Balanced Brawl Standard Release

[Linkshot]

Defeats the core of Pokemon Trainer; your Pokemon faints so you have to switch to the next.

 

[Alphatron]

I like the idea of choosing which pokemon to switch to upon death.

 

[Lokee]

here's a bbrawl trick for PT: taunting restores like 15 seconds of stamina.

I think it be more of a trick if standing still restores stamina

Also I think we should let Ivy get the Dair buff as well the previously implemented Upbuff but put like a 2 or 3 limit on its use.

For what its worth Ivysaur doesnt deserve a recovery that terrible in the first place.

EDIT:

Well actually, I've been testing some Ganon stuff with his d-smash and I've found a way to make something unshieldable, however there could possibly still be a few bugs. Anyway, we should see what AA thinks before we do it.

That be a cool new concept for Smash Bros. Heavy/Slow characters with "Unblockable Attacks"

 

[The_Altrox]

Defeats the core of Pokemon Trainer; your Pokemon faints so you have to switch to the next.

but even so, it's always been a reason why PT struggles despite having good options. Look at Squirtle and Charizard in vBrawl. Both are good characters, and if they were ranked individually, Squirtle would probably be high tier, and Charizard mid. Even if all three are equal leveled in BBrawl, the fact that people can not choose one is gonna detract players who may want to use him. That was one thing I liked in B+, because you can choose whether or not you want to use full PT, or just one pogeyman. I mean, I'm sure there would be advantages to using regular PT in a battle. If you can switch up your playstyle enough, you can keep the opponent guessing. Good PT's can do that, and it's an admirable trait. But at the same time, you have to admire the guy who can just use Squirtle, or Charizard, or Ivysaur as a stand alone and kick serious tail all the same. I mean, isn't that what BBrawl is about? Balancing the game for all characters? PT may be balanced as a whole, and that's good, but it would also be a good and expansive addition to add the pogeymen as stand alones as well. Developing a new metagame right there.

Of course, I doubt this will change anybodys mind, so that's just my two cents.

 

[Eldiran]

Unblockable attacks sound pretty nifty. For some reason I can't help but want Ganon's Ftilt to be unblockable, even though that is possibly more potent and drastic than his current SA test buff.

@Altrox: There have many many debates on the subject of Pokemon Trainer, and the final response has been that splitting him up (or even allowing it as an option) is an unnecessary change that takes away from PT's uniqueness, and is contrary to BBrawl's goals.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Din's Fire would be the best move to make unblockable imo. It would not make the move broken, but it would force almost all characters to approach from the air, which is something Zelda wants.

 

[The_Altrox]

@Altrox: There have many many debates on the subject of Pokemon Trainer, and the final response has been that splitting him up (or even allowing it as an option) is an unnecessary change that takes away from PT's uniqueness, and is contrary to BBrawl's goals.

How does it take away from him though if you still have the option? You could still play that PT or have three alternatives. If anything, PT would keep his uniqueness, and you'd get a bonus otherwise

 

[Steeler]

the fact of the matter is that players wouldn't play PT in that case, they'd just go their best pokemon game 1 and then counterpick one of the other pokemon in games 2/3 if necessary

also charizard is low in vbrawl and squirtle is around top of mid, i've seen a lot of variance on how good people think squirtle is, but he is basically an alternate wario that people don't know how to fight yet because there isn't much matchup experience for this character. people didn't know how to fight wario at first, hype went way up. people learned wario, he went back down a whole tier.

 

[rPSIvysaur]

Ganon's U-tilt being unblockable would be interesting.

 

[Nakihito]

more damage on fair...like 15-16% total. if you make that move like 10 frames, ike suddenly shuts down tons of characters imo...it is the most disjointed normal aerial in the game or something right?

I think Link zair and Samus's zair both have as much if not more range than Ike's fair without all of the terrible landing lag and they can be be done out of an air dodge. Also, Ivysaur may have similar range on her bair, but I'm not sure.

Funny, that wall o text on Ike.

I've been saying basically that for quite a long time.

Some of it is a little rehashing and rephrasing of what you and Ryko have been saying for the past few months now. I was mostly trying to bring most of it into one post and then propose changes that would fix his problems.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I think Ike mainly needs extra shield damage on Jabs so that his efforts Jabbing people who time shieldgrabs aren't completely wasted.

