Fixing Mario

[Solharath]

This thread makes me sad. Not for the fact there are good ideas here or anything, but I see it as wishful thinking – it doesn't change the tools we have, and distracts Mario mains from the tools we do have, limited as they are.

 

[gothrax]

This thread makes me sad. Not for the fact there are good ideas here or anything, but I see it as wishful thinking – it doesn't change the tools we have, and distracts Mario mains from the tools we do have, limited as they are.

You know something... your right
Although mario does have a tec thread so if you wanna talk about the crap mario that we've been given you should head on there.

On the other hand if mario does keep his lame taunts what if they had little easter eggs inem
(Example) if mario gets hit while hes tipping his hat
he drops it and the oponent can throw it around and then if mario picks it up he puts it back on?

Oh and can mario not where jeenz anymore

 

[Sleek Media]

This thread makes me sad. Not for the fact there are good ideas here or anything, but I see it as wishful thinking – it doesn't change the tools we have, and distracts Mario mains from the tools we do have, limited as they are.

Hate to say it bro, but if you think Mario mains (all six of them) are going to make some kind of magical breakthrough in the meta game between now and SSB4, you're the one with your head in the clouds. This is just a fun topic. I know a lot of players on smash boards don't do "fun", so if this discussion bothers you, go study brawl Mario's "tools" or whatever.

 

[Solharath]

Hate to say it bro, but if you think Mario mains (all six of them) are going to make some kind of magical breakthrough in the meta game between now and SSB4, you're the one with your head in the clouds. This is just a fun topic. I know a lot of players on smash boards don't do "fun", so if this discussion bothers you, go study brawl Mario's "tools" or whatever.

I'm saying you're boring for generally going over the same five ideas as if it means anything. I wouldn't mind this topic if it went toward a codeset discussion or was something you wanted to actually work on that had an end result, like submitting to some Brawl mod. I'm bothered due to uselessness, not some misplaced faith that Mario could still be good. He's not.

But he's not even make a blip on the radar if all 'six' of the Mario mains that are left waste themselves on what if scenarios.

Besides of which, there are still low tier tournaments that exist. That's the wonderful place where a Mario can make money, and where people are gonna need to focus on the tools he does have, because that's where they're gonna work the best.

Lord knows the board might be dead without all this wishful thinking. I guess I just don't understand a thread which showcases all of the bad Mario has. But yeah, you guys keep having fun in here. I'm not gonna stop you.

 

[Sleek Media]

Don't let the door hit your *** on the way out, brah. Let us know how that Mario Brawl meta game works out.

--------------------------------------------------

Back on topic, if you could choose from four power ups either at the start of the fight, or through the upB coin redemption idea someone had a few posts back, what set of powers would you like to be able to choose from?

 

[DtJ XeroXen]

I think that's about enough of that Sleek. Believe it or not, some people are actually on a road of self-improvement, and from what I've seen/heard of Super, he knows what he's talking about.

We all hold different beliefs on different things, no reason to get the temperature hot in here because somebody disagrees.

I think a pre-determined power up would be boring. I think you should be able to cycle through the power ups mid-game with taunt, and then activate it with a different taunt. (Side taunts cycle, up taunt initiates). That would work in the case of a coin redemption system very well. It also kind've fits with the mood of New Super Mario Bros 2.

20 coins for a mushroom.
40 coins for a fire flower (but not the Brawl item, an upgrade to make fireballs shoot faster and increase range of Fsmash or something)
60 coins for a metal cap
80 coins for wing cap/cape/that one propeller thing/tanooki/something to make us fly.
100 coins for 1-Up.

These coin numbers are arbitrary, and would probably be much lower in an actual game. (Probably no higher than 50 for 1-Up, and the gap between power ups would probably be smaller).

In fact, I'll revise those.

