Balanced Brawl Standard Release

[Lokee]

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).

Bad for balance...Good for Ganon lolz
Glad to hear things are coming along.

 

[BG3]

@AA: I think why most people hate the whole ledge issue with Brawl's FD is mainly because some recoveries in certain situations have a snowball in hell's chance of recovering. Some nice examples would probably be Wolf(aiming that thing can be horrible), Ike's(he doesn't have a lot of freedom with upwards recoveries since they are gimped so easily) and obviously the tethers.

On a completely unrelated note, Brawl's FD ledges has been fixed!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QAd9dMt1MA&feature=channel

 

[LordshadowRagnarok]

Yeah, as a Zelda secondary, I can safely say that ledge is thirty levels of suck.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I can't imagine these circumstances, assuming the recoveries are planned from the start. I don't think some of what you're saying is true. How is Olimar hurt at all? Since when is Ike's vertical recovery bad or easy to gimp seeing as it has super armor? How are you getting under the stage in the first place. I'm proposing players just aim right at the ledge when they're moving toward the stage and simply never be under the stage where the lip is. I view character control as very important, perhaps the most important skill in the game, so I don't really have sympathy for people who control their character wrong and hit a lip that isn't in the normal recovery path.

To rephrase, a correctly executed recovery does not actually ever touch the stage. The first interaction you have with the stage is your character beginning to snap to the ledge.

Basically, I deny FD's ledges have been fixed by the following logic. To fix something, it must be broken. FD's ledges are perfectly fine. Therefore, they can't be fixed.

EDIT: I just picked Wolf in training mode and jumped off-stage and recovered with side-B about 50 times in a row on FD. How is this supposed to be hard? If you're meteored or something, just use up-B. That's easy too.

 

[uhmuzing]

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.

Wanted to say that I think this was a great solution for the ledge and water problems.
After reading through the stage change list, I am positively ecstatic about the next version of BBrawl. I deeply admire your insitence on keeping the ideals of Balanced Brawl intact and hesitance to change things without looking over the consequences.

Excited for BBrawl v.2!

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

To be clear, that's the ideal plan. The real plan may have to make compromises. Actually, it almost definitely will. If we can just get hazard editing, most of it will work out though; I'm going to be checking the common files for hazard hitbox data sometime soon.

 

[BG3]

I can't imagine these circumstances, assuming the recoveries are planned from the start. I don't think some of what you're saying is true. How is Olimar hurt at all? Since when is Ike's vertical recovery bad or easy to gimp seeing as it has super armor? How are you getting under the stage in the first place. I'm proposing players just aim right at the ledge when they're moving toward the stage and simply never be under the stage where the lip is. I view character control as very important, perhaps the most important skill in the game, so I don't really have sympathy for people who control their character wrong and hit a lip that isn't in the normal recovery path.

To rephrase, a correctly executed recovery does not actually ever touch the stage. The first interaction you have with the stage is your character beginning to snap to the ledge.

Basically, I deny FD's ledges have been fixed by the following logic. To fix something, it must be broken. FD's ledges are perfectly fine. Therefore, they can't be fixed.

EDIT: I just picked Wolf in training mode and jumped off-stage and recovered with side-B about 50 times in a row on FD. How is this supposed to be hard? If you're meteored or something, just use up-B. That's easy too.

How you get into these bad situations is all depending on the player's skill. But like I said before, even if the situation doesn't happen often, it still has a chance of happening, and when it does, certain characters get screwed over. Others like MK can avoid this problem with ease, while the not so lucky ones like Wolf, Ike(somewhat), and the tethers will be sent straight to their deaths(assuming the person is good at edgeguarding). The lip only hampers with these characters already poor recoveries. When I mentioned Wolf's recovery, I was strictly talking about his vertical recovery, and if you've tried to aim that against a semi-decent edgeguarder, you'll KNOW where I'm coming from. Ike is also very easy to edgeguard. His aerial moves aren't exactly the quickest and even a slight drawback to his already limited recovery(like a DK bair being thrown at him) can destroy his chances of ever recovering. But I may be overspeaking with this Ike situation seeing as he has infinite QD, but nonetheless, the lip is something that unnecessarily gimps his already limited recovery. And I'm pretty sure you know the tether situation.

And also, try your Wolf experiment again with a decent edgeguarder in your way. It makes things a hell of a lot more difficult. There are more characters with this problem as you may know.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

The main reason I think you're being somewhat silly is that it literally cannot stop the tethers. I mean, the way their recoveries work, there is no way to possibly be stopped by the lip even if you specifically try to be stopped by the lip. What you're saying about those characters literally does not make sense.

