Balanced Brawl Public Preview *GENESIS UPDATE*

[CRASHiC]

Walk offs should still be banned because of the ICs chaingrab.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Why are ICs walking you off walk-off stages a problem? Pre-throw mods, being grabbed by ICs ends the same way either way (you die). I don't see how being killed by a walk-off is worse than being killed by an alt-grab when both are possible. Good ICs all but never mess up infinites either so execution mistakes can be ignored.

With throw mods, we're going to make sure ICs can't walk you off stages as they lose their infinite. This is not going to be a problem. Walk-offs are very fair in Bbrawl.

 

[Anomilus]

I definitely noticed the Din's fire thing during my last play. Honestly I think leaving it in at least a bit longer before removing it is a good idea. She still has some end lag, so it isn't gonna be a total anti-edgeguard spamwall. I think everyone in favor of this would agree that removing the possibility of SD'ing because of Din would be really nice for both high and low level play. I occasionally still kill myself with the move simply because the floating effect screams "recovery benefit" loudly. Then I freefall and remember that isn't possible... =(

Speaking of Zelda's changes...

Why does Zelda get a flower effect and not Ivysaur's Dair?? =(

I know one of you guys already said you saw no need to change it (again). I just still wish Ivy would receive it. It matches it WAY more than Zelda placing it on the foes with magic....(Because "A wizard did it" always sounds better, right??) I guess that at this point I feel had I said something sooner, Ivysaur would have gotten that instead of the common knockback + damage buff on DAir.

It was stated that the flower effect inflicts damage equal to the actual attack's damage% over a period of time. This doesn't sound like anything that could quickly escalate to something overpowered (with senseble adjustments). That seems to indicate there's little danger of hurting Ivysaur's balance as long as the other elements of DAir are regulated.

On the one hand, I may be silly for bringing this back up. But on the other hand, not long after it was stated that such a change wasn't needed, it's suddenly an "interesting" idea to let Zelda put flowers on people. I know it was in response to solving a current issue at that time. Ivysaur though was also an issue before it got its buffs. I wasn't asking for more buffs, but a very fitting alternate buff. Zelda could have just did more damage.


(Due to DSi limitations, I'll finish this post when I get home. =/ )

 

[Steeler]

i mean it "makes sense" for ivy to plant flowers on people and, more importantly (to me anyway), it'd be ****ing hilarious

but

the damage buff is REALLY nice on dair and is an excellent edgeguard move now (still awkward to use on stage but not as punishable and more effective as a surprise anti-juggle). i wouldn't trade that for extra damage on a move that is definitely not a "damage" type of move. and it'd probably have to be weakened even further than the original.

i think a flower thing would make more sense on usmash anyway since the move is bad and you should die from it if you are hit at even middling percents. it'd be basically a useless buff if you hit at KO percent (which is like 60% for a lot of people lol). which would be fine, a little easter egg or joke, if you will. and a much riskier bullet seed at low percent, which is already risky.

i'd love flower effects on ivy as much as the next guy but it doesn't really make sense to do it on any of its moves. :[

except bullet seed

can you say bullet seed + leech seed??

BULLET LEECH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

 

[00000]

The point is that it serves no purpose. The Ike change actually is beneficial for higher levels so it overrides lower level concerns. In this case, it's doing almost nothing so I don't see the high level concerns. Honestly, accidental suicide if you try to b-reversal (with Zelda having very little use for b-reversals anyway)? At best this is "why?" versus "why not?" with me feeling that "why?" has the burden of proof on them.

it hardly even changes lower levels of play (save for a lame sd once in a while), as grounded dins is more spammable than jump dins.

why?
lame suicides
cover when returning to stage
second jump validates jump-dins as something that is safe on block
makes dins not as one-dimensional
looks cool

why not?
...
...

 

[Phantom7]

This looks awesome; my brothers and I are about to try this out. Hopefully this will be much better than Brawl+, especially with that stupid hitstun. Although I still have a couple of requests:

Slightly nerf knockback on Pit and Lucas's ssmash. Also, I would suggest fixing obvious invisible hitboxes, such as Lucas's usmash, Snake's utilit and ftilit, and any others you can find. I guarantee no one will complain about that.

