Balancing the Budget

[Thinkaman]

Link to original post: [drupal=701]Balancing the Budget[/drupal]



All the changes that have been considered and brainstormed in this blog are pointless mental exercises if we cannot possibly actually implement them. After all, we could never create a new game disc with all the changes we want to the game, and even if we could, that would be a million kinds of illegal.

We can only modify the game through injecting lines of code at the booting of the game. Given our current capabilities of dealing with the Wii, we are limited to 256 lines of code. As an example, "no tripping" takes 2 lines, while that Melee airdodge hack takes over 80. If we can only make a limited number of changes, we need to establish what takes priority.
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First, I am going to leave 16 lines of code for overhead. This will include things like no tripping, unbound pause camera, and perhaps modifications to default settings or replay limits. That leaves us 250 lines.

Second, I advocate including that grab-escape system I made. Having the grab-escape system solves all of our infinite grab problems (except grab release) and removes much of the need to modify DDD, G&W, Falco, and ICs. It is also the only new game mechanic (besides no tripping) that I think could be widely accepted. It's a discrete change that can be easily learned without interfering with how one plays vanilla brawl. I'm going to ballpark here and say that this should take about 40 lines of code. (If the throw code is player specific for some reason and it takes 4 times as much, then this idea would be out the window and we'd have to look at nerfing individual throws instead.) That puts us at 210 lines of code left.

Third, I also propose an anti-ledge-stalling measure. This would be difficult to do, if there wasn't already a similar system in the game that we can hypothetically link to! Tethers are already allowed only 3 tethers of the edge. I say we try to extend that limitation to ALL edge grabs; you can only grab the edge 3 times before touching solid ground again, or else you simply won't grab it. This could very well be impossible, if the edge-grab action is activated by the stage and not the character, or if the tether limitation code is only stored locally for each character and cannot be referenced properly by others... it's also possible that Up-Bs would NOT count towards this limit, I'm not sure... but I think if we could, this is a change worth implementing. I'm going to throw out another BS estimate and say that this would take 30 lines of code, leaving us with 180.

Fourth, Meta-Knight and Snake. Metaknight is straight-forward to nerf, but requires multiple changes instead of easy blanket ones. Snake is harder, especially since any realistic setting makes my pipe dream of dual C4s go out the window.

Meta-Knight: (18)
-Drastically decrease D-Smash knockback growth.
-Drastically decrease Up-B base knockback.
-Decrease tornado mobility.

Snake: (12)
-Slightly decrease weight.
-Drastically reduce f-tilt knockback growth.
-Drastically reduce u-tilt knockback growth.

Isolating specific moves to modify is going to have more overhead, but these two characters require the exact changes given. Ideally these six changes should only take about 30 lines of code, maybe even less.

With 150 lines left, I don't think we have the ability to go tinkering around with the other top or high tier characters. Our remaining budget would probably be best spent buffing the mid and low tiers.

So fifth, let's start from the bottom:

Captain Falcon: (14)
+ Increase weight.
+ Increase attack ratio.
+ Increase Up-B distance.
+ Decrease Side-B lag.

Link: (12)
+ Increase weight.
+ Remove free-fall stun state from Up-B.
+ Increase Up-B vertical distance.

Ganondorf: (10)
+ Increase weight.
+ Increase global attack ratio.
+ Increase Up-B distance.

Jigglypuff: (12)
+ Increase bair damage.
+ Increase nair damage.
+ Increase uair damage.

Sonic: (12)
+ Increase weight.
+ Downward knockback on spring.
+ Decrease initial lag on f-smash.

Yoshi: (8)
+ Increase weight.
+ Drastically increase egg duration.

Samus: (6)
+ Increase weight.
+ Increase attack ratio.

Squirtle: (4)
+ Increase weight.

Ivysaur: (10)
+ Increase weight.
+ Increase attack ratio.
+ Increase dair boost.

Charizard: (6)
+ Increase weight.
+ Increase attack ratio.

Mario: (8)
+ Increase Up-B distance.
+ Increase Down-B knockback.

Ness: (12)
+ Decrease grab-break stun.
+ Increase d-throw damage.
+ Decrease Side-B lag.

Lucas: (8)
+ Decrease grab-break stun.
+ Drastically increase Down-B knockback growth.
+ Drastically increase bair base knockback.

