Directional Influence, or rather... Not Directional Influence (Knockback Vector Addition)

[Strong Badam]

First things first, I'm well aware that there's an Advanced Technique/Mechanics thread. After 5 minutes of writing this post (which slowly turned into an hour), I quickly realized that this mechanic was 1. too important and game changing to be relegated to such a thread and 2. takes far too long to explain to be in such a thread anyway. With that out of the way, here we go!~

So after playing Smash 4 for the past few days, and feeling how it is, I began to notice peculiar trends in how knockback is determined. Before I explain that, I would like to explain the mechanic Directional Influence as it appeared in past Smash titles.

In previous Smash games, Directional Influence is a HUGE factor to not only high/top level play, but even mid-level play. Unlike other competitive fighters where combo & punishment mitigation is nearly non-existent or limited to resource-based mechanics such as Burst in Anime-style fighters, Smash games (specifically, Melee and Brawl, as well as Project M as a result) give the combo'd player an option to mitigate their punishment and interact with their opponent despite being in stun. By holding a direction, a player is able to influence the direction they're being sent. Note that the key word here is influence; a player is unable to add or subtract knockback, only change the trajectory angle. In Melee, the maximum amount of change was +/- 18 degrees. In Brawl, it was +/- 18 degrees for horizontal, vertical, and downward sending moves, and +/- 24 degrees for diagonally sending moves due to how diagonals in the control stick's x,y position being read as 1,1 instead of 0.707,0.707 (sine or cosine of 45 degrees, math is important in physics) as Melee did. Click here for a more in-depth guide. Note that this is not the same mechanic as Smash DI.

Now that you understand all of that, throw it all out the window for Smash 4. If my findings are correct, the mechanic present in Smash 4 is completely different. At the time of writing, I am fairly sure (but do not have enough data/experience to be entirely sure) that this mechanic replaces trajectory DI entirely. I also think Smash DI is not in the game at all (at least in the 3DS version, perhaps to try to save people's Circle Pads), and any perceived Smash DI is actually a result of this mechanic as well.

I call this mechanic: Knockback Vector Addition.

"So what's happening when you get hit?"

When you get hit, you receive knockback. This is a raw value calculated based on percent, weight, the knockback values of the move, and the damage/staling of the move, and then your character moves that many in-game units per frame. There's a constant in the game that subtracts from that speed, so you are going X units/frame on frame 1 and then (x-constant*frame#) units/frame on subsequent frames. Other factors take place such as a character's falling speed acceleration and such, but that's the general idea.
My theory is that by holding a direction on the control stick (or circle pad in our case), you're able to add a vector of units/frame to your knockback when launched. A simple explanation of a vector in this context is a value of units/frame as well as a direction. I believe this vector's strength is a percentage of the knockback you're suffering, so it's less powerful at low percents/when hit by weak attacks and more powerful at higher percents/when hit by powerful attacks.

For explanation purposes, let's assume the percentage of this is 20%. You are hit by an Upsmash whose knockback value at your current percentage is 100.
You are holding down, which grants you a vector downwards of 20 (units per frame, I'm just going to use numbers from now on).

Spoiler

^
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100

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v
20

When these vectors are added, the resultant knockback vector you suffer is 80 and upwards.

Spoiler

^
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80

So, obviously, with this new mechanic, you're able to arbitrarily tell the game that you're at a lower (or higher) percentage than you actually are, at all times, provided you're aware of the trajectory the move you're being hit by. EDIT: To clarify, despite being able to do KBVA, you do not suffer additional/reduced hitstun. My original description is misleading. It's basically like having Automatic Smash DI that scales with KB.
Similar is true for if you were to hold up in this situation; the resultant vector would be 120, which would cause you to die at an earlier percent than if you hadn't held anything. This has huge applications for survival as well as combo escapes.
To reiterate, this percentage value in these examples is most likely not the actual value and is only a value used for explanation purposes. In fact, there may be a formula at play to determine how strong it is that scales exponentially, linearly, or otherwise, rather than a simple percentage. I have literally no idea.