Also, you hit the lip if you recover late. Against good edgeguarders, you want to recover early. So it's really not quite the issue it's being made out to be... I know Wolf has a mediocre recovery, especially when there's a Meta Knight in his way. What I doubt is that for a good Wolf it's actually worse on FD than on any other stage; it's just bad on every stage (other than Mario Circuit etc.).

 

[Linkshot]

Then you counterpick poor recoveries to FD. Simple as that.

 

[LordshadowRagnarok]

AA, I do have a couple suggestions for a stage edit. MK 1 & 2, too many times it's come about "Haha, whoops, fell down a hole I didn't see" while they're magnified (especially if running back towards your opponent). I'm not asking invisible platforms be dropped over the holes, what I'm asking is these holes have ledges. That way, the holes would still be viable to spike through, but not randomly murder you, or be an instant death sentence for characters who can't use their special recoveries in tight holes
(Ness, Lucas, Zelda, Wario (unless he has the waft), DK, Gannondorf, Olimar, Bowser)

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Don't you know where the holes are? I mean, beyond the principle of having memorized every stage (which you should have), they're perfect recreations of 1-1 and 1-2 from Super Mario Brothers. Who hasn't memorized the layout of those levels? Those pits are also really shallow; I think everyone can get out mostly just with the double jump.

I don't think introducing ledgestalling to those levels is worth the potential gain of ledges...

 

[LordshadowRagnarok]

While stages are being discussed, AA, what about making standard some of those SSE hack stages? Geno's Forest Maze, Lucario vs MK duel, Tabuu Destination, Midair Stadium, Halberd Interior 1.5 battlefield, and Shadowbug levels all seem very balanced and might be that little something that sets BBrawl apart in people's minds, without changing the core game too much.

Two in particular add something interesting to the game:
MK vs Lucario (Which I would call Ice Top) is a viable Ice level, making for interesting approach options.
Halberd interior 5 platform is kind of interesting, since the lights flash on and off slowly.

Most of the other ones would just make nice extra neutrals.

And, while recoveries are being discussed, is anything being done with Zelda & Wolf's recovery's helplessness lag? Not asking about them them not becoming helpless after their recovery moves, just a reduction of the time that it takes for them to be able to be maneuvered.


Edit: Oh, one last thing, is anything being done to address that, in teams, MK 1-2 can cause a bit of lag working with all the blocks?

 

[ぱみゅ]

Changing those timings will change the BBrawl's idea.
Wolf particulary is very good onstage, and he will most likely never go out of there by his own. His recovery issues are solved by his strenghts.

But Zelda is hard to tell, she is suposed to be good onstage, but Sheik will be out during the first part of the stock, so Zelda will only appear at high %, and that makes her unpredictable in that way.

 

[Linkshot]

I think the problem with Zelda is that she classifies as a "heavy hitter".

All through fighters, we've seen heavy hitters are never in the top. Why?

Because they're not fast enough to actually get a hit in.

Heavy hitters rely on mindgames to actually do any damage at all. The weak, quick pressure characters can just throw out attacks safely to seal any openings for slow characters.

This is why Sheik will always be better than Zelda. All her moves are actually safe, meaning they do, exponentially, infinitely more damage.

I think for a heavy hitter, fighters need to try a different approach. Their attacks come out just as fast as the rest of the cast, but with more cool down, as opposed to the other way around (because at least you have a chance to deal damage this way)

 

[NovaRyumaru]

How you get into these bad situations is all depending on the player's skill. But like I said before, even if the situation doesn't happen often, it still has a chance of happening, and when it does, certain characters get screwed over. Others like MK can avoid this problem with ease, while the not so lucky ones like Wolf, Ike(somewhat), and the tethers will be sent straight to their deaths(assuming the person is good at edgeguarding). The lip only hampers with these characters already poor recoveries. When I mentioned Wolf's recovery, I was strictly talking about his vertical recovery, and if you've tried to aim that against a semi-decent edgeguarder, you'll KNOW where I'm coming from. Ike is also very easy to edgeguard. His aerial moves aren't exactly the quickest and even a slight drawback to his already limited recovery(like a DK bair being thrown at him) can destroy his chances of ever recovering. But I may be overspeaking with this Ike situation seeing as he has infinite QD, but nonetheless, the lip is something that unnecessarily gimps his already limited recovery. And I'm pretty sure you know the tether situation.

