Balanced Brawl Standard Release

[A2ZOMG]

What Hyrus said.

Ganon's poor recovery and mobility in general means as the stage is moving, he's constantly being set up for punishment trying to fight the stage. He can't throw out attacks while the stage is moving since that is suicide for a laggy character like him who needs to constantly be jumping.

 

[NovaRyumaru]

Rumble Falls, we seriously do not need more stages that screw with horrible recoveries.

Rainbow Cruise at least moves really slowly at all times. Rumble Falls also has really annoying ceilings that you can't jump through.

Norfair is a stage that I think however is worth tweaking. Noteably, Link and Ganondorf enjoy this stage a lot as I recall. Mainly the thing that upsets me most about that stage, the lava pillars are a fair bit too powerful and game changing.

Pretty much anyone that has a good hitbox to attakc from below likes this stage. Give me Falcon and i can annoy the crap out of anyone by abusing the fall through platforms

Drop to dodge, u-tilt's massive hitbox and excellent speed almost ensures a hit depending on the recovery time of what you dodge, also you coudl Drop through, hop and knee , but time it right so instead of landing on that same platform you fall through it still thus you can keep poking at them from below. xD

Also very fond of that stage with yoshi, drop through the ledge, flutter up and fire a f-air as you start fluttering. Regardless the outcome, with good placement you shoudl either be too far for them to punish or be able to hit them as soon as they try to with a n-air, but being out of their reach after doing so is more ideal, or better yet planting them with the sweetspot and ground pounding.

Still in favor of giving Yoshi at least one good OOS option, jabing would be very nice or just increasing his shield grab speed.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

However, Rumble Falls really sets Ganondorf up to use his uair a lot, and it's easy for Ganondorf to utilize the structure of the stage to force the opponent into him. Gimping basically doesn't exist in Rumble Falls either; Ganondorf's mediocre recovery is a literal non-factor which is a pretty big positive to consider in matchups like Ganondorf vs Meta Knight or Ganondorf vs Jigglypuff. I won't claim it's a grade A Ganondorf stage, but he's not the worst character there at all, and it would even be a good cp for him in some matchups (against Falco in particular, Rumble Falls would be one of the best stages Ganondorf could pick).

The speed up is a little much for poor Ganon, but with its normal movement, I really don't think it's bad for him (seriously, Rumble Falls moves really slowly when speed up is not in effect; it's slower than Rainbow Cruise). You have to be really low on the stage before even Warlock Punch constitutes suicide (other than the way it always does where your opponent just kills you for doing it), and it doesn't take long to scale the stage even as Ganondorf. If the speed up was gone, I don't think it would be a stage smart Ganondorf players would use their personal bans on very often.

I actually have specific experience in using Ganondorf on Rumble Falls. Anyone who wants to argue this specific point further I ask to be able to claim the same.

In general, just picking "neutrals" is a horrible strategy for Ganon (if you have the very limited idea of which stages that includes like most people who use the archaic term "neutral" do); those tend to be his lesser stages... One of the most common motifs of non-traditional gameplay tends to be gimmicks to force people into you or force fighting to happen in a much smaller than usual area. This is pure positive for Ganondorf. The way some of these stages reward high mobility certainly does him no favors, but his abilities to effectively attack in every direction (specifically up, a very, very critical attack direction on some of these less traditional stages at which Ganon really excels) and the way the guy who hits really hard is naturally going to favor a little chaos somewhat make up for it. This is one of the ways we worked to design for balance actually; look at how long the Bbrawl recommended stage list even is and further consider how we would like to make it longer (with better tools). Think of how many of these stages that weren't there in standard Brawl are good for characters who were former low tiers and how it is a sort of nerf for guys like Diddy Kong and Falco who otherwise got treated with kid gloves in a way (each lost one powerful abuse but otherwise kept everything that made them good). This is all deliberate, and Sakurai did a lot of the same thing in obviously factoring in diverse stages into the game's natural balance (though that point is really lost on a lot of people).

And no, fighting the stage is NOT a legitimate complaint. For one, the Klaptrap (which is a reptile, not a fish) on Jungle Japes is non-random in when it appears. If you get hit by it, there is one and only one person to blame, and that's yourself. Dealing with it existing is pure skill, and it's unfair to the players who are good at managing it to avoid the stage. I mean, if you don't know the timing of Klaptrap and aren't good at forcing people into it and avoiding being forced into it, you deserve to lose when someone cps you to Jungle Japes... or you had better be willing to use your personal ban on that stage instead of any of the other stages that may be better for you character. It's not a less legitimate reason to lose than any of the positioning described on Final Destination; it's in league with losing to G&W dthrow tricks because you don't know your G&W matchup and don't realize you can tech it. There's no problem with the game; one player just needs to get better.

