Eldiran
Smash Lord
Nice. This is the kind of stuff BBrawl could use to make it more appealing.
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Balanced Brawl Standard Release
- Thread starter Amazing Ampharos
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CarVac
Smash Journeyman
Anyone have a video of the new-and-improved Castle Siege? I don't have a wii at the moment, so I can't try it out.
Mr. Escalator
G&W Guru
I'll get to work on recording that right now.
Anything else you guys want a video of? I don't have someone handy around to showcase the SDIing of dtilt locks, otherwise I would.
Anything else you guys want a video of? I don't have someone handy around to showcase the SDIing of dtilt locks, otherwise I would.
A2ZOMG
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That one is easy to do. Tape a control stick downwards for one character, spam A button against a wall with one hand (alternatively you can tiltstick), and then use your other hand to QCDI.
Lokee
Smash Apprentice
Thats a heck of a difference Their was also a lot of lag in the video for some reason maybe its my computer. What you should also do is post the link to this thread and for the other people plz clearly label that it is BBrawl as its hard to tell most of the time.
Also testing some Ike, Bowser, Ganon PSAs based on Super Armor and Shield Damage Modifiers.
rPSIvysaur
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I just want to make sure it's drowned out. B/c as I play against computers right now, Lucas D-air is EPIC FAIL.
prOAPC
Smash Lord
differences between BBrawl Lucas and vBrawl Lucas
rPSIvysaur
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I wouldn't do that until BBrawl Lucas is finalized, b/c first of all there's alot of arguing me and A2Zomg did for Lucas and second, they need to fix his d-air (and possibly d-tilt to go along with new Jab Lock coding)
Mr. Escalator
G&W Guru
I'm not going to make any videos for individual characters until the official next release OR when a character is finished and AA gives me the okay.
I have the video of castle siege, but youtube is undergoing some maintenance.
I have the video of castle siege, but youtube is undergoing some maintenance.
JOE!
Smash Hero
SA eh?
just for the sake of thematics...I think bowser could benifit the way squirtle does:
Shell grants super armor.
Hey guys, thought I'd check back in.
I really owe you guys an apology for vanishing; after my Wii broke (the one I borrowed from a family member AFTER my own Wii broke) I sort of dropped out of the smash scene entirely, temporarily.
Since I stopped visiting Smashboards and reformatted my computer (my MSN messenger and AIM accounts seem to be lost? I don't understand it...) I've sort of been out of contact with everyone in the smash community. I had a lot going on in my life, but it still would have been respectful to post some sort of message.
I'll try to stick around and help out frequently from now on, even though I still have two broken Wiis and no way to test or play anything... It's kinda sad, I always told Ampharos that Shield Damage would be the holy grail of balance parameters, and now that we've got it I can't do anything. Ah well, that's life.
Hmm. I guess you don't realize how much you missed a place until you go back.
I really owe you guys an apology for vanishing; after my Wii broke (the one I borrowed from a family member AFTER my own Wii broke) I sort of dropped out of the smash scene entirely, temporarily.
Since I stopped visiting Smashboards and reformatted my computer (my MSN messenger and AIM accounts seem to be lost? I don't understand it...) I've sort of been out of contact with everyone in the smash community. I had a lot going on in my life, but it still would have been respectful to post some sort of message.
I'll try to stick around and help out frequently from now on, even though I still have two broken Wiis and no way to test or play anything... It's kinda sad, I always told Ampharos that Shield Damage would be the holy grail of balance parameters, and now that we've got it I can't do anything. Ah well, that's life.
Hmm. I guess you don't realize how much you missed a place until you go back.
Rykoshet
Smash Champion
There is no way to affect shield push as opposed to damage, right?
I'm pretty sure shield pushback is directly tied to knockback in the same way shield damage is directly tied to damage (though it also has a special parameter that can let it do extra shield damage).
Still waiting to hear about experiences with the test build. What little people have said has already been useful and informative (Red X found two bugs!). This is the stuff that is really important right now, hearing about how clean the transition to .pac was, hearing about direct hands-on impressions of the changes so far, etc.
