Balanced Brawl Public Preview *GENESIS UPDATE*

[Blank Mauser]

We viewed this project as continuing the balancing process that Sakurai started. There's a quote somewhere about how he "could balance and improve the game forever, but sadly we have to release sometime".

Just as Sakurai made mistakes that he would likely correct given more testing, we are human too. We have made changes that testers (and each other!) did not like, and had to try something different. It is surprising how hard it is!

Funny story: When trying different things to fix Falco, I once accidentally made his b-throw into an inescapable chainthrow better than his old one! It's very, very easy to do things by accident, and just goes to show you how important testing is. When I met Sakurai, he stressed the importance of making sure all these parameters in the game are just right and how he would stay up late working towards the never-ending goal of balance.

With your help, we can all proceed further down that never-ending road.

Trust me, I get what you mean. Its hard enough balancing a game like Brawl+ where there hasn't even been a years precedence time for the game to show its true colors. Theres always a lot of criticism and debate involved, but its a rewarding experience I'd say.

I think you're doing a good job so far, and that you certainly fit the bill to take the challenge. Hope to see this project work out, I'll pitch in more from time to time also.

 

[Revven]

Thanks, I'll disable the damage to get some good frame nubmers on that d-throw animation, and I'll test to see how many frames longer it needs to be to avoid re-grab. Should be just 2, by my reckoning, possibly 3.

Don't forget about the infinite Wario has on Bowser and Ganondorf with his Dthrow. It's pretty gay (just don't ruin the throw's options).

 

[adumbrodeus]

Oh, Zelda/Shiek, is there any way to have the characters preloaded, because looking at the moveset, Sheik's most reliable kill option has been removed (ftilt>up-smash) unless the ftilt true combos to upsmash still. That means that to be effective, she'll need to depend on Zelda a lot more, and increasing the transformation speed will help that a lot.


Also, could Zelda get a legitimately safe on block approach, please?

Also, just curious as to why Fox and DK have been left unchanged. It feels as though they don't fit in with the rest of unchanged chars. Wondering what these "outside buffs" are.

It means the character was buffed by either a nerf of another character, or a change in stage viability.

In the case of fox it's Pikachu's chaingrabs, ZSS's locks, and Sheik's ftilt locks.

For DK, it's DDD's infinite on him that's gone.

Sakurai can't patch the game because of this:

http://hackmii.com/2009/02/why-the-wii-will-never-get-any-better/

And Sakurai is just a ******* as a whole so there you go.

Yea, I know. But he should've just done it in the original game.

Not being able to be infinited/psuedo-infinited by other characters is a BIG DEAL.

That said, I'm going to look more into this Wario cg. I might have been inputting commands to Wario wrong.



We viewed this project as continuing the balancing process that Sakurai started. There's a quote somewhere about how he "could balance and improve the game forever, but sadly we have to release sometime".

Just as Sakurai made mistakes that he would likely correct given more testing, we are human too. We have made changes that testers (and each other!) did not like, and had to try something different. It is surprising how hard it is!

Funny story: When trying different things to fix Falco, I once accidentally made his b-throw into an inescapable chainthrow better than his old one! It's very, very easy to do things by accident, and just goes to show you how important testing is. When I met Sakurai, he stressed the importance of making sure all these parameters in the game are just right and how he would stay up late working towards the never-ending goal of balance.

With your help, we can all proceed further down that never-ending road.

I understand that certain things are difficult to notice, but you can't tell me that he couldn't have fixed DDD's chaingrab, that was ridiculously obvious.


And Ganondorf and Falcon, it's pretty easy to see how bad they were, why wasn't that addressed at all?


Really, I think the main issue was that they weren't paying attention to the competitive community at all. I understand that the casuals are a large audience too, but we've got 152,463 members, even if we assume that only half are actual accounts, that's a fair amount of money that we control. And even if we assume half of those are casuals.

Would it kill nintendo to make a game that's balanced for both casuals and high-leveled play?

 

[Big O]

Thanks, I'll disable the damage to get some good frame nubmers on that d-throw animation, and I'll test to see how many frames longer it needs to be to avoid re-grab. Should be just 2, by my reckoning, possibly 3.

The biggest frame advantage I saw on his Dthrow before it was jump breakable was 7 frames. It would need to be 3 frames longer to make sure you can never regrab DK aside from the DK not jumping at the 90-140% range I mentioned earlier or the DK messing up on the spot dodge. I lol'd at Wario's new pummel. It's a nice addition.

 

[Thinkaman]

The biggest frame advantage I saw on his Dthrow before it was jump breakable was 7 frames. It would need to be 3 frames longer to make sure you can never regrab DK aside from the DK not jumping at the 90-140% range I mentioned earlier or the DK messing up on the spot dodge. I lol'd at Wario's new pummel. It's a nice addition.

Also check Falcon's

 

[Melomaniacal]

I just have to say that this is one of the most well organized, and amazingly put together first posts.