10 coins - Mushroom
15 coins - Fire flower
20 coins - Metal Cap
25 coins - Flying item
50 coins - 1-UP

Any more powerups than that and it will be hard to cycle through them in a real game. It would be useful to have the ability to cycle through in buffer, so you wouldn't have to initiate a taunt. (Unless you're super cool )

The time that each powerup lasts is also a subject that would have to be thought over. I'd say that Mushroom, and Metal Cap would have shorter times while Fire Flower and Flying Item would have to have longer times, otherwise they would not be nearly as effective. (Especially flight, because you aren't always going to be in a position where recovery is necessary).

 

[Sleek Media]

Lol @ sticking up for meta game fantasies.

Anyway your list is alright. I'd actually put mushroom really high up on the list...the KO power and range of those things is absolutely devastating.

What do you think about time-based powers like the star vs a state-based power that runs out after you take a certain amount of damage? I'd find the latter to be more interesting and easier to balance. I'd like to see Marth spam fair when we have a hammer bros suit!

 

[mars16]

Damn u guys are going off ur heads!!!

I hav a suggestion! to fight Meta knight tornado spam we can use Raccoon Mario suit to spin and counter his tournado!!!!!!!!!?.....!!!!

OR or we can use the Frog suit to make Marios wim longer then other characters!!!

OR or or better yet I like the hammer bros suit! if Bowser was to spray us with fire all we have to do is suck into the shell and avoid damage.

And 1 more srry this is fun, u now how in Mario bros 2 u can charge Jump!! That can be used to help Mario recover.

 

[Coolwhip]

How about we just train hard to improve our skills with mario & win sets against big name players like ally or m2k for starters.

 

[Sleek Media]

HAHAHAHA

...oh, wait u serius?

 

[Coolwhip]

HAHAHAHA

...oh, wait u serius?

As a hart attack.

You got people here arguing, *****in & moaning about about the status of mario and changes he needs to become a better character.

Mario is low tier and will stay that way because he's a character that plays fair in a game that's pretty much unfair for him to win.

We marios gotta start learning how to take advantage on the character weakest part of their game & adapt in bad situations.

 

[DtJ XeroXen]

Okay, can we get on topic? No more bickering between eachother about our ideological differences. That isn't the point of this thread. Like, if I was a mod I'd almost say **** it and close this thread already, because nobody can say anything relevant without bringing up stupid **** and fighting with eachother.

This thread exists because Mario, while a fun character to play, has problems. This thread is not exactly "wishful thinking", or people "arguing and moaning" about Mario being bad. This is just a thread about ideas that people think would make Mario better. Different people have different reasons for posting in this thread.

Now I swear to god if I see one more post that isn't on topic about "fixing" (I use the term loosly because I dislike the name of this thread) Mario, I am going to put the person who posted it on my troll list, which has been empty for quite some time. Possibly too long!

 

[Matador]

Guys, stay out of this thread if you don't like what it's about. It's not hard at all.

 

[Coolwhip]

Guys, stay out of this thread if you don't like what it's about. It's not hard at all.

lol, well said.

 

[mars16]

i still like the charge jump idea!.......... ...... ..... . .......

*crickets*

 

[mars16]

Double pst My bad

 

[me9595]

i was thinking about how to improve/change brawl and i thought about making different costumes for mario, kind of like how they have different ones for wario, specifically have a dr mario costume
i also like the idea of using FLUDD for recovery and also for a dash attack

 

[gothrax]

i was thinking about how to improve/change brawl and i thought about making different costumes for mario, kind of like how they have different ones for wario, specifically have a dr mario costume
i also like the idea of using FLUDD for recovery and also for a dash attack

OMG that would be so neat! !!

Hee hee toon link in hes blue crab tee

 

[Sleek Media]

Wow, so uh...played Brawl- for the first time since like...I can't remember. The metal cap taunt is absolutely devastating. I'm convinced that temporary power ups are the way to go. There's this kind of cat and mouse game between Mario and his opponent in which they try to pressure Mario to keep the cap off, but once it's on, the tables are turned because he completely WRECKS. Very cool.

For a real smash bros game, metal cap might be a bit extreme (then again with crap like MK maybe not). What powers do you think best represents Mario? Super Leaf? Hammer Bros Suit?