 

[Ryusuta]

I'd actually be in favor of removing the disjointed hitbox from Snake's forward tilt (up tilt's nerfed already), but I doubt anyone would go for it.

The other changes aren't necessary, though.

 

[Suspect]

I'd actually be in favor of removing the disjointed hitbox from Snake's forward tilt (up tilt's nerfed already), but I doubt anyone would go for it.

The other changes aren't necessary, though.

Sir O always speaks truth

 

[Ryusuta]

There's some discussion going on at the Yoshi boards regarding his grab-release things and discussing whether Yoshi is actually WORSE in BBrawl (which a lot of Yoshi mains are saying right now).

Rather than copy-paste or try to otherwise summarize the discussion up to this point, I'll take you guys to the thread:

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?p=7870185

What do you think about this?

(Warning: It gets pretty tl;dr after awhile.)

 

[Deleted member]

AA, you can't remove the infinite with the throw mod.
the problem if that whatever stats you give their throws, they regrab at the very moment the other let's go.

 

[MorpheusVGX]

I think Nana shouldn't be able to grab. And down throw must be modified to avoid chain grab.

How can they say Yoshi is worse with all the buffs he has?

Ok, I read the whole thing. So he need some buffs on his grabs. That may do. I just hope Yoshi doesn't become too powerful to be balanced.

 

[Ryusuta]

I think Nana shouldn't be able to grab. And down throw must be modified to avoid chain grab.

How can they say Yoshi is worse with all the buffs he has?

Because for one thing, the chain grab and guaranteed grab-release attacks were both extremely helpful against around half the characters in the roster.

Even on non-CG-able characters, grab-releases offered good follow-up opportunities.

Considering he has the second-best pivot grab in the game, he should have something to follow it up with.

For all intents and purposes, Yoshi right now trades reliable follow-ups for being able to hit a little harder and survive a little longer. It's not a good trade.

 

[Rykoshet]

There's some discussion going on at the Yoshi boards regarding his grab-release things and discussing whether Yoshi is actually WORSE in BBrawl (which a lot of Yoshi mains are saying right now).

Rather than copy-paste or try to otherwise summarize the discussion up to this point, I'll take you guys to the thread:

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?p=7870185

What do you think about this?

(Warning: It gets pretty tl;dr after awhile.)

Sounds like they crutched something with unimaginative gameplay and theyre crying it's gone. It's simple enough, grab infinites are a no go in bbrawl, they can make like umbra and just learn to use the character for what it is now (which is a super heavyweight with amazing aerial mobility and decent to good killpower) or they can like... play another character. Yoshi's two weakness in bbrawl are excessive killpower against him and the inability to move out of his shield once a move scares him into it.

 

[Ryusuta]

Sounds like they crutched something with unimaginative gameplay and theyre crying it's gone. It's simple enough, grab infinites are a no go in bbrawl, they can make like umbra and just learn to use the character for what it is now (which is a super heavyweight with amazing aerial mobility and decent to good killpower) or they can like... play another character. Yoshi's two weakness in bbrawl are excessive killpower against him and the inability to move out of his shield once a move scares him into it.

All well and good... EXCEPT.

One of the principles they keep screaming from the rooftops is that they will do everything they can to not alter the way a character plays. This flies right into the face of that.

More importantly, they gave Falco, Pikachu, DeDeDe, and Ice Climbers viable alternatives to their chain grabs, so their grab game isn't totally reduced in usefulness. They've done no such thing for Yoshi.

 

[Rykoshet]

One of the principles they keep screaming from the rooftops is that they will do everything they can to not alter the way a character plays. This flies right into the face of that.

