Balanced Brawl Version 2 Release

[Supreme Dirt]

Melee had a 10 frame buffer window during shield hitlag during which you could input a spotdodge or roll with the c-stick.
Brawl has a NEARLY universal 10 frame buffer window. Note this does NOT apply to certain actions, such as the dead frame immediately after jump squat, shortening Fox Illusion/Falco Phantasm/Wolf whatever-the-****-it's-called, etc.

And I was merely responding in kind as a developer of Brawl Minus. Brawl fanboys will be Brawl fanboys. BBrawl, while a step in the right direction, does not fix numerous major, major flawed design decisions, such as Falco's general safeness of everything he does, numerous moves being punishable at virtually all %s ON HIT, most moves being heavily, heavily punishable on block, or just the strength of the shield in general. While it IS a step up from Brawl, I will give it that, it limits itself far too much by refusing to modify certain things, especially timings and frame data.

It very well COULD have been a good mod of Brawl, but it falls short in numerous regards and has little staying power, as the Brawl community simply won't see the mod as a valid "patch" at all. There's a reason there's been very few tournies for the game. It has no forum at all, so no real discussion for it can actually occur either.

 

[ぱみゅ]

I think is the best mod because it is loyal to its own goals: try to modify as little as possible about the game, and make (almost) every character's matchups balanced and well-rounded.
BBrawl is played just the same as vBrawl, but in the end the overall enjoyability is increased, as you don't expect the same bunch of characters to succeed, but a larger viable roster.

A project with subtile elements like this one takes patience and work to make it succeed, specially because people will remain skeptical about it.
I wish more people would've worked in its spread, this is a very good, high-quality mod that worth the effort.

 

[Sleek Media]

And I was merely responding in kind as a developer of Brawl Minus.

Why didn't you say so sooner? Clearly, this kid is an authority on balanced Smash mechanics.

I think is the best mod because it is loyal to its own goals: try to modify as little as possible about the game, and make (almost) every character's matchups balanced and well-rounded.
BBrawl is played just the same as vBrawl, but in the end the overall enjoyability is increased, as you don't expect the same bunch of characters to succeed, but a larger viable roster.

A project with subtile elements like this one takes patience and work to make it succeed, specially because people will remain skeptical about it.
I wish more people would've worked in its spread, this is a very good, high-quality mod that worth the effort.

Basically my thoughts. Yeah, you still can't do much if MK chases you off the edge, but whatever. This is Smash Bros, not Street Fighter. At some point, you have to realize that it's meant to be played like SMASH BROS. BBrawl tempers out most of the really frustrating stuff, and adds in enough new interesting stuff to make the game feel as fresh and as fun as it did before the first tier list dropped.

But the smash community is total crap, and will never forgive any form of Brawl for not being Super Smash Bros Melee 2nd Strike Hyper Fighting Tournament Edition.

 

[Strong Badam]

Melee had a 10 frame buffer window during shield hitlag during which you could input a spotdodge or roll with the c-stick.
Brawl has a NEARLY universal 10 frame buffer window.

....what? you can buffer rolls/spotdodges/jumps with c-stick, but there's no buffering window.

 

[Supreme Dirt]

....what? you can buffer rolls/spotdodges/jumps with c-stick, but there's no buffering window.

wait what? oh okay, I think I know lol.

 

[Caryslan]

I tried this mod last night, and I was very impressed. I play Ganondorf and he is much, much better in BB then he is in vBrawl. I like that Dtilt trips downed opponents, making follow-ups with Flame Choke easier, I like that Dark Dive either throws the opponent downward(I got a kill against pit by doing this off stage) or that the uppercut has killing power. Of course, I really liked that Ftilt and Warlock Punch got some super armor.

This makes F-tilt much more useful as a spacing tool and killing and allows Warlock Punch to see some use.

I could go on and on, but I am impressed. Personally, I have no issues with other mods like Project M, but I like the fact that this game retains Brawl's engine. I'm most likely in a minority here, but I pefered Brawl's engine to the one in Melee. Its nice to see a mod that focuses on Balancing Brawl as opposed to trying to change the entire game.

