MASSIVE POST INCOMING
I played some of this with some of the other KC players and maybe took is slightly seriously. Take the feedback in that regard.
Slightly as in "Casual, I did some stuff a little serious" or as in "I took this as a serious competitive game"? :V If the latter, <3
As a whole game, it's pretty fun. Most of the characters seem broken enough to compete, a few exceptions I'll bring up. If we were going to take this game seriously as a tournament game (shocking I know), I think the main problem it would have would not be any one character dominating but rather that there exist a wide number of hard counter matchups. I don't know how much those bother this development team, but I think in the long run most people would either use several characters with Zelda & Sheik, Pokemon Trainer, and Samus having the benefit of option select character picking.
Hard counter matchups are not ideal. More than one or two per char is probably bad. Real bad.
Specific character feedback:
Bowser is the most polarizing character by far. Low damage "combo" characters have almost no hope of beating him. Some characters have a few good options to pierce his armor and have evenish matchups. The other heavy hitters just wreck him, and he has no hope of winning. In specific, I saw that Bowser beats Lucario at least 80:20, goes close to even with Pikachu probably slightly Bowser's favor, and loses to Ganondorf at least 10:90 maybe even worse with severely uphill matchups against Ike and Captain Falcon as well but better against them than against Ganondorf. Bowser is beyond unviable as a main, but he makes a ridiculous secondary. I'm not sure if Bowser is fixable given his current design, but I think at a tournament level Bowser would be the single biggest problem for the metagame. I don't think he even would earn a tier placing because of this status...
That bad? Really? I mean, I saw most of bowser's harder MUs as still winnable. We specifically buffed certain key moves (MK's UpB for example) for him... Meh. He's tricky. I for one really like the concept behind bowser, and would love to keep it. Obviously, it's a hard thing that you kind of have to design around... What would you recommend besides removing it altogether? My idea was basically to make it turn off during hitstun and tumble... but I dunno.
Olimar is super bad and as far as I could tell easily the worst character in the game; you guys really just need to rethink him. Olimar feels nerfed from standard Brawl which given the power level of the game is a really, really bad sign for him. The small thing is a nice thought in a way, but it really does hurt him more than it helps him so if you want to run with it you should tweak his physical attributes a lot to compensate. He also needs something better than a buffed Pikmin Pluck which is honestly barely useful.
1. Olimar is getting buffed.
2. Olimar is not weak. Have you seen the combos this guy is pulling off? You sure you're doing it right? Plus, he's stupidly hard to hit for some people...
I spent most of my time using Pokemon Trainer for his flexibility in working around hard counter matchups, and I mostly liked what I saw (if I play more Brawl-, it will be as a PT main). You guys mostly did a really good job on Squirtle, but a small tweak that could be fun would be increasing the speed boost he gets from turning around (one of the earlier listed physical attributes governs this) to make his pivot gimmicks even better. Ivysaur feels like he needs a little help, but he's close to right with a mostly good feeling and the hilariously awesome bair. I really don't like the feel of his recovery very much, and I'd kinda like dsmash to have a little more bkb to be more reliable at the game's power level. Dunno if you guys did anything to Razor Leaf and Bullet Seed, but both were getting some good mileage for me even if they were kinda tricky; small buffs to either move are another possible way to make Ivysaur just make that small leap he needs to be just right. Charizard, however, feels really underpowered. I didn't explore him much because honestly he seemed pretty bad, but I think he needs some attention and love for your next release (buffed Rock Smash! You know you want to!). I can't even say anything more about Charizard because I wasn't doing much other than getting smacked around and wishing I had awesome stuff like everyone else whenever I was him.
I hate PT. Reason: half of his moves are kill moves. But yeah, in Brawl-, being very versatile is a massive bonus. I was playing wifi against Linkshot a while ago, and I think the reason I couldn't beat him is because I couldn't find anyone who countered PT... :V Plus I suck at wifi.
Either way PT is incredible. You're going to love the new Ivy and Charizard. Stealth rock FTW.
I also really, really dislike the removal of auto-switch. If I'm actually playing as the trainer, isn't that a sign I actually want to use Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard? I was actually switching at the start of stocks even unsafely just because not switching as PT was really annoying me and was making it hard for me to use the character the way the character is fun for me (which involves a constant mix-up of playstyle by shifting character).