You might be thinking to yourself, "An interesting theory, Strong Bad. But I'm pretty sure people have been talking about 'Down DI' for a couple days now, which reduces knockback of all attacks regardless of trajectory by simply holding down. Why should I believe your story over theirs?"

A fair question, that has a fair answer. It's simple; I have tested KO percents while holding various directions on the circle pad and found them to support my theory. For these tests, the attacker SD'd between tests to ensure moves were fresh, and the victim performed a long-lasting taunt to ensure the victim didn't walk, jump, or crouch before impact.
The Twitch archive is here: http://www.twitch.tv/dentissbb/b/569133275?t=1h48m50s
In case the timestamp doesn't work, it's 1 hour, 48 minutes, 50 seconds. I would like to make a better video of this, with your help, but this will do to demonstrate it to you people back here.

Holding down against vertical attacks, as explained earlier, does indeed cause you to survive for longer.
The test for this I did was with Game & Watch's fully charged UpSmash against Jigglypuff on FD. With no control stick direction, Jigglypuff dies at 47% (before the hit of course), but not at 46%. Interestingly enough and contrary to our prior perceptions of Directional Influence, when holding either left or right, Jigglypuff still dies at 47%, even though she clearly is sent to the left or right and not straight up. Holding down, however, allowed Jigglypuff to survive even when struck at 51%. I didn't care to test at which percent a downward-holding Jigglypuff finally fails against G&W's fully charged Upsmash, as testing was difficult without a human vs human training mode.

However, against horizontally sending attacks, holding down either does not change your kill percentage or actually makes you die earlier. Testing this has been fickle, as anyone well versed in Smash mechanics is aware that "horizotally sending moves" actually send at a trajectory closer to ~45 degrees diagonally upwards, and a character's falling speed acceleration attribute (commonly known as gravity) acts simultaneously with knockback trajectory to make it appear to be more horizontal. But I can confirm that what I said earlier is true, as I have tested this with a fully charged Bowser Fsmash against Jigglypuff at the ledge of FD. Given the same percentage (14% in my tests), Jigglypuff died whether I was holding down or not at all. And as expected given the previous explanation, holding up, left, or left and slightly downward resulted in Jigglypuff not dying.

My tests were conclusive. Veteran Smasher Denti, despite being confused, could not argue with the results. Particularly, G&W dying at the same percent regardless of whether or not he held a horizontal direction was extremely convincing, going against all prior knowledge of trajectory DI.

I've no particular insight yet as to whether or not this is a good mechanic, but it is certainly one that changes the way the game is played competitively in a way that is perhaps bigger than any other mechanic change present in Smash 4. I didn't recognize this until today, so I'm still new to 1. knowing when best to use it and 2. remembering to do so (years of trajectory DIing well is hard to shake off), but I have already seen HUGE changes to interactions between punisher and victim as a result. Throws that would normally combo well into the 80s against many characters such as Sheik's Dthrow, Rob's Dthrow, etc. become purely positional throws after ~35-40% if you hold upward. Knowing that Namco-Bandai assisted in the development of the game, I'm less surprised than I otherwise would be. For those of you familiar with Soul Calibur, in at least one Soul Calibur game a mechanic exists (the name of which escapes me EDIT: Air Control) when being juggled where the opponent can drift during hitstun (but do nothing else), probably the closest thing to DI in any non-Smash fighter. This is similar to the mechanic we find present in Smash 4, and each were designed by the same development team.

In conclusion, this is a huge thing. We need to further research, document, correct any mistakes I may have made, record similarly conclusive footage in a more professional manner (e.g. with a controller cam to display the direction held), and publish our findings for the community to learn, implement, and develop further.
Additionally, while I have tentatively named this mechanic Knockback Vector Addition, I've no particular attachment to it as a term and am welcome to suggestions to get the meaning across more concisely as long as it's accurate. This mechanic absolutely cannot be named DI or any derivative name for DI. It is not DI in any way, shape, or form. Please don't let it happen again like it happened with "Smash DI," which is actually not Directional Influence at all. Okay? Okay.

