How would you Balance the game?

[Artmastercorey]

I often think when Im playing my character how there are moments that are obviously not as balanced as they could be. If only Sakurai and his team would play these unbalanced characters on a competitive standpoint it would be obvious the faults. Then I stop myself and realize there are over 70 characters in this game and perhaps balancing isnt their main priority (Yes I know they do come out with patches sometimes). But I wonder are they aware of the best characters versus the worst characters and why they are that way? Perhaps its too great a task and they'd rather spend their resources elseware like making new characters.

Anyway rambling aside here are some things I would change universally to balance the game in general.


- This game has some of the worst defensive options of all smash games.
a.) I would remove the strange directional air dodge lag you get. I see so many people die from that, never understood the choice in the design of that because there are moments when that is needed to recover but kills you in this game.
b.) All offensive options have been speed up in ultimate but defensive options are slow. Like shielding is pretty bad in this game, beause you cant move out of it, + shield stun. Remove shield stun to atleast alow someone to roll at some point during an attack.

-I would make getting back on the ledge normally quicker like it was before ultimate. The getup animation is too slow.
-I wouldn't make characters fly so far when they get hit unless your a heavy who attacked say a light character.
-Theres a large unbalance in power of light characters versus their speed. Light characters should all have a good recovery because they get hit much further. And they should be fast. I think pichu is a good model for speed/power most light characters should be around. Young link is not killing at around 180% on average.
-There should not be speed, power, and range in a single character. You can have 2 of those attributes but not all 3 I feel is too much.
-Characters should all have a good set of kill options and they shouldnt have to wait till over 150 % to get that option to kill.
-Grab range needs to be cut slightly. I know other smash titles have had this extended grab boost before but you should physically be fairly close enough to touch someone to grab them in my personal opinion. I watched a slow motion replay of a match online between high level players and I couldnt be believe when zelda grabbed him and never actually was very near him. Her pinky got close to the outter edges of his shield and was able to grab the air around him it looked like. It just seems odd to me, make it so they have to be up closer.
-However I would make the cool down of grabs even long grabs have a more universal cool down. Less lag so you can dodge if you miss.
-basically I want offensive and defence to be balanced in this game

Other than that, the game is fun but I feel these are my own personal changes. But do you feel the game works as is? Would you balance it in anyway Universally, or by character at all?

 

[Necro'lic]

Welcome to my EXTREMELY long post from a while back about this exact thing!

 

[Blutrausch]

1. Moves with similar animations have similar properties.
Samus, Sheik, and Joker all have similar u-airs. They also have auto-link angles. Samus cannot use a falling u-air to x move like Sheik and Joker can, although she can perform a ladder combo. Samus didn't always have more frames of cool down when using u-air and landing like she does in SSBU. I would make all moves with similar animations have similar properties so that if a character like Sheik and Joker could use a falling u-air to x move, then so could Samus. Of course, not all moves would share similar properties. Palutena's n-air functions more like Pit's, but Cloud's does not. Of course, Pit's and Palutena's n-air are visually similar to each other, while Cloud's isn't. There are probably reasons for why not every move that appears the same has similar properties, but I don't know of any.

2. All characters have at least one kill confirm.
This is self-explanatory, so I don't think I need to go into detail.

3. All characters have combos.
Some characters actually struggle to perform combos. Ness' d-throw to f-air (2x) isn't in SSBU, although it was in SSB4. Ness' neutral is already lackluster, and his f-air isn't always reliable in connecting. (It baffles me as to why Ness is even hated by so many, including professional players who main top- or high-tiered characters.)

4. All moves are encouraged to be used because they're useful and reliable.
No move for any character should be without its use. There are characters who have moves, yet don't use them because they're unreliable or ineffective. Samus and Falco both have poor u-smashes (although Samus' u-smash was buffed in KB from the v. 7.0.0. patch). There is no reason for this. Ness' u-smash and d-smash aren't reliable, either. Opponents fall out or just simply ignore either move entirely. This is unacceptable. A lot of people were vocal about how Ness' d-smash at the ledge was effective for closing out stocks or matches, so at times while the animation is present, the hitbox isn't. In my balanced version, d-smash would always work. Always. People who complain about this would need to learn how to work around something like this, or find a character with a better recovery.