 

[Gea]

it's just meant to be a trick.

Which is not what this project is supposed to be about?

 

[rPSIvysaur]

PUBLIC TEST DOWNLOAD LINK
Note that download package includes Smash Stack and a .gct code file that includes Disable Custom Stages.

Alright, here we go. I'm going to preface this by repeating the idea of generally giving each character 1 flashy change or new tool that can attract people to BBrawl. (While improving balance, of course.) I'm going to call them BBrawl Tricks for now. A lot of these might be controversial--that is why this public release exist. Please give feedback and discuss!

These are changes made from the previous test build to the current. Unless otherwise noted, assume all previous changes are in effect.

Changelist

Wall of Text

I'm going to follow this post with a ton of commentary. In the meantime, enjoy!

Keep in the loop dude.

 

[Mit]

That still really needs to be added to the first page, or atleast to their Blog. Pretty dumb that I had to aimlessly sift through pages of posts to find where they posted the darn changelist.

Anyhow, Ivysaur: I think is better left without that up-B buff. It was a little campy (you could stall for a pretty long period of time falling from the sky, and, neat tip: you could actually fly into the air indefinitely when playing micro-sized, even higher with a bunny hood I believe. I took pictures of it when I flew Ivysaur into space, outside of the level's skybox), and overall didn't look very neat.

Dair boosting is a more than good enough recovery boost I think. You just have to DI high, and recover high, which a lot of other characters already have to put up with. DI to the corners, or as high as possible, "glide" back using dair boosting, and continue.


Agreed on some more Ike buffs.


On Captain Falcon's Falcon Kick canceling, I think it could be a lot less ridiculous looking if you weren't allowed to cancel the ending lag with another Falcon Kick. If you restrict it to side-B, up-B, and Falcon Punch, it'd tone the crazy factor down a bit and prevent ludicrous spamming of Falcon Kicks. It also prevents the ridiculous distances he can cover in shorter periods of time by falcon kicking across stages and off platforms. Just leave it to the falcon kick -> raptor boost combos or the falcon kick -> falcon dive combos and it should be a lot neater.

 

[Steeler]

you can only specify what category of moves to cancel with, and iirc, it can only cancel into "specials" with no kind of differentiation.

 

[PKNintendo]

Hello friends. Can someone point me towards the final changelist?

(I can't seem to find it...)

 

[MorpheusVGX]

Do you have the codeset from the latest test build? I cannot find it.

 

[A2ZOMG]

It's on page 302.

 

[Gea]

About to have some good players over. Might test current build. Will give impressions.

As a side note, I still think that most of the "BBrawl tricks" go beyond what the project originally intended. That saddens me. I mean you could put things like wind hitboxes on Lucario's up B and other strange, smaller changes towards characters, but what's the point if your goal is to balance the game?

 

[TP]

What's the point of having an amazing game if nobody bothers to try it out?

 

[Mit]

you can only specify what category of moves to cancel with, and iirc, it can only cancel into "specials" with no kind of differentiation.

Argh, this is exactly what I was afraid of when making that suggestion.

 

[Gea]

What's the point of having an amazing game if nobody bothers to try it out?

Well, the project is in an awkward area. If it actually did do the original mantra, I bet it would be far more popular. Though I think some guidelines would need to quickly be drawn, starting with minimal nerfs. The only one I'd consider worth doing is MK's Nado. Save the bigger things (DDD's dthrow and grab release/locks) for last, because they aren't currently centralizing the metagame and thus are low priority. Bring everyone up to Snake/MK level, then apply minor nerfs. It's a lofty goal, but it seems that it's one that is fading away into just "Brawl... different!"

The issue is appealing towards the demographic this was really aimed for, tournament players. That means easing into some ideas that I personally like, but puts others off (stages, nerfs towards characters). If that isn't the philosophy shared by the project leads, so be it, but that's how I see things. The more you alienate your players, the fewer will be enthusiastic of supporting the project on a larger scale. For better or worse, DDD's dthrow CGs are out and thus DDD players are alienated, etc.

Anyways, people are here. Let's see if they want to play and how they feel. The people over think B+ and other mods are a joke, so it will be interesting to see their impressions.

 

[dragoncrescent]

here's a bbrawl trick for PT: taunting restores like 15 seconds of stamina.