As per hazards that are actually random (like on Norfair and maybe Onett; Onett's cars have a rhythm to them, but I'm not sure if they're actually totally static like Klaptrap is), they are seriously not that bad. You know what the hazards can do (I should say you better know what they can do or else you just lose, and then it's your fault alone), and you know the types of positions that are so bad. Like on Onett, sure I know you can have somewhat unfortunate wake-up situations where you get knocked down by a wall right as the warning sign appears and your opponent pressures competently. The thing is you had so much chance to avoid this. When you went down into that lower area where the car can come, you took a calculated risk. When you backed up into the corner where your options are more limited, you took a big calculated risk. You then failed to avoid taking a hit substantial enough to knock you over, and you further missed a tech. Now, after choosing to take two risks and then making two mistakes, a random element is causing a problem for you. What is really to blame for whatever bad happens to you? Note that if you exercise skillful play and good prediction, it's still not "checkmate". You can predict your opponent's method of pressure, evade, and shield the car. There is always time to do that from when the warning comes up. So, you have to choose to take risks and then make mistakes for a random element to cause you trouble. Even then, you can apply skillful play to get out of trouble, and remember that harassing you is causing your opponent to put himself at risk most likely so it's very possible you can reverse a lot of situations and get them hit instead of you! Remember this hazard does 30% damage and never, ever kills so, while I wouldn't be in a rush to get hit by it, it's not like you're going to lose just because it hit you anyway; getting hit by the car is likely just a small contributing factor to the overall match outcome. This is 100% definitely competitive (it's emphasizing decision making and player-player interaction and counterplay while adding more game elements), and it's also good game design. There's a problem if a random element is exceptionally powerful such that the tides of the match ride on chance in the long run, but the only stage on which that's really true in standard Brawl is WarioWare Inc. with the random stars and whatnot. On something like Onett, that's not true at all, and I think most people are being dishonest with themselves when they argue that it is. In either case, none of this is "fighting the stage" because, in all cases, it's what your opponent does that matters. If one character can create pressure situations on a stage that are too powerful and there's an argument to be had, argue that, but don't say anyone is "fighting the stage" because it's not true in any meaningful sense of the word "fight".

There is also randomness in every match on every stage, and some of it is more powerful than some of this stage stuff. Do you know what random element is way more match changing than the cars on Onett? Peach's turnips! She pulls three of them and gets a Beam Sword; that totally changes the match. She pulls 100 of them and never gets anything special; that is also a way of "changing the match" since if she really did pull 100 she was probably counting on getting something good and didn't. Nothing random on Onett can ever come close to changing the match like that. Now, I'm going to say Peach's down special isn't going to and shouldn't change. Using it is in a way playing the odds, and the correct strategy for fighting against Peach is informed by the nature of this move and the ways to minimize the odds of her exploiting the really good stuff it can randomly do. A good question to ask with any random stage element is "is this more or less powerful than Peach's down special in how randomness changes the way it affects the match?". If the answer is "less", it's probably unreasonable to complain about it, and I think for most stage related random events (though not quite all of them), the answer is in fact "less".

People really need to give more stages a shot. There's just more to the game this way, and it really does flesh out the full balance of the game. The only things a stage needs to be good are consistent results (better player almost always beats lesser player) and general fairness to the whole cast (I'm not saying "neutral" because those types of stages don't and can't exist; I'm saying characters shouldn't be auto-win or auto-lose just because of a particular stage). I think people who ask for more out of stages are trying to narrow the game into something unnatural for the game that makes it a worse game...

 

[CarVac]

The klaptrap is fine, because heavier characters can survive better and lighter characters can avoid it better. (Hint: it's heavily DIable, and you can shoot at a 45-degree angle to the right. I survived with Yoshi at 50% once.)

However, Rumble Falls is so heavily biased against the heavy characters simply because the stage is not allowing them to fight. Simply because they always have to jump, and spend more time jumping than a lighter, faster opponent, they have less time to attack, or more importantly, defend.

Rainbow Cruise is more balanced because it is not always rising, and because the carpets give a free ride to anyone who stands on them.

I think that Rumble Falls's advantage for quicker characters is too strong to allow it to be used as a counterpick. It's not even random, like some other hazards, it's continuous.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I in fact did play some friendly matches with Ganon on Rumble Falls (FFAs to be precise). Pissed me off to no end trying to chase down people with better jumps. The really bad platform layout and ceilings here and there also really get in the way, and as if it wasn't hard enough to land Flame Chokes already, it's pretty much impossible on this stage for the most part.

 

[NovaRyumaru]

I in fact did play some friendly matches with Ganon on Rumble Falls (FFAs to be precise). Pissed me off to no end trying to chase down people with better jumps. The really bad platform layout and ceilings here and there also really get in the way, and as if it wasn't hard enough to land Flame Chokes already, it's pretty much impossible on this stage for the most part.

If you think it's annoying with Ganon, try with Bowser...

On another topic, DK's punch, why does it still put you into the falling state?

 

[rPSIvysaur]

I have a question, with Brawlwall, it should be now possible to add grab-able ledges. What would this mean for Summit in BBrawl? Would it be too circle campy or do you think it could make it a legitimate counterpick?

 

[NovaRyumaru]

I have a question, with Brawlwall, it should be now possible to add grab-able ledges. What would this mean for Summit in BBrawl? Would it be too circle campy or do you think it could make it a legitimate counterpick?