5. Multi-hit attacks would be separated one frame apart, unless this is actually unnecessary.
To explain this, what I mean is that if a multi-hit attack must have frames where the hitbox isn't active in order to give it a multi-hit effect, then each hitbox would be one frame apart. If a multi-hit move was active on frame 6, for example, it would be inactive on frame 7, but active on frame 8, ad infinitum. Samus' f-air can show the animation connecting to the opponent, yet the opponent won't take damage or KB, but will instead hit Samus out of the attack. This attack needn't be disjointed or indirect to knock Samus out of the attack, either. Ness suffers similarly with dash attack and f-air. This is unacceptable to me. So, if a multi-hit property is created in such a way where there must be a certain amount of inactive frames from active frames, then each inactive frame is only one frame apart. However, this doesn't appear to be necessary, since Peach's u-air has active frames from 10 to 13 and then 15 to 19 for the second part.

6. Slow moves hit hard; fast moves don't.
I understand that the higher the acceleration, the more force there is behind it. (Or something slow, but with a lot of mass could give out the same force.) To balance, however, a character with a slow move should be reward with dealing more damage and KB. Because it's a slow move, there is more risk behind it. A fast move is safe, so it shouldn't be rewarded with hitting hard. An ideal move would be somewhere in-between.

 

[Necro'lic]

Just some friendly critique since you liked my post here (and I'm guessing at least read some of my old post).

1. Moves with similar animations have similar properties.

This is, in the long run, a bad idea, or at least to the extent that you seem to want. If you want an example from Dota 2 (which I've mentioned before), there are two heroes which share a spell, Shadow Shaman and Lion, called Hex. For both heroes, they simply turn an enemy into a small, harmless animal for a few seconds, during which the only action they can do is slowly move around. Now you might think, "wait, why would this prove his point about not having similar moves behave similarly?" Well that's because while both spells do the same thing, they are balanced differently, and they are balanced differently because of how the rest of those heroes function.

Shadow Shaman has more emphasis on pushing towers and very VERY strong disables on enemy heroes with a huge weakness of short range and being in danger while doing it. Meanwhile Lion is about disabling as well, but in more in service of a huge burst of damage as well as crippling enemies' mana. So how do their Hexes differ? Shadow Shaman's has a shorter cooldown with a shorter duration in order to be a very common to throw out set up for his much stronger disables and more consistent damage. Lion's Hex is a very long cooldown comparatively with a longer duration because he wants to kill the enemy, and having a longer duration gives him more time to actually attack before his next disable. The longer cooldown is to make sure it's something deliberate, since he's about bursts of usefulness on the battlefield, unlike Shaman who is consistently useful, just at high risk.

What I'm getting at here is that, despite all those UAirs being similar looking, having different strengths and weaknesses as well as not sizing up their viability in a vacuum is the way to go.

2. All characters have at least one kill confirm.

When you say "kill confirm", do you mean a super low startup move that can just be thrown out willy nilly in neutral that will always lead to a kill? Cause if so, no, that's a bad idea, because you have to factor in how easily a character can combo vs not, as well as how many ways they have the ability to kill from singular moves like projectiles.

3. All characters have combos.

All characters already have combos though... unless you mean they all need to have extensive combos or be combo based? In which case, no. Every character should have at least a few combos, but some should have more than others and are able to do them more often than others.

4. All moves are encouraged to be used because they're useful and reliable.

Wholeheartedly agree.

5. Multi-hit attacks would be separated one frame apart, unless this is actually unnecessary.

I don't think this is necessary per se, though it wouldn't be bad to try. I'm pretty sure why most multi-hit moves fail is more due to a combination of SDI as well as rapidly shifting positions on hitboxes from, say, fast falling. I'd rather do away with SDI entirely and see if that helps the problem.

6. Slow moves hit hard; fast moves don't.

Overall this is amazingly basic, and I wish you gave an example of this not being followed. But there are multiple ways to balance moves' power than simply making them hit hard or not. What about being safe on shield vs not? Or having low base knockback but high knockback growth. What about set knockback? What about hitbox size? What about range? What about being disjointed? What about priority? These are many factors to put into balancing a singular move.

 

[staindgrey]

1. Make Corrin better.



...



...that's all I got.