As a Ganondorf player, I can say I am happy with how he plays. There is still some skill required to do well with him, but its no longer an uphill battle. Hopefully, I can find some other players to play against in BB.

I am wondering about something. Is it possible to play BB on wifi in private matches?

 

[ぱみゅ]

It is possible, but you need to contact other people willing to play it, and that this other person have exactly the same Version you have so online games do not desynch.

It's quite a drag, but it's all worth it if you enjoy playing BBrawl.

I would play you right now, but I got things to do at my school, sorry.

 

[DrinkingFood]

>implying people actually play this

 

[ぱみゅ]

The saddest part of that post is the massive amount of truth in it....

However, I'm planning on hosting a Balanced Brawl tournament in december. A big one.

 

[Sleek Media]

Actually, BBrawl is the only version my crew plays now.

 

[jackharvest]

Quick question:

What are the lines of code that allow Ike to perform Aether after his Quick Draw? (infinite quick draw, aka no free fall after quickdraw, to help others who may google this as I was doing) It's not individually listed in the BBrawl codelist, so I thought I'd ask.

Thank you! I've loved the work done so far.

 

[Supreme Dirt]

It's done via .pac editing with Project Smash Attacks.

This project is also dead so you know.

 

[Weboh]

How can I use this with Riivolution? I have a hacked Wii, so I'd rather use it. Also, I got a Riivolution file from smashmods that makes changing between BBrawl, Brawl -/+ and Project M as simple as a button on Riivolution, so I don't have to change the files on SD card every time. It puts all of the files in a folder in the root called "brawlmods" I attached a screenie of the file structure. Note that the project M folder works, but the Project M folder doesn't.

 

[ぱみゅ]

I'm guessing you menat that BBrawl doesn't work.

Weird, used Riivolution (when I could) and everything worked just fine for me.
Maybe is the capitalization
Maybe you need to rename the folder as "balancedbrawl"
Maybe you're just forgetting the .gct file (I swear, I forgot about it all the time)

 

[Thunda-Moo]

Riivolution is pretty finicky. You'll need to check your .xml file (It can be found in your Riivolution folder and can be opened in notepad) and search for the part where it declares what folder name you need to activate the "Balanced Brawl" option. If a single letter is out of place, if a single folder in your BBrawl folder isn't right, you'll have problems. Capitalization, however, should not be a problem.

 

[Tesh]

Have any of you folks tried to get Bbrawl as a side event for Melee/Project M tournaments. I always liked Bbrawl because of that same loyalty to goals that no major project had until Project M. Surely a better Brawl doesn't have to mean changing the core of the game. Some characters (like Samus, Link, even Jigglypuff) can benefit greatly just from improving the way hits connect, trajectories and damage/KB on moves. There are a handful of bad characters in Brawl that are simply awful because of very small rewards for large efforts.

However, I feel like changing the frame data of the absolute worst characters in the game is important. Ganondorf needs truly absurd mechanics to justify his poor recovery and difficult landing hits. He'd basically turn into an ICs with next to no execution required (a glass ganon if you will excuse the wordplay). The worst characters also tend to have the most shallow metagames and there isn't much harm in buffing things that are pretty much useless in vBrawl.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Y'know, if I still had a Brawl copy, I'd learn how to PSA and revive this project, changing some stuff for Ganondorf and maybe DDD (because I feel he lost a lot with the Chaingrab and he does need extra help.

 

[kid craft 24/sonic master]

you should definitely try and revive this. it had so much potential and i think now that people are becoming a bit more accepting of brawl mods thanks to project M i believe if you were to revive the project it could find a way to thrive.

 

[ぱみゅ]

It's funny that you bumped this, as just two days ago I bought my own Brawl Disc, so I can officially modify and test some things out now.

However, if I were to do something about this, I would need a lot of help, mostly with testing and spreading (as you say, people seem to care a bit more about mods, hopefully now's the time to do something).