If preventable they'll do what they can to not change the base of how a character plays, Yoshi's grab infinite however wasn't even a throw based infinite like dedede, pikachu, or falco. Granted this obviously takes into account that it is subject to how long a stage is etc etc etc. They removed grab release combos and as a result yoshi's went along with it, that's unfortunate but it in no way crippled the character. Falco got throw alternatives but NONE are guaranteed beyond low percents so his fundamental (unimaginative) gameplay was changed to a greater degree than yoshi's, in both cases it wasn't preventable, so they were given things in exchange for their losses.

I'll upload a fight of umbra's yoshi vs my dedede, the character easily stands up without the ability to just chomp his way to excessive free damage. Unfortunately since I'm not home the only vid I have on me is a 6 min escapade on pirate ship.

 

[Ryusuta]

Yoshi's grab infinite

I noticed you called it this twice. For the record, he only has ONE grab infinite, and that's against Wario (hypothetically, this could be fixed by changing Wario's individual break against Yoshi). Beyond that he has chain grabs and grab-releases, but that's it.

As I said maybe three or four times before, I'm not necessarily saying to give Yoshi his grab releases back. I'm saying that he should be given something significant throw-related to compensate for it (extra pummel damage doesn't quite cut it).

 

[MorpheusVGX]

I suggest that many of you quit demanding changes in such an aggresive way. Let's not turn this into flame wars.
I am happy to hear that walk-off stages are going to be fair this time.

Don't forget this: It is said that no one ever wins a discussion. Why? Because both parts are more eager to defend their points than to listen to each other. So no one ever says.... Hmm. ok, you are right. Why? Because of pride. Because you don't want to loose on the discussion.

Usually, when you have a discussion, you don't give up until the end. But when you keep on thinking about that, you realize you were wrong or you may be wrong in some of your points. So, what's the important thing? To suggest when you discuss. To give arguments for your ideas to be thought later. If you try to force a : "Yes, you are right, I am wrong." in a heated discussion, it won't probably happen. People do not change their mind all of a sudden (most of the time) but they can, If you let them think them over for a while.

 

[Rykoshet]

I noticed you called it this twice. For the record, he only has ONE grab infinite, and that's against Wario (hypothetically, this could be fixed by changing Wario's individual break against Yoshi). Beyond that he has chain grabs and grab-releases, but that's it.

As I said maybe three or four times before, I'm not necessarily saying to give Yoshi his grab releases back. I'm saying that he should be given something significant throw-related to compensate for it (extra pummel damage doesn't quite cut it).

Semantics were covered when I said I accounted for the fact that it only goes for as long as you have stage, etc. It is in effect an infinite, it just obviously has a physical limit due to stage length. Do yoshi's even know how to use his throws anymore otherwise?

 

[Ryusuta]

Semantics were covered when I said I accounted for the fact that it only goes for as long as you have stage, etc. It is in effect an infinite, it just obviously has a physical limit due to stage length. Do yoshi's even know how to use his throws anymore otherwise?

Dude, do you realize just what you're asking?

That's like getting rid of Luigi's fireballs and then saying "Don't Luigis know how to approach anymore otherwise?"

Of course we know how. But the fact remains that his options aren't as plentiful or useful anymore. This is really the bottom line.

 

[Browny]

So I havent been following this in a while so excuse me if it has already been brought up.

But something I've felt for a long time in order to balance Olimar, IMO, is to reduce the speed of his neutral B. Considering the sheer punishment pikmin can take before dying, he can just keep his fortress of pikmin out in front of him almost indefinitely. Currently in brawl its about 6 per second. I think this should be reduced. Ideally to about 2 per second, but this of course doesnt compensate for characters like MK who will rip apart all 6 in one attack.

Give an incentive for Olimar players to not just mindlessly spam attacks and grabs and put some actual risk into his gameplay, it sure would make the matchup with almost every other character vs him more interesting when openings in his defense are actually possible, instead of relying on the olimar player to miss-space a pivot grab :/

 

[NintenJoe]

Din's fire without free fall actually helps Zelda recover a bit more safetly, so I like the addition. I actually switch to Zelda now when I can't kill with Sheik.

 

[DominusHaven]

I wanted to suggest a few minor changes to Pit to try and fix him up a bit more, just throwing some random things.