Still waiting to hear about experiences with the test build. What little people have said has already been useful and informative (Red X found two bugs!). This is the stuff that is really important right now, hearing about how clean the transition to .pac was, hearing about direct hands-on impressions of the changes so far, etc.
i messed around with charizard's jab 1 on marth in frame by frame mode and from what i could see, zard can't jab cancel into anything before marth can dolphin slash. this doesn't mean he doesn't have something on a few characters without f1 invincibility but it suggests he can't do anything over the top good, like dtilt (you are underrating this move AA!).
i think someone mentioned this already but ddd's down throw is unchanged from vbrawl.
in playing random dittos against the CPU, i landed one jiggs dair on a shield and i was impressed. it does serious shield damage. jiggs still doesn't have very much out of a dair hit but it's more of the threat that it should be, imo.
nice to see you again thinkaman! if you could, elaborate on what you think of jiggs dair? right now it has increased shield damage which takes, i'd say, nearly half of a usual character's shield out.
i think someone mentioned this already but ddd's down throw is unchanged from vbrawl.
in playing random dittos against the CPU, i landed one jiggs dair on a shield and i was impressed. it does serious shield damage. jiggs still doesn't have very much out of a dair hit but it's more of the threat that it should be, imo.
nice to see you again thinkaman! if you could, elaborate on what you think of jiggs dair? right now it has increased shield damage which takes, i'd say, nearly half of a usual character's shield out.
Linkshot
Smash Hero
Apparently there's also a parameter in Flags that can increase priority.
Perhaps looking into this for Falcon and Ganon would be beneficial?
Perhaps looking into this for Falcon and Ganon would be beneficial?
rPSIvysaur
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That's not the kind of priority you are thinking of Linkshot. All it does is make moves not "clank". Actually increasing the priority would mean editing the hitbox size.
Lokee
Smash Apprentice
He's right, Priority in this game is based mostly on how much damage an attack can do but more importantly hitbox sizes such as Snake's seemly high priority which is just a matter of who can hit the other's hurtboxes first. Using Snake again, he has both in his Ftilt, Damage and giant unreal unfair etc. hitboxes.
Also when looking through Ganon's PSA to change some of his stuff it seems that Wizkick is a Special Offensive Collision and I was trying to edit the Shield Damage on his kick but doing that does nothing as far as I know but rather you have to go edit base knockback which is tied together with the Shield damage which in turn ,increase one increases the other. By the way the Base Knockback for Wizard'sFoot is 4 and the shield damage is also 4 so yeah...
Also when looking through Ganon's PSA to change some of his stuff it seems that Wizkick is a Special Offensive Collision and I was trying to edit the Shield Damage on his kick but doing that does nothing as far as I know but rather you have to go edit base knockback which is tied together with the Shield damage which in turn ,increase one increases the other. By the way the Base Knockback for Wizard'sFoot is 4 and the shield damage is also 4 so yeah...
rPSIvysaur
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Woah, just name searched. I'd be flattered to help join AA's team.
Shield damage:
http://allisbrawl.com/blogpost.aspx?id=22016
Interesting stuff really. It seems intuitively right to me, and I really doubt he just pulled that out of his rear end. He makes no mention of Yoshi, unfortunately.
The damage ftilt does isn't enough to give it real priority. A hitbox must be 10% or more greater than another to actually destroy it. That means only hitboxes with a base damage of 11% or more even quality; I don't believe either individual hit of Snake's ftilt does that much even in standard Brawl. Our changes to Wizard's Foot were set to focus on just that actually; making the initial hit 16% and the later hits 11% let it beat out certain things.
http://allisbrawl.com/blogpost.aspx?id=22016
Interesting stuff really. It seems intuitively right to me, and I really doubt he just pulled that out of his rear end. He makes no mention of Yoshi, unfortunately.