I unfortunately am leaving Dallas in roughly 12 hours and will no longer have access to 3DS Smash 4 (outside of the demo I suppose) until its US release in two weeks and some change, so I am pretty much unable to help with this endeavor. If my findings are found to be true, I would of course like to be credited for its discovery.

Discuss.

 

[Shaya]

Cool.
There was "Smash DI" in 64, allowing escape of combos.
Apparently official docs call it Shuffling in the 3DS.
Hopefully we can find an official name for this "DI" in the documentation for the game to save us some headaches on what will be appropriate.

But yeah, interesting. Holding up for horizontal sending moves still seems op? Making it hard for people to notice, and holding down like crouch cancelling in melee would make sense as well (especially if theres a low knockback state that you can freely act out of).

But Right horizontal move being held upwards/left would be optimal or is it not any different to just holding up or just holding left?

 

[KuroganeHammer]

Problems:

SDI is in the game, it's very noticable with smart bombs and x-bombs

If you think that this adds knockback to an attack, there is a very easy way to tell:

Simply use the move holding the direction that reduces or increases the knockback the most and check the amount of knockback it deals in the stats screen and compare it to no holding anything.

 

[Zankoku]

Based on the math, holding up and left against a pure horizontal strike would not reduce horizontal launch by as much as holding left, but it would raise the trajectory upward by some amount. Unless this Smash also did pure X/Y directional calculations.

 

[Strong Badam]

I guess it doesn't really serve much purpose to hoard this information for too long, given the supposed repurposing of a BR to not be so secretive and all. Prob gonna wait until the evening here in the States for people to read this, post any additional findings, and suggest a better name for the mechanic and then post it publicly with some re-writing/maybe some diagrams.

Problems:

SDI is in the game, it's very noticable with smart bombs and x-bombs

If you think that this adds knockback to an attack, there is a very easy way to tell:

Simply use the move holding the direction that reduces or increases the knockback the most and check the amount of knockback it deals in the stats screen and compare it to no holding anything.

I said this to you on Skype, but for others:
I guess SDI is in the game, but they certainly used SDI multipliers liberally.

I don't think this adds or reduces knockback at all, as I explained. I think it gives the victim the opportunity to cause an additional force to act upon them. So would not necessarily be displayed on the results screen.

@ Zankoku this mechanic replaces Trajectory DI, not compliments it. Assuming a truly perfectly horizontal move (such as Fox's shine in Melee) if one were trying to survive it (at a percent where you would otherwise hit the blastzone) you would hold straight left.

 

[Krynxe]

Based on the math, holding up and left against a pure horizontal strike would not reduce horizontal launch by as much as holding left, but it would raise the trajectory upward by some amount. Unless this Smash also did pure X/Y directional calculations.

It is important to know whether or not our four cardinal directions are read as 1 or sin(45). If it resembles melee in this respect, than holding diagonals may negatively effect part of survival 'KVA' (as we will abbreviate it for now.) As Strong Bad mentioned above, Jigglypuff's vertical survivability not being influenced by horizontal directional stick movements hugely supports the theory of vector addition being present (along with, obviously, how vertical control stick movements do influence it) This is because, for those without basic knowledge of vector addition, changes solely in the x direction bear no influence on the changes in the y direction. The most basic way to break down vectors is into their x and y components, after all, and (0i, 100j) is no different than (20i, 100i) when it comes to vertical survivability continuing off the examples above. However, if I understood what you wrote above correctly Strong bad, Brawl read control stick inputs over the map of a square whereas Melee always read all direction equally like a circle. If we consider vectors with a system similar to how Melee interprets control stick inputs, this would mean that being sent vertically with a force of 100 units and having a total possible vector addition influence of 20 units in a cardinal direction, holding down would produce that influence of 20 in the -j direction whereas holding downleft or downright would produce sin(45)= ~14,14 in both the +/-i and -j directions. The resultant vector of these two directions, of course, is 20 units in the +i,-j or -i,-j direction, meaning that we can appropriately call this value the maximum influence in our trajectory. (A shorter term could be Knockback/Trajectory Influence Vector)