Pit had a few problems from before that I know were probably fixed due to the many changes of many different characters, and I just wanted to suggest a few things to help him a bit more.

I also wanted to request that maybe his D-smash and D-air could have just a bit more knockback, make it so that he doesn't have as much trouble killing as he already has, even though he is good at dealing damage.

He was already well off so your minor changes have already been good, I just know from experience Pit has a bad time killing and against some people has minor difficulty dealing damage against people that can space or out-speed him, so having a bit more killing power would probably benefit and balance him a bit more.

These were just some suggestions that I thought I could make.

 

[Linkshot]

The only change I would make it having first hit of fSmash actually chain to the second hit, if that hasn't already been done.

 

[deepseadiva]

If the Ice Climber's chain grabs are removed, I'd like to propose a radical idea:

Their grabs do 50% damage flat.

 

[Stealth Raptor]

even though you cant get rid of IC's cg's, you can increase the knockback so that they have a 1 frame window to regrab.

 

[Linkshot]

You can increase BKB in a way that Single can't chaingrab, and have no growth at all.

EDIT: As well as increase damage by +2

 

[deepseadiva]

I thought they were hard already.

 

[Renegade TX2000]

as much as i hate ice climbers... IC should be THE only one with CG's... yeah that's me but if you do take ice climbers cg's away, EVERY move should be buffed lol seriously. all his moves should be buffed if his cg is taken away.

Also i'd like to mention that if you do make ice climbers cg harder, he would be like a 70/30 match up vs snake I mean ally's snake already 2 stocks Lains ice climbers with his cg's

 

[Mr. Escalator]

They already stated that IC's will retain a CG that ends at around 70% (varies on characters) in addition to being buffed in a lot of other fields. The infinite just had to go, however.

 

[deepseadiva]

Oh, that's great then.

Wha page was that on...?

 

[adumbrodeus]

as much as i hate ice climbers... IC should be THE only one with CG's... yeah that's me but if you do take ice climbers cg's away, EVERY move should be buffed lol seriously. all his moves should be buffed if his cg is taken away.

Also i'd like to mention that if you do make ice climbers cg harder, he would be like a 70/30 match up vs snake I mean ally's snake already 2 stocks Lains ice climbers with his cg's

QFT, their character design is based around the infinite, removing it goes against the basic principals of the project.

Unless you replace it with another way to do exactly the same reason (better game design basically), then leave it in, it's how ICs should be. Buff or debuff their set-ups to make them better or worse.

 

[Renegade TX2000]

okay if Ice climbers cg's stop at around 70 i call a buff on him then. COMING from a person that hates this character more then mk and only experienced by playing this character not using.

 

[Deleted member]

we are talking about removing the infinite here people.

you should read the first post. there's a lot in it.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Thread can be found here: Link

Fox can do it too, with Shine. Apparently Zelda is prone to accidentally using Din's while attempting this technique.

Edit:

Regularly Ctrl + A --> Ctrl + C --> down arrow key to clear selection while typing up a post. It's saved me from stupid forum software too many times to count.

Fair enough, interesting point (all of you, just picking out this one quote), will be considered further.

I definitely noticed the Din's fire thing during my last play. Honestly I think leaving it in at least a bit longer before removing it is a good idea. She still has some end lag, so it isn't gonna be a total anti-edgeguard spamwall. I think everyone in favor of this would agree that removing the possibility of SD'ing because of Din would be really nice for both high and low level play. I occasionally still kill myself with the move simply because the floating effect screams "recovery benefit" loudly. Then I freefall and remember that isn't possible... =(

Speaking of Zelda's changes...

Why does Zelda get a flower effect and not Ivysaur's Dair?? =(

I know one of you guys already said you saw no need to change it (again). I just still wish Ivy would receive it. It matches it WAY more than Zelda placing it on the foes with magic....(Because "A wizard did it" always sounds better, right??) I guess that at this point I feel had I said something sooner, Ivysaur would have gotten that instead of the common knockback + damage buff on DAir.