That... might be a really interesting trick. By the end of a stock, the Pokemon is probably close to exhaustion. This might lend Pokemon Trainer an interesting mechanic wherein he would have to choose to either switch out or taunt. It gives players who prefer to stick with one Pokemon an option to do so, albeit at a price, while still encouraging those who utilize PT's multiple personalities to do so. I would think 15 seconds is a bit much, though. Squirtle has some pretty quick taunts, so you could probably recover 30 seconds easily. This would give players less incentive to switch out, since 30 seconds is a good part of the next stock. How about 10 seconds?

Somebody earlier recommended Super Armor on the space animals' transmission taunts. I would agree with SOMETHING to encourage their usage. How about making them quicker? You have to stand still for a full ten seconds as you're activating it. Would it be possible to tone the waiting time down to a standard taunt length, or about the time it takes to use Pokemon Change?

Also, I agree; we need a dedicated topic to BBrawl matchups.

On the topic of unblockable attacks: No. Just no. Tabuu has them because he's a boss! Giving ANY character a move that is almost guaranteed to hit is ridiculous! Not only does it add an entirely new mechanic to Brawl, trivial attacks can become game-breakers. I understand attacks that discourage you from shielding (something like Marth's Shield Breaker), since it punishes players for being too defensive. Unblockable attacks are taking it too far. Punishing someone for shielding at all will make one player ultra-reliant on that move, while taking a lot of the fun out for the other. We know some characters have really horrible spotdodges, or dodges in general. These characters can't rely on dodging too much, so they instead must use their shields. Unstoppable attacks would outright wreck these characters!

 

[JOE!]

Unstoppable attacks are beat by:

getting out of the way, outprioritizing/claning the attack, intterrupting the attack, dodging

it just eliminates 1 option...

 

[A2ZOMG]

Dragoncrescent, there is a reason why people can't spam grabs all day (although a lot of us will try). If grabs really were as good as you were implying, Bowser would be top tier.

And he's frankly not that good.

Attacks being unblockable isn't a broken mechanic.

There is in fact one attack that is as "ridiculous" as your specifications implies. Wario's Neutral B. Not only is this move a grab, it's a LINGERING grab, meaning it beats both shield, spotdodge, and in fact many attacks. It doesn't really make Wario excessively broken though.

 

[MorpheusVGX]

I am really sad to read that now Balanced Brawl is going in this direction. Although some of you (who already play hacked brawls or just Balanced Brawl) support this new test build, I strongly suggest that you think about this. Because the problem here is with those that aren't playing any hacked brawl and are hard to bring to this new thing.

You once started a project with a goal which was balance. Now this has turned into a flashy collection of changes to attract people to the game. Read this carefully: If the goal of this hack is to enjoy a balanced game and people are not attracted to that, then this it is a complete waste of time to try to get them attracted with something else as the essence of this project is not appreciated. They could be attracted to play with a hacked version using sounds and textures and along with that have a balanced game (that is working for me here in Buenos Aires), but please, do not make BBrawl differ from vBrawl this much regarding gameplay. This tricks change gameplay in a heavy way and transition from vBrawl to BBrawl and viceversa was supposed to be smooth. You made me believe in your strong principles about this project and now you are pissing over them with this.

You once told me that this was not an expansion pack. You strived for a balanced game. The reason many people do not feel attracted to brawl is not a lack of "cool" changes. I know the best smashing crew of Buenos Aires and I am working to convince them to keep trying Balanced Brawl. The usual reasons for not wanting to play it are:

-lazyness to adapt to a new system (so this new tricks make things worse in this regard),
- lazyness to read a changelist,
- lazyness to hack their wii or read how to do it with the stage builder system.
- usually they have not felt the game is that umbalanced. They may be good at playing but are not commonly defeated by the same characters or broken moves.
- And the most important reason is that they don't feel anyone else is playing it. And the supporters of this project are guilty for that.

Why are there so few Balanced Brawl videos on the internet? Almost no tourneys or casual matches. You need to upload matches so people can see the game is being played and enjoyed and that is diverse , balanced and competitive. The solution you seek will be a complete fail.

