stale moves. There's so much to consider, and we want to avoid missing anything the first time.

Step four only happens after step three has finished for each move, testing new versions against each character over and over until good results are had. Then I package all the changes up with a full copy and load it up. I play around with the changes at all once, making sure they flow together; sometimes I quickly do a quick match against a CPU of each character. (CPU matches are very useful for checking to make sure the changes "feel" right at different levels of damage on different character; CPUs are also good for testing the ability to air-dodge out of things, though not much else.)

Step five, of course, is real testing with real players, getting real matchup data. That starts the cycle over again.

 

[Shady Penguin]

I noticed Ryko didn't get a chance to post it before he departed this morning, so I'll link you to his channel. He had enough time to upload 10 singles matches and 1 doubles match, though we have over 70 recorded matches, and hopefully many of them will be uploaded. Once again, I remind you that while we were not playing at full steam and should not be judged off these videos, this is reasonably high level play that one would expect to see in tourney.

http://www.youtube.com/user/Rykoshet#play/uploads/8/jU17Egzb_xM

Link is amazing now. He hits like a truck. His learning curve is extremely high, but I think you'll find that once you master using all of his projectiles, his sword, and his clawshot, he's extremely competent. To be honest, a lot of people seemed to be hyping his arrows, but I really appreciate his ability to punish with really powerful kill moves. Spin attack in fact, is extraordinarily better.

Fox is fine as is. If anything, I'd buff the nair to +1, the dtilt to +2, and the ftilt to +1. This allows Fox to better serve his damage racking purpose. Perhaps I'd also boost his already competent grab game as well, making the thrown lasers have +1, similar to Falco's buff, but this isn't really necessary. Lastly, I'd +1 FireFox. With that, and illusion's already implemented +1, I think you'll find that a master Fox is highly formidable.

Yeah, I've seen some really good Fox's myself, and I don't mind buffs in some other forms. Fox getting more weight is just a type of buff that I would like to see, not a necessity.

I think that and less reliance on u-smash would fit the balancing need as well as make him more fun to play (for me at least).

 

[Thinkaman]

We talked with Zeton about Fox earlier in development, and he suggested we wait and see how Fox fits into the metagame with the other changes; removing all 3 of his doom matchups gives Fox a new lease on life. It'll be interesting to see where he goes.

 

[Rouenne]

Another question about Link: His attack speed remains unchanged? I mean that was one of his worst problems, he had very slow swings and they didn't have the power to back up for that.

 

[Watchful_Eye]

Some slight buffs that wouldnt hurt:
- Give Falcon Punch Super Armor
- Give Warlock Punch Super Armor, let it destroy the opponents shield in 1 Hit and increase the knockback even more, so that it is an almost-1-Hit-KO at 0%
- Slightly improve Jigglypuffs Rest and Sing

-> Improve some really bad and risky moves to make them more viable at least in very specific situations

Edit: Woops, I confused "increase" and "improve"

 

[NintenJoe]

Some slight buffs that wouldnt hurt:
- Give Falcon Punch Super Armor
- Give Warlock Punch Super Armor, make it slightly faster, let it destroy the opponents shield in 1 Hit and increase the knockback even more, so that it is an almost-1-Hit-KO at 0%
- Slightly increase Jigglypuffs Rest and Sing

-> Increase some really bad and risky moves to make them more viable at least in very specific situations

-super armor isn't something that can be done at the moment. its not possible yet.
-slightly increase jiggly's rest and sing? increase what?

->this has already been done to several moves, like Captain Falcon's knee.

 

[ffdgh]

powerful rest?
more potent sing?

 

[Suntan Luigi]

How many SBR members and pros know about this project? We have to get their attention!!

 

[ffdgh]

lol give it time, people will come

 

[Eyada]

Some slight buffs that wouldnt hurt:
- Give Falcon Punch Super Armor
- Give Warlock Punch Super Armor, let it destroy the opponents shield in 1 Hit and increase the knockback even more, so that it is an almost-1-Hit-KO at 0%
- Slightly improve Jigglypuffs Rest and Sing

-> Improve some really bad and risky moves to make them more viable at least in very specific situations

Edit: Woops, I confused "increase" and "improve"

Not even considering whether or not those can be implemented, I think it would be prudent to reread Thinkaman's guidelines for balancing that this project uses, particularly:

Step one is to look at what matchups a character is struggling with; you only make a change if it helps in problem matchups, period. Otherwise you are jsut as likely to hurt balance as help it. We try to look for patterns in problem matchups and see trends; is it projectiles the character struggles against? Gimps? Disjointed hitboxes?

