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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).
When these vectors are added, the resultant knockback vector you suffer is 80 and upwards.
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.
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).
^
|
|
|
|
100
|
v
20
|
|
|
|
100
|
v
20
When these vectors are added, the resultant knockback vector you suffer is 80 and upwards.
^
|
|
|
80
|
|
|
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.
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