The damage ftilt does isn't enough to give it real priority. A hitbox must be 10% or more greater than another to actually destroy it. That means only hitboxes with a base damage of 11% or more even quality; I don't believe either individual hit of Snake's ftilt does that much even in standard Brawl. Our changes to Wizard's Foot were set to focus on just that actually; making the initial hit 16% and the later hits 11% let it beat out certain things.
http://i367.photobucket.com/albums/oo113/EternalYoshi/Ftilt-1.gif
you can't tell me that isn't real priority
also i just learned that some of snake's attacks have ridiculous values for additional shield damage
all the more precedent for giving ike more
and this isn't on particularly slow moves either, it's on jab1/2, ftilt 1, dair, usmash
you can't tell me that isn't real priority
also i just learned that some of snake's attacks have ridiculous values for additional shield damage
all the more precedent for giving ike more
and this isn't on particularly slow moves either, it's on jab1/2, ftilt 1, dair, usmash
Lokee
Smash Apprentice
Nice read, love understanding the specific mechanics of a game. Anyway if anyone cares I finished my Ike Test Pac. I basically messed around with Shield Damage and Armor Frames
Ike Changelist:
Ftilt- SD=20/SA=frame 10-16
USmash- First hits SD20/Final hits SD=25
Fair- SD=25/SA=frame 10-17
Nair- SD=15/SA=frame 7-14
Bair- SD=15
SD stand for Shield Damage and SA stands for Super Armor.
Also I may have overdone it on Fair but ill yet you judge
Ike Changelist:
Ftilt- SD=20/SA=frame 10-16
USmash- First hits SD20/Final hits SD=25
Fair- SD=25/SA=frame 10-17
Nair- SD=15/SA=frame 7-14
Bair- SD=15
SD stand for Shield Damage and SA stands for Super Armor.
Also I may have overdone it on Fair but ill yet you judge
A2ZOMG
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This Ike is still pretty much going to clearly suck against Diddy and Falco as far as I'm concerned, but it looks better.
Linkshot
Smash Hero
I can't stop watching that .gif. It's like he's...dancing.
A2ZOMG
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Okay, you know what on Ike actually needs a shield damage buff?
Jab.
Ike's closeup game is crippled by the fact that ultimately he can't do anything safe that really encourages the opponent to stop implementing shield.
So anyhow, shield damage is linear with attack damage as I recall, and a shield can take 70% worth of damage. I'd suggest adding a modifier of at least 8 to Jab1, making his fresh Jab do 12 base shield damage, which in theory can break shield in 6 hits. Jab2 should have a modifier of at least 7, also making its fresh shield damage 12. Full Jab combo at this point does over 30 shield damage, which should rarely happen against good players, so I would consider this a fair deal for Ike.
Shield damage buffs on everything else will make him look really gimmicky in a dumb noob friendly way imo.
But if you want to buff his aerial shield damage, I think they should do no more than 20 shield damage when fresh. Any more than that and you're just going to have noobs who don't know how to powershield complaining that Ike is cheap and not actually paying attention to his real problems.
As for shield damage and Ganon, that would best be done on Jab and F-air. Ganon's Jab needs a 1% damage buff in the first place to make it reasonably powerful to compensate for how awful it is in general, and then add 5 shield damage so that it does 15 fresh damage.
Ganon's F-air could use a +8 modifier on shield damage so that it does like 25 shield damage, which should be enough to deplete a shield to the point where Ganon can start approaching with the lingering hitbox of N-air. Although...Ganon still needs a speed buff to just allow him to do something if they spotdodge on reaction.
As for SA frames, small SA frame changes that aren't out frame 1 but implemented on slow moves are only going to look gimmicky as far as I'm concerned. The only move where I think SA frame changes would look good is on Ganon's SideB. Maybe on the windup (but not on the charge frame) of Bowser's F-smash (since I heard it was that way at E for All).
Jab.
Ike's closeup game is crippled by the fact that ultimately he can't do anything safe that really encourages the opponent to stop implementing shield.
So anyhow, shield damage is linear with attack damage as I recall, and a shield can take 70% worth of damage. I'd suggest adding a modifier of at least 8 to Jab1, making his fresh Jab do 12 base shield damage, which in theory can break shield in 6 hits. Jab2 should have a modifier of at least 7, also making its fresh shield damage 12. Full Jab combo at this point does over 30 shield damage, which should rarely happen against good players, so I would consider this a fair deal for Ike.
Shield damage buffs on everything else will make him look really gimmicky in a dumb noob friendly way imo.