Also, this seems amazing, and I have to give it a try. My only problem is the fact that I know this will never be standard, so I don't want to love it too much.

 

[Deleted member]

Nevermind, I thought you had it, but you don't.

 

[Sukai]

I see this as I originally saw B+, an interesting project.
This could be something else for me to get involved in, and the Brawl-easy accessibility will make it easier, I'll definitely try this out.

 

[Zig-Zag!]

May I suggest the media?

http://nintendo.joystiq.com/2009/06/30/fans-rewrite-brawl-to-balance-characters/

http://www.n-sider.com/

Hopefully others pick up thinkaman's insane...thing.

 

[Big O]

Also check Falcon's

What do you mean? Testing Wario's Dthrow chain or some throw Falcon has on someone else?

I tried out Wario's Dthrow on CF since that is what I guessed you meant. It starts at a 4 frame advantage at 0%. When you have 5 frame advantage at higher damages CF can buffer an Fsmash to instantaneously pull back just enough to make the grab whiff and punish it. With a 6 or higher frame advantage at even higher damages CF lands too far away for the regrab.

 

[Thinkaman]

What do you mean? Testing Wario's Dthrow chain or some throw Falcon has on someone else?

I was jsut talking about pummels.

 

[Big O]

Now that I look at the nerfs on Wario it seems he got buffed more than he got nerfed considering he doesn't get grab released into practically anything anymore. Grab release to giant punch/knee/murder stomp were epic.

 

[Rykoshet]

Sorry, I know this has probably been covered but what do the numbers specifically mean inside the parentheses.

 

[Icyo]

Link's arrows gimp HARD. Zelda doesnt have a chance.

 

[Thinkaman]

Now that I look at the nerfs on Wario it seems he got buffed more than he got nerfed considering he doesn't get grab released into practically anything anymore. Grab release to giant punch/knee/murder stomp were epic.

This was definitely a concern. Wario mains we talked to and tested with were of the opinion that it's an overall nerf, even if it is a new positive in specific matchups.

Oppositely, we were also concerned with Bowser losing his grab release combos. We gave him extra attention during testing to see if his buffs made up for them and then some. That attention will continue.

Sorry, I know this has probably been covered but what do the numbers specifically mean inside the parentheses.

Knockback has two parts, that are generally called growth and base. Base is the amount independent of weight and damage. Growth is the amount the knockback changes with respect to damage.

 

[Sudai]

Now that I look at the nerfs on Wario it seems he got buffed more than he got nerfed considering he doesn't get grab released into practically anything anymore. Grab release to giant punch/knee/murder stomp were epic.

High level Warios rarely get grabbed so it's not as big a buff as you think.

 

[Fisherington]

Is tripping removed?

 

[bobson]

Did you mean to buff the knockback on the sweetspot of Mario's fair rather than the sourspot?
It's already an okay spike; the problem with it is you almost never land the sweetspot and the sourspot is terrible and even saves your opponent from gimps.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Is tripping removed?

Random tripping via dashes is removed, but due to the new trip effects that Ganondorf, Captain Falcon, and Luigi have, you could say that tripping is more common than ever.

@Bobson: Mario's fair was one of the weakest meteors in standard Brawl. In this version, when it hits offstage as a meteor, it kills pretty much always.

 

[daisho]

To make DK happy please get rid of the stupid Cargo glitch that you can just hold up and it counts as pressing buttons the entire time. I think thats really stupid.

Otherwise I see DK really improving because of the lack of DDD's chaingrab. It makes a previously almost unwinable matchup a neutral or probably favorable matchup for DK

 

[Thinkaman]

Did you mean to buff the knockback on the sweetspot of Mario's fair rather than the sourspot?
It's already an okay spike; the problem with it is you almost never land the sweetspot and the sourspot is terrible and even saves your opponent from gimps.

I'm pretty sure Mario's fair was originally the 2nd weakest spike in the game only to aerial Raptor Boost; it also has a very small hitbox and takes 16 frames to come out. It was pretty bad.

 

[Suspect]

omg

just play the **** game how it was made

 

[ddonaldo]

this is what brawl should have been, you said in your posts that this will be available for unhacked wii's, could you please expand?

 

[Suspect]

nevermind my last post, i just read what yall did to my man weegee, carry on

 

[Thinkaman]

this is what brawl should have been, you said in your posts that this will be available for unhacked wii's, could you please expand?

I've personally been working on some avenues for making this happen, and some in the hacking community are doing promising things too.

For now, we're going to focus on this easy-to-test release, before committing to larger release plans. I look forward to getting as much playtest data as possible before then, so we have as solid of a product as possible.

 

[Big O]

All I think that needs fixing for DK is his side band the cargo hold glitch. Hitting with his side b sourspot puts you in a very bad situation. You get punished for landing it as a spike too at low damages so that should be fixed too. The easiest way to fix that would probably be by reducing the cooldown lag. Tweaking the knockback probably affects how much time they spend in pitfall state.