 

[Coolwhip]

Wow, so uh...played Brawl- for the first time since like...I can't remember. The metal cap taunt is absolutely devastating. I'm convinced that temporary power ups are the way to go. There's this kind of cat and mouse game between Mario and his opponent in which they try to pressure Mario to keep the cap off, but once it's on, the tables are turned because he completely WRECKS. Very cool.

For a real smash bros game, metal cap might be a bit extreme (then again with crap like MK maybe not). What powers do you think best represents Mario? Super Leaf? Hammer Bros Suit?

Do you play on wifi? we should play minus someday. =)

 

[xHnSnx]

Since it seems they are keeping the Brawl move-set they should make it so that the d-air gives Mario a boost like fox's f-air that would help with recovery and also a bit higher Up-B so it's not so ledge dependent. Up-Smash should defiantly kill earlier and the d-tilt should not be that laggy . Fireballs need to work like they do in the games. The FLUDD should do splash damage; like 1% per each individual spray of water. The hitbox for the cape needs to be a bit bigger and have less ending lag so you can be more mobile while using it. Also something usually overlooked is the dash attack the length of it should receive an increase and the knockback should be reduced so it can be a combo starter.

 

[A2ZOMG]

I'm gonna bump this topic because I have relevant information to contribute and I imagine this should be a fun discussion to revive.

To keep this as short as possible, the single best change that could happen to making Smash balanced is introducing grab teching. Then on Mario specifically, his initial shield size should be about 50% larger.

I'll explain more if there's interest.

 

[DtJ XeroXen]

You're alive?

 

[A2ZOMG]

I've never disappeared completely. I've simply moved onto different things, such as League of Legends, a game designed by people that try hard to communicate their intentions behind how game design works. I was more intending to come back to Smashboards AFTER the fourth game came out, but today happens to be...different, and I happen to be in a good mood.

Back on topic however, literally half the problem with Smash has to deal with terribly designed defensive options. In particular, the lack of grab teching in Smash makes tier gaps EXTREMELY obvious. When you can't tech throws, stage control snowballs really hard. It's the reason why Metaknight and melee Fox/Falco/Sheik get all the grabs in Smash, because grabbing in Smash lacks reasonably safe counterplay.

Introducing grab teching automatically would make the game like 15 times way less unbalanced competitively (and casually for that matter. Nobody inexperienced likes consistently getting wiped by that one guy who understands how grabbing and stage control works). Given this is a straight nerf to overpowered stage control, it would obviously benefit Mario noticeably.

I could also go into detail about my personal crazy ideas about how Mario could be buffed, but let's be real. Talking about individual character buffs is easy, given there's a million and a half ways you can add power to a character until something gets insane. Snake is a prime example of that. Nonsensically insane hitboxes and raw damage and KO potential coupled with above average frame data and weight makes him arbitrarily really hard to beat.

 

[Sleek Media]

I'm interested in hearing what you have to say, A2Z.

Brawl- MAX has given me a new perspective on how to fix Mario. For those of you unfamiliar, here are the main changes:

• upB can be performed twice by holding down the B button
• FLUDD is always fully charged and draws enemies in (obv won't be in an official Smash)
• fireballs are thrown two at a time and last longer
• dAir cancels into anything
• dashA has two parts and combos into dSmash
• spike is good
• more power in general
• side taunt grants metal cap
• increased aerial speed due to old physics (keep running speed)

Let's recap Mario's weaknesses:

• bad recovery
• lack of range
• low-ish power

I think the single biggest problem is lack of range. All of Mario's worst matches (MK, Falco, Marth, etc) have one thing in common - they completely shut Mario down with half decent spacing. Fireballs are slow, have low priority, and are easily swatted or avoided by these characters, so having a projectile doesn't help.