But if you want to buff his aerial shield damage, I think they should do no more than 20 shield damage when fresh. Any more than that and you're just going to have noobs who don't know how to powershield complaining that Ike is cheap and not actually paying attention to his real problems.
As for shield damage and Ganon, that would best be done on Jab and F-air. Ganon's Jab needs a 1% damage buff in the first place to make it reasonably powerful to compensate for how awful it is in general, and then add 5 shield damage so that it does 15 fresh damage.
Ganon's F-air could use a +8 modifier on shield damage so that it does like 25 shield damage, which should be enough to deplete a shield to the point where Ganon can start approaching with the lingering hitbox of N-air. Although...Ganon still needs a speed buff to just allow him to do something if they spotdodge on reaction.
As for SA frames, small SA frame changes that aren't out frame 1 but implemented on slow moves are only going to look gimmicky as far as I'm concerned. The only move where I think SA frame changes would look good is on Ganon's SideB. Maybe on the windup (but not on the charge frame) of Bowser's F-smash (since I heard it was that way at E for All).
CarVac
Smash Journeyman
Does anyone know if the shield damage modifier affect shield stun? Or is it just proportional to plain damage? Or what? If so, adding large amounts of shield damage could create frame advantages.
As for Super Armor frames, my gut says not to put them on aerials. That just seems unnatural.
As for Super Armor frames, my gut says not to put them on aerials. That just seems unnatural.
Eldiran
Smash Lord
Good to see ya back, Thinkaman! Even if you're not set up to be able to contribute to BBrawl testing-wise, it's nice to know you're still around.
I concur that Super Armor is something that should be used very sparingly. Even just increasing the SA frames on Eruption would be a large change in timing for the enemy and player. I'd be more open to making the SA frames into invincibility frames than adding more SA.
I really like the idea of shield damage to fix Ike (and maybe Ganondorf's) problems. Possibly if Ike's Fair, Nair, and/or Bair got a reasonable amount of shield damage, he could start to actually put pressure on people. Naturally, he'd still have to try his hardest to be unpredictable, or his aerials would just get powershielded.
Similarly, one approach to Ganon would be to give his Fair or Nair some shield damage.
That is a nice article on shield damage, by the way. Although, I thought larger shields could take more damage overall?
I really need to get the test build up and running so I can give it a go. I really like the character-specific pages too, by the way. If they got updated when version 2 is ready, and one were made for each character, (no small task) I think that could help make BBrawl a good deal more appealing.
I concur that Super Armor is something that should be used very sparingly. Even just increasing the SA frames on Eruption would be a large change in timing for the enemy and player. I'd be more open to making the SA frames into invincibility frames than adding more SA.
I really like the idea of shield damage to fix Ike (and maybe Ganondorf's) problems. Possibly if Ike's Fair, Nair, and/or Bair got a reasonable amount of shield damage, he could start to actually put pressure on people. Naturally, he'd still have to try his hardest to be unpredictable, or his aerials would just get powershielded.
Similarly, one approach to Ganon would be to give his Fair or Nair some shield damage.
That is a nice article on shield damage, by the way. Although, I thought larger shields could take more damage overall?
I really need to get the test build up and running so I can give it a go. I really like the character-specific pages too, by the way. If they got updated when version 2 is ready, and one were made for each character, (no small task) I think that could help make BBrawl a good deal more appealing.
Lokee
Smash Apprentice
Maybe I did over do the Armor but I figured it be alright and it did made the attacks more reliable I guess thats what tests are for. Basically my Idea with Ike was to keep him slow but have some more partially safe yet still damaging attacks. The SA was there to keep the attack going no matter what and the SD was there to punish shielding.
The Fair in my Ike Pac had 25 shield damage and super armor begining about the moment both of Ike's hands grabbed the sword and continued and ended when the hitboxes came out. It still loss to PowerShielding but when hitting a Regular Shield it did tremendous Shield Damage and made the attack relatively safe on shield. I believe it only took about 2 consecutive Fairs to break a shield. Same occured with my Ikes Ftilt to a lesser degree. Its Really a shame that mostly everyone in the game has 0 shield damage with the exception of a few choice attack. It could have made shielding less prevalant.