Hold L or R. This probably will not change.
[qipte]I also don't know if you guys included all the costume files for PT on the SD card (I was a little... overwhelmed by other factors to notice my switch time), but if you didn't, you really should and also make sure the animations involved with switching go nice and fast. I am mostly saying this to make sure it's known that not everyone subscribes to the insanity of solo Pokemon, and some of us really like PT himself! All around, PT is probably near the top of the 2nd tier right now, mostly not top tier because Ivysaur is slightly underpowered (not too bad) and Charizard's main role on the team is slowing down your ability to switch from Ivysaur to Squirtle...[/quote]
Costume files? That'll help switch time? Also... Ivysaur is insane and you are ****ing mad if you disagree.
Other general tier comments...
Ganondorf, Ike, Zelda & Sheik, and Ice Climbers are just all around really good, probably top tier. Even among the game's generally broken characters, these guys really stand out. Zelda & Sheik is my pick for the best character in the game, probably with a heavier focus on Zelda but Sheik has some silly stuff too so you can't rule her out as an important character half. All around, all these characters are also fun to use and fun to fight against so I'm not saying this as a suggestion to nerf them so much as just trying to identify them as top tiers.
Ganondorf? A character who is still relatively slow-moving, has no projectile, and just has a lot of kill power? I don't know... I'm not going to argue with you on shiek and zelda because of their versatility, but they feel like high at best. Ike... no way in hell man. He's still in fact quite slow, relatively, and mid at best.
Pikachu, Jigglypuff, and Captain Falcon are safely high tier but probably not top. Most of the rest of the cast is hard to place so if I don't mention them later, it doesn't mean I didn't use them it just means I'm not sure of how good they are yet.
LOL@not top for Jiggs. Pika I'd also put as high tier, but Jiggs... ****. Jiggs has everything man. CF is safely mid-high (swords **** him up).
Snake and R.O.B. are single change gimmicks that are probably very powerful and would be big factors in the metagame. It's hard to say how they'd play out, but I don't like how they work out relative to the formerly listed top tiers (who are top tier because they have a ton of broken stuff, as opposed to one thing that's really, really broken and then the rest of them is only kinda of broken).
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
ROB is a single change gimmick? Wut?
You have:
-SideB momentum approaches
-Multilazer
-Strong lazer combos
-Weak lazer gimps
-ROBdashing (dair)
-Massively buffed air speed and jumps
This is one? :V ROB is incredible. Also I can't even imagine how you would see one change on snake.
Ness and Mr. Game & Watch feel underdone and underpowered. I've already chatted with Linkshot a bit about G&W, feel more strongly about that having used him more. Ness is just... underwhelming in every way. He's not awful, but his power level and flashiness are just way below the standards of this project. He needs serious attention for your next release, but I have no suggestions.
I disagree on Ness, at least. Ness has Falco melee shine, 5.0 Fair, etc.
That's all I have; I hope it's helpful. God job on making a fun game with a lot of identity. I hope you guys decide to take the effort to actually tweak for balance while not lowering the game's power level and give some attention to a few characters who IMO kinda fell through the cracks; I wouldn't mind seeing a honed version of this as a routine side-event at tournaments.
We plan on it. Thanks for the feedback.
I was skeptical about this, but after playing it I absolutely love the direction the project is going. It already has more identity than Brawl+ (which is still fantastic and incredibly polished, I have nothing to say against it). I think though, that while your original intention may have been to break everyone, the end result turned out to be a bit different, and with real substance. I believe that more than anything, Brawl- succeeds in taking the most unique aspects of characters and further differentiating them from the rest of the cast, giving each character a very unique identity and adding tons of variety. Of course I also believe that the philosophy of balancing up (as in, making every character better. Breaking them preferrably) is way more fun than balancing down and you should definitely continue with that. I also like the massive hitstun. I thought .48 was too much for Brawl+ because it allowed stupid auto-combos, but the hitstun in Brawl- is so high that it greatly rewards combo play, and opens up the possibility for some ridiculous ones. As a side note, adding some flash makes things more interesting from a visual standpoint. I also love the menu and CSS.
<3
That being said, I think there is an inconsistent level of brokenness across the cast.
Mario's fireballs seem just a tad too fast...it can really be a pain to get back on stage with a wall of fireballs flying at you. Other than that he doesn't feel much different, and I think the individualized feeling of each character is what Brawl- should shoot for.