What bad match-up does Jiggs have that a more powerful Rest would help her overcome, more so than any other move that could possibly be buffed instead?

We talked with Zeton about Fox earlier in development, and he suggested we wait and see how Fox fits into the metagame with the other changes; removing all 3 of his doom matchups gives Fox a new lease on life. It'll be interesting to see where he goes.

To be honest, this project has really renewed my drive for Brawl. Fox is, more or less, the only character that I can ever really see myself going to a high-level tournament with. However, he simply isn't viable in vBrawl due to the "Doom match-ups", as you put it. No matter how good I get, it isn't reasonable to expect that I'll be able to take a set from someone like Anther, and it certainly isn't worth the risk and expense to travel nationally when my only prayer of winning any large tournament is simply hoping that I miraculously don't have to play against any of Fox's hard-counters all throughout the tourney. As such, there really isn't much reason for me to travel, compete, or push my Fox game as far as it can go in vBrawl.

On the other hand, Fox is viable in bBrawl. I really hope this catches on nationally and becomes popular enough to support traveling. I know it isn't likely that bBrawl will replace vBrawl as the tournament standard and be adopted by the SBR or anything crazy like that, but I'm optimistic that this can become popular enough as a side-event that it might support traveling. I really hope it does.

 

[Thinkaman]

Rest is a prime example of why we have to carefully consider what we buff.

It's easy to make up changes that would somehow make a character better, anyone can say "Sure, Jigglypuff would be better if Rest was better!"

However, when you break it down and examine it closely, what matchups will that help? It could almost break the Diddy matchup, and might not help much with a lot of Jigglypuff's existing counters. Meanwhile, changes like Pound doing 1% more and dash attack hitting more horizontally don't help as much in matchups she was already okay in, but have a lot of utility against say, "team disjointed".

Jiggs d-smash is another good example. Almost totally worthless buff in all matchups but Wario, one of her hardest matchups.

I'm still not sure what I'm doing with d-tilt to be honest guys. I don't have a firm grasp on what original behavior is the most important to preserve. I do understand d-tilt to down-b, but at what %s? How else is the move used?

 

[Rouenne]

Another question about Link: His attack speed remains unchanged? I mean that was one of his worst problems, he had very slow swings and they didn't have the power to back up for that.

 

[deepseadiva]

We're actually discussing in the Peach boards and we were just wondering: would it be possible to change the knockback to Peach's fthrow? We know throws are odd to deal with.

 

[Thinkaman]

Another question about Link: His attack speed remains unchanged? I mean that was one of his worst problems, he had very slow swings and they didn't have the power to back up for that.

Link is same speed, more powerful, even better projectiles. We want to emphasis the character differences instead of making a game with 39 medium-speed, medium-power, medium-priority characters. Homogenization is bad!

We're actually discussing in the Peach boards and we were just wondering: would it be possible to change the knockback to Peach's fthrow? We know throws are odd to deal with.

Give me five seconds and I can tell you--my testing station crashed when I was screwign with DK d-tilt, almost back up.

 

[Rouenne]

Well if Link has more power on his moves then is okay

 

[ffdgh]

hmm.....change bomber buff to back air or f air buff.....even tho u need more input on that

 

[§leepy God]

♪ At first I hated the idea of hacking your Wii to make a game competitive, but I guess I approve of this idea, I'm not too attached to Balanced Brawl yet because playing this with items is kind of a weird experience like how a timer slows down the movement, but a character jumps very high for some reason. †

 

[Thinkaman]

♪ At first I hated the idea of hacking your Wii to make a game competitive, but I guess I approve of this idea, I'm not too attached to Balanced Brawl yet because playing this with items is kind of a weird experience like how a timer slows down the movement, but a character jumps very high for some reason. †

Yes; however, since there are a few tourneys that do not use Timer items, I think we are safe on that particular issue.

 

[ffdgh]

times ffa aginst cpu are fun tho for me XD they go in every direction