 

[kid craft 24/sonic master]

if you need help with testing i could certainly try to help pkus i know some ppl in my state who are interested in balanced brawl who i could also help with testing and such.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Well, we (all) can start with testing BB3 and start to propose changes.

 

[kid craft 24/sonic master]

well from what i've played over the past couple weeks. heres some thing that could be looked at.

-sonic spring spike imo is a tad bit too strong and dtilt should only send at a low trajectory if landed towards the tip of the foot or possibly trip this way here it can still function as a nice combo starter at low % while still acting as a rewarding zoning tool when spaced properly

-luigi's dair has a hitbox that spikes but that hitbox is practically made useless due to the other normal hitboxes connecting before the spike one can. imo the startup frames should function as a spike similiar to falco's although not as strong or make the other hitboxes around the one that spikes not active on startup so that if spaced properly luigi can land the spike. this way luigi can function better off stage and be rewarded more for edge guarding

-marios cape should reflect on shield like in melee that or give him a better boost to assist in recovering as he has gotten stronger but still suffers when offstage.

-kirby's dash attack should connect easier as most of the time it is easily escapable(unless your di is terrible )

-mk i think he should not be able to interrupt dtilt as fast as he can currenly given the fact that it's basically an easy and very safe option to eat away someones sheild and grants a high chance of tripping due to chaining into itself so easily.

-stage wise i'd say reduce the overall effectiveness of hitting the lamp post on green hill this way it isn't an potent a zoning tool. and reduce the damaged received by lasers on corneria from the arwings

though one thing that would also be nice is if it were possible to remove the two frames of input lag like in project m but that could be stretching it a bit far.

 

[ぱみゅ]

I personally have no idea how Luigi and Sonic work. Them, along with Lucas are characters whose playstyles have always avoided me.
Maybe with other people's input we can agree to something.

The recovery boost for Mario sounds interesting, but we'd need to test what effect would that have with his on-stage game, or if that would help his a bit too much.

MK's dtilt is fine as it is, when it trips he gets stuff, but when he doesn't the frame disadvantage is MASSIVE. Plus, it doesn't really have much effect against shields, let alone PowerShields.

Kirby's DA sounds like a must, mostly just for the heck of it rather than an actual buff, but yeah.

Green Hills Zone will always be a bad stage due to its flat walk-offs. If anything I'd made the stage larger and the blast zones shorter so the walk-off is a slant, dramatically reducing the Walk-off effectiveness. But it doesn't really sound necessary.
How much damage do the Airwings deal? I'd explore them and see if it's better to just make them not to cause any knockback, or both that and reduce the damage... but again, I'd rather not start looking too deep into stages while I don't even know how to make simpler character changes.

 

[kid craft 24/sonic master]

well i main sonic so i can provide plenty of insight into his character, and i do know someone who mains luigi who has tried balanced brawl and said that would be a beneficial change to help luigi have better options in his more troublesome mu's

lucas i'd say making his snake tether do damage or atleast push people back like psi magnet, this way his zair isn't useless aside from just being another recovery option even though it's kinda made unnecessary due to his versatile up b and that boost he gets from side b and down b.

 

[DJ Delta]

I've played balanced for a little while now, and the thing about Sonic's spring spike is that, if you look at most spikes in the game, they involve some sort of risk, since your going off-stage and giving up a favorable position in order to land an early KO. Sonic's however, does put him in a bad position, since he instantly goes upward out of harm's way from most opponents. As a Luigi main the, the fireballs seem very helpful in his bad mu's like marth, zss, and even mk, and can help set up f-smash kills. The only thing I see is maybe something about ending lag on his down b or side b, or the dair spike KC.24 mentioned earlier.

 

[Tesh]

Projectile spikes need to be careuflly balanced because of what the above posters mentioned.

IIRC didn't link's arrow spike in BBrawl as well?