Also, I see no issue with the term Knockback Vector Addition, but it is important to note that this is a hypothesis still and should not be addressed as fact quite yet

 

[Zankoku]

@ Zankoku this mechanic replaces Trajectory DI, not compliments it. Assuming a truly perfectly horizontal move (such as Fox's shine in Melee) if one were trying to survive it (at a percent where you would otherwise hit the blastzone) you would hold straight left.

I am referring to whether or not fully holding a diagonal counts as fully holding in both directions.
Using your example, would diagonal count as (+14, +14) or (+20, +20)?
Additionally, would simply reducing knockback really be optimal, even if the former were true? Assuming both DIs were valid for not immediately dying, would the diagonal grant a benefit that would make a difference in making it back to the stage where pure knockback reduction wouldn't (probably only for floaty characters)?

 

[Shaya]

Two Dimensional Vector Direction Alteration Modifier

 

[Strong Badam]

I am referring to whether or not fully holding a diagonal counts as fully holding in both directions.
Using your example, would diagonal count as (+14, +14) or (+20, +20)?
Additionally, would simply reducing knockback really be optimal, even if the former were true? Assuming both DIs were valid for not immediately dying, would the diagonal grant a benefit that would make a difference in making it back to the stage where pure knockback reduction wouldn't (probably only for floaty characters)?

I can't answer that question because we don't know how Smash 4 reads Circle Pad inputs. As I mentioned, in Melee there is a properly circular input threshold for the control stick, in Brawl it was square, leading to the discrepancy in DI effectiveness depending on angle. We also don't know if it'll change on the Wii U version, or if it will even be consistent across controller schemes.

I suppose a way to test would be to transpose multiple recordings of the same move at the same percentage from the same position etc. with cardinal directions and diagonal directions under a fixed camera setting. If the resultant image shows the victim arranged in a square, we've got (+20, +20). If it's circular, we've got (+14, +14). I have no idea how to personally do this.

Assuming both KVA strategies result in not outright dying, the "optimal" strategy would depend on a variety of factors (character drift, falling speed, recovery options, opponent's edgeguarding options, previous offstage interactions and player adaptation based upon them, etc) and likely be ambiguous.

 

[Krynxe]

I am referring to whether or not fully holding a diagonal counts as fully holding in both directions.
Using your example, would diagonal count as (+14, +14) or (+20, +20)?
Additionally, would simply reducing knockback really be optimal, even if the former were true? Assuming both DIs were valid for not immediately dying, would the diagonal grant a benefit that would make a difference in making it back to the stage where pure knockback reduction wouldn't (probably only for floaty characters)?

I pretty much address the first part in my post (and it's still something unknown to both Strong bad and myself)

As for the second part, assuming the first part is true, this can make a different. If you know that you only need 14 units to survive, than you can use a diagonal input to get a bit of extra height as well, making returning to the ledge easier. However, you are risking that fact that you will be travelling ~6 units closer to the kill boundary than you could be with a proper KVA input. (This, of course, over-simplifies a very complex scenario which Strong bad points out above.) In general, it won't be worth doing I think

Oh yeah, @ Strong Badam , the term in Soul Calibur is just "Air Control" and works in only 8 set directions without analogue. It's similar to airdodging where you can only do it when you're no longer being combod properly, but you can still be hit if read correctly. The way 3d hitboxes work in that game, sometimes you can trap people into situations where only specific directions can escape combos which leads to a lot of depth in matchups. Shoutouts to the practically dead Soul Calibur scene

 

[Zankoku]

I'm also a little confused about this:

I don't think this adds or reduces knockback at all, as I explained. I think it gives the victim the opportunity to cause an additional force to act upon them. So would not necessarily be displayed on the results screen.

