Created Characters: What is our stance on them?

[goodoldganon]

So far Cape has done Doc and I have done Roy with extensive Frame help from Leaf. Both have received positive feedback, despite the fact they must replace a current character. That's not the point of this topic, the point of this topic is:

Will these characters be considered tourney legal after we have a Gold version? Why should they or why should they not?

For the sake of the debate lets assume the following things:

• A clone engine works allowing us to add up to 7 official characters. (One for each of the unused CSPs).
• When you select a created character the announcer says nothing. It would be like he was muted when we selected Roy.
• It would still say: 'This games winner is....MARIO!' (Or whatever it currently says when you select one of these unused select portraits, I haven't tested)
• Both the original and clone would be usable. This means you could have a FFA match with Roy, Doc, Mario, and Marth

So what do you guys think? I want everyone to be brutally honest here. I won't get hurt if you decide that we don't want Roy in the game for tourneys. Here is my stance:

Clones do nothing but bolster our reputation and drawing power. Adding characters to the game is a very, very powerful tool. People who had never tried Brawl+ are now willing to try it out more because an old favorite is back or because we added our own exciting new character. Can you imagine the fangasm if we were able to add a decent Isaac? Shadow? Sure, at times it will seem a little sloppy, like when Roy wins a match and it says Marth, but I think everyone will be able to look past that and see the content. The people that don't are the kind of people that are just looking for reasons to hate on Brawl+.

So what do you guys think? Should clones be tourney legal when we have a gold version or should the clones and clone engine stick to being used for fun?

Also, if we do decide on legal characters, who should we use? This is the biggest problem with the whole thing. Imagine the **** storm that would arise because we decided X character was better then Y for the final cut. It would be like Brawl's release all over again, except people can actually get in contact with us personally. Do we hold a community poll to decide? Do we tell people 'Sorry, we have the power to code, it's mostly our game so we'll decide?' Thoughts on this issue?

I'm leaving for Hawaii tomorrow so I won't be too involved in this discussion this upcoming week, but I plan to at least check up on it and post my rebuttals when I get back.

 

[Deleted member]

no. just no. I like clones and stuff, but we simply can't make them tourny legal. there is no way we could talk that right to the public, and mostly against pepole new to brawl+.
It would also be somewhat troublesome to balance out the game against even more characters.

in a later stage we could make them tourny legal (says 2-3 months after gold, yes that long), but for now I really want to stick to the cast we have.

 

[goodoldganon]

I wouldn't expect the clones to be admitted into the cast during the first Gold release of the game. Our first and primary goal is the original 39-40. My question is:

After we can say that the game is gold and the original characters are balanced, will we consider adding clones into the cast for the sake of spicing up the game or should they be relegated to friendlies? If accepted, how do we decide who makes the cut and who doesn't? (What makes Roy a better choice to be tourney legal then Pichu)

Also, what does this mean:

there is no way we could talk that right to the public, and mostly against pepole new to brawl+.

Also, what are we going to do after Brawl+ goes gold? Pick up drinking? Go outside more? I imagine this room will start to phase more into a room similar to the SBR, but I can't imagine it's all serious business in there and that there is tons of work being done in that room all the time. I could be wrong and that is for Hylian or Chibo to answer.

 

[Deleted member]

I think we would become more like the developers of a MMO, or other game that allows for after-release balancing.

we would release the occasional patch for bugfixing and small balance issues (ifinites, unfixed glitches or jusr plain balancing). of course we would also be a group that provides data, since we are able to get every single bit of data there is to get from a game.

about the problem of who is gonna make it or not, that is tricky. I think we could release them in patches of two.
we let the public make a big list (say 100 characters) and them we first remove those that are too awkward or too hard to mak (full size ridley for example). then we would have to start some voting rounds to cut it down to 2 chars. then we would make those characters (if not done already) with collaboration of the public.

I think that that would be the best way to keep everybody happy.

 

[goodoldganon]

Another question that occurred to me:

Should we ask the community if these characters should be legal or are we going to say their opinion doesn't matter?

 

[Shell]

My stance is that once we have a suitable engine in place to handle these clones with them replacing a character, then we can make an effort to officially include characters in the set, even before going gold.

With that said, however, these additional characters will not be accepted for use in tournaments until such a time as we've gone gold and have had a chance to revisit the characters and collectively agree that they fit within the balance of the core characters, and that their matchups don't greatly disrupt the balance we crafted for the gold release.

Basically, agree whether we make X character "official," then include them in the set as early as possible to get the most feedback on them, keeping them tourney illegal until we get enough data to balance them after everyone else.

 

[goodoldganon]

A good idea SHeLL.

Mind answering the second question? How do we decide who is official and who is for friendlies?

 

[leafgreen386]

Another question that occurred to me:

Should we ask the community if these characters should be legal or are we going to say their opinion doesn't matter?