Personally, I don't see it as a viable counterpick as you could easily camp the 'lower' level with someone like Marth giving most people no chance at hitting you unless you slip up.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I don't see what you mean by camping the lower level with Marth. As far as I can tell, the stage helps favor people with relatively low mobility and massively powerful Smashes due to the unpredictable nature of sliding exploits. Marth's Smashes aren't massively powerful without tippers. Probably a bigger problem of the lower area is being under a techable ceiling, not to mention when the iceberg falls, it REALLY slows down the gameplay if you don't have something like G&W's D-air to pull you towards the ground.

The fish is gay, but prevents people from water camping, which is probably fundamentally gayer. If you gave this stage ledges, it would be quite helpful for someone like Ganon at least.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Summit's only real problem is the loop. Unfortunately, that's a pretty big problem, and I'm not sure there's a good fix available right now.

I have made a new version of Spear Pillar (Dialga) that should address most of the biggest complaints from the current version. The camera and lower death zone are much better behaved (tether characters don't auto-die on long range snaps; the lower death zone is actually identical to Battlefield's with the camera keeping somewhat high but not nearly as high as it used to), and the lower area just has no collision. I also moved up ICs Final Smash to be more useful with the lower area gone, not that that really matters.

http://www.filefront.com/15336109/STGTENGAN_1.PAC

In order to test this, you'll need to make your own .gct with file replacement on and the Bbrawl death boundary code off. Impressions would be nice.

I am aware of a slight lag in the graphic effects on the lasers and the ground re-appearing. I believe it's caused by the file replacement in general, but it has no gameplay repercussions (the important warning cues the stage gives have no lag).

Note that this only applies to the DIALGA version (that's the time distorting one who has four legs). Changes will not appear in the Palkia or Cresselia forms. If this works out, I'm thinking of porting the same changes to the Cresselia form but leaving the Palkia form unchanged. This will let fans of the old Spear Pillar enjoy it with the Pokemon who isn't going to work out either way while more serious style players can enjoy a more balanced version with either of the two better Pokemon (ideally hitbox changes will be applied to Cresselia especially, but we just have to wait on that).

 

[Steeler]

good stuff AA

 

[IrohDW]

I just tried out the new spear pillar and I think it is an effective solution to the balance issues the stage has. The camera no longer focuses on the lower section of the stage, which makes it seem as if it doesn't exist. My only problem with the stage is a graphical one. Although the lower section of the stage is intangible, it is still visible. It is weird to fall through what appears to be solid ground. If it is possible, I think that the floor on the lower section of the stage should be made invisible.

As stage changes become a bigger part of balanced brawl, I am sure that there will be those that would like to play balanced brawl on unedited stages. If it is possible, I think that it would be best to make a code that enables people to play unedited stages by holding a specific button while it is loading. I think that doing this would satisfy both competitive and casual players.

 

[Meru.]

Summit might also have some problems with the ice and the wall.

 

[NovaRyumaru]

I don't see what you mean by camping the lower level with Marth. As far as I can tell, the stage helps favor people with relatively low mobility and massively powerful Smashes due to the unpredictable nature of sliding exploits. Marth's Smashes aren't massively powerful without tippers. Probably a bigger problem of the lower area is being under a techable ceiling, not to mention when the iceberg falls, it REALLY slows down the gameplay if you don't have something like G&W's D-air to pull you towards the ground.

The fish is gay, but prevents people from water camping, which is probably fundamentally gayer. If you gave this stage ledges, it would be quite helpful for someone like Ganon at least.

Powerful hit or not, it's easy to get on the lower part with him and just swat most people away that try to approach. I use marth as an example because of the nice hitbox he has, but the same theory goes for Falco, Wolf, Pikachu, Dedede, and anyoen that has either a decent hitbox or a projectile.

Winning tactic, not necessarily. But a pain in the *** to work around. Similar to one of my friends over wifi, if we got Spear Pillar as Zelda, he would just stay down in the tunnel and snipe with din's fire whenever I tried to get down there. He could usually force the match into a stale mate like this, perhaps one of the reasons I've always hated Zelda.

 

[rPSIvysaur]

Powerful hit or not, it's easy to get on the lower part with him and just swat most people away that try to approach. I use marth as an example because of the nice hitbox he has, but the same theory goes for Falco, Wolf, Pikachu, Dedede, and anyoen that has either a decent hitbox or a projectile.

Winning tactic, not necessarily. But a pain in the *** to work around. Similar to one of my friends over wifi, if we got Spear Pillar as Zelda, he would just stay down in the tunnel and snipe with din's fire whenever I tried to get down there. He could usually force the match into a stale mate like this, perhaps one of the reasons I've always hated Zelda.

If you can't punish an f-smash from Marth as he slides forward it's your own fault, if he slides backwards, don't run into it. The exact same theory applies to all the other characters you listed no matter what stage they're on. This stage gives more depth to ground game that could make it a legitamate counterpick.

Zelda camping? O.o Lrn2dodge?

 

[Steeler]

ice is fine, loops are not

 

[NovaRyumaru]

If you can't punish an f-smash from Marth as he slides forward it's your own fault, if he slides backwards, don't run into it. The exact same theory applies to all the other characters you listed no matter what stage they're on. This stage gives more depth to ground game that could make it a legitamate counterpick.

Zelda camping? O.o Lrn2dodge?