He has his things. Like his DownB crashing when you force PAL 50 on an NTSC disk (PAL wii) :V. I don't see the fireballs as too good unless you're using someone with a really ****ty recovery... like... um... Wolf?
Luigi is a ton of fun...but what's with his air speed? It just seems...odd to me. His fireballs seem to fit a little better than Mario's since they travel horizontally. I love his random trip attack, and that it can be canceled, and the auto-shoryuken.
His air speed is stupid, that's what's with it. :V
DK seems ok...just really boring compared to the rest of the cast, and he doesn't really feel different.
Neads Moar Barrelz. Seriously. I thought this for a little while, and then I realized "HOLY **** THIS HEAVY CAN COMBO!" I dunno, a little more flair is great though.
Bowser is....something. The super armor is a cool idea, but it just has a ridiculous effect on his matchups. Maybe do something like give his moves SA up to a certain percentage of the damage they deal? I toyed around with it some and it seemed feasible. I think that would still meet the same design goal but make it easier to balance his matchups.
See above. Universal heavy armor is something I'd love to keep, but how to keep it....
I absolutely LOVE Meta Knight. He's not really flashy, but he is so quick and an absolute blast to play.
I know exactly what you mean.
Jab->dtilt->uair->upB->glide attack FTW?
Ganon is fun to play too, and I love the ohko 666% warlock punch. If you get hit by it you deserve to get KO'd, but with the massive hitstun it can be combo'd into.
Wait what? You got a combo into WP? No way. Vids or GTFO XD
Falco seems to have been really buffed, is pretty flashy and fun to play...but Fox on the other hand feels almost exactly the same.
L2WD. :V Fox has a HAD, his trippy slow SideB, and some other crazy ****. It's just not quite as obvious.
I love ROB, particularly his neutral B (as ridiculous as it is) and his dair. Using dair to wavedash is a ton of fun.
YESZ!
Samus I like...but I have a beef with her homing missles. The combination of their speed and degree of homing is just too much. She edgeguards like a beast with them, it's really hard to get back on stage if she missile spams.
See what I said about mario.
I have some other impressions, but I'll hold onto them for now, mostly because I don't have the time to sit here and type an essay. Anyway, great work so far, I look forward to seeing how it evolves and develops.
Thanks a bunch.
Would it be too much to ask to switch this?
On death, if holding L/R, the current Pokemon will NOT switch out. Otherwise, it switches out normally.
@AA: I too have been playing with PT a lot. He's my favorite brawl- character so far. Also, Razor leaf breaks shields like DK punch or Jigg pound
EDIT: Just read what you said about G&W. Imo, he's a good character with great potential. I've asked my friends, who I play Brawl- with, what they think of the character. They claim he's broken. I didn't understand at first... why would a character so light, that dies in 3 hits be broken? Then they made me realize how hard it is to hit G&W because he's so fast and once he hits you, you're done for, literally. G&W can combo 0-90 (or death) easily against most characters. It's insane.
I think he's fine the way he is. He's super strong but at a cost. If you don't know what you're doing with him, you're gonna get wrecked.
G&W is a glass cannon. He's like Jiggs-don't ****ing get hit. G&W's combos are ridiculous, and he has an awesome aerial finisher-three or four actually. Also him being bad in teams is kinda not right. We're talking about a character going from the absolute best in teams to being good but not ideal in teams UTD. Keep trying; you'll get it. :V
Also, my top tier picks:
-ROB - Do I have to explain this? ROB has a stupid recovery, incredible movement, ******** combos, and one of the most consistent projectile games ever. ****ing awesome.
-PT - In a game like this, being uncounterable counts for a lot. I don't think anyone counters all three Pokes. Add the fact that he has a ton of kill moves, and you have one scary dude.
-Jiggs - Sing->Rest, Rollout->Rest... ****. Incredible WOP, autocombos into rest, and the like make Jiggs a beast. Dies early, but has better aggro than fox FFS. Easy 0-deaths out of uthrow don't hurt either.
-Luigi - I don't think I need to explain this either. Fair->fair->death. Luigi still has his stupid autocombos and gimps, and his air speed is... well, can a steamroller move at 200 MPH? Add the upB for stupid kills off the top and boom. Then there's his grab game, which scores automatic kills starting around 80 or so, and his great usmash and "dash attack" trip.