I can't imagine things turning out well if we don't ask the public. I'm sure that there will be an overall positive response if we do offer this, but it needs to be offered.

I agree with that, shell. I actually think it'd be fine if we just kept extra chars in nightlies, but out of the official builds, which are what we're trying to push for tournies.

 

[shanus]

I will respond more later as I am on my iphone, but i am thinking it isnt wise yo officially include our new characters. What is official? What is the true limit to our creativity? How will this effect our credibility (this is my mIn worry)?

 

[_Yes!_]

You're better off not doing it to be honest. It's cool for private use I guess, but if brawl+ were to ever actually become big and noticeable, there's sure to be lawsuits flying even if you put doc or roy in it. Maybe you can get away with different movesets but don't call them Dr. Mario and Roy exactly.

 

[Shell]

I don't think including Roy or Doc would get any lawsuits flying compared to what we're already doing.

The dude hosting Brawl files in the Workshop... that'll get lawsuits flying.

 

[_Yes!_]

Well I'm pretty sure if Nintendo found out things wouldn't be too good. Unless it's only if we try to sell brawl+ right?

 

[goodoldganon]

We'd have to be making a profit off of a Brawl or including a character that isn't licensed by Nintendo. For example, adding Cloud to the game could cause SE to say, "Look at this new popular Brawl+, people are buying Brawl now to play as Cloud."

Nintendo has already made the profit off of Brawl and couldn't care less what we do with the characters in the game and the game itself. All we are doing is probably voiding some warranty on repairs. Legal reasons shouldn't stop us from adding characters.

 

[leafgreen386]

Pretty much any character brawl already has the rights to is fair game. That means any one of the numerous trophies is up for grabs as a legit character, but someone like geno isn't (sadly).

 

[GHNeko]

Generally, I'm iffy about the whole idea, though really, I am leaning towards no. :/

I dont know about you guys, but Im gernerally worried about the Stigma that adding characters would bring. While at the same time it could bring it new people, it could easily turn away potential players. :V

"So they added Roy and Doc from Melee. I knew Brawl+ was trying to be melee."

"They added Dark Samus? Wtf are they adding characters for. I thought this was just supposed to add balance."

"They added Issac? What are they going to add next. Cloud? Those guys dont know what they're doing."

etc etc

It's giving them canonballs of ammo and the last thing I want to do is give them something to use to shoot us with. :V

 

[Shell]

That's true, although they will always shoot us with something.

For every group that think's "So they added Roy and Doc from Melee. I knew Brawl+ was trying to be melee," another group will think "Oh awesome, my main is back. I <3 teh Plus."

But I see where you're going with the second two. The only reason I think melee vets are any different is because it's easier to predict how they'll stack up based on their old matchups. They're easier to ..."control." Compare this to a character more from scratch with a very fresh, unknown metagame which produces a much greater chance at disrupting balance in unforeseen ways.

 

[GHNeko]

I'd prefer giving them less ammo, and if I do, I'd prefer it to be old and used stuff so people can laugh at them. :V

GH Fact: More people are inclined to try something after being proved wrong ie ***** and shut the **** up in an argument. V:

So old ammo is alot better than new ammo.

 

[CT Chia]

I support it only if it's done properly with high production value.
We would have to find a way to fix some of the points stated on the first post.

 

[shanus]

That's true, although they will always shoot us with something.

For every group that think's "So they added Roy and Doc from Melee. I knew Brawl+ was trying to be melee," another group will think "Oh awesome, my main is back. I <3 teh Plus."

But I see where you're going with the second two. The only reason I think melee vets are any different is because it's easier to predict how they'll stack up based on their old matchups. They're easier to ..."control." Compare this to a character more from scratch with a very fresh, unknown metagame which produces a much greater chance at disrupting balance in unforeseen ways.

Lets not forget the rampant PMs and AIM messages I got during our exploratory nightly builds time (mostly high level players not supporting B+ anymore).

As sad as it is to say, most of the people who will be saying "oh new characters" will be random people, and random people won't be what makes or breaks Brawl+.

At least in my personal experience, I've brought Brawl+ to a few tournaments. In the northeast (I've finally had success in CT, woohoo!), the most blunt criticism I've received from a few of the top 5 players, "Brawl+ is fanboyism at its finest." How will the addition of new characters effect our public image?

So my main concern is public image for the success of Brawl+. If it will be deemed undamaging, then I'm okay with it, but I'm very very hesitant to support it.


Also, do we really want all these ******* like in the SSB4 thread with moveset ideas plaguing our B+ threads?

 

[JCaesar]

I support the idea of having two versions, regular (vanilla? ) Brawl+ and Brawl++ (with extra characters). That way we could push regular Brawl+ for tourneys but people who want to mess around with Roy, Doc, etc. would be able to (and I guarantee that will draw in a few people who might otherwise have not tried Brawl+).