Sonic's spring has 2 hitboxes I believe. There is a sweetspot to the spring that does 1% more damage when the spring is spawned directly on an enemy. That hitbox should spike and the rest should be left as it is. It still shouldn't be too strong though.

 

[ぱみゅ]

I honestly don't see Sonic's spring as a powerful tool overall, it only hits opponents with already weak recoveries.
But that means that maybe his Link and maybe Ganon Matchups could be a bit too good for him in BBrawl, and that's precisely what we want to avoid.

Such a shame, it was one of the most welcomed changes ever made in BBrawl. Maybe a different approach could help as well? like giving Link more invincibility, or Ganon more onstage tools, maybe...
This project is hard to make as objective, positive and appealing as possible lol.

 

[Tesh]

Adding stronger hitboxes to recoveries helps punish people for reckless edgeguards and stops projectile spamming from being a viable gimping tool.

With that said, a projectile spike like sonic's spring is a bit too strong if you dont even have to sweetspot it.

 

[kid craft 24/sonic master]

i think allowing it to spike when used on startup above someone is a good idea. though while on the topic of changes to sonic, i wonder if it could be possible to give fsmash IASA frames towards the end of fsmash as the unnecessary cooldown for fsmash is what makes it so unsafe and changing that so sonic can react sooner would fufill the thing sonic needs most, a fast reliable kill move, something he lacks. and one could argue the spring spike doe just that but i've literally ko'd opponents at %'s as low as 65 via dtilt to spring spike which makes it all the more essential to either nerf the springs spiking power or make it so the spring only spikes when sweetspotted.

There are other ideas i have more sonic like allowing him to cancel the lock on for homing attack via holding b like how jigglypuff can do fake rest, or increasing the bounce height from Homing attacks off shield or increase Homing attacks horizontak movement going forward on both hit and on shield. other than that sonic doesn't need much else imo.

 

[ぱみゅ]

That being said
I'll just repeat that Sonic's spring shouldn't hit opponents unless they already have a weak recovery, so making it a sweetspot will probably not have any different effect. Right now its only purpose is to pressure opponents with average recoveries to do so more smartly than before, better recoveries will not even notice the change, and bad (vulnerable) ones will struggle A LOT.

There must be a way to add pressure while not completely destroying some few of them, maybe making it a 45ish degree "normal" hitbox that can kill at higher percentages and set up for gimps, or something like that, but its normal and reversed effects (stagespikes?) make it hard to even imagine.

As for Homing Attack, I'm not sure, sounds like a pretty radical change... This is the part I'd love to talk to someone with a neutral point of view...

 

[Tesh]

Homing attack is such a stupid move it should be safe on block at least, because no one should be blocking it when you can just throw out a move since he already committed to hitting you.

Just allow homing attack to cancel on hit and low the damage/shieldstun. This way it can be safe if you buffer an escape option, but you are open to be read and punished. I mean... its just a bad move by design. Its not even accurate.

Btw you'd be surprised how easy it is to hit people with spring. Its just that in vBrawl, it doesn't matte because you can DI up and get back to business. A projectile can far too easily get into gaps where even a good recovery will be intercepted.

 

[kid craft 24/sonic master]

Well i'm not sure how well this will be received by people on here but i took the liberty of learning how to edit characters moves myself over the past week and so i took it upon myself (alongside the help of some people who I've had play test) to make some modifications to some characters and some stages.

http://www.mediafire.com/?y9zx3mgco4xggnb <--- Download link and full detailed list of changes is included

I figured the best way for this project to go anywhere is if we started messing around with it and trying out things to see what can or should be done. So far everyone who has the version i made has enjoyed it to the point they prefer it over vbrawl. One person i had play it without telling him it was even balanced brawl and for a whole hour he couldn't tell the difference. (which imo is a good sign) I'll also now be having this as a side event tomorrow for my local game centers tournament so hopefully i can get more peoples opinions on what should be fixed, altered, or added to certain characters.

