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Character Selection Screen
- Thread starter PikaJew
- Start date
I wonder what format they will do. This may be very weird to some, but the selection screen has always been something of my favorite part of the game.
Brawl made it simple with keeping vertical columns and organized the franchises pretty well so it almost felt natural to find Sonic on the end, Olimar down centre and Pit under Samus. Whenever I make a prediction roster I always try to find a new way to design the roster. Here's what I came up with (don't bring up characters that are or aren't here as it is old)
It's sort of a mix between Brawl and Melee. That big empty spot at the top is for the random selection. But you can see what I mean when it comes to the organization and how it can differ. It has to be aesthetically pleasing as well as logical in the design. I put the biggest franchises along the top and left (Mario, Zelda, Pokemon; Kirby should be where Pit and Palutena are but you get the jist of it) while lesser known or more obscure franchises populate the right (G&W in a perfect last unlockable slot). Mii is in the middle at the bottom for ease of selection and neutrality while third party characters allocate the middle 3 slots. I like it, but it's just an idea of how the design plays a part in making the selection screen. I don't think it'll exactly like the brawl roster you suggest above because of the extending amount of characters, but we'll see I guess.
As a side note, wouldn't the select screen where you pick up trophies to choose your character be AWESOME?! I'm surprised they haven't done this so far and ditched such an idea from the 64 version. I think it would be super fun and add a level of immersion instead of just being presented screen after screen.
Brawl made it simple with keeping vertical columns and organized the franchises pretty well so it almost felt natural to find Sonic on the end, Olimar down centre and Pit under Samus. Whenever I make a prediction roster I always try to find a new way to design the roster. Here's what I came up with (don't bring up characters that are or aren't here as it is old)
It's sort of a mix between Brawl and Melee. That big empty spot at the top is for the random selection. But you can see what I mean when it comes to the organization and how it can differ. It has to be aesthetically pleasing as well as logical in the design. I put the biggest franchises along the top and left (Mario, Zelda, Pokemon; Kirby should be where Pit and Palutena are but you get the jist of it) while lesser known or more obscure franchises populate the right (G&W in a perfect last unlockable slot). Mii is in the middle at the bottom for ease of selection and neutrality while third party characters allocate the middle 3 slots. I like it, but it's just an idea of how the design plays a part in making the selection screen. I don't think it'll exactly like the brawl roster you suggest above because of the extending amount of characters, but we'll see I guess.
As a side note, wouldn't the select screen where you pick up trophies to choose your character be AWESOME?! I'm surprised they haven't done this so far and ditched such an idea from the 64 version. I think it would be super fun and add a level of immersion instead of just being presented screen after screen.
Vann Accessible
Smash Ace
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Better move Pit down a space so Ridley has room. 
I've been promoting the 9x5 grid with a random spot. 44 seems conservative but realistic. Nice job.
I've been promoting the 9x5 grid with a random spot. 44 seems conservative but realistic. Nice job.
Yours looks pretty awesome!
I'm thinking the final game's character select screen is going to look like the main page of the Smash website, with background colours behind each character in the box. Like this:
Keepin' it nice and simple.
I'm thinking the final game's character select screen is going to look like the main page of the Smash website, with background colours behind each character in the box. Like this:
Keepin' it nice and simple.
MasterOfKnees
Space Pirate
I'd actually really enjoy each character keeping their website color on the character selection itself. Would make it quite colorful, and it'd make it easier to learn where each character is placed.
Something I'd like is if the characters had unique icons on the selection screen instead of their official renders, like in Melee where some characters like Luigi and Mewtwo had it. Some of the official renders look a bit odd for the purpose of a small icon, like Luigi and Kirby.
Something I'd like is if the characters had unique icons on the selection screen instead of their official renders, like in Melee where some characters like Luigi and Mewtwo had it. Some of the official renders look a bit odd for the purpose of a small icon, like Luigi and Kirby.
This is exactly what I have been thinking. Especially the Ridley partBetter move Pit down a space so Ridley has room.
I've been promoting the 9x5 grid with a random spot. 44 seems conservative but realistic. Nice job.
abrinx77
Smash Journeyman
The roster you have mocked up is exactly how I imagine it in the new game. 44 characters (plus transformations) would be just about perfect without getting into the 50 character hellish balancing act that would follow (not impossible, just quite difficult, I mean brawl has balance issues as is).
That would be perfect in my opinion. That makes for a total of 9 new character slots if every character from Brawl returns.
Possibly even a 10th slot if they can find another spot for the random selection.
If they continue pumping out these unique newcomers then 9 of them wouldn't be so bad.
That's exactly what I think the full game's character select screen will look like style wise.
D-idara
Banned via Administration
People seriously want less characters for more balancing? 50's a perfect number!
Souless_shadow
Smash Lord
I agree. 50 is my ideal roster size.