Was dodging, but point is not making any progress towards her, due to the lack of vertical space on the lower level of Spear pillar she becames very annoying to try and approach as you lack the room, and usually time to throw eggs at her.

Anywhere else she camps it's still annoying to deal with it but much, much more managable when your not limited to a frontal approach.

And again, missing my point. Picture battle field but without the abiltiy to drop through the ledges. Makes it really hard to make an aerial approach that's not predictable.

 

[rPSIvysaur]

ice is fine, loops are not

I say we use a modded one to get rid of the middle part :3 (They exist)

 

[The_Altrox]

If it only stays on top of the mountain though... there will be no fish.
That fish is like a member of mah family, man! Don't remove the fish!

 

[JOE!]

Was dodging, but point is not making any progress towards her, due to the lack of vertical space on the lower level of Spear pillar she becames very annoying to try and approach as you lack the room, and usually time to throw eggs at her.

Anywhere else she camps it's still annoying to deal with it but much, much more managable when your not limited to a frontal approach.

And again, missing my point. Picture battle field but without the abiltiy to drop through the ledges. Makes it really hard to make an aerial approach that's not predictable.

use the boost to get through egg roll, it lets you just tank Dins Fire, then keep approaching

 

[MK26]

we...fixed Summit...

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=260492

^^Check it out some time.

 

[NovaRyumaru]

use the boost to get through egg roll, it lets you just tank Dins Fire, then keep approaching

True, that works sometimes but still a pain in the *** to manage against. Basically against her it ends up turning into a game of chase, though inevitably I win, it gets to the point that I just lose interest halfway through and reset, similar to on vanilla against someone like Falco.

Would usually leave after about 3-4 chain grabs. it wasn't so much that I thought chain grbbing was cheap but more so the fact sure it did damage but most Falcos i've played will do almost nothing but chain grab and laser camp. It's able to be worked around and CGing against Yoshi has it's limits, but it's a case of cookie cutter style. Same fight, different level of interest/stage/not caring.

Again, change of Topic. DK, why must he be put in special fall due to his Falcon Pawnch DK punch in the air?

 

[Lokee]

we...fixed Summit...

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=260492

^^Check it out some time.

Pretty Sick I like the Luigi's Mansion change, simple yet cool. Also like your timer idea on Yoshi's Island.

This is what I would do with some of the stages (weather or not it can be done)

Halberd- Make the Laser and Claw do less knockback and/or damage
Delfino Plaza-I feel okay about this stage maybe make certain parts of where it lands faster to leave
Luigi's Mansion- (your idea) Second level, jump through able?..? Make the higher portions of the mansion destroy faster and make the entire mansion be destroyed faster overall
Pirate Ship- Catapult and incoming Canonfire less powerful. Maybe make it so when in the water you take damage or perhaps establish a system where you can only be in the water a number of times before you instantly drown unless you touch the stage again (similar to Ledge fixes)
Norfair - Make Lavafalls and waves less potent. Or more radically the lava doesnt have knockback but while in its hitboxes you take considerable amounts of stacking damage like Ganon new Uptilt.
Frigate Orpheon- Add some more grabbable ledges
Pokémon Stadium 2- The coveyerbelt is either slower pulls inward or both, wind part less potent?, Spends more time on the non element part of the stage.
Castle Siege- Maybe make it so you can play on the different levels with button press (Like Spear Pillar) for each match. Make the statues in level 2 break faster.
Distant Planet - Water is less forceful, with the Bulborb Eat player less or makes a clear indication of when it will eat.
Pictochat - Overall make the hazards less potent and make the times where their is nothing on the stage a bit more longer.
Jungle Japes-Blastzones, My water ideas above and make the river slower or less forcful?
Rainbow Cruise- Maybe add more ledges or make the carpet last longer
Brinstar- Acid less potent overall
Mushroomy Kingdom 1-1 / Mushroomy Kingdom 1-2-Blastzones, More grabbable edges, Bricks make less hitlag???
Mario Circuit- Cars do less potent maybe
Rumble Falls- No speedup. Maybe more Go throughable platforms
Bridge of Eldin- Bombs less potent, Bridge comes back faster or somehow make the stage a bit smaller.
Spear Pillar- Fine with the one you put up
Port Town Aero Dive- Cars do much less knocback, maybe slower. The wall on some parts dont hurt you much or at all. More ledges
WarioWare, Inc. - Minigame hazards less potent. Prizes are handled differently. Maybe a few percents of damage taken off. The part of where its the stage is longer so Mini games come up much later then usually and have more time on the stage inbetween them.
Summit- Dont know
Skyworld- Make the bottom most platforms unbreakable and the top platforms break faster and maybe add ledges to clouds
75m/Mario Bros./Hanenbow -Hopeless
Flat Zone 2- Blastzones, All hazards less potent especially Lion tamers. Maybe slower?
Shadow Moses Island- Make walls alot faster to break
Green Hill Zone- Save points less potent and the ground collapses less
Temple/New Pork City - Choose a section to make playable and adjust blastzone accordingly and perhaps take away certain features withou making it look glitchy
Yoshi's Island (Melee)- Blaszones, MiddleBlock either unthroughable or more resisant.
Onett- Cars less Potent
Corneria- Mostly Fine (Arwings do less damage)
Green Greens- Bombs are fewer and less potent also wind less potent as well
Big Blue-Seems fine now

 

[Linkshot]

Corneria - The "wall" has a knockback-only hitbox that chucks people away to stop infinites

 

[Lokee]

Corneria - The "wall" has a knockback-only hitbox that chucks people away to stop infinites

All stages with abusable walls need that...yes.