I have to say that if Balanced Brawl keep going in this direction I will have to keep with the Standard Release, and sadly, I told those who are now converted to Balanced Brawl that the creators would keep working to perfect its balance, but not this way. What can I say to them now? There are no future Balanced Brawl versions to follow. Not if Balanced Brawl will turn into this.

On the other hand I feel this changes are so heavy that balance will lose control again. You have completely changed the way many characters can recover (ex. the space animals) and made some moves very spammable and pretty safe (ex. peach bomber). You are going to ruin Balanced Brawl going this direction.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Well, as Gea said, maybe we aren't using the proper appeal words...
Someone in a mexican thread said "Brawl as it should be", but that banner was already used by B+, with other meaning...

imo, BBrawl original conservative idea still could be more than just enough to reach our "Balance" goal. We need to think a way to make people wanting to try this. Because, well there are people that could sell a rock on $2 if they want... So, why we don't?

 

[Gea]

The current philosophy is "In other words, no one should have any problem moving between standard Brawl and Balanced Brawl. There should be nothing to learn, relearn, or unlearn as you play one or the other."

Which is a joke. Even in the standard release it's a joke. DDD's entire game is changed, Ganon's dtilt is drastically different, ICs can't CG the same way, etc.

No matter how subtle the changes are, you're going to have to relearn somethings. While keeping moves similar is a good idea, changing some moves to make the game better is ultimately the only option you have. This has become obvious (though over the top) with some of the current changes. I think it's worth asking, "Is the problem with Brawl locks/CGs, or is it just fundamental problems with some of the characters? Sure, Fox gets gayed by a few matchups with ******** locks, but that should have never been then first thing to go.

First, consider fun. Fun is subjective, yes, but feeling like your character is fluid and amazing is fun. Feeling nerfed? Not fun. A good philosophy to have. There are a few changes that contribute to fun, namely the fixing of the up B lag glitch and the no random tripping. The rest I'll get to much later.

What's centralizing the current metagame? MKs who aircamp until you commit into a move, then they nado. So what's the issue? Nado. Okay, that's something to work at, and is the only real change to the viable characters that matters. Who are other "viable" characters in Vbrawl (currently)?

-Snake, Diddy, Wario, Marth, Falco and to a lesser extent, DDD/GW. The lower you go on the list, the harder it will be to buff without making the character feel "different." Some characters will be harder to buff due to how they function (say, ICs/Lucario). Extra care is needed with them.

Okay, good, so we focus from the top down on the rest, which means really the next character to look at is Pikachu (according to the current tier list, skipping over ICs for now).

Now let's look at the current BBrawl changes to Pika:

Forward throw knockback (110/45) -> (10/80)
Up throw damage (10%) -> (11%), knockback (45/90) -> (45/100)
Down throw knockback (38/60) -> (1/79), angle (80) -> (95)
Skull bash can be shield canceled when charging
Sourspot Fsmash has a steeper angle

What really holds Pikachu back in Vbrawl? Killing power and approach, really. He has a great grab game with mixups, a good projectile, good mobility, decent weight, decent pokes, does fair damage. As it's been stated many times, you don't want to take away all the weaknesses of a character if it makes the character unique in some way. I agree to a point. Now, not everyone will agree with changes that could improve pikachu into "currently viable" levels of good, but let's throw out some ideas:

Killing power ideas:
- Change the sweetspot of fsmash from his cheeks to the tip.
- Consider tailspike from Melee
- Consider a buffed usmash in knockback, maybe more like the power of Snake's utilt in strength?
How to help him approach:
- Reduce landing lag on fair even more to give mixups
- Give his dtilt a decent chance of tripping
- Make one of his aerials (say, bair?) eat at shields and stun it slightly

Now consider what current BBrawl items would not be bad changes for Pikachu:
- Skullbash canceling. Is there an argument against this?
The rest I really can't comment on, because for now I think the CGs should stay.

Apply say, one of the killing powers in and maybe test one of the approach options (though really, with a decent killing option he would be much better) and test. Feel happy? Check him off for now, move on.

Rinse and repeat. As you get lower things will get more difficult. How do you fix Ike? Ganon? You're going to have to overhaul them in some ways, I agree. I disagree that it means keeping some gawdawful aerial lag in favor of "invincible wizards foot." These characters VBrawl metagames all function off of abuse of what few decent, quick moves they have. The rest is just outspacing. You can be the "slow but powerful" type without feeling unable to jump.