 

[Mastafaxa]

I recently started playing BBrawl. It seems to be a really solid mod. There are no obvious flaws with the efforts they made to balance the characters, which seems to be the function of the mod so its a success. My question is why is it that there does not seem to be very much community support behind it compared to other mod projects? I was really hoping to find a tier list discussion somewhere, or other things that would push this project forward but it seems like people just dont care about BBrawl...

 

[Tesh]

its just not different enough

there isn't much of an audience for "brawl is great, but it needs a few tweaks"

brawl +, brawl- and project M all go pretty big and there is a much bigger audience for "change EVERYTHING"

 

[ぱみゅ]

There is no *logical* reason for BBrawl not to be supported.

It's just that a lot of people that like Brawl like it with everything and its flaws and silly abuses.
Sometimes that feels like they either don't care or play Brawl *because* it's abusable.

 

[Camalange]

its just not different enough

there isn't much of an audience for "brawl is great, but it needs a few tweaks"

brawl +, brawl- and project M all go pretty big and there is a much bigger audience for "change EVERYTHING"

It's funny because I agree with this completely. I happen to fall under the "brawl is great, but it needs a few tweaks" category.


I've heard of this before, and I personally like the idea. I recently started picking up Brawl again and playing around with mods. Project M is cool and fun and all, but I actually do like how Brawl feels... I just hate things like tripping and other blatant balance problems. I personally play Brawl with just tripping turned off, but I enjoy the idea of basically, well, patching Brawl, so to speak. Not changing it. Something that Nintendo would never give us in all it's years.

This seems like a great idea and I'd love to see it pick up speed and become something of what Brawl should've been. Brawl's fun, but also terribly stupid. If we have the technology to make different versions of it (Project M, +, -) why not also just improve upon what's already there instead of only trying to make it something that it's not?

When I get the time, I'll probably pop this in and give it a whirl. I see by pure coincidence that there are other Sonic mains here... lol. Sup guys? I guess I could offer even more insight to the character in that regard, but I also happen to play a ton of characters just because I've had the game forever and know enough of each one to play them at least efficiently.

The only other thing that I'd say about Sonic that I'm not sure was touched on (probably was, and if so sorry) is that I feel that Sonic's only REAL flaw is his lack of KO power or lack of a safe KO setup. His hypno smash maybe great at hypnotizing your opponent into getting hit by it, but you can't rely on that. I personally don't like how Sonic plays AT ALL in Project M. Funny enough though he seems top tier, but that's not the point. I think they missed the point of his playstyle. They removed things like his shield and jump cancelable spin dashes/spinshots, which all add into his fantastic mix up game... Which is what I enjoy about him. I'm not at all against the idea of Sonic being a potential top tier, lol, but I feel his "buffs" and things should all be made into consideration to how he works, not just by making him lolfaster or whatever.

KC I see you posted a link. Just curious which version people recommend I try first to give feedback on. I'll let you know if I get any ideas on what could be done to move this thing in a stronger direction.

Sorry if I just seem like I'm poking my head in, because that's basically what I'm doing, but I'd prefer to see something like this be at, say an event like Apex, more than any other modification so I'd like to at least make some kind of effort in this.

 

[kid craft 24/sonic master]

well i've been tweaking things with balanced brawl for awhile now. and it's slowly begun to take shape as something different than balanced brawl, yet similar to it in many ways. I'm planning on releasing a public version very soon but what i can say is that what i've made is basically what project M is to what brawl+ was in terms of improving of the way the game feels. hopefully it's met with good reception.

 

[kesterstudios]

I like balanced brawl and its my favorite mod. its the game we should've gotten in the first place. if anyone wants to play balanced brawl with me online let me know

 

[DeidaraandKonan]

well i've been tweaking things with balanced brawl for awhile now. and it's slowly begun to take shape as something different than balanced brawl, yet similar to it in many ways. I'm planning on releasing a public version very soon but what i can say is that what i've made is basically what project M is to what brawl+ was in terms of improving of the way the game feels. hopefully it's met with good reception.

Still waiting for that public release

 

[kid craft 24/sonic master]

Its coming soon dont worry