 

[JOE!]

as for why DK goes into special fall:

he could kill anyone at like 20% with it mid-air off stage, facing the blastzone of course

 

[ぱみゅ]

Actually, I'm against most of those stage changes.They're cool for sure, but the whole BBrawl idea is being missed.

You can post them in that stage hacking thread, though, but here are just meaningless, imo.


EDIT: I think most stages don't need changes, and actually, most hazards (like Halberd's) are fine just as they are: If they hit you, it's all your fault.

 

[Big O]

as for why DK goes into special fall:

he could kill anyone at like 20% with it mid-air off stage, facing the blastzone of course

Not really since the punch is a lot weaker in the air. Getting them that far offstage at less than 50% is highly unlikely. Taking away the freefall would be nice but wouldn't really help in any meaningful way. If it were up to me I'd add it in just for some extra flair (since it isn't a big deal anyways).

 

[JOE!]

Not really since the punch is a lot weaker in the air. Getting them that far offstage at less than 50% is highly unlikely. Taking away the freefall would be nice but wouldn't really help in any meaningful way. If it were up to me I'd add it in just for some extra flair (since it isn't a big deal anyways).

huh, i allways thought the reason was it'd be too good offstage if he could just toss it out...

 

[Shadic]

*Spear Pillar Post*

Dude, you could have just used mine. I had almost the exact same changes, with some other stuff you didn't do, like raising the camera center slightly to compensate for the fact that there's no longer a lower half of the stage.

 

[Steeler]

the punch is still slower than reaction time so it's not that scary. it'd be a more viable option in front of dk than fair but that's about it. you'd avoid it the same way you'd avoid fair: don't air dodge in front of dk and just hit him.

 

[Big O]

huh, i allways thought the reason was it'd be too good offstage if he could just toss it out...

"Just tossing it out" is how I'd phrase using Bair offstage. Frankly that would just be wasting the punch since air dodging it would be pretty easy. Even if you wanted to make them air dodge, Bair would give you more frame advantage to work with.

 

[Mit]

don't air dodge in front of dk and just hit him.

And hit his super armor and eat a punch straight to the boundaries of the stage.

It's a good move, that offers very high reward typically. The risk is pretty balanced with it right now. No freefall would make it pretty safe to use.

Frozen, no middle platform Ice Climbers stage doesn't seem to offer many different things from other stages but the ice. If it works unfrozen I'd say go for it. Also, if it can be retextured to not look so bad with the missing middle platform that'd be nice too (if it is indeed missing. Is it polygon removed, or just pass-throughable, so you disappear inside of it?).

I think Luigi's Mansion is completely okay with the pass-through first floor and no other changes. That eliminate the only major problem with the stage, correct?


And people need to get on editing stage hazard effects D: Should be number one priority. I want Port Town: Aero Dive so bad

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

The camera center shouldn't be raised on Spear Pillar. It's on the ground on Battlefield and Final Destination too. I actually specifically investigated this, and I used comparisons to Battlefield as a gauge of the lower blast zone (a natural change would have put it a bit lower than BF's, but I decided to make it equal).

Summit... Well, I would never freeze it (it's frozen enough!), and making that huge chunk of ice dropthrough sounds hopelessly awkward to me. It has real height to it; how does dropping through it even work? I'll check out that version of Summit sometime, but I don't have faith in it... Summit is really very low on my priority list, as much fun as the stage is (I mean that legitimately; Summit is a blast).

Anyway, in a perfect world, here's what I would honestly do to every stage. Lokee's post might take some interest on this as he did a point by point himself. First though, a general point.

Walls aren't really broken in Balanced Brawl, including Corneria. All combos that lead over to a wall and lock are fixed (both things like DDD's chaingrab that combo to and against the wall and things like DK's cargo dthrow that set up for wall locks are fixed). The only real remaining issues are a few dtilt locks and Falco/Kirby jabs. I intend to make Kirby's rapid jab at least easier to SDI; I could easily make all of the wall locks that exist at important percentages similar. I'm not convinced it's important since these are stupidly hard to land (as G&W, I have literally never landed a dtilt lock against any opponent who doesn't completely suck; the spacing is really strict and basically requires them to cooperate). In any case, if there is any evidence at all even on Corneria any of these wall locks are practically landable in real matches, I have no problem tweaking things to nerf the wall shenanigans.

Also, consider my optimal mechanics change for ledgegrabs which I would ideally spread to water. There's some internal variable which increments on ledgegrab or water entry and is set to zero upon either being inflicted with hitstun or dying. If this variable is 7 or more, you get no invincibility when grabbing a ledge and simply fall right through water as though it were air. If it is less than 7, there is absolutely no effect. This would totally kill planking and water stalling and all easy work-arounds, but it wouldn't really impede normal gameplay. If you aren't getting hit, there's no good reason to keep grabbing the ledge or entering the water. If you are getting hit, you get refreshed, but getting hit is exactly the sort of circumstance that makes stalling unprofitable while making normal use of ledges and water more important.