At the end, see how locks and grab releases still factor into play. If after tournament testing the characters who get gayed still do (namely the fatheads and fox), take another look at the issue. Otherwise consider it matchups. Introduce the new stages slowly and see how they work.

That is my take and the project and where it should go. You might not agree, you might want something drastically different. But for tournament players, they don't want really strange changes. A minority want corneria back. Most just want a game where more than MK is viable, the game has slightly less camping and offense is more prominent. Aka buff, don't nerf. Focus on moves that aren't projectiles, preferably ones that are already "useless." Leave the "engine changes" (minus the glitch fix and tripping) until the very end.

Balanced Brawl: Where upper tier is over 30 characters big.

 

[Linkshot]

The D3 chaingrab is removed mainly so that we can use half the stagelist

 

[TP]

Gea, here is Brawl as it truly should be:

1) Every character is balanced when using standard tournament rules.
2) Superior skill is essential to beating your opponent.
3) The game is enjoyable for everyone.
4) The game is not only fun to play, but also fun to watch.
5) The best strategies are not the easiest ones ("Easy to learn, impossible to master").

BBrawl seeks to create this game. The chaingrabs HAD to go. If they are still there, points 2 and 5 fail. Don't try and tell me the difficulty of ICs chaingrab makes it require skill. Practice does not equate to actual skill at the game, although they are at least correlated. Don't tell me we can just rebalance it and say we're done, either. I don't know about you, but I HATE watching Brawl videos. They're boring. Genesis had equal entrants for Melee an Brawl, but an overwhelming majority wanted to watch Melee. We need to create the appeal that is apparently lacking in the normal version. That is where the tricks come in.

I've presented several opinions as facts during this post. Feel free to disagree with them and debate me.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Actually, CGs would make 3, 4 and 5 fail.

But anyways, Thinkaman said "the least noticeable, the better", so the tricks are way too much for trying go ahead with that phlosophy...

 

[PKNintendo]

Balanced Brawl: Where upper tier is over 30 characters big.

Isn't this a good thing?
And I disagree with the notion of buffing Pikachu an already great character. The BBrawl changes were nice little additions, but they were surely not mean't to make the character better significantly.

 

[IrohDW]

I have some ideas for bbrawl tricks that I think should be considered:

Bowser: I don't think that fsmash needs super armor. Its high priority and backwards movement during startup already make it good enough at hitting opponents. I think that a move that bowser really needs to have super armor on is his down b. It is really punishable if it misses and the first hit (when used on ground) doesn't always lead to the second. I think that the first hit should lead to the second and that it should have super armor as long as the hitbox is out.

Donkey Kong: One unique thing that Donkey Kong has is his cargo throws. Unfortunately, not only are his throws bad for comboing and killing (besides throwing people under the stage), but If someone holds up they get out far more quickly than they would by mashing buttons.. Something should be done to make this unique ability more useful. At the very least I think that holding up shouldn't help in breaking out of cargo throws.

Ice Climbers: IC mains have little incentive to play bbrawl due to how much harder it is to chaingrab. I think that a good way to give them incentive to switch to bbrawl is to make nana have 0 input lag when shielding. This would allow both Nana and Popo to powershield the same hit. I also think that something should be done to strengthen their desynch game if possible.

Ike: Ike has always been a character that relies on reading an opponents mistakes and punishing them due to how slow his hitboxes come out. The concept of Counter fits perfectly with this aspect of his playstyle. I don't think that the move is beyond saving. If the counter frames start sooner, the hitbox comes out sooner, and it does 1.5X damage instead of 1.2X it will become a much more useful part of his metgame while still being very punishable on whiff.

Kirby: I don't think that your current buff to copy goes far enough. In many kirby games, the ability kirby gets is better than what the enemy he copies it from can do. I think that this should also happen in brawl. Small, subtle buffs will make kirby much more versatile and interesting to play. This would be a pain to program, but I think it would be worth it.

Link: I don't like the idea of buffing Link's recovery despite how much I hate it. Instead, I think that his boomerang should be buffed. I think that the windbox it has when it returns to him should deal damage like the windbox on Ganon's utilt does. This would make it much easier to combo someone that is carried to him. As things are now it is possible for the person being pulled to Link to attack him, which hinders its usefulness. This buff would make boomerang shenanigans much more interesting.