Made up a 50 size selection
I think everyone would want as many characters as possible if all else is equal. However, I'd rather have a game with 45 or even just 40 characters if there is no character as good as Meta Knight or as dumb as Ice Climbers than a game with 50+ with those problems. Imbalance effectively reduces the roster anyway as wide swaths of characters end up not being viable at all, and even characters who end up being well built end up with dumb problems like the way Ness (an otherwise good character in Brawl) gets grab release chaingrabbed all day by Marth and Charizard, effectively making him a suicidal choice for a main in tournament play since Marth is just too common for a 1-9 match-up to be acceptable.
D-idara
Banned via Administration
Ice Climbers aren't dumb at all. My philosophy's that there should be a character as good as Meta Knight...all of them. This is something that Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed did with the All-Star moves and I'm afraid Sakurai will do it on SSBWiiU/3DS...when balancing a game, if there's an extremely powerful attack/character, you don't peg them down to fit the other weaklings, you grab the weaklings and make them stronger! Like, instead of turning all Final Smashes into a Cook Kirby or Peach Blossom level of suck, he should just give ALL characters devastating FS's like Zero Laser or Critical Hit. Also remember that the Wii U has patches, Sakurai could focus a little more on the actually important part of the game (Loads of content) and fine-tune the balance through patches.
I'm going to assume based on how you are talking about final smashes that you aren't a tournament level player so you might not know. Ice Climbers are dumb for sure, and that's because their high level metagame boils down to exactly one thing: doing a lot of infinites. If you get grabbed by Ice Climbers, you lose your stock always. It's pretty awful, and it's beyond no fun to fight against them since you have to play this crazy conservative game in which you can be generally winning but make one small mistake and instantly be down a stock. The amazing thing is that they aren't even particularly better than the other top tiers when you average everything out, but they are by far the dumbest character in the game since at least it's real gameplay when the other top tiers are involved whereas the entire game when ICs are involved is "don't get grabbed".
Meta Knight is a character with pretty literally no weaknesses. He has Marth's range, Sheik's speed, above average kill power, and the best recovery in the game as just the abridged version of everything that makes this character amazing. While he has specific bad match-ups when you combine a character and a stage (like ICs + Final Destination), he generally has an advantage against literally every other character. Since there's pretty much nothing bad about him, bringing every character up to his level would mean just erasing every weakness every other character has since a character with flaws is unlikely to have a good time against a character without them. This would make the game boring since every character would end up being very similar; the solution is just to nerf Meta Knight especially since some of the ways in which he's good don't even make sense (like why does he really have such amazing KO power when his design seems to suggest he should struggle with KOs?). Even that aside, balance is relative, and being the best character by definition means that every other character is worse. No character should be the best by such a large margin as Meta Knight is in Brawl, and that sould be uncontroversial.
With patches and such, balance could be fixed, but more content could also be added. The initial release should be as good as possible, and then later work on balancing and/or adding content should mindfully consider how to improve that well-built base game. Gameplay, not content, is the most important part of smash bros, and all content really means is more vectors from which to derive gameplay. Of course in the neutral more content is helpful since it leads to more diverse types of gameplay, but there's a real balancing act in which too much quantity can lead to a necessary sacrifice of quality and therefore drag down the overall gameplay experience. Sakurai has indicated that he's very mindful of this in several interviews so I'm not terribly concerned, but I definitively agree with his mindset in that regard.
Meta Knight is a character with pretty literally no weaknesses. He has Marth's range, Sheik's speed, above average kill power, and the best recovery in the game as just the abridged version of everything that makes this character amazing. While he has specific bad match-ups when you combine a character and a stage (like ICs + Final Destination), he generally has an advantage against literally every other character. Since there's pretty much nothing bad about him, bringing every character up to his level would mean just erasing every weakness every other character has since a character with flaws is unlikely to have a good time against a character without them. This would make the game boring since every character would end up being very similar; the solution is just to nerf Meta Knight especially since some of the ways in which he's good don't even make sense (like why does he really have such amazing KO power when his design seems to suggest he should struggle with KOs?). Even that aside, balance is relative, and being the best character by definition means that every other character is worse. No character should be the best by such a large margin as Meta Knight is in Brawl, and that sould be uncontroversial.
With patches and such, balance could be fixed, but more content could also be added. The initial release should be as good as possible, and then later work on balancing and/or adding content should mindfully consider how to improve that well-built base game. Gameplay, not content, is the most important part of smash bros, and all content really means is more vectors from which to derive gameplay. Of course in the neutral more content is helpful since it leads to more diverse types of gameplay, but there's a real balancing act in which too much quantity can lead to a necessary sacrifice of quality and therefore drag down the overall gameplay experience. Sakurai has indicated that he's very mindful of this in several interviews so I'm not terribly concerned, but I definitively agree with his mindset in that regard.
Agreed, tournament play is a new ballpark, and IC make matches boring to play and watch. It's a really boring matchup and it's incredibly annoying to deal with. Also, on terms of your MK speak, I agree. You really have to player a perfect game if you're playing a good MK player, and for people with so many underlying weaknesses against such an opponent (my main, Lucas) it becomes a game where if you screw up, it could indeed mean a stock. That needs to be changed.