Battlefield- No changes
Final Destination- Introduce turtles from Mario Bros. Seriously though, no changes, and that includes the lip below the ledges (learn to recover; this is a really basic skill... more at the bottom of the post on this point).
Delfino Plaza- No changes (has water)

Luigi's Mansion- Change global stage time slowdown here to just apply to the refresh rates on mansion and not to the moving platforms or the animations. This is a low priority change. Making the second floor non-solid is not only awkward but destroys much of what makes the stage unique; smart play easily circumvents the "techfest" situation, and Meta Knight's Mach Tornado is no longer abusive (jab locks are also gone). Ideally there would be some non-intrusive change for Olimar that wouldn't make up smash chains effective but would not matter much when he usmashes in other circumstances (easier to SDI?). I should stress the stage is fine as-is; it just requires strategy (which is a good thing!).

Mushroomy Kingdom 1-1: Perfect in Bbrawl; it only really needs everything ported to .pac format (the slowdown is likely non-trivial).

Mushroomy Kingdom 1-2: This is one of the most challenging stages to work with. Ideally hitting the blocks would cause you to slow down but break the blocks and continue moving (with no opportunity to tech), and the ceiling would probably be raised a little more than it currently is to ensure upper area uthrow gimmicks are not broken. As things stand, this stage is a real techfest that smart play can't easily get around, and keeping the basic nature of the stage in-tact has few avenues to preserve this. I wouldn't hold my breath.

Mario Circuit: This stage is fine. The karts are plenty weak, and the structure is pretty fair. It's a pretty fantastic Ness counterpick, but is it so wrong for him to have such a stage?

Rumble Falls: The "speed up" event is actually unfair to very slow characters (Ganondorf, Bowser) and moreso to very slow falling characters (mostly Zelda and Peach; the multi-jumpers have easy ways around problems). They shouldn't die to it, but they basically can't do anything but barely survive during it and have to be really precise. This event should just go. The spikes are really perfectly fine, but the first spike being weakened knockback-wise so teching isn't so life and death wouldn't hurt. An unnecessary but nice change would be removing collision from platforms until they physically appear on-screen; this would remove gimmicky uthrow kills Kirby and Meta Knight sometimes get here.

Bridge of Eldin: The bomb here would receive a very slight nerf as a part of a more sweeping change to hazards (30% to 25%). Otherwise, the stage should mostly be fine; it really needs more investigating and playtesting.

Pirate Ship: The bombs really should be less powerful (the central hit can do 55% now; that's just insane even if you really shouldn't get hit... it should be more like 25% and non-fatal), and the water changes matter here more than anywhere else. This could be a good stage!

Norfair: The lava walls and the background lava wave are totally fine. I would probably make the fire pillars fixed knockback that tend to put you off-stage (so getting hit really is perilous!) but not the occasional deathtrap they currently are. This is a really good stage people are stupid about, as an aside.

Frigate Orpheon: no changes (the lack of a ledge is fine and a part of the stage's cp flare)
Yoshi's Island (Brawl): no changes
Halberd: knockback reduction on the claw to generally be non-fatal, but otherwise this stage is fine. I think the hazards make it a better starter, not a worse one.
Pokemon Stadium 2: absolutely nothing about this stage needs to change

Spear Pillar: you can see my initial take on it here! Ideally the lasers, Dialga's jumping forward attack, and Cresselia's assorted death would do less damage and probably not kill quite so easily (though some of it should still be able to kill).

Port Town Aero Dive: I'd probably drops the damage on the cars to 15% (from 20%) and make them about as fatal as Mute City's cars from melee (not very fatal but eventually do kill; I think they're about as powerful as Mario Circuit's karts actually). The wall is fine (complaints about it strike me as whiny; you surely must know exactly when it is coming by now), and the lack of ledges is also fine and probably for the best (just slam yourself into the track to recover if you can't otherwise; I don't have problems here as tether characters).

Castle Siege: I'd really love to find a fix to Olimar's glitch on the third form (for some reason, pikmin pluck is unnaturally slow here and on the nature background for custom stages... and I think one other obscure circumstance I can't remember). Otherwise the stage is completely fine, starter grade stuff.

WarioWare Inc.: Ideally the prize system would be reworked to remove the Starman and Super Mushroom prizes. This would make the prize always the small % healing (I think it's 4%) in no item games and divided between that and having an item spawn right in front of you in games with items on. A few of the hazards could stand a minor tone-down, but it's nothing drastic. I'm not freezing this stage for sure; that just sucks the soul out of what is honestly not that far from being a fair cp.

Distant Planet: The stage is fine; people need to play on it more. Gameplay is really slow here, but I'm not sure that's a real issue.