And also, try your Wolf experiment again with a decent edgeguarder in your way. It makes things a hell of a lot more difficult. There are more characters with this problem as you may know.

The funny part with Ike is to edge guard his horizontal(or is it vertical, whatever is side to side) recovery just let him nail you with Quickdraw a good distance from the stage. Even in the off chance it kills you off the top he'll be dying first, so just be mindfull of DI on impact... or the ledge it might shoot you into. ^_^;

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I figured out the minor bug with lasers on Spear Pillar. It's not a file replacement problem; BrawlWall had apparently slightly corrupted STGTENGEN_01.pac (you can tell because the new version was 2.95 MB while the old one was 2.97 MB). The issue has been fixed easily and will be fixed in the final release.

Really though, that's petty for gameplay. Has anyone else been messing around on that version of Spear Pillar? This is valuable data!

 

[IrohDW]

Recently, I've noticed that the changes that have been made to SP don't apply when Palkia or Cresselia are there. The destruction of parts of the stage can easily result in death if it happens when you are recovering. Besides that, it works fine.

 

[Steeler]

well, you can get edgeguarded into the little FD alcove but that's just a part of the stage and isn't really a problem. just a little advantage for good edgeguarders against limited recoveries.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I think the problem with Zelda is that she classifies as a "heavy hitter".

All through fighters, we've seen heavy hitters are never in the top. Why?

Because they're not fast enough to actually get a hit in.

Heavy hitters rely on mindgames to actually do any damage at all. The weak, quick pressure characters can just throw out attacks safely to seal any openings for slow characters.

This is why Sheik will always be better than Zelda. All her moves are actually safe, meaning they do, exponentially, infinitely more damage.

I think for a heavy hitter, fighters need to try a different approach. Their attacks come out just as fast as the rest of the cast, but with more cool down, as opposed to the other way around (because at least you have a chance to deal damage this way)

Snake is a heavy hitter, top tier in Brawl by virtue of his insanely damaging and safe ground game. G&W and Donkey Kong are also good heavy hitters that have good pokes and pressure moves.

Sagat is a slow heavy hitter who is also top tier in SF4 since his camping is ridiculous and because of his combos that take away a third of your health that are easy and safe to set up.

Even though I do agree that generally speaking the best characters are the faster ones, there are exceptions. Speed to overcome reaction time and create openings is indeed important. However defense has extremely significant fundamental importance too. Even the best players make mistakes on some level.

 

[Linkshot]

Notice how Snake has a Frame 1 move (his Grenade pull) and quick-to-appear tilts.

If these moves were slower, he would sink like a rock.

 

[Lokee]

Notice how Snake has a Frame 1 move (his Grenade pull) and quick-to-appear tilts.

If these moves were slower, he would sink like a rock.

Dont forget he still is one of the hardest to kill has the overall largest hitboxes in the game in relation to his size and the most projectiles if you count C4s, Mines, Usmash, and Grenades...Personally if I were to see him and Ganondorf side by side while they were making the game Id say "HOLD ON!, I dont what the heck you guys are thinking, but we cant ship this thing yet."

Anyway are they going to be anymore surpizes in the next version or Easter Eggs for that matter.

 

[A2ZOMG]

Mentioning Easter Eggs, I only know about the one for Wario...

 

[Mr. Escalator]

The Mario easter egg may not be in the next release, according to AA, because he hasn't found the article for that particular hitbox. At least, it's not a priority to keep it if he can't find it.

Though I want more easter eggs. Those were fun, and helped make BBrawl feel fresh.

 

[CR4SH]

Did they nerf luigi back down to earth yet?

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Luigi seems pretty fair to me. He's obviously good, but he doesn't really seem to have hit that top tier chord... which is really ideal for any character. He is likely to see little to no change in the next version unless there's a compelling reason otherwise.

 

[ss118]

What really makes this amazing is how you don't have to have Homebrew to use this, making it easy on me when I want to play this anywhere. Compare "hey I brought my whole wii", to "hey I brought my SD card". xD

 

[BG3]

Well I guess the tether thing does not apply to the FD ledge situation, but I still strongly beleive the ledge would be much more fair if it was replicated like Smashville's ledge(Nobody ever really complains about that stage).

 

[A2ZOMG]

Did they nerf luigi back down to earth yet?

wtf, Luigi is great in this game. DA is a really good punish option especially near the edge, and fireballs are awesome without the ending lag.

 

[Linkshot]

Complaints don't always mean something is wrong.