Shiek: (8)
+ Increase fair base knockback.
+ Increase uair base knockback.

Ike: (6)
+ Increase weight.
+ Increase attack ratio.

Peach: (6)
+ Increase "dot" and "stitchface" turnip percent.

Zamus: (4)
+ Increased weight.

Wario: (4)
+ Decrease jump-break stun.

I just typed up a list of exactly what I think the new weights for each character would be. I might post that in the future. For now... I need a break.

 

[Mmac]

Why put so much support on changing peoples weight? The only one who should have a Weight change is Snake, who is unrealistically heavy. Everyone else doesn't need more weight. I pretty sure more people want something else improved rather than being heavier. I know that I rather have an Knockback Increase on Dsmash rather than Yoshi being heavier.

Take out almost all of the Weight Codes, and replace it with something else more important that you feel needs balancing

 

[Thinkaman]

The point of this post is that we *CAN'T* go around changing 10 different attacks on each character, we would be incredibly lucky to fit in merely 2 each.

Changing weight and attack ratios often allows the biggest change in a character's relative ability with only a few lines of code. Giving Yoshi a single improved move is not going to balance him, unless of course that new move is made so powerful that the entire character of Yoshi is redefined around that move.

Read my post on Yoshi, and you will see a wide variety of unique changes I would have liked to give Yoshi if I could, including a stronger d-smash! However, we simply cannot afford to make spend an eighth of our entire budget on Yoshi, when there are 39 other characters to balance as well.

 

[Mmac]

So.... Yoshi Dsmash is going to take a bajillion lines to alter his Knockback, but oh, say Mario, or Ness, only takes 4 Lines of code to alter their knockback, which is the same amount of Lines that Weight altering takes. How does that work?

Your using Weight as a Filler code, but those lines could be used for more important things. It seems to me that the Alter Weight Code takes the same amount of lines to Alter Knockback or increase Damage.

Don't you think that Falcon would benefit more from a Knockback Growth on his Fair, or make one of his moves not as laggy, rather than being heavier?

Don't you think that Link would benefit more with a Damage and/or Knockback increase in his Grounded Spinattack (Plus isn't changing the properties to make it like Snake impossible to do?)

Don't you think that Ganondorf would rather have a Major Knockback increase in his UpB than Weight?

Don't you think that increasing the Knockback of Utilt so it gives him another much needed kill move rather than weight?

Yoshi, again, Dsmash knockback increase rather than Weight?

Samus, Making Super Missiles kill at reasonable percents than Weight?

Does Squirtle really need anything?

A Dair Boost I say wouldn't do anything. I think increasing vertical distance so it's kinda like Olimars would be more beneficial. Also UpB Knockback increase instead of weight

Does Charizard really need more Weight?

Does Ike and ZSS Really need more Weight? Ike might need something increased but I'm not sure, can't think of anything at the moment. Maybe alittle less lag in his Ftilt and Dtilt wouldn't hurt


Looking at the other stuff you added, I don't think the grab escape code is necessary. Just by increasing the Startup time of Dedede's Shield Grab and Increasing the afterlag Falco's Dthrow by a few frames stops any form of infinite they have on the characters they can do to, while still maintaining their Chaingrabbing properties on the majority of the cast. There you go, A huge amount of lines saved right there. I don't think G&W's or Ice Climbers throws should be touched. There should be something done with Fox, and Pikachu's 0-80 CG on him, but not sure what....

I also don't think the Anti Ledge Camp is necessary either. Ledge Camping isn't necessary that cheap at all, and by putting in this code, you are also limiting some characters ability to recover. Maybe putting the limit to 6 or 7 might be fine, but not three. That way, it will still prevent Stalling Issues.

Anyways, if you followed this, I saved you like 45+ Lines of code, and you should beable to have alot more room to work with to balancing more character... Probably alter some of the Top Tiers like Reducing the Knockback Growth of Dedede's Bair, and Adding Afterlag to G&W's Dsmash. ect.


Edit: Actually, send me the estimates on how many lines of code each property has, and I can make a Balance patch criteria within 160 or so Lines

 

[Thinkaman]

Changing one property of Yoshi's d-smash SHOULD take the same amount of lines as changing his weight... but that's the point! Even a small increase in weight or attack ratio drastically benefits a character, while you would have to buff several attacks to get the same benefit.