Smashville: no changes

New Pork City: Well, uh... I'd probably need to mess with both the model and the collision data in a bit more sophisticated way than we do now. I'd like to re-arrange everything here, get rid of a few of the less interesting pieces, and have it be a big stage based around that pendulum (with the breakable platform below). Ultimate Chimera stays; that guy is awesome, and you really deserve it if you ever actually get hit. It would need to be adjusted carefully to somehow keep the full background in view while simultaneously making it not quite so big blastzone wise; it's a perfect recreation of New Pork City from Mother 3 that is not worth losing. This would be a massive project.

Summit: Discussed elsewhere. A clean fix to the loop is non-obvious.

Skyworld: I've gotten into it thoroughly elsewhere, but I think the solution entirely lies in shifting the health of the breakable platforms. Ones with ledges should be harder to break, and the upper two should be easier. The remaining three can remain the same; they're fine. The ceiling situation is familiar to Luigi's Mansion; good players can and should be able to work around it through intelligent play and not just rushing at each other like scrubs.

75m: Uh... I honestly don't know where to start. Any change that moves toward fixing it moves away from what the stage is all about.

Mario Bros: If I were going to seriously try, I'd probably make all the platforms pass-through and greatly nerf the hazards (but not remove them; they're important to the stage). I'd have to play around with it to see how it played out; I can't guess easily.

Flat Zone 2: Lion tamers definitely need a tone-down, and a slight decrease to the oil panic people is maybe in the cards. The stage structurally is totally fine; this isn't nearly as bad of a stage as some people think it is.

PictoChat: Specifically I'd like to have a cleaner implementation on slightly slower drawing (so players can react better). I'd also weaken the following specific hazards: side spikes (20% -> 15%), arrows (knockback reduction), cart (knockback reduction), bombs (25% -> 20%, knockback tweak to be non-fatal even for people who suck at DI). The stage is already a really good stage though.

Hanenbow: My strategy is to see how removing the upper-most plant could work out. I'm not sure how clean interaction with the music-things can be maintained; it will need investigation.

Shadow Moses Island: The walls need to break a lot easier. They should still be harder to break than other breakable stage objects, but seriously, Sonic, Meta Knight, and a few others are just horrible here because breaking the walls isn't really very practical so characters who can't kill up are just terribad.

Green Hill Zone: As much as I love checkpoint gimmicks, it having fixed knockback would be for the best. It should be an annoyance and spatial control, not a real threat.

Temple: Well, my Bbrawl v1 wasn't exactly popular. I'm not convinced shrinking the stage even further does much good either. Careful thought is my current strategy.

Yoshi's Island (Melee): No changes, the stage is fine, learn to play, etc. Seriously though, I've had a lot of good matches here, and there is no real abuse possible. It's a decently strong cp that requires some good stage knowledge, but that is not a flaw in the stage.

Jungle Japes: No changes other than the token way it gets swept up in water business. I love this stage.

Onett: Onett's cars going from 30% to 20% would be a part of this long list of hazard business (I have an old list from as far back as last May; I've thought this out for a long time). It's not important though, and this stage is fine.

Corneria: Stage is fine.

Rainbow Cruise: Stage is fine.

Green Greens: I'd like a cleaner implementation on the slowdown so it only applies to the block refresh rate and not to everything (slow blowing Whispy Woods isn't exactly the greatest side-effect). Bomb blocks and exploding apples should do 10% (instead of 20%) and have less knockback but should both remain in their current probability. A fix to the exploding field glitch would be nice, but the stage is fine either way. A fix to the assorted minor bugginess on this stage (Olimar's pikmin of only certain colors sticking to blocks, disappearing transforming characters, upside-down wall clings) would be doubly nice but a total luxury.

Big Blue: The current version seems fine to me, but it needs more play testing.

Brinstar: The stage is fine.

Pokemon Stadium 1: The stage is fine. The windmill is changing over my dead body.

Anyway, funny story about "bad ledges". Back when melee was the game of the day, I never understood what people were talking about with Battlefield's "bad ledges". It really and legitmately confused me, and I ended up asking someone who took the game more seriously. It took something like half a smashfest with me just not understanding what he was talking about, and then I had a match using Mr. Game & Watch where I mis-aimed my up special and got caught under the lip. He said that was exactly the issue, and at that point I finally understood what people were expecting. For some reason, some people were thinking that sticking to the edge of the stage should let you easily slide up to the ledge. I still haven't quite figured out why that's the case; I always looked at getting caught under a lip as about the same as making any other technical error recovering. Maybe it came from maining Ness for so long. I aim my recovery wrong, and I die. Having to aim at the ledge just kinda makes sense to me. Actually, the fact that a lot of characters could utilize sliding up the side of some stages (like melee FD) was a bit of a surprise to me, but either way, I can't see any problem at all with ledges like Brawl FD's. Just... aim at the ledge. It's not an issue for any character.

If someone can really explain to me why sliding along the side of the stage to reach the ledge should be rewarded or why it's actually important for some characters (as opposed to just aiming at the ledge in the first place), I would rethink for FD and a few other stages, but I'm skeptical such is possible. I really and truly just can't see a problem here.

---

A quick bit about DK's giant punch. The reason it's not fair to compare to bair is that bair doesn't kill at almost any percentage off-stage. DK's giant punch also has super armor; your odds of being able to "avoid it on reaction" are slim to none. I mean, if Giant Punch only hit as hard as bair, it would be fine to not have helpless, but it hits more like fsmash than bair...