If the resultant launch is caused by the addition of the attack vector and a player-controlled vector, wouldn't this directly change the launch speed of the attack, and thus what is recorded on the results screen (max launch speed)? The only way this wouldn't hold true is if for some reason the additional vector was applied at some point after the initial attack launch, but that seems like convoluted behavior.

 

[Strong Badam]

That's fair enough reasoning. It's worth noting that I don't understand Japanese and as such can't test that statistic.

 

[Shaya]

Hmm, I thought this notion was that your knockback deceleration was being affected routinely by the direction at which you held at the end of hit lag of a move?

Going by your whole "gravity" (i.e. how gravity and/or fast fall speed heavily affects vertical kill move power + crouch cancelling in Melee) thing you compare it to. Falco in melee taking a tipper dsmash from Marth at like 100 won't kill but IIRC will have similar knockback value as it would on Sheik at 100%ish, but who dies to the move at like 80.

In other words, isn't it a directional influence on the force at which you decelerate during knockback? This wouldn't affect hitstun values or knockback values post match-screen.

Directional Deceleration Modifier?

 

[Strong Badam]

This could very well function as a unique force that functions equivalently to knockback, and decays over time similarly.
I don't think we have the tools to figure out exactly what's going on, only its outcome.

 

[Overswarm]

VERY casual testing saw megaman's up-smash killing 10% later when the opponent was holding down and the move was fresh. MM's u-smash has multiple hitboxes and we weren't super scientific about it so I'll have to test again.

Good writeup.

"Knockback Vector Addition" seems a bit wordy. Might just want to call it "Vectoring" which, coincidentally, is the term for directing an airborne object like a plane to a desired location. Technically though, this is still DI and I imagine the term will stick. I think if you modify your post some and then make it as a big ol' official post and be like "THIS IS VECTORING" you'd have a shot though.

I will note that Smash DI, or some derivative thereof, exists and can be seen with Pikachu's u-smash and does not require you to go back to neutral before it inputs. It is incredibly likely this is just vectoring, but looks like Smash DI.

We have a decent handle on the vertical knockback. To get that on lock, we need to use a single hit u-smash like G&W's and test:

• What is the % difference to kill the same character (DI down, no DI)
• What is the % difference to kill the same character from mashing down on the circle pad during the hit as fast as possible? (emulate Smash DI)
• What is the % difference to kill the same character from sliding the circle pad between two points quickly (emulate quarter-circle DI / soft DI)
• Is this % constant between characters, or does it change via weight? (Easiest test would be vs. Jigglypuff and Bowser to see if Jiggs dies at 47% and 57% and Bowser dies at 130% and 140%, as an example)
• If it changes via weight, by how much? (tested by going against two people with one difference in weight)
• Does this alter with fall speed (ugh)
• Is the knockback actually only affected during hitstun, or can it be done POST hitstun?
• If it is affected after hitstun, can you constantly affect your knockback by pressing down on the circle pad repeatedly while in the air?
• If it is affected only during hitstun, is it constant or additive? Meaning if you are in longer hitstun is it more powerful than if the hitstun was short and if you are hit by a move and hold down halfway through hitstun is the effect lessened by 50% or the same?

Haven't watched the twitch stream -- you may have answered some of those already.

Is this the cause of Wario's weird behavior in the youtube video that was posted earlier (showing him slide heavily to the left in the air during hitstun)?

 

[Overswarm]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etzJDLkkZFQ

I've also heard that someone can survive Little Mac's KO punch at 40% o_o

 

[Zigsta]

Hmm, so this makes sense how people can get out of Pikachu's dsmash. People thought it was SDI but in reality they're applying a vector that sends them flying x amount farther.

I agree with OS that Vectoring sounds better. Easier to remember too.

Great work, Strong Bad!

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Vectoring sounds more like what this is.

Interesting, this is a rather odd thing to consider when performing any sort of combo or moveset interaction. You have to consider how people will move via vectoring in combos as well it seems.