And A2zomg I wouldnt think it matter for these "noobs" if they found changes like these OMG broken as they are probably the kind that still think Ike is the cheapest thing since sliced bread. Remember we are creating for the mythical high level play which is obviously much different then low level or casual play
For those saying it looks wierd or doubts the use of SA. There are many examples of the game's strange use of SA and related modifiers in other characters.
For Example Wario's Fsmash is a good example of SA magic durability. His SA comes out on frame3, hitboxes come out frame4, and "both" end on frame 7 allowing him to plow through attacks.
Then we have Bowser and his legendary Up B AKA Fortress where he is actually intangible for the first 5 frames. Meaning no damage, no affect from anything, virtually invincible.
We also have one of the more wierd looking SA in Snake's Up B AKA Cypher which has Damage reliant armor that is set to about 7% which means no attack under that percent can move him, can still take damage but is unmovable. You cant tell me that doesnt look out of place somehow.
All Im saying is be a bit more open to the ideas I can understand being conservative about these kind of changes but I mean come on, we already got Ike flying.
Also kinda noted above. I like to sync SA frames to animation frames just letting you know. I was working on making Bowser recovery different as well. Very drastically but I was going to make it like his grounded UpB, Intangible for 5 frames and throughout the entire move have damage reliant Super Armor set to about 10% mostly for stopping MK gimping.
The Fair in my Ike Pac had 25 shield damage and super armor begining about the moment both of Ike's hands grabbed the sword and continued and ended when the hitboxes came out. It still loss to PowerShielding but when hitting a Regular Shield it did tremendous Shield Damage and made the attack relatively safe on shield. I believe it only took about 2 consecutive Fairs to break a shield. Same occured with my Ikes Ftilt to a lesser degree. Its Really a shame that mostly everyone in the game has 0 shield damage with the exception of a few choice attack. It could have made shielding less prevalant.
And A2zomg I wouldnt think it matter for these "noobs" if they found changes like these OMG broken as they are probably the kind that still think Ike is the cheapest thing since sliced bread. Remember we are creating for the mythical high level play which is obviously much different then low level or casual play
For those saying it looks wierd or doubts the use of SA. There are many examples of the game's strange use of SA and related modifiers in other characters.
For Example Wario's Fsmash is a good example of SA magic durability. His SA comes out on frame3, hitboxes come out frame4, and "both" end on frame 7 allowing him to plow through attacks.
Then we have Bowser and his legendary Up B AKA Fortress where he is actually intangible for the first 5 frames. Meaning no damage, no affect from anything, virtually invincible.
We also have one of the more wierd looking SA in Snake's Up B AKA Cypher which has Damage reliant armor that is set to about 7% which means no attack under that percent can move him, can still take damage but is unmovable. You cant tell me that doesnt look out of place somehow.
All Im saying is be a bit more open to the ideas I can understand being conservative about these kind of changes but I mean come on, we already got Ike flying.
Also kinda noted above. I like to sync SA frames to animation frames just letting you know. I was working on making Bowser recovery different as well. Very drastically but I was going to make it like his grounded UpB, Intangible for 5 frames and throughout the entire move have damage reliant Super Armor set to about 10% mostly for stopping MK gimping.
rPSIvysaur
[ɑɹsaɪ]
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>.>
<.<
I don't think through the entire thing should be done, but during the start-up of the aerial one would be good so he can get through the first attack and not be autogay.
Linkshot
Smash Hero
Ganon's Jab feels like a tilt almost. Maybe it should be buffed to 13 damage on the sweetspot?
A2ZOMG
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Why just on the sweetspot?
I mean like wut, at point blank range Ganon's Jab does like 5-7% or something. It sucks.
Besides that it's less safe than most tilts on block or spotdodge...Yeah seriously, why does Ganon's Jab even have to be sweetspotted in the first place? That's just gay and unnecessarily fail.
I mean like wut, at point blank range Ganon's Jab does like 5-7% or something. It sucks.
Besides that it's less safe than most tilts on block or spotdodge...Yeah seriously, why does Ganon's Jab even have to be sweetspotted in the first place? That's just gay and unnecessarily fail.