Lucario: Lucario has always been said to be the character that is capable of great comebacks. I think that this should be enhanced by slowly increasing his launch resistance as his damage increases. This would increase the likelihood of lucario users reaching his maximum aura during each stock and would allow them to enjoy its benefits for a little longer than he does now.

Ness and Lucas: I think that you should consider making pk fire, pk freeze, or pk flash unblockable. their slow startup ,low range and powershieldability make them too easy to avoid. Making them unblockable would make it more difficult to dodge and would help them to force approaches.

Olimar:I think that his up b shouldn't put him in a fallstate. I think it should be like sonic's recovery where he isn't in a fallstate, but he can't upb again either. This would allow him the opportunity to try to attack someone as he dies if he is close enough to the ledge.

Pit: I would like to see some kind of buff on his shield. He is the only character in the game to have an attack like that, I'm sure that you guys can find some use for it besides reflecting projeciles and turning opponents around.

Snake: I think that his downsmash should be buffed. I think that once enough time passes instead of disappearing as it does now, it should explode like his c4 does when its timer runs out. If its possible, It should be changed so that it doesn't detonate if someone roll dodges over it.

Sonic: One of Sonic's most unique attributes is his spindashes. Unfortunately, their low priority makes it too easy to counterattack it. I think that Sonic should have heavy armor when the hitbox is out on all of his spindashes so that this unique aspect of his gameplay becomes more useful.

Toon Link: One possible trick for toon link is to give him his hurricane spin attack from Wind Waker. This could be done by allowing him to move forward and backward after a fully charged spin attack.

Wolf: I think that Wolf's blaster could be made more unique (compared to fox and falco) by giving it more knockback growth. This would make it useful in getting an opponent off the stage at high percents which would give him the opportunity to kill with his aerials.

I like the new direction that this project is going in that characters are being made more interesting while still maintaining balance. I hope that these ideas may be useful in making the next version of Bbrawl.

 

[Gea]

Gea, here is Brawl as it truly should be:

1) Every character is balanced when using standard tournament rules.
2) Superior skill is essential to beating your opponent.
3) The game is enjoyable for everyone.
4) The game is not only fun to play, but also fun to watch.
5) The best strategies are not the easiest ones ("Easy to learn, impossible to master").

BBrawl seeks to create this game. The chaingrabs HAD to go. If they are still there, points 2 and 5 fail. Don't try and tell me the difficulty of ICs chaingrab makes it require skill. Practice does not equate to actual skill at the game, although they are at least correlated. Don't tell me we can just rebalance it and say we're done, either. I don't know about you, but I HATE watching Brawl videos. They're boring. Genesis had equal entrants for Melee an Brawl, but an overwhelming majority wanted to watch Melee. We need to create the appeal that is apparently lacking in the normal version. That is where the tricks come in.

I've presented several opinions as facts during this post. Feel free to disagree with them and debate me.

Sure.

1) Actual balance is impossible
2) That's impossible to qualify past a certain extent. These characters will never be perfectly balanced. Accept that now. I agree that more = better.
3) lol. Why is that even in here? You're asking for a game that requires skill to perform but is enjoyable to everyone? And you're asking me to take you seriously?
4) Spectators are of second nature, but it would give your codeset a boost. The less camping, the better.
5) Difficulty is subjective. The best strategies are running away and forcing approach based on %. If you want to go deeper into that, Brawl still lends itself to very simple strategies being the best since "combos" don't really exist. You can either perform the skill or you can't.

You're looking at this entire issue differently from me. You're asking for something that is subjective and impossible. Sure, you can say you want to get "as close as possible," but it was lost at some point. You go on to bring up Melee in this discussion (which has chaingrabs at high levels of play) and want something as exciting as that?

You're arguing for changes to the core of Brawl's system. Might I suggest looking towards "Project M?"

The D3 chaingrab is removed mainly so that we can use half the stagelist

Stages are less important than establishing the roster as actually fulfilling the philosophies the build set out to do, whatever those may be. I also believe they were taken out mostly due to making some matchups skewed heavily in DDD's favor and this was seen as "unbalanced." I might also bring up the fact that upon creation of the original codeset, DDD was a much more feared character.