I like the -MAX approach of giving Mario a good approach (two-part dashA), better pressure (double fireballs are much harder to ignore, and better recovery (you can now wait out a ledge chase). The increased power and ability to combo allows him to capitalize once he does get close to an opponent. I wouldn't make the fireballs quite as good as they are in -MAX though...you can make a literal wall of fire.

 

[MP8]

If Mario is going to have the FLUDD at all, then they need to include the hover and/or rocket nozzles. In fact, the rocket nozzle acting just like Diddy Kong's Up B would be perfect. With the hover nozzle, they should make it so that if you hold your second jump button down, the hover nozzle is whipped out and....yeah I think you get it. Mario would basically adopt a Diddy Kong up B and a Project M Mewtwo temp flight. If people are caught underneath the water of either of the two, then it should push them down or have a meteor type reaction.

I believe this idea alone would make Mario light-years more competitive and viable. Better recovery and some gimping and/or mix up to what he has.

Btw, who cares because Smash 4 Mario doesn't have this anyways. Lets hope for Smash 5 then. :U

 

[Karaoke Man]

• This thread exists because Mario, while a fun character to play, has problems. This thread is not exactly "wishful thinking", or people "arguing and moaning" about Mario being bad. This is just a thread about ideas that people think would make Mario better. Different people have different reasons for posting in this thread.

^ This. Now I shed light on Mario's one and only problem and it's really not even one of this own....

It's because the players cannot stop complaining about how "bad" their character is.

I'll be real with you guys about this: The term "bad" only exists in terms of comparison to something percieved as "good". Both of which are entirely subjective and not even slightly objective. You guessed it; "Bad characters" do not exist. What's really been dragging everybody here down the passed 6 years is the lack of acceptance for Mario the way he is now. I honestly don't understand how Mario is "bad" when he's literally the MOST balanced character in the game and in the Smash Bros. franchise in general. But instead of coming up with new ideas, people would rather make excuses for their own character. which is really whats kept him fromom growing all this time. Not a single one of you cannot honestly tell me Mario or any character "can't do anything" when I became one of the best known players of a character that can't even jump out of shield.

The acceptance factor should be the very first thing you do when you decide on any character. Which means that you acknowledge the weakness' of your character; but your main focus is the strengths of your character, and I mean all of them. Granted, the ONLY thing that will potentially shaft Mario is King Dedede's infinite CG on him, but everything else can be gotten around. From what I can tell, people haven't been using or even trying to learn all of Mario's strengths, but I'll give you guys a holistic view point of the strength Mario has:

Mario is THE most balanced character in the game. Which means he doesn't have any obnoxious strengths, but he doesn't have any overwhelming weaknesses either. The only other character that is devoid of that type of weakness is Meta Knight.
I hope you're all seeing where I'm going with this, but if not I'll explain it anyway; Since Mario is more of a balanced character, his biggest strength does not come in particularly in kill power, range, combo ability or even priority if you want to throw that in there, but there I said "particularly", therefore he doesn't have precise a specialty in anything because all of those things are roughly on the same margin of success. Hopefully, someone can tell me what this means about Mario, but if your answer was versatility, then you were right.

Believe it or not, not every character has a projectlile, a tool that reflects projectives and reverses an opponents momentum, and yet another tool that makes Mario 1 of only 2 characters that's able to use the Water element in the game with the other obvs being Pokemon Trainer's Squirtle. Now, I know you all more-or-less think that F.L.U.D.D's Water (and just water in general) doesn't really do much besides push opponents away, but that's the thing..... It pushes them away. Meaning, that it's creating space and is therefore not only able to halt the momentum of an approach, but is also a very unique type of zoning that has been slept on for 6 years. F.L.U.D.D is pretty much the missing component in Mario's metagame. You will find a large number of things when you incorporate this more into your Mario's metagame:

• Water is the only other thing aside from Falco's reflector that completely shuts down Toon Link's/Link's entire camp game. Completely negates the arrows, boomerang and stops the trajectory of the bombs from reaching Mario. This applies to characters with Water-affectable projectiles like Snake.