-Fox - It's melee/64 hybrid fox, what the hell do you want? Great options in most situations, increible ATs (Waveshining, JC triple shine), actually good recovery (sideB->upB ftw?), and if you miss your (very tricky if done right) tech out of a dthrow, he can force a getup and often slowmosideB->ledgespike dthrow. His combo game could work a little better, but still... ****. His biggest problem is just finding a player who can manage it-you know how it worked in melee; it was impossible to play a whole tournament as fox because of how hard he was to handle. But you look at that one japanese Falco vs. Fox B- vid and see **** like waveshine->usmash and you can't really think that fox is any lower than top 5, top 10 at the absolute lowest.
-Metaknight - All right, this is gonna get some flames. "MK IS TOP TIER AGAIN???" There's no denying the fact that MK is a ****ing monster. He still has the very best (and most variable) recovery in the history of SSB, ridiculous range, and a lazer sword. Jab will lead into almost anything you want if you cancel it well, Dtilt will lead into any aerial or special, upB is even more beastly, Dair spikes better, and your opponent had better hope he DI'd your upB right to avoid the glide attack follow-up. Add an fthrow that kills around 80 on the ledge due to its low angle, an uthrow that starts killing anywhere around 80-90, and a bthrow that kills around 110... MK's grab game is easily one of the best for killing, and dthrow isn't a bad combo starter. Ftilt is too. And upB. And and and and... MK is a combo machine. His buffed air speed makes him more able to follow up, and his specialfall edits make it so that you can really follow your opponent really, really well with things like upB and sideB. MK is a cruel, cruel mother****er.
I dunno... that's how I see it. A few other picks might be ZSS, Samus, Toon Link, or Zelda/Sheik. The list is in no particular order (well, okay, ROB is easily the best and on top :V), and I don't feel like most of them are miles ahead of the rest of the cast either, which is great (except maybe ROB). Bowser has been excluded on purpose; he'd be up there if he wasn't for A) ganon and B) the fact that he NEEDS to be completely retooled.
So, all the people who I play Brawl- with agree that
- is insane. (This is the last "official" release.) His Super Armor is way too good IMO. He can practically walk through Meta Knight's attacks (including Side Smash occasionally). Has anything been done about this yet?
Yeah, pretty much.
MK has literally 5 moves that effects Bowser, Dtilt, Dsmash, Fsmash, Dair, and Glide are the ones that will work all the time (maybe Utilt as well, i dunno). This is definetly one match up that supports changing the SA
I <3 dtilt in that MU... but yeah, not being able to do anything to him while he's in hitstun means MK will SUCK against him.
Actually, my friend played against my Bowser as Ike and got extremely frustrated by not being able to make me flinch with Jab, Nair, or the first part of Aether. We have pretty much stopped playing Bowser because we all agree he's cheap. Maybe it's just us, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
Although I think designing characters to CP others is not fun. Things like CP-ing happen naturally. I guess Brawl- isn't natural, but still. The game isn't meant to be serious, so why even worry about CP-ing? On the other hand, there's still a certain level of sanity you have to have before the games (or just certain characters) get obnoxious.
I like the idea of perma-SA on Bowser, but not this much. Is there any way we could make it so that multi-hit moves go through it?
Hey guys, Ike has trouble getting through Bowser's SA. Do we have a problem? Also I agree to a degree.
hey how about for gannon, make his down b jump cancelable.
over and over again, so he can recover from anywhere
maybe he could do moves out of it too(wizards foot to upair/nair)?
Ew.
um
bowser isnt broken
he's just a card shuffler. he has very few 50-50s, all of his matchups are right at the end of the scale in either direction.
You don't see anything wrong with someone ****** half the cast, and getting destroyed by the other half? Bowser is like the new King DDD, just way way more polarizing.
Is there anywhere with a full change list? It's hard to notice all of the subtle changes on my own and changelist on brawlminus.com is not up for some reason.
We're STILL working on it.
how do you work this without homebrew? is it possible?
Check the second post of the thread.
It keeps crashing after I choose a stage. What is going on?
Are you using Stack Smash?
![[TSON]](/data/avatars/l/114/114196.jpg?1360761019){kind=avatar}
Lucario.