And while I think that DDD needs tweaks to fit into the game without being a one trick pony, I don't think removing the Dthrow did anything but alienate players and change DDD's style so significantly that it already broke the rules initially set up. However, I think that taking out chaingrabs preemptively did nothing but hurt the cast. Instead of looking at a character as a whole, I feel like the changes were made to try to meet matchup ratio quotas.

Let's be honest here, how many characters thrive on CGs in actual play? DDD and ICs, with Falco as a subset. What characters work mainly on locks? Sheik. Who gets gayed by grab release? Really only the fatheads (By Marth, PT, and a few others). Who wins big tournaments? None of those characters. Wario deserves it if he gets grabbed. That is fair punishment for a mistake. Jab locks? Fair punishment for a mistake. Footstool locks? Sure don't see those dominating.

On the note of stages... It is a depressing truth, but a real one. The most popular stages are the most "boring" ones. In general, most people avoid playing on stages like Japes, Cruise, hell, even Lylat. Even after removing finlocks Corneria wouldn't be a popular stage and might even be banned (assuming this was the new big ruleset). Stages take a large backseat to characters.

And I disagree with the notion of buffing Pikachu an already great character.

I respect your opinion, but I do think he remains unviable for high level of play, good or not. Thus I think that minor buffs (such as something like switching his fsmash sweetspot to be in a reasonable place) would suit him greatly. If he had a clear setup into a kill (uair -> nair is as close as it gets at the moment) like Diddy, I wouldn't consider his killing prowess to be so bad. However, he has real troubles killing and his bad matchups are really because he can't approach nor kill, so he's left camping and poking and hoping.

So I guess the question with this is where do you set the bar? I would consider the entire project a success if the characters were "viable" in high levels of play. I also want to stress that I believe in no nerfs minus tornado need to be made.

 

[xxpikalexxx]

Hey I have a problem, I can't get BBrawl to load. Whenever I try to load it with gecko, it says "sd codes found, loading title etc." But then a message titled "Exception (DSI) occurred!" with lots of random code on the screen. does anybody know how to fix this so i can actually try out Balanced Brawl?

 

[Gea]

Try a clean install from a fresh SD card / fresh download. I had issues myself until I did this.

 

[Linkshot]

I have some ideas for bbrawl tricks that I think should be considered:

Bowser: I don't think that fsmash needs super armor. Its high priority and backwards movement during startup already make it good enough at hitting opponents. I think that a move that bowser really needs to have super armor on is his down b. It is really punishable if it misses and the first hit (when used on ground) doesn't always lead to the second. I think that the first hit should lead to the second and that it should have super armor as long as the hitbox is out.

Donkey Kong: One unique thing that Donkey Kong has is his cargo throws. Unfortunately, not only are his throws bad for comboing and killing (besides throwing people under the stage), but If someone holds up they get out far more quickly than they would by mashing buttons.. Something should be done to make this unique ability more useful. At the very least I think that holding up shouldn't help in breaking out of cargo throws.

Ice Climbers: IC mains have little incentive to play bbrawl due to how much harder it is to chaingrab. I think that a good way to give them incentive to switch to bbrawl is to make nana have 0 input lag when shielding. This would allow both Nana and Popo to powershield the same hit. I also think that something should be done to strengthen their desynch game if possible.

Ike: Ike has always been a character that relies on reading an opponents mistakes and punishing them due to how slow his hitboxes come out. The concept of Counter fits perfectly with this aspect of his playstyle. I don't think that the move is beyond saving. If the counter frames start sooner, the hitbox comes out sooner, and it does 1.5X damage instead of 1.2X it will become a much more useful part of his metgame while still being very punishable on whiff.

Kirby: I don't think that your current buff to copy goes far enough. In many kirby games, the ability kirby gets is better than what the enemy he copies it from can do. I think that this should also happen in brawl. Small, subtle buffs will make kirby much more versatile and interesting to play. This would be a pain to program, but I think it would be worth it.

Link: I don't like the idea of buffing Link's recovery despite how much I hate it. Instead, I think that his boomerang should be buffed. I think that the windbox it has when it returns to him should deal damage like the windbox on Ganon's utilt does. This would make it much easier to combo someone that is carried to him. As things are now it is possible for the person being pulled to Link to attack him, which hinders its usefulness. This buff would make boomerang shenanigans much more interesting.