Are you seriously thinking that a single improvement to a single move is going to balance out a character? Do you think Yoshi would even move up a single spot on the tier list if his d-smash was slightly buffed? Do you really think the problem with Falcon is that his knee doesn't KO soon enough? Do you really think that Link would suck less if his grounded Up-B was better?

No one looks at Yoshi and says "Gee, Yoshi's really bad, but if he had a better d-smash he'd be top tier!" There are more important problems with Yoshi, you know better than that. No character that deserves balancing can be balanced by simply changing a single move. Since we don't have the freedom to change several moves for each character, we are often forced to turn to global properties of the character, such as weight.

 

[Drephigami]

lol just play meta he is soo good and he can beat like every char and cant b changrab by ddd

 

[darkstone knight]

the 256 lines of code are read by the processor, correct?

thus, the 256 lines of code can handle thinks like "move data around", correct?

thus, you can expand those 256 bytes to way more

if you know (Z80)assembely

LD BC,# amount of mem adresses in jumptable
loop:
push BC
LD DE,code
LD HL,BC ;starting backwards to save space
ADD HL,HL
ADD HL,HL ;each jump is 4 bytes in lengt, wii is 64 bit?
LD BC,code
ADD HL,BC
LD BC,# ;amount of bytes equal to (jumptable - code)
LDIR ;load, increase, repeat

code
*CODE GETS COPIED HERE, AND EXECUTED*

pop BC
DJNZ loop
jumptable:
*memory adresses of executable code*


using someting stimilair to this, the amount of free bytes is simpely limited to the lengt of the jumptable
asuming the "copied code" doesnt change the jumptable (in that chase, amount of code is restricted by the hardware your running from, like SD card)

no?

 

[meresilence0]

Well, at the same time, we have to consider whether or not hacking is necessary, period. The game was made to be the best it could be. Those 2 delays probably were designed to iron out any kinks that the game may have had.

Why tinker with the game? You will never know how 2 lines of code will affect a program. The game's engine will have to deal with this, and this could effect everything else. You never know exactly what kind of monster you will create.

Secondly, Mmac makes a good point. Tinkering with the character coding, not just the game setup, would kill this game. Literally. And going back to what I said before, tinkering with a character and taking it online (for whatever reason) would totally screw up the other guy's game too.

 

[SonicX580]

Why increase the weight on almost every one?

 

[Plum]

My real issue is the grab "fix"
Something that eliminates a characters complete metagame should not happen. I'm talking about the Ice Climbers obviously. They rely on their grab game, and their grab game does not break the game in any way.

To fix Jigglypuff I would suggest to not raise damage to her aerials rather drop the knock back down. Brawl upped the knock back from Melee and that eliminates a wall of pain potential even more so than the air dodge system in my opinion. Her aerials are fair in terms of damage but they send the opponent too far to have any chance of a follow up aerial which made Jiggs so playable in Melee (along with rest... ) She was my Melee main but once I got a feel for the knock back I dropped her, wasn't right. I feel that making that change would open up a lot of her past metagame.

Some of the characters do not need any more weight. Ike, Charizard and Gannondorf are already tanks in terms of the difficulty of getting them way out there at early percentages. Would it make them better? Perhaps but opening up another move into their viable move set could do wonders. Maybe that one is something that can only be figured out through testing to really determine the effectiveness.

 

[Thinkaman]

Well, at the same time, we have to consider whether or not hacking is necessary, period. The game was made to be the best it could be. Those 2 delays probably were designed to iron out any kinks that the game may have had.

Why tinker with the game? You will never know how 2 lines of code will affect a program. The game's engine will have to deal with this, and this could effect everything else. You never know exactly what kind of monster you will create.

Secondly, Mmac makes a good point. Tinkering with the character coding, not just the game setup, would kill this game. Literally. And going back to what I said before, tinkering with a character and taking it online (for whatever reason) would totally screw up the other guy's game too.

I'm not going to respond to this besides refer you to my first blog post, which you can easy find listed. Also, you might be interested in this thread: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=146816

Why increase the weight on almost every one?

Did you read my response to Mmac? The entire point of this blog entry was that we don't have the physical capacity to make multiple changes to each character; we have to make only a couple changes and "fix" the entire character. For many characters, increasing their weight so that they live longer is one of the best options. What other single change could improve a character so drastically, and yet still leave the character playing with the same style?