Something I think that would be neat to add is being able to DI backwards during grounded up b's. Giving Nair a more horizontal angle would be cool too since Nair is only useful in gimps and sucks otherwise. A slightly bigger hitbox is the only way to make Nair useful but that seems to be out of the scope of what you guys want to do.

 

[daisho]

All I think that needs fixing for DK is his side band the cargo hold glitch. Hitting with his side b sourspot puts you in a very bad situation. You get punished for landing it as a spike too at low damages so that should be fixed too. The easiest way to fix that would probably be by reducing the cooldown lag. Tweaking the knockback probably affects how much time they spend in pitfall state.

Something I think that would be neat to add is being able to DI backwards during grounded up b's. Giving Nair a more horizontal angle would be cool too since Nair is only useful in gimps and sucks otherwise. A slightly bigger hitbox is the only way to make Nair useful but that seems to be out of the scope of what you guys want to do.

I agree, those things would be awesome, but I think it would buff DK too much.

But seriously, cargo thing is really annoying, get rid of it.

Maybe DIing backwards during up B too.

You just have to accept that some moves like side B and nair just are not so good.

 

[Blubba_Pinecone]

A small question...

it says, "Footstool abuse" removed, what exactly does that pertain to? Being a Link main, I do have some rather useful ways that I implicate footstools on occasion, and I'm wondering if they still work. To be precise, Bombstools.

I also am wondering a small bit about the removal of Jablocks... but I suppose it is neccesary.

 

[bobson]

@Bobson: Mario's fair was one of the weakest meteors in standard Brawl. In this version, when it hits offstage as a meteor, it kills pretty much always.

I'm pretty sure Mario's fair was originally the 2nd weakest spike in the game only to aerial Raptor Boost;

Really? It almost always kills when I land the sweetspot.
...of course, I would only be landing it after I've gotten enough damage on the opponent to knock them far enough away from the stage that their recovery would be predictable enough for me to land it.

it also has a very small hitbox and takes 16 frames to come out.

This would be why it still sucks, though.

 

[Swordplay]

Yup I'm sad jablocks are gone. No longer can I Rang>Jablock. That hurts alot

Except I agree with Pink Link........Even with the arrow buff, Link Still has better edge guard options thus arrows will hardly be used. But I'm sure the other things will make up..

Props to a first attempt. While there will probably be minor changes along the way, I salute you. I'll test stuff out later.

 

[Thinkaman]

Except I agree with Pink Link........Even with the arrow buff, Link Still has better edge guard options thus arrows will hardly be used. But I'm sure the other things will make up..

Hehe, you really need to try playing with them. These are REALLY strong arrows. Legan called them the greatest thing ever, and Legan's word on Link is law.

In Link matches, testers found themselves uses all Link projectiles about equally, with perhaps a slight tilt to bombs. Arrows are that good now.

 

[Stealth Raptor]

footstool abuse means then when footstooled, they land normally, ie they can sheild or do anything instantly when they land, ie no more uair footstool combo for pika

 

[RyuReiatsu]

Wow, this project looks awesome. I don't have the luxury to try it right now. But I'd like to ask, is it possible to dashdance?

 

[Stealth Raptor]

no this project does not aim to add anything really, just take out gay stuff and balance chars.

 

[5ive]

Great job guys.

But, I'm getting a strong feeling that this is going to get in the way of the Brawl+ project. It probably will, and I also have a feeling that this is going to be more accepted than Brawl+.

I don't like the sound of that :/

 

[fromundaman]

Really? It almost always kills when I land the sweetspot.
...of course, I would only be landing it after I've gotten enough damage on the opponent to knock them far enough away from the stage that their recovery would be predictable enough for me to land it.


This would be why it still sucks, though.

I'm pretty sure that sweetspotted it isn't the second weakest meteor. Hell, both of Lucas' meteor spikes and Kirby's slight meteor at the end of his Dair are both weaker, to name a few off of the top of my head.

 

[GPDP]

Great job guys.

But, I'm getting a strong feeling that this is going to get in the way of the Brawl+ project. It probably will, and I also have a feeling that this is going to be more accepted than Brawl+.

I don't like the sound of that :/

I dunno about that. Already I'm hearing negativity surrounding this project as being another stupid hack like "Brawl-" and such.

But then again, that's on GameFAQs, and well, lol gamefaqs.

 

[PRiDE]

really really amazing.. Yay yoshi buffs!! Very excited about it..

Would have liked to have a random force trip on down tilt but still very very very good.

 

[dabridge]

Great job guys.

But, I'm getting a strong feeling that this is going to get in the way of the Brawl+ project. It probably will, and I also have a feeling that this is going to be more accepted than Brawl+.

I don't like the sound of that :/

Why would this become more accepted than Brawl+? It won't: Brawl+ is actually fun to play. vBrawl was hopeless from the start, "balance" in characters isn't going to make it more fun to play imo. But that's just me.

 

[Swordplay]

when will there be vids?