Regarding Falco, and yes... I read the ENTIRE OP...
Falco shine was brought in due to the falco community. Sonic usmash was taken out due to the Sonic community. If you want to take issue with the new shine, yell at the Falco mains who want it in.
As for testing, thats why we have these tournaments, so that we can test new things.
Many of the Falco mains, including myself, feel that the shine change is a great addition to Falco... I'll further explain later.
I have not heard anything about freezing Yoshi Story since Orca was trying to get it frozen awhile ago.
I'm confused. I never said I want Yoshi Story frozen. I did however say that I wouldn't mind having Pictochat frozen, as I find it amazing that it's allowed for tournament play. Way too much BS happens on that map, and it's otherwise a joke.
An ideal fighting game, since I think that is actually what the community is trying to create, should have characters use all of their moves. All of the moves in the game were created for a certain purpose: the developers don't create them for professional gamers, but for the average buyer (definition: someone who will innocently play the game the way it was supposed to be played, trusting every single move in the game). Here in smashboards, we make a dissection of the game. We study every case wisely, and take what's best in order to use it for competitive play.
It's obvious that some moves should be better than others, that some should be over-used and others situational, but there's a point where situational is ridiculously bad. By that I speak of Falco's shine. You can use it to reflect projectiles. Wow. That's it? It has so much lag, you aren't able to follow it with anything once you reflect a laser/arrow/etc.. Many people say Falco is too good to have a buff. That's complete bogus. How do we even know that he's "too good"? Do we have a big number of reliable tournament results to tell us so? No.
You said that "Falco combos enough". Sorry, but no too. Falco has a very shallow combo game which consists of abusing dair and utilt, and follow it with bair and nair. That's not a bad situation, I may agree. Most characters have gotten a lot better with the new physics, and most of the characters tweaks have been given to mid/low tier characters. But the fact that Falco was top tier in vBrawl doesn't mean he is still going to remain awesome in Brawl+, because what we have here seems like a whole new game. How many buffs has he received since vBrawl? Almost none except with u-tilt speed-up, and other changes. Oh and by the way, nerfing the lasers (3% -> 2%) compensates a LOT the shine change, you have no clue how often Falcos use it, and how much damage they deal with it.
Falco still has a huge weakness that balances everything out: recovery. One of the easiest characters to gimp if you can predict his side-b, and up-b trajectory, and most pros can.
Using Skip2MaLoo's concept, Falco is a dangerous bird of prey onstage, and a helpless lamb offstage.
Great post! I agree 100%!
This. Falco's shine was nothing more than a mediocre spacing tool in VBrawl, and it was incredibly punishable in contrast to the little reward upon actually landing it. Now with the increased speed of Brawl+ and character buffs going left and right, I cant understand why his shine buff is a bad thing. It only adds more variety to his already shallow combo game and finally makes his Shine more than just a poor spacing tool. Hell, its not even remotely OP or anything since the opponent can always DI enough to prevent themselves from falling prey to combos/kills, and this is the case (even moreso) should the shine be spaced poorly.
@ Yingyay: . While his aerials will still be used to start/maintain/end combos, Falco wont always have to rely on them to start them at least (Lasers>follow up aside). Dtilt (and Ftilt imo) are actually more useful than his old shine was.
Again, great post, I agree entirely!
I'm sure Orca will come to explain to all of you the potential and usefulness of the new shine. I gotta go... Good night.
Here I am...
First of all, you can either read my New Shine proposal, found in my Falco+ thread
here, or you can read my upcoming rant.
It seems the new goal of Brawl+ is to disregard the balance decisions Nintendo/Hal/whoever the hell developed this game has laid out and override them just because some random complains about it.
For one, none of this matters AT ALL because said game was "balanced" around entirely different game properties. Simply put, Brawl+ is increasingly different from vBrawl, and the same "balances" that worked for vBrawl don't translate well into Brawl+. Because of this, we are responsible, we have to step in. Let's think of this in terms of hitstun for a moment. Characters in vBrawl weren't necessarily designed to combo, as there was no hitstun (or so little anyway), now that there is hitstun, we have to make it so each character works the best that he/she can with it. For some characters such as Captain Falcon and Fox the transition was simple, they adjusted nicely. Their moves naturally worked well with each other, with this new found hitstun. Other characters didn't have it so easy, and some were changed and changed again. For example, we worked on DDD and Bowser to give them more comboing potential. Brawl is NOT Brawl+, we have to make sure that what we implement works well with the entire cast. Silven, perhaps you've forgotten that these developers over at Nintendo, these "balancers" also incorporated tripping? They didn't design this game with a competitive mindset in any way, shape, or form... With that said, why then would you side with how the developers designed a move? Their "balancing" was so "amazing" in vBrawl that there were Locks, no brainer CGs, Grab Release Chains, and otherwise nearly unplayable characters. Tell me, how realistic is it for a Captain Falcon or Bowser, whatever, to beat a Snake or MK in a tournament, and win the entire tournament in vBrawl? Surely the game is built upon Nintendo's stunning design, their amazing balancing ways. If that's the case, each character is surely tournament friendly, right?
Falco
-Shine pulling in as opposed to pushing away. Falco combos enough already, not to mention his zoning game (via lasers) is amazing. Giving him an even easier way to start combos is a little bit of an overbuff some people think. I'm naturally against making move property changes unless it's ABSOLUTELY necessary which in this case it's obviously is not...changing it because it's "better" is the lamest excuse ever. There was nothing wrong with the original, it worked like it should. Why would any shine pull you in..?
I highly disagree with you. I too go to tournaments, though I haven't played a Brawl+ (I will be soon) I can say that there's no reason to outright reject his new shine.