My real issue is the grab "fix"
Something that eliminates a characters complete metagame should not happen. I'm talking about the Ice Climbers obviously. They rely on their grab game, and their grab game does not break the game in any way.

As I posted out, 3 of the Ice Climber's throws can be chained, and they can be mixed and matched. ICs are one of the most impacted characters by the grab escapse system proposed, but it doesn't at all remove their chaingrab game! It only punishes them for being predictable.

I even acknowledged this in their entry, and suggested giving them a canceling dair. But, as the point of this post is, small changes like that get cut when we have to deal with a budget.

To fix Jigglypuff I would suggest to not raise damage to her aerials rather drop the knock back down. Brawl upped the knock back from Melee and that eliminates a wall of pain potential even more so than the air dodge system in my opinion. Her aerials are fair in terms of damage but they send the opponent too far to have any chance of a follow up aerial which made Jiggs so playable in Melee (along with rest... ) She was my Melee main but once I got a feel for the knock back I dropped her, wasn't right. I feel that making that change would open up a lot of her past metagame.

First, as a Jiggs main, I can assure you that bair WoPs are alive and well in Brawl. It all comes down to manipulating move decay. You can generally nair people if they try to air dodge past you to boot.

Second, I hope you are not saying you want to nerf knockback on fair. Fair is the best thing about Jigglypuff in Brawl.

Third, I love Melee Jigglypuff. I only played Jigglypuff in Melee. However, I only play Melee Jigglypuff in Melee. In Brawl, I play Brawl Jigglypuff, instead of hoping and wishing that Melee Jigglypuff was still in the game. When you talk about Brawl, get over Melee Jigglypuff.

Some of the characters do not need any more weight. Ike, Charizard and Gannondorf are already tanks in terms of the difficulty of getting them way out there at early percentages. Would it make them better? Perhaps but opening up another move into their viable move set could do wonders. Maybe that one is something that can only be figured out through testing to really determine the effectiveness.

First off, yes, living to even higher percents does substantially help these characters, especially Charizard.

Second, you are right, I would prefer to change several of their moves instead of changing their weight. Look up the blog posts for these characters, and look at the sometiems massive list of changes I propose making!

But third, the point of THIS blog post was that we can't make a million changes, and changing just one move won't balance the entire character. So, changing weight is the in many cases the next best thing and would work reasonably well.

 

[darkstone knight]

captain falcon is worse than ZSS

increase weigth on both

captain falcon is STILL worse than ZSS

improving weigth does noting, imo

hint: decrese yoshi shield lag...

 

[Thinkaman]

Obviously, I wouldn't make identical changes to weight. (And ditto for all other changes.) I actually have a complete numerical weight list in mind that I might post in the future.

 

[darkstone knight]

you brobaly dish all changes and change the high and bottom tier only

that way there are ~20 lines per char, and the overal board becomes more balanced

 

[Eternal Yoshi]

Why put so much support on changing peoples weight? The only one who should have a Weight change is Snake, who is unrealistically heavy.

Snake is heavy because his general build is larger and heavier than Link. Also, he is holding various items and weapons including some of which he doesn't use. A list of these include an infinite amount of grenades, Nikitas, Mortars, C4,Cyphers, Mines, Rockets, The Mortar Launcher, the Nikita Launcher, The C4 remote controller, Rocket Launcer, and guns and bullets he can't use(look closely at his waist belt and vest). All of this adds up to him being very heavy and slow moving.

 

[JuniorMints]

now this was a pretty interesting read! Im not really for nor against hacking in brawl; hacking gives us possibilities and also limits them. with these new theories; if executed properly would totally change the tournament scene. in a good way, and a bad way.

a good way by finally brawl would be even MORE competitive.

a bad way because not everyone can do it.

but i want to see it work out. keep it updated.

 

[Kraryo]

Snake is heavy because his general build is larger and heavier than Link. Also, he is holding various items and weapons including some of which he doesn't use. A list of these include an infinite amount of grenades, Nikitas, Mortars, C4,Cyphers, Mines, Rockets, The Mortar Launcher, the Nikita Launcher, The C4 remote controller, Rocket Launcer, and guns and bullets he can't use(look closely at his waist belt and vest). All of this adds up to him being very heavy and slow moving.

Breaks from reality that help balance the game are perfectly fine. Like how Mario can beat Sonic at a race at the olympics. Realism is overrated.