It was stated that the flower effect inflicts damage equal to the actual attack's damage% over a period of time. This doesn't sound like anything that could quickly escalate to something overpowered (with senseble adjustments). That seems to indicate there's little danger of hurting Ivysaur's balance as long as the other elements of DAir are regulated.

On the one hand, I may be silly for bringing this back up. But on the other hand, not long after it was stated that such a change wasn't needed, it's suddenly an "interesting" idea to let Zelda put flowers on people. I know it was in response to solving a current issue at that time. Ivysaur though was also an issue before it got its buffs. I wasn't asking for more buffs, but a very fitting alternate buff. Zelda could have just did more damage.


(Due to DSi limitations, I'll finish this post when I get home. =/ )

The flower was more about function than form to be honest; the fact that it "seems right" was a nice extra. Don't worry about when things are posted because we will always view the standard Brawl versions of characters as the base.

As per Ivysaur and flowers, uair and dair really wouldn't work at all that way, Bullet Seed would be pretty silly that way, and usmash is a maybe... I don't know.

This looks awesome; my brothers and I are about to try this out. Hopefully this will be much better than Brawl+, especially with that stupid hitstun. Although I still have a couple of requests:

Slightly nerf knockback on Pit and Lucas's ssmash. Also, I would suggest fixing obvious invisible hitboxes, such as Lucas's usmash, Snake's utilit and ftilit, and any others you can find. I guarantee no one will complain about that.

Pit and Lucas need those moves to be good; they're core moves for characters that are definitely not overpowered.

As per the invisible hitboxes, given how much subconscious spacing goes into everything in a fighting game, we're extremely loathe to change any of them, assuming they're close enough to what the animation is that they work out. Snake would also instantly be low tier if we did that...

AA, you can't remove the infinite with the throw mod.
the problem if that whatever stats you give their throws, they regrab at the very moment the other let's go.

We can make it human impossible probably. Even lain has trouble cging certain characters (like Jigglypuff) that have physics he's not used to; making the cg radically harder to the point of being hopelessly impractical no matter how good you are past about 70% would be an acceptable solution I feel.

If preventable they'll do what they can to not change the base of how a character plays, Yoshi's grab infinite however wasn't even a throw based infinite like dedede, pikachu, or falco. Granted this obviously takes into account that it is subject to how long a stage is etc etc etc. They removed grab release combos and as a result yoshi's went along with it, that's unfortunate but it in no way crippled the character. Falco got throw alternatives but NONE are guaranteed beyond low percents so his fundamental (unimaginative) gameplay was changed to a greater degree than yoshi's, in both cases it wasn't preventable, so they were given things in exchange for their losses.

I'll upload a fight of umbra's yoshi vs my dedede, the character easily stands up without the ability to just chomp his way to excessive free damage. Unfortunately since I'm not home the only vid I have on me is a 6 min escapade on pirate ship.

I look forward to such videos.

I suggest that many of you quit demanding changes in such an aggresive way. Let's not turn this into flame wars.
I am happy to hear that walk-off stages are going to be fair this time.

Don't forget this: It is said that no one ever wins a discussion. Why? Because both parts are more eager to defend their points than to listen to each other. So no one ever says.... Hmm. ok, you are right. Why? Because of pride. Because you don't want to loose on the discussion.

Usually, when you have a discussion, you don't give up until the end. But when you keep on thinking about that, you realize you were wrong or you may be wrong in some of your points. So, what's the important thing? To suggest when you discuss. To give arguments for your ideas to be thought later. If you try to force a : "Yes, you are right, I am wrong." in a heated discussion, it won't probably happen. People do not change their mind all of a sudden (most of the time) but they can, If you let them think them over for a while.

I definitely appreciate a call to civility. That's all I have to say to this post.

So I havent been following this in a while so excuse me if it has already been brought up.

But something I've felt for a long time in order to balance Olimar, IMO, is to reduce the speed of his neutral B. Considering the sheer punishment pikmin can take before dying, he can just keep his fortress of pikmin out in front of him almost indefinitely. Currently in brawl its about 6 per second. I think this should be reduced. Ideally to about 2 per second, but this of course doesnt compensate for characters like MK who will rip apart all 6 in one attack.