I brought Roy to a smashfest a couple weeks ago and everyone loved it. I think MD/VA probably wouldn't have any problem with the new characters if we go that route, but I understand how that might make some people take us less seriously. What we need to do is talk to high level players about how they feel about it (at the very least, Roy and Doc).

And yes, unfortunately, I'm seeing new character threads pop up in the workshop and it's getting really annoying -_-

 

[slikvik]

i was just about to suggest releasing two versions of brawl+ but jcaez beat me to it. The focus as of right now should be to perfect the game. Messing with new characters should come after

 

[goodoldganon]

I like the idea of two versions. Brawl+ will be our golden child with a balanced cast and ++ would be for us to flex our creative strengths and nerd out. + would be the tourney standard, but if people agree to the new characters then ++ can be played as well.

 

[leafgreen386]

Interesting idea about having a brawl+ and brawl++ ("brawl double plus?"). That sounds like a pretty solid way to go about doing it, and as the community develops an opinion about the new characters and we've sufficiently balanced them, they could slowly be added to the tournament scene (with community approval, of course).

 

[Shell]

I also approve of the Brawl+ and Brawl++ concept.

 

[Dark Sonic]

Brawl++ is such a weird name though lol.

How about BrawlX or NeoBrawl or something?

 

[Shell]

"Brawl: Now we have to deal with everyone heckling us to put their character in edition"

Trump.

 

[leafgreen386]

"Brawl: Now we have to deal with everyone heckling us to put their character in edition"

Trump.

Shell wins.

 

[Veril]

"Brawl: Now we have to deal with everyone heckling us to put their character in edition"

Trump.

Awesome lol

I think the whole idea of clones should be put on the back burner for a while. The general feel I've been getting just lurking in chats, and notably during an hour I spent on the IRC talking with players about this:

A lot of people are really excited about this. Despite the pichu haters here, a lot of people were discussing how to make Pichu unique from Pikachu, how his metagame would change, etc. So there's some solid support for what I think is the best possible result of this, clones that are substantively different than their originals. Can we pull it off with a few characters? Probably, with a lot of hard work and time.

The problem is an equal amount of people are really wary about having these new characters tourney legal. Its tough selling changes to the standard cast. Imagine the difficulty with a whole new character.


So here's my stance:

•For the time being we should not indicate that there are any plans to make additional characters tourney legal. In the distant future, when B+ is perfect, we may broach the idea to the (hopefully by then large) competitive scene, and see how they react.

•These characters should be made available as side attractions for friendlies and such, where the issue of legality will be muted and people will be more receptive. It certainly would attract a lot of attention, and honestly, if money isn't involved people are way more chill.

•The clone project should not in any way detract from the balancing of the current cast. We should avoid outside discussion of new characters so as to keep the people following brawl+ focused on the substantive changes... instead of talking about pichu for an hour.

•The Roy thread in the Character discussion board should be made an Official Clones Discussion Thread. Pichu (seriously, I want him and I'm not alone), Roy, Doc, whatever could all be covered. I think that giving each their own thread would divert so much attention. Idk, I really wouldn't mind the Roy Thread getting closed.

 

[CT Chia]

having 2 versions will be bad. then tourneys will be split between which to do. either way, if new characters are done correctly, there is no reason not to put them in the game

 

[VietGeek]

I agree with Chibo on this one. The concept of Brawl+ and Brawl++ isn't bad, but it'll further divide the community. Even if Brawl++ "isn't gonna be tourney legal," that's not for us to decide. That's ultimately up to the community that supports B++.

In the end we (most of us) hope to have this game become big. However making yet another alternate version would take away from that, and make it seem like we can't even agree amongst ourselves on where the project should be going.

 

[goodoldganon]

A good point that I didn't consider, which puts an immediate halt in that plan.

 

[Shell]

Then how about our formal stance be that they will not even be considered tournament legal until at least after we go Gold.

At that point, after talking to enough of the community (mainly just pros), we, the WBR, can vote on the inclusion of a character into tournament legality should it fit strict requirements of balance/matchups and overall quality.

Meanwhile, we're free to integrate them into the nightly releases for fun and (more importantly) feedback, possibly omitting them from the official sets.

 

[goodoldganon]

And as a coder/releaser of the character we shouldn't update the set when a new Plussery launches so you can't have a tourney with Roy in it.

 

[Shell]

Er, I dunno if that's necessary, just make it clear that on the day the official, tournament set is released (devoid of extra characters), we let people know that the extra characters can be found in that very day's nightly set.

 

[JCaesar]

My original idea was that B+ and B++ would be EXACTLY the same except for the few extra characters, so it wouldn't really matter if a tourney every once in a while decided to use B++, though we would be pushing B+ as the tourney set. It wouldn't split the community because it wouldn't even be an issue to switch back and forth.

But regardless, this isn't something we should even consider until B+ goes gold.