• When angled right, the Water from F.L.U.D.D can even push and even cancel out Meta Knight's Mach Tornado. Trajectoy of the Water, how much it was charged and how far Meta Knight is in the tornado are all variables on how it will be affected.

• F.L.U.D.D can kind of be used to propel yourself across the stage from the air when fully charged. Cape stalling is definitely useful, but when you're high above your opponent, the best thing you'll want to do is to head for the ledge. This way will make it just a bit easier to do it.

• Also, should ultimately be used for making your opponent "accidentally" whiff a commited attack. An all-round effective way to create openings (an alternative to Fireball) by forcing them to leave their character in a position where they can't counter your response from the force of the Water. The more charged it is the better, but it does not always have to be fully charged.

As you can see, regardless of what character you play, frame data and knowledge of what your character does is important to know, but what's equally important to know that's been missing from a lot of different metagames are the abstract possibilities of what YOU can do with that data/physics of your character, and meld it into your own advantage. Just like how Cape Stalling just above your opponent's shield and then land connecting with all the hits of Dair (minus the one that sends them in the air) makes it borderline-impossible for them not to get shield poked. Since Dair is really disjointed below Mario's feet, it's especially more convenient for a landing.

One more thing is that reverse SH Dair (Your back facing your opponent) is much more convenient than it's foreward facing counterpart. Not only sets up for Mario's bair, but it sets up especially well for the disjoint of Mario's backwards Uair and thus the violin strings on the combo start playing.

With all that being said, always keep in mind that tier lists don't define how "good" or "bad" your character is, you do; It all comes down to how you develop your character and the willpower to acknowledge their weaknesses so that you can primarily focus on their strengths. Regardless of what game it is, every character is like empty page in a sketchbook....

Just remember that you all are the ones that have all the colored pencils.

 

[DtJ XeroXen]

Wow. You've somehow managed to completely motivate me into thinking Mario is a great character! Oh wait... no... no you didn't.

Mario being balanced is one of the funniest things I've heard in a while. You're mostly right about him not having any overwhelming weaknesses... except for his inability to kill a smart opponent until 180% in the matchups that matter.

But I can look past that overwhelming weakness. I did, for 6 years, competitively. I looked into expanding my knowledge of Mario every single day. Played every single day. Researched matchups every single day. Discovered new things about the character... every single day. Found new things about the character to abuse and make "unwinnable" matchups certainly winnable.

Mario has strengths, but that does not, by any means, make him a good character.

You kind've caught me in a bad mood, so I'll go ahead and apologize in advance for the tone of this post, but your post is seriously disrespectful to the people who have had the very same mindset, like I did, and it implies that all the work we did "wasn't enough", just because you personally believe that Mario is good? Spoiler alert: he's not. Playing Mario will always mean putting more work into the game and being marginally better than opponents to win (in certain matchups) in comparison to playing a better character. And that's what makes him "bad". Arguing that no "bad" characters exist is silly and just arguing semantics.

I'm not saying Mario doesn't have a place. But that place isn't winning tournaments. To this day I think he's more than capable in various high tier matchups (ICs, Diddy, Olimar, Pikachu, and a few more), and can hold his own with pretty much every mid tier when played properly, but the effort required isn't worth the meager placings you're going to get going solely Mario.

I'd like to note that not one time in my career did I attribute my losses to Mario's "badness", nobody who was actually playing this character was crying about how "bad" he was unless they were just trying to get attention.

tl;dr: Stop arguing semantics, Mario is bad. Plenty of people have done everything you've mentioned in your post.

 

[Karaoke Man]

Wow. You've somehow managed to completely motivate me into thinking Mario is a great character! Oh wait... no... no you didn't.


Mario being balanced is one of the funniest things I've heard in a while. You're mostly right about him not having any overwhelming weaknesses... except for his inability to kill a smart opponent until 180% in the matchups that matter.



But I can look past that overwhelming weakness. I did, for 6 years, competitively. I looked into expanding my knowledge of Mario every single day. Played every single day. Researched matchups every single day. Discovered new things about the character... every single day. Found new things about the character to abuse and make "unwinnable" matchups certainly winnable.