 

[Ishiey]

I've had my suspicions about this after my Pika dthrow almost KOed someone lol. We definitely need more research on it to answer the questions OS posted, thanks for starting a new thread Adam!

As for a name, this basically replaces DI, so idk if there's anything wrong with keeping the name and just saying DI works differently in SSB4. Vectoring is a good name if people want to move away from DI though, since you're literally adding a vector.

There's a lot or stuff to test here. Whether "DI" is circular or square, whether damage/KB affects how far you can go, whether it differs depending on your character weight/fallspeed/airspeed etc... Let's set up some experiments for this, or at least for what we can actually look at now. Strong Bad's idea about arranging a character getting hit under the same conditions with multiple different directions held in the same image sounds like a good way to illustrate this concept in a public thread while answering or at least supporting a few of our questions.

 

[Overswarm]

If I didn't have a freaking 2 minute time limit I could do it tonight D:

 

[Strong Badam]

Please do not call it DI. You are not influencing your direction. I will rip my hair out if the community calls this clearly not-DI mechanic DI.
I will be doing some rewriting and posting this later today as Vectoring.

From my tests, the input range is a square as in Brawl. You can hold down-left or down-right and live to the same percentages as if you were holding down. For those who care, Jigglypuff can live fully charged G&W Up-Smash at 52% with this

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I wish I had the full version so I could test better. :/

 

[Ishiey]

I mean, adding a vector does influence the direction you're sent in I think Vectoring will help avoid confusion, but people will likely still refer to it as DI in streams and stuff for at least a while...

Looking forward to the thread, include as much info/evidence as possible and post a draft up here before the final version if you'd like? I'm sure the community could also help us test some things, so no need to include guesses worded as near-facts for things that don't have conclusive info.

 

[NickRiddle]

Knockback Negation?
Knockback Override?

 

[Strong Badam]

I mean, adding a vector does influence the direction you're sent in I think Vectoring will help avoid confusion, but people will likely still refer to it as DI in streams and stuff for at least a while...

What happens if you Vector downwards, resulting in no direction change? Is it still DI? Other than being inappropriate at times, the main issue with calling it Directional Influence is that it uses a term that is used in other Smash titles to describe a phenomenon that is quite different. It'd be like if there were a mechanic in place to where holding Z increased a grab range, and we started calling this a Boost Grab. The grab's range is boosted, certainly, but calling it a Boost Grab interferes with terminology used to describe a different mechanic in place in other Smash titles and leads to confusion in a community that continues to play nearly all of its titles competitively regardless of release date.


Writing now.

 

[Zankoku]

I'm still kind of upset that DACUS stuck when it seemed to operate on the same sequence of events as a Boost Grab, just with an up-smash instead of a grab.

You can make an argument that you're INFLUENCING the knockback with a DIRECTION, and though the behavior is completely different, the times in which you would hold the control stick in a direction to affect the knockback of a hit are still the same.

 

[Ishiey]

I think both options are more than fine btw, and the community will end up deciding what phrase becomes commonplace. It's worth putting "vectoring" out there, and it also encourages people to remember basic math/physics :3

Looking forward to the full post, pics, etc etc etc.

 

[Overswarm]

I think DI will end up being used. Sorry, Strong Bad!

Don't go over the top in your post, but refer to it as "Not DI, but "Vectoring". When you use this input during hitstun, you actually alter your knockback -- not trajectory like you would normal DI!" and then you can cross your fingers, I guess.

I did some minor testing with MM's u-smash and it seems that you can only Vector during hitlag. Once you're airborne, you cannot modify distance snet.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

can't we have simple names

i don't know what the **** vectoring even is

 

[Overswarm]

can't we have simple names

i don't know what the **** vectoring even is

Vectoring is about as simple as you can get for what is actually occurring, unfortunately. You are no longer affecting your trajectory (as you would in DI) but are affecting the knockback itself.

 

[Zankoku]

If you hold a direction that is not parallel to the launch, then that would affect trajectory.