Falco's combo game in Brawl+ is somewhat shallow, in addition, his uTilt is not always the most reliable move-- especially when the enemy is behind you, as it will not afflict them, failing to throw them up. In addition, uTilt is one of his best set-ups for his combo game. Having a new and improved shine fixes quite a few things for Falco. For one, it gives him another set-up for combos, which is ENTRIELY DIable. If the enemy DIs correctly, Falco may still be able to hit them with an attack, but he will not be able to follow up (and combo) as nicely as he would have with his uTilt. It facilitates an expanded combo game. You can do single hopped (short or full) shines to pull the enemy back in, perhaps from a combo, and continue the combo with use of your 2nd jump. It get's creative, and more skillful. His original shine was so terrible that it served almost no purpose beyond reflecting. It was VERY punishable, and didn't work as well as a spacing as his lasers do. His new shine comes out twice as slow, which makes it EVEN more difficult to land, however, now you can work into it and be rewarded for actually landing it. What was the reward for landing it before? I've been playing Falco since the game's launch, and I can say it didn't put Falco in a better position, even when connecting with the enemy, as you couldn't follow up at all (or hardly at all). There's simply NOTHING wrong with changing his shine. Just because the devs did one thing doesn't mean we shouldn't do another. After all, it was their developing and balancing that left vBrawl a joke, why should they be taken seriously?
Falco's combo game consists of this. Utilt to Utilt again (if possible) to Bair, Bair, Bair, Bair, and if your enemy DI's poorly you may, though rarely, execute a Dair spike. His Bair can be DIed away from, and in most cases, the stun isn't long enough to effectively link the attack. Most characters in midst of this attempted combo can neutral air before a 2nd Bair hits. Meaning, in some cases it doesn't work very well at all, unlike Mario's Uair chase, or Marths Fair, or Falcon's Uair. The other half of Falco's combo game ends in Dairs, which are entirely techable-- which ends the combo. For example, a Falco might uTilt, uTilt, Bair, then Dair the enemy. If your enemy fails to tech it might be useful, however, at the very least, it's no true combo to begin with.
Falco's new Shine is more difficult to land than ever, and is more rewarding to land, it's a good trade off. It's a great punishing tool. It also gives Falco the opportunity to play differently, which is by no means a bad thing. For example, you can be a slight bit more in your face, however, even still the shine can be blocked much more easily. He can however mind game the enemy into a situation where his shine will punish them... which is nice.
Another reason that the new shine is good, and fit for Brawl+ and Falco, is because it adds to his relatively weak edge game. Against many characters, Falco can use his Dtilt at the edge, and its effectiveness ranges with the character he's fighting. Oftentimes it's very punishable, as it's range isn't that great, and the enemy can hit you pretty easily (generally with the recovery attack hitboxes) In general, it's not the best edge guard, and Falco is instead better off spamming his lasers, or jumping off the stage and attempting a Dair spike. The new shine is more rewarding for the ledge game in that it can punish poorly executed recoveries. For example, if Fox shoots up past the ledge, he'll get pulled in by the shine. Is this unfair? No. A player recovering in a poor fashion SHOULD be punished anyway, so this is fine. A certain hitbox, and good timing, with the shine will result in a scenario where by the recovering character will be sent away at an angle, not pulled back to Falco, which makes for an exciting edgegame because it's a sort of "spike" so to speak. It often knocks the opponent away from the stage quickly and at and angle. However, the enemy can potentially return from this too.
In the end, Falco's new shine means more options. More options is not a bad thing. It just diversifies him a bit. There's more to learn / master with him. It's important in Brawl+ that we maintain character weakness, if not all of them, most of them. Certain obvious weaknesses have to be dulled down. For example, Bowser, and Ike were very slow in vBrawl, and otherwise no where near as useful as they are now in Brawl+. Their weakness came in the form of slow attacks, and longer landing lag. This landing lag made many characters terrible. Obviously we need to speed up the slow characters, no matter how much we speed them up they won't be as fast or combo friendly as fast characters like Fox anyway. Falco's new shine does not drastically change him. It has not done away with any of his inherent weaknesses. His off the edge game is shaky, and as others have pointed out, he has a crappy recovery. His firebird has terrible distance, and it has plenty of start up lag with which to punish. His phantasm is easily halted by projectiles, which can spell death many times, and it's otherwise predictable-- easy to counter. He's still not the most combo heavy character, and never will be. He still relies heavily on his now weaker lasers, but can combo more efficently / edgegard more efficiently with his new shine.
There's NOTHING wrong with his new shine. There's no reason not to have it.
here was nothing wrong with the original, it worked like it should. Why would any shine pull you in..?
I don't know, I'd consider it trash. No reward for connect, VERY PUNISHABLE, almost to the point where one should never use it, and not effective at edge guarding.
Why would any shine pull you in..?
Why wouldn't one? Is there a certain way a shine should act? Falco's shine in Brawl is the first shine to be thrown out, not just activated around himself. It's different. Why not make it a staple of Falco? Why not make it a more defining feature, while keeping Falco's weakness in tact, and making the shine more difficult to land yet more rewarding in the process?
In the end, you can't say that Falco is "too good" already, because there's no conclusive evidence backing that notion. Don't dare tell me about vBrawl Falco, and his torunament success. This is Brawl+, and without a boatload more tournaments, you can't prove anything. Other characters have gotten SO MUCH BETTER than their vBrawl incarnations, where is Brawl+'s Falco has fallen behind many characters--- no longer is this the case with a better uTilt and better shine. There's simply nothing wrong with Falco's new shine.