Sadly Nintendos defines it as a 'party game.' When we get into the meat and potatos, these things were not part of it's design and probably were overlooked. I assume Sakurai knows of the competitive scene (probably goes home from work and as a guilty pleasure, searches competitive melee without telling anyone xD) and should know of these problems. If I created something as successful as smash, I would want to know where I went wrong and how I could fix it. But again, it is a party game. MK is certainly not as top tier in a 4 player free for all the same way he is in a 1v1. The community created smash into something it never was suppose to be, which in term causes the creators to not support it, which is a shame. I wish they could make that divide in competitive and casual play to give all it's fans what they want. But we've gotten into a wrong discussion group for this so I'll segway back.
I like the 50 roster, ideally I think this is the game where we'll max out at 50. I would say we will have 10 newcomers this time around, which makes sense in turn. And I have a feeling it will be the flat design you've shown. It seems all platforms, websites and consoles are taking that design into play. I'm still standing by my trophy selector select screen! I think it would be kick*ss.
Sadly Nintendos defines it as a 'party game.' When we get into the meat and potatos, these things were not part of it's design and probably were overlooked. I assume Sakurai knows of the competitive scene (probably goes home from work and as a guilty pleasure, searches competitive melee without telling anyone xD) and should know of these problems. If I created something as successful as smash, I would want to know where I went wrong and how I could fix it. But again, it is a party game. MK is certainly not as top tier in a 4 player free for all the same way he is in a 1v1. The community created smash into something it never was suppose to be, which in term causes the creators to not support it, which is a shame. I wish they could make that divide in competitive and casual play to give all it's fans what they want. But we've gotten into a wrong discussion group for this so I'll segway back.
I like the 50 roster, ideally I think this is the game where we'll max out at 50. I would say we will have 10 newcomers this time around, which makes sense in turn. And I have a feeling it will be the flat design you've shown. It seems all platforms, websites and consoles are taking that design into play. I'm still standing by my trophy selector select screen! I think it would be kick*ss.
Superyoshiom
Smash Master
The Brawl selection screen was vastly superior to the melee and 64 screens. I mean, why would Dr. Mario go before the actual Mario anyways?
PLATINUM7
Star Platinum
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Maybe something like Melee's where only a few, not all unlockable slots are shown.
I like the whole idea where the screen changes over time when new characters are added. Ofcourse as they come to be unlocked, it'll look weird and be hard to make sure it flows (e.g. keeping franchises organized, let's say you unlock luigi and falco and jiggs and it changes but puts peach beside falcon.) Maybe a mix of melee and brawl would be good, as after a certain amount of time mystery boxes appear. Atlease then you know you have more work ahead of you.
I made this for my desktop, I've been having fun throw the new characters in as they come.
Attachments
Superyoshiom
Smash Master
This is amazing, I definitely want to see how this progresses
Aurora Jenny
Smash Lord
Wow, that's looking neat, PikaJew.
Souless_shadow
Smash Lord
How did you make that? I've been wanting to do something like that but I wasn't sure what program to use.
Just photoshop bro
It does it all
Souless_shadow
Smash Lord
Thanks!Just photoshop bro
PlayerXIII
Smash Journeyman
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The character selection is really a big part in all. It should give you "Lets fight!" vibe with some epic music playing in the background (Brawl did this perfectly in my opinion). I guess a look like in the site would probably be cool with the background colors and all. However, when you first boot up the game you should only be able to see the starting characters. Then, as you unlock characters they are added to the roster like in Brawl. However, you could go to options to enable an option that displayed boxes with a ? on the spots of characters you are yet to unlock. If you don't want to know what there is left to unlock, you leave this option off. If you want to know how many characters are in the game and what do you still have to unlock, you enable this option. I might make a little doodle of what I mean if someone doesn't get what I mean.
papagenos
Smash Champion
i think 40-45 characters is probably what we are looking at. i've played around with a few different things for the roster lay out. I actually like 5 x 9 with possibly a random button making 44 "spots" but prehapse 50 actually playable as people tend to forget to count the double characters as 2 characters. 44 spots with say : sheik, zero suit, charizard/squirtle/ivysaur, toon sheik/tetra?, possibly chrom/lucina or some other swap character and you'd have 50 characters. I'm also ok with 15 x 3 as i have noticed it can often fit 30 characters with franchises with multiple reps and 15 single rep franchises which i think is kinda neat.
Doppelgangofhomies
Smash Rookie
gotta a feeling it's gonna be the return of this guy; also, i hope the screen does look similar to yours pikajew it looks like something nintendo-ish
the smash nerd
Smash Ace
uuggg?
gotta a feeling it's gonna be the return of this guy; also, i hope the screen does look similar to yours pikajew it looks like something nintendo-ish
I've been telling myself anywhere between 45-50 and we're super lucky.
That's what I'm thinking.
But Sakurai doesn't want to add a lot of new fighters.
I still have hope though.
PlayerOneTyler
Sr. Community Manager, Smashboards Editor / Social
Where was that said?