 

[Overswarm]

No one said Vectoring and DIing were mutually exclusive!


But are they?

I don't even know anymore. It was bad enough getting used to Brawl's "holding towards the opponent actually increases survivability" hijinks, but this is bananas.

 

[Krynxe]

I did some minor testing with MM's u-smash and it seems that you can only Vector during hitlag. Once you're airborne, you cannot modify distance snet.

Well of course. Once you are airborne, your knockback has to already be conclusive in order for the game to determine the units/frame you are moving and how that will reduce to a stop aka distance traveled. It would not make any sense for you to be launched with a knockback vector of 100 and then after you've been sent flying you just tell the game "oh wait nvm subtract 20 from that pls". Being able to influence yourself like that during your launch tumble would be like expecting to be able to smash di knockback in a previous smash game.

and overswarm, it's simple vector addition. It makes more logical sense than directional influence, actually. Think of whatever you're pushing on the analogue stick to literally be a vector in that direction being added to your knockback vector. The force of that vector is, presumably, some percentage of the knockback you recieved

 

[Overswarm]

Well of course. Once you are airborne, your knockback has to already be conclusive in order for the game to determine the units/frame you are moving and how that will reduce to a stop aka distance traveled. It would not make any sense for you to be launched with a knockback vector of 100 and then after you've been sent flying you just tell the game "oh wait nvm subtract 20 from that pls". Being able to influence yourself like that during your launch tumble would be like expecting to be able to smash di knockback in a previous smash game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO8frGPnyJw

Seeing that made me waaaaaaaay less confident on that point.

 

[Krynxe]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO8frGPnyJw

Seeing that made me waaaaaaaay less confident on that point.

That's just some sort of glitch or something. That isn't an example of KVA



@ Strong Badam Does the amount you hold the stick in a direction also effect the added vector? I'm not certain of the full analogue capabilities of the 3ds circle pad, but if you were to hypothetically hold the circle pad halfway downwards when being sent up vertically, would your Knockback Influence Vector be 1/2(max influence) in the -j direction? using the example above, it would be 10 units downwards, causing a resultant knockback of 90 upwards

 

[Shaya]

Well, this isn't altering trajectory, so it is pretty different to what we call DI.
Although it is a "directional influence".

Do we still have an inkling of what is happening though?
I initially thought it was something like fast fall speeds in melee (in other words knockback deceleration). But after a long chat and overnight thinking, the idea that it is applying a force that is a percentage of your knockback based on direction held seems most applicable (because of the cases in which holding left/right on a vertical move applies a force to you to move left/right).

What we need to see is the frame by frame difference of holding down from a vertical move and not holding anything.
Are they slowing down faster? Or did they start moving "slower" at the beginning?

 

[Dabuz]

So question, let's assume the max vectoring is 20 units for example, is there a way to only vector for 10 of those units by only holding a direction for a small amount of time?

Also, Wario is weird but it looks like in the video posted, he get's crazy momentum control after the knockback is over, i think it's a character mechanic though because it's pretty consistent when he gets hit.

 

[Overswarm]

So question, let's assume the max vectoring is 20 units for example, is there a way to only vector for 10 of those units by only holding a direction for a small amount of time?

Also, Wario is weird but it looks like in the video posted, he get's crazy momentum control after the knockback is over, i think it's a character mechanic though because it's pretty consistent when he gets hit.

I have been told that Rosalina has done the same thing -- no evidence though.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

Would this explain a handful experiences I've had where when I'm down tilting my opponent and get hit, I experience a very crouch cancel-like effect? There have been moments where I essentially believed I had crouch canceled as an attack that would knock me back would essentially send me sprawling across the floor (kind of like a cc).

 

[Overswarm]

Would this explain a handful experiences I've had where when I'm down tilting my opponent and get hit, I experience a very crouch cancel-like effect? There have been moments where I essentially believed I had crouch canceled as an attack that would knock me back would essentially send me sprawling across the floor (kind of like a cc).

I'd imagine so -- i've experienced similar things.