 

[Sasha]

AA: I very much appreciate the fact that you believe in the heart and character of stages. Not all (or anywhere near all) stages need to be tourney-viable. I, for one, would love to see Temple, Hanenbow, Mario Bros, and 75m untouched.

As for the ledge issue, pretty much every tourney stage in Melee has ledges that you can slide up to recover. Battlefield just limits recovery options this way. It's a non-issue (imo) in Brawl because 1) auto-sweetspotted ledges, 2) many brawl characters having way better recoveries than their melee counterparts. It's not something you should worry about really. I haven't gotten caught under FD's lip in close to a year. lrn2recover

Edit: Woot! 200th post.

 

[Mit]

So will all stage changes be included in .pacs in the future BBrawl release as well? That'll be nice if so. Currently I have to turn off most BBrawl stage changes to try out other modified stages (and I lose my beloved Corneria )

 

[Fuujin]

Powerful hit or not, it's easy to get on the lower part with him and just swat most people away that try to approach. I use marth as an example because of the nice hitbox he has, but the same theory goes for Falco, Wolf, Pikachu, Dedede, and anyoen that has either a decent hitbox or a projectile.

Winning tactic, not necessarily. But a pain in the *** to work around. Similar to one of my friends over wifi, if we got Spear Pillar as Zelda, he would just stay down in the tunnel and snipe with din's fire whenever I tried to get down there. He could usually force the match into a stale mate like this, perhaps one of the reasons I've always hated Zelda.

I seriously don't see how people ever complain about Din's fire unless their IC's.
Like the other guy said lrn2dodge and if that's too hard for you every character except MK, Sheik, Olimar and Ivysaur(maybe a few others) have aerials or specials that can cancel it out.
ESPECIALLY Yoshi, have you tried his Nair on it?
It comes out at decent speed (not that it needs to be fast in order to time dins fire) and has a long duration.
It's a pretty horrible move even with the non helpless stage after its use in brawl but It has so much ending lag that it doesn't make a real difference.
The only actual uses it has are on IC's due to the second Ice Climbers delayed air dodge or block, baiting Ness and Lucas down b with it offstage so they are forced to use PK thunder to recover then spamming it on them as they try to connect the move, It can hit Ike through Aether if timed right and out camping Dedede.
I've managed to get a few Shield breaks by spamming it from the pod in Norfair with the help of the lava wave but that can easily be avoided by just canceling it out or airdodge instead of letting hit hit your shield along with the lava wave.
This move is pretty much useless against over half the cast, especially Peach, Yoshi, Samus, Marth, Squirtle and Jigglypuff.
Ever the slowest character Ganondorf can easily cancel this out with U air.
As if Shielding and Air dodging weren't easy enough.


The baiting thing with GnW's N air only works if they air dodge it.
Most people don't seem to know they can cancel it out with an aerial.

Sure it's "better" in doubles but it isn't amazing.
And yeah it can Heal Ness and Lucas and fill up his bucket nicely but Luigi's Fireballs, Samus's charge shot, and Fox's Blaster (minus the bucket part) could do the same and the first 2 both got buffed with Fox's blaster considered being buffed.
The thing that get's me is these were all decent projectiles in the bbrawl and they still got buffed while one of the worse get's ignored because has one or two uses in doubles.
If were looking at moves that could be used in doubles then:
1:Luigi's fire balls shouldn't have been buffed for the previously mentioned reason.
2:Samus's Charge shot for the same thing.
3: ZSS Paralyzer shot.
4: Mario's fire balls.
5: Lucas's PK freeze to a lesser extent
6: Any character with a smash attack that can kill as the opponent can just be grabbed and hit by it.
Though many of these buffs are minor they still have the same uses that Din's fire could have.
And you could apply the same logic saying " They can be used in doubles let's leave them alone" yet they all got buffed even if minor changes.
Basically I'm trying to point out just because a horrible or average move can have it's uses doubles doesn't justify that fact that it should be left alone if a buff could legitimately help a character.

 

[Alphatron]

New Pork City: Well, uh... I'd probably need to mess with both the model and the collision data in a bit more sophisticated way than we do now. I'd like to re-arrange everything here, get rid of a few of the less interesting pieces, and have it be a big stage based around that pendulum (with the breakable platform below). Ultimate Chimera stays; that guy is awesome, and you really deserve it if you ever actually get hit. It would need to be adjusted carefully to somehow keep the full background in view while simultaneously making it not quite so big blastzone wise; it's a perfect recreation of New Pork City from Mother 3 that is not worth losing. This would be a massive project.

Looking forward to this one the most. Then Warioware.

 

[Dashiamo]

I'd love to try this out but I have a PAL Wii and would rather not install the homebrew channel. Will there be a release that can boot straight from SD card for Pal Wiis?

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Status update: I finally got around to finishing the ICs conversion. I want to look into some stage .pac business (translating the boundary mods cleanly), but for all intents and purposes, conversion to the .pac method is complete. I also found a few bugs in my conversions that would have been horrible (a few frame speed changes missing in the documentation; Ganondorf's dtilt comboing into itself about 0-90 on flat ground and infinitely against a wall would be... bad).