If I start complaining that MK can't kill with uSmash, does that mean it needs a buff?

 

[rPSIvysaur]

Yes. [/sarcasm]

Anyways, how are the stages coming along AA?

 

[BG3]

AA, you ever think about replacing some stages that absolutely have no competitive hope? Stages like 75m and Mario Bros. are mainly what I'm talking about. With this, every stage on your list could be competitive like you wished.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I'd love for every stage in the game to be good. Morso though, I'm not removing content from the game. 75m being in as a banned stage is better than it not being in at all.

Hitbox data for hazards is really well hidden. I searched the entire Brawl ISO for a hitbox that does 20 damage and launches at a 90 degree angle (like the cars on PTAD), and I didn't find it. I also tried searching every sensible individual file (all the common files, the module file for PTAD, the effect file for PTAD even).

Of course, the fact that these files are compressed is probably an issue....

 

[rPSIvysaur]

Have you asked around the people in the Workshop Backroom for anybody who would know?

 

[Steeler]

i'm pretty sure crash meant that luigi is TOO good, not that luigi is bad

 

[A2ZOMG]

i'm pretty sure crash meant that luigi is TOO good, not that luigi is bad

Oh. *facepalm*

At any rate he's not TOO good. He's just great.

 

[A2ZOMG]

i'm pretty sure crash meant that luigi is TOO good, not that luigi is bad

*facepalm*

At any rate he's not TOO good. He's just great. He's one of those characters imo whose matchups in general managed to become more balanced, which for him is a good thing concerning his worst matchups.

 

[Mit]

Hitbox data for hazards is really well hidden. I searched the entire Brawl ISO for a hitbox that does 20 damage and launches at a 90 degree angle (like the cars on PTAD), and I didn't find it. I also tried searching every sensible individual file (all the common files, the module file for PTAD, the effect file for PTAD even).

Of course, the fact that these files are compressed is probably an issue....

This makes me sad

Have you enlisted help from anyone else? I hear Phantom Wings is a wizard.

 

[Fuujin]

Did they nerf luigi back down to earth yet?

I love how a post this short get more attention than any of mine detailed mutli paragraphs post.
I guess if i don't have a post count over 1000 or placed in any major tournaments my opinions don't matter.
Well I'm done support this project, I tried and got ignored the last 3 post.
I'd think you guys would want all the input you could get but apparently not.

 

[deepseadiva]

Someone's a grumpy grump.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I love how a post this short get more attention than any of mine detailed mutli paragraphs post.
I guess if i don't have a post count over 1000 or placed in any major tournaments my opinions don't matter.
Well I'm done support this project, I tried and got ignored the last 3 post.
I'd think you guys would want all the input you could get but apparently not.

I'm not going to get into endless back and forth arguments on stuff. I posted my assessment of Din's Fire which you basically in a long way said you disagreed with. Fine, you disagree, and I didn't find your disagreement convincing (I also don't think Din's is as useless in singles as people say either; it's mediocre but not useless). Your post wasn't asking me anything; it was just raising an argument on a point I'd already gotten into, and I'm sorry but this 262 page thread means I have to just drop some of that. Din's Fire also already hits pretty hard so I'm not sure what kind of buff you could really want out of it. Altering the speed the projectile moves at would not only go against the aims of this project but would require direct hex editing of currently unknown parameters. Zelda's start-up and end-lag on the thing are already fairly small; speeding them up would be of almost no utility. There's nothing to be done if you don't like how Din's Fire is already, and it's not like it's Zelda's most important move anyway. Even if it actually were near-useless, it wouldn't make much sense to buff. Consider that King Dedede's Jet Hammer is actually pretty definitely near useless, and we haven't and probably aren't going to buff it. Characters should be mostly equal, not moves (though in terms of balance, Zelda is a special case anyway because she is bound to Sheik... meaning ideally she should be weaker than the other characters alone and just barely stronger than the others when used in a joint strategy). There is no compelling reason to buff Din's Fire; it doesn't make sense for Zelda as a character.

I gave cr4sh's post a quick response (something like 2 sentences) because his post was a very simple question. I try to answer very simple questions preferably with simple answers; I'm not perfect, but I do try. Others chose to carry on a mini-discussion on it... which is fine. I also have run into him in person before, and yes I am blatantly biased in replying to people from my own region with a small amount of higher priority than everyone else unless they post in here a lot and I can talk to them easily through other venues (as is the case with steeler). It has nothing to do with anything you're suggesting it does.