ぱみゅ
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Again, there's no "rules about jabs". It's just another kind of move, and knowing your character's moveset is most important than homogenize it to make a general metagame comfortable.
You won't pick ganon unless you like him anyways (that what I've learnt with Zelda ;_; ), and you have to know him in order to compete.
You won't pick ganon unless you like him anyways (that what I've learnt with Zelda ;_; ), and you have to know him in order to compete.
But I thought Samus was already alot better now.
A2ZOMG
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There are no "rules" yes. However for characters to be viable, there are requirements.
And Ganon is sorely not meeting them.
Linkshot
Smash Hero
Ganon is ****** and thusly feels he needs not meet requirements.
Hyrus
Smash Journeyman
Right! It's not like it's called Balanced Brawl or that balancing the cast is a goal of the project. Seriously, people need to wake up and realize that unique qualities that make ROCK so completely different from SCISSORS are more critical than SCISSORS having a chance at beating ROCK. After all, the winner should be declared at the moment of picking your characttelrjalsfjsdlvdv.
Eldiran
Smash Lord
The cast would be very homogenous if every character had a chance at winning ;P
But to be more serious, I think he meant more that
Balance is indeed the name of the project, but diversity isn't up for being sacrificed. Sacrificing diversity is just fake balance anyway. I'll explain this point a little more in-depth so we don't have misconceptions.
In any fighting game, there is a natural rift between diversity and balance. The whole idea of balance is that assorted game units (in the case of a game like smash bros, that means mostly characters... though stages too to an extent) are as close to each other in overall value as possible. Diversity means those same game units are as different from each other as possible. It's obvious how these two conflict. When things are similar, they naturally drift toward being balanced as they have the same principles governing them. When things are different, they naturally drift toward imbalanced because, as Hyrus put it, ROCK beats SCISSORS. It may even be that in this game PAPER beats SCISSORS too; maybe SCISSORS just really sucks on a fundamental level.
However, the best balanced fighting games are the ones that optimize not just balance on the raw level but the product of balance and diversity. Street Fighter 1 is not considered a serious fighting game despite being the most balanced fighter of all time; having more than one selectable moveset is generally considered more important than all selectable characters being equal in value. We could go for fake balance easily enough; we just fix the bad things about every character. Make Ganon faster and safer while making Sonic more powerful at scoring KOs, that sort of thing. Maybe we don't have to go all the way; maybe we just turn Ganon into a second Donkey Kong and Sonic into a second Fox while letting Donkey Kong and Fox still be pretty different from each other. However, it's all the same bad. Why even have Ganondorf and Sonic in the game if they are just going to be very similar to Donkey Kong and Fox?
What that means for this project is that, yes, we're committed to making every character viable, and yes that includes characters like Ganondorf. However, what makes Ganon unique is simply not up for sacrifice. Making Ganondorf similar to other characters is not a lot different from removing him from the game. In the end, this makes the balancing job harder, and since perfect balance is impossible unless we make all characters exactly the same and thus any project can only attempt to approach it, this probably means our final approach toward balance will be slightly sub-optimal since we deliberately deny ourselves many things that could help us balance. That's okay. The game is better this way.
Ganondorf is also seriously not that bad right now, just saying.
And as per what makes a character viable, you have to think on a higher level. Ultimately, a character's viability can be measured by 36 numbers, and those are matchup numbers. If a character has all matchups that are close to even and not basically all of them negative, they're viable. There are other viable matchup spreads than just that model too, but let's not get into the nitty gritty. Within a matchup, what determines how good or bad it is is best measured primarily by risk-reward style analysis. Each character has a variety of potential strategies they could employ, and those all carry assorted levels of risk and promise assorted levels of reward. The opposing character can employ their own strategies as attempted counters and they are likewise. If one character has a low risk high reward answer to almost everything the other character can do with the remainder of what the other character can do not being really, really awesome, then the matchup is probably skewed. However, matchups like high risk high reward versus low risk low reward are not necessarily skewed; those are all just a function of the particular risks and particular rewards. Things on a lower level than that, such as power, speed, or range, are useful tools, but they are ultimately below the radar of balance in the same way things like "has a frame 1 invincible move" or "has a full screen projectile" are. The lower level than that is things like "has a jab that hits in under 3 frames" or "has a forward smash that does over 20% damage"; it's just getting into more specific things that are too narrow to provide insight. They matter, but they matter because they influence higher level things, not as independent entities. They are adjusted, but they're adjusted in a big-picture kind of way, not for their own sake.