Give an incentive for Olimar players to not just mindlessly spam attacks and grabs and put some actual risk into his gameplay, it sure would make the matchup with almost every other character vs him more interesting when openings in his defense are actually possible, instead of relying on the olimar player to miss-space a pivot grab :/

Olimar players would hate us forever, and it's a very, very risky direction to go with his design if nothing else. If I were designing the game from scratch, I'd definitely explore this avenue, but as someone just rebalancing the game, I fear this change would just be too radical.

I wanted to suggest a few minor changes to Pit to try and fix him up a bit more, just throwing some random things.

Pit had a few problems from before that I know were probably fixed due to the many changes of many different characters, and I just wanted to suggest a few things to help him a bit more.

I also wanted to request that maybe his D-smash and D-air could have just a bit more knockback, make it so that he doesn't have as much trouble killing as he already has, even though he is good at dealing damage.

He was already well off so your minor changes have already been good, I just know from experience Pit has a bad time killing and against some people has minor difficulty dealing damage against people that can space or out-speed him, so having a bit more killing power would probably benefit and balance him a bit more.

These were just some suggestions that I thought I could make.

Which matchups in specific does Pit struggle like this in, and is the trouble in those matchups overall preserved in Bbrawl?

I'm not discounting you, merely requesting more information.

as much as i hate ice climbers... IC should be THE only one with CG's... yeah that's me but if you do take ice climbers cg's away, EVERY move should be buffed lol seriously. all his moves should be buffed if his cg is taken away.

Also i'd like to mention that if you do make ice climbers cg harder, he would be like a 70/30 match up vs snake I mean ally's snake already 2 stocks Lains ice climbers with his cg's

We are well aware of the need to buff Ice Climbers once they lose their infinite.

QFT, their character design is based around the infinite, removing it goes against the basic principals of the project.

Unless you replace it with another way to do exactly the same reason (better game design basically), then leave it in, it's how ICs should be. Buff or debuff their set-ups to make them better or worse.

Actually, principle 1 is the highest principle of the project so leaving them in would contradict our basic principles. Removing infinites and other generally degenerate abuse is our single highest priority; the game is really nothing but worse for how the Ice Climbers work in standard Brawl. We do feel strongly that in addition to making the game flat out better by not having this raw nonsense in it we can make it better balanced this way. Among other reasons ICs always killing out of grabs is bad design is that it's extremely polarizing; can you imagine Ganon ever having a winnable ICs matchup if he can never survive being grabbed? That sort of thing is a compelling interest itself.

 

[Deleted member]

AA, I was talking about the infinite, not the chaingrab.

plz read better next time.

 

[Renegade TX2000]

well both cg and infinites need to GO... one of the directions this project is trying to fix

 

[Linkshot]

Except ICs have bad grab range and also take a LOT of skill, so if you get trapped in it and start getting chained, you're being beaten by the better player overall, not just somebody that can repeatedly dThrow.

EDIT: The only reason it needs to be nerfed is so that it's not an instant win.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

AA, I was talking about the infinite, not the chaingrab.

plz read better next time.

I wasn't aware the Ice Climbers had a non-infinite chaingrab. The two are one and the same. In this case, the point is that the chaingrab becomes basically impossible even for the most skilled players are some higher percentage (hopefully at least!), and that's good enough. Sure you're grabbing soon after they are released, but if the opponent is thrown fast enough, the window should be quite unreasonable.

If this turns out to be impossible that will be a concern, but I do understand what you are saying.

 

[Linkshot]

The chaingrabs are like the Ice Block, Footstool, Spike.

Infinites are Throw to Throw to Throw to Throw.

 

[Deleted member]

are you even talking about the alt-grabs? one climber regrabs as soon as the othe releases.
you can't fix that unless you make the throws unreasonably powerfull.

the way we removed them in B+ is not gonna fit in BBrawl unfortunately