Mario has strengths, but that does not, by any means, make him a good character.



You kind've caught me in a bad mood, so I'll go ahead and apologize in advance for the tone of this post, but your post is seriously disrespectful to the people who have had the very same mindset, like I did, and it implies that all the work we did "wasn't enough", just because you personally believe that Mario is good? Spoiler alert: he's not. Playing Mario will always mean putting more work into the game and being marginally better than opponents to win (in certain matchups) in comparison to playing a better character. And that's what makes him "bad". Arguing that no "bad" characters exist is silly and just arguing semantics.


I'm not saying Mario doesn't have a place. But that place isn't winning tournaments. To this day I think he's more than capable in various high tier matchups (ICs, Diddy, Olimar, Pikachu, and a few more), and can hold his own with pretty much every mid tier when played properly, but the effort required isn't worth the meager placings you're going to get going solely Mario.


I'd like to note that not one time in my career did I attribute my losses to Mario's "badness", nobody who was actually playing this character was crying about how "bad" he was unless they were just trying to get attention.

tl;dr: Stop arguing semantics, Mario is bad. Plenty of people have done everything you've mentioned in your post.

Well, I'm sorry you feel that way. If you aren't focusing on all the strengths, there's a good chance that you're dwelling on the weaknesses. No character is a totally a "great" one if you don't believe they can succeed. I know you have your experience with Mario, but the belief that he's "bad" is exactly the kind of thing that holds characters back. Why exactly? Because it turns an opinion into a more falseified, generalized perception. People are free to decide whoever they want to play, but when they see or frequently hear how "bad" a character is, they will steer clear of said character and probably lean towards oh, you know.....pfffft, Meta Knight. The less representatives of your character, the more they're not going to rise. No attendence=No Results= No tier list rising, although the tier list is actually the problem, because it's essentially what broadcasts the generalized perception.

That was also mainly directed at the people who continuously say "Mario is terrible, he can't do this, he can't do that" who've never actually done hardly any of the research. I've personally played you at tournaments at previously points and I know you've done your research, therefore it was not directed at anyone who has nor was it supposed to be a personal attack or anything, and I apologize for not specifying. However, once again you are comparing your character in a negative connotation. As a used-to-be low tier main, yes you would have to put in more work. Just like you put in work for Lucas or Luigi, yet Luigi can't gimp like Mario can.... Him being "good" is not a personal belief. I've played your Mario before, and that's the thing; Your Mario is/was good and it was because of the way you developed your Mario through your own skills as an overall player.

While that may be true about kill power, It's not always about killing by percentage. I mean in that regard, Gimping sure does sound like a good idea. In fact, I feel like he should be gimping more than he is looking for the kill. You may find it funny, but I certainly didn't plaster that on my previous post because it sounded cute. But again, outside of Dedede's infinite, Mario has no overwhelming weakness. I hear all the time how Peach "can't kill" either, yet Peach still continues to do really well..

Well, if he has strengths, he's certainly not "bad" now is he? As I said, the term "bad" is implying a comparison to something else that's "good", no? I mean, I'm sorry that Mario doesn't have 6 jumps with insane priority, a chaingrab that can take a stock with one grab, or a kick that hits with an invisible forcefield the size of my bedroom. We have to take these characters as they are, no what we'd like them to be.

It's as I said eariler; there hasn't been too many Mario reps to explore those MU's, but that doesn't mean the exploration is impossible. There are a lot of characters that aren't winning tournaments and it's all for the same reason; They dumped their character at the nearest BP station and traded them in for Meta Knight or w/e top tier. There aren't very many representatives for those characters either and that's why they're in the position they're in right now. This is also (imo) why tier lists are buns. Characters can't win tournaments if they're not even there.

I'm not arguing anything. I'm just revealing the subliminal influence that the generalization has to those that aren't aware of it.

Edit: Forgive me if this sounds mismatched, im tired as heck