Lucario: Lucario has always been said to be the character that is capable of great comebacks. I think that this should be enhanced by slowly increasing his launch resistance as his damage increases. This would increase the likelihood of lucario users reaching his maximum aura during each stock and would allow them to enjoy its benefits for a little longer than he does now.

Ness and Lucas: I think that you should consider making pk fire, pk freeze, or pk flash unblockable. their slow startup ,low range and powershieldability make them too easy to avoid. Making them unblockable would make it more difficult to dodge and would help them to force approaches.

Olimar:I think that his up b shouldn't put him in a fallstate. I think it should be like sonic's recovery where he isn't in a fallstate, but he can't upb again either. This would allow him the opportunity to try to attack someone as he dies if he is close enough to the ledge.

Pit: I would like to see some kind of buff on his shield. He is the only character in the game to have an attack like that, I'm sure that you guys can find some use for it besides reflecting projeciles and turning opponents around.

Snake: I think that his downsmash should be buffed. I think that once enough time passes instead of disappearing as it does now, it should explode like his c4 does when its timer runs out. If its possible, It should be changed so that it doesn't detonate if someone roll dodges over it.

Sonic: One of Sonic's most unique attributes is his spindashes. Unfortunately, their low priority makes it too easy to counterattack it. I think that Sonic should have heavy armor when the hitbox is out on all of his spindashes so that this unique aspect of his gameplay becomes more useful.

Toon Link: One possible trick for toon link is to give him his hurricane spin attack from Wind Waker. This could be done by allowing him to move forward and backward after a fully charged spin attack.

Wolf: I think that Wolf's blaster could be made more unique (compared to fox and falco) by giving it more knockback growth. This would make it useful in getting an opponent off the stage at high percents which would give him the opportunity to kill with his aerials.

I like the new direction that this project is going in that characters are being made more interesting while still maintaining balance. I hope that these ideas may be useful in making the next version of Bbrawl.

Almost everything you listed here has already been done by Brawl-.
Simply put, try again.

 

[TP]

Sure.

1) Actual balance is impossible
2) That's impossible to qualify past a certain extent. These characters will never be perfectly balanced. Accept that now. I agree that more = better.
3) lol. Why is that even in here? You're asking for a game that requires skill to perform but is enjoyable to everyone? And you're asking me to take you seriously?
4) Spectators are of second nature, but it would give your codeset a boost. The less camping, the better.
5) Difficulty is subjective. The best strategies are running away and forcing approach based on %. If you want to go deeper into that, Brawl still lends itself to very simple strategies being the best since "combos" don't really exist. You can either perform the skill or you can't.

You're looking at this entire issue differently from me. You're asking for something that is subjective and impossible. Sure, you can say you want to get "as close as possible," but it was lost at some point. You go on to bring up Melee in this discussion (which has chaingrabs at high levels of play) and want something as exciting as that?

You're arguing for changes to the core of Brawl's system. Might I suggest looking towards "Project M?"

1) Starcraft disagrees. I know they only have 3 instead of 37, but the point is that you can always strive to make the game as balanced as possible. Even if you never get there, you can still get "close enough" for it to be considered perfect.
2) Meh. No response.
3) Don't forget that this project is based on "We all like Brawl as it is, but here's this improved version." If you don't consider Brawl enjoyable, you won't like BBrawl (unless the chaingrabs were the problem for you). This one is more a matter of keeping the game fun, not adding in the fun.
4) Agreed, less camping = more spectating.
5) Most of the skill in Brawl (once you get past the basics) comes from spacing and zoning See this video. There is not a single thing in it that either Ally or ADHD does that I can't do. They just didbiu it better, mainly thanks to constantly analyzing the situation and getting in a good spot. Difficulty may be subjective, but performing the right skills is NOT all there is to it.

I love Brawl just fine. If I didn't, I would be on one of the other codeset threads. That doesn't mean it can't be improved.

 

[Gea]

Unfitting analogies and lack of point

What's your point, exactly? I seem to have lost any argument you may have had. Your original comment was something like, "If you build it, they won't come. You have to put up neon lights first."

And I'm saying, "You tried to build it, but somewhere along the way the blueprints were lost." (I go on to give my own blueprints)

 

[TP]

I'm too tired to debate well. Sorry bro.