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In any fighting game, there is a natural rift between diversity and balance. The whole idea of balance is that assorted game units (in the case of a game like smash bros, that means mostly characters... though stages too to an extent) are as close to each other in overall value as possible. Diversity means those same game units are as different from each other as possible. It's obvious how these two conflict. When things are similar, they naturally drift toward being balanced as they have the same principles governing them. When things are different, they naturally drift toward imbalanced because, as Hyrus put it, ROCK beats SCISSORS. It may even be that in this game PAPER beats SCISSORS too; maybe SCISSORS just really sucks on a fundamental level.
However, the best balanced fighting games are the ones that optimize not just balance on the raw level but the product of balance and diversity. Street Fighter 1 is not considered a serious fighting game despite being the most balanced fighter of all time; having more than one selectable moveset is generally considered more important than all selectable characters being equal in value. We could go for fake balance easily enough; we just fix the bad things about every character. Make Ganon faster and safer while making Sonic more powerful at scoring KOs, that sort of thing. Maybe we don't have to go all the way; maybe we just turn Ganon into a second Donkey Kong and Sonic into a second Fox while letting Donkey Kong and Fox still be pretty different from each other. However, it's all the same bad. Why even have Ganondorf and Sonic in the game if they are just going to be very similar to Donkey Kong and Fox?
What that means for this project is that, yes, we're committed to making every character viable, and yes that includes characters like Ganondorf. However, what makes Ganon unique is simply not up for sacrifice. Making Ganondorf similar to other characters is not a lot different from removing him from the game. In the end, this makes the balancing job harder, and since perfect balance is impossible unless we make all characters exactly the same and thus any project can only attempt to approach it, this probably means our final approach toward balance will be slightly sub-optimal since we deliberately deny ourselves many things that could help us balance. That's okay. The game is better this way.
Ganondorf is also seriously not that bad right now, just saying.
And as per what makes a character viable, you have to think on a higher level. Ultimately, a character's viability can be measured by 36 numbers, and those are matchup numbers. If a character has all matchups that are close to even and not basically all of them negative, they're viable. There are other viable matchup spreads than just that model too, but let's not get into the nitty gritty. Within a matchup, what determines how good or bad it is is best measured primarily by risk-reward style analysis. Each character has a variety of potential strategies they could employ, and those all carry assorted levels of risk and promise assorted levels of reward. The opposing character can employ their own strategies as attempted counters and they are likewise. If one character has a low risk high reward answer to almost everything the other character can do with the remainder of what the other character can do not being really, really awesome, then the matchup is probably skewed. However, matchups like high risk high reward versus low risk low reward are not necessarily skewed; those are all just a function of the particular risks and particular rewards. Things on a lower level than that, such as power, speed, or range, are useful tools, but they are ultimately below the radar of balance in the same way things like "has a frame 1 invincible move" or "has a full screen projectile" are. The lower level than that is things like "has a jab that hits in under 3 frames" or "has a forward smash that does over 20% damage"; it's just getting into more specific things that are too narrow to provide insight. They matter, but they matter because they influence higher level things, not as independent entities. They are adjusted, but they're adjusted in a big-picture kind of way, not for their own sake.
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Samus's bombs are already pretty good. The way she uses them in Balanced Brawl is how they seemed like they should always work in standard Brawl. She lays a bomb while retreating at a medium range, and if the opponent closes in, the bomb covers the space. Even if they hit Samus, the bomb does enough damage that it's probably a favorable trade made better by how Samus is a character that has amazing survivability and thus more often benefits from trading damage than most characters. Exploding on contact would be the sort of change we generally try to avoid, and it's just unnecessary because her bombs are already a good move, probably better as an actual attack than they ever have been in previous smash games even where they did explode on contact.
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