 

[link2702]

too much to list on everything but I'll give a few things based on some of the characters I use

Seeing as they won't give us a true decloned ganondorf in this game......

....All of ganondorfs moves come out and end faster, his recovery goes higher, his aerial speed is *SLIGHTLY* faster, the jump he does out of up special goes higher, opponents can no longer wall tech his(or falcon's) up special(so you try to challenge him offstage and he grabs you, you just screwed yourself cuz now you'll ricochet off that wall with no hope of saving yourself) ganoncide now once again gives ganondorf the kill first, it also goes farther and faster on the ground, and if he misses he has slightly less end lag, some moves are safer on shield, a reverse warlock punch also will always break shields. Up tilt has maybe 1 frame less startup lag. Aerial wizards foot always breaks shield.

Now for maybe a little bit of a crazy one....down special comes out faster, goes slightly farther and vaporizes all projectiles in a cone in front of him(think similar to rosalina's down b). Depending on how strong the projectile was will determine how weak his down b is when it hits the opponent. destroying max aura sphere, shadow ball, charge shot, etc., would make his down special basically hit like his jab, not strong at all. But the key thing is ganondorf does NOT slow down similar to if he hit a shield or opponent, he just keeps going full speed when absorbing the projectiles.

If they need to slightly nerf his knockback and damage on some moves to make all this possible so be it.

*ALL* super heavies get a similar mechanic to bowser with the tough guy mechanic, but theirs stop working at lower damage %'s.

Fox is slightly heavier. His fallspeed is adjusted so that he still falls at the same speed, just that he doesn't so easily die when the opponent's character so much as sneezes on him. He's still gonna be light of course. Also give him at least one more "safer" kill option. He can rack up damage incredibly easy, but he still sometimes struggles to land that one kill option. Also why we're at it, make it so he isn't in a helpless state for as long when doing a directional airdoge. Due to fox's falling speed, a directional airdodge offstage, either accidental, or intentional, almost always ends in his death due to his fast fall speed. If they're gonna keep fox illusion to where it still can no longer pass shields, then at least make the startup slightly less, and make it's end lag slightly less so he's not such a sitting duck. Hell at the very least just make startup less PLEASE. also slightly change it's knockback angle so it can be combo'd from.


K.rool...just needs better frame data still. They gave him some with a patch awhile back, but he still needs more. Also maybe make it so blunderbuss you can choose whether to use the vacuum or the kanonball. By holding down when a ball isn't already on screen, you'll skip the shot and just go into the vacuum effect.

 

[BlackInk]

By reducing the cast to about 20 characters and understanding that characters like the disjoint users actually need mobility to prevent their weaknesses from being too bad.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Buff Diddy according to his Smash 4 self; better Side B, better range overall, better Bananas on shield, stronger, faster and more range on F Air, better recovery, faster F Smash, faster dash attack and faster and longer range on the grab.

Give DK more super armour; on grounded Up B, his FTilt and dash attack. F Air now destroys shields easily, Down B destroys shields easily, Gaint Punch is instant shield break except on super heavies, better grab range. Tap B to do a "DK Hurricane" like all previous versions of Luigi's Down B recovery.

K.Rool ; stronger projectiles, cannonball destroys shields and does more damage, F Air is better for edge guarding, belly armour is 35% now, give him one of the best grabs in the game because why not. Make him cheese again. Satisfying molten cheese on a warm sandwich kind of cheese.

Mewtwo; give him an enormous weight buff, make him the like weight of Pit. Shadow Ball destroys shields, dash attack connects from Shadow Ball again like it used to, more range on jab and everyone can't escape the jab combo, Confusion sets up to F Air on higher %, F Air is now fully disjointed, jab is disjointed, Smash 4 D Tilt, F Throw now kills from the ledge (this will be satisfying). U Throw kills way earlier. Bigger range for grab. Grab hitbox extents from the animation giving him a "ghost grab" aka actual psychic powers.

 

[Blutrausch]

This is, in the long run, a bad idea, or at least to the extent that you seem to want. If you want an example from Dota 2 (which I've mentioned before), there are two heroes which share a spell, Shadow Shaman and Lion, called Hex. For both heroes, they simply turn an enemy into a small, harmless animal for a few seconds, during which the only action they can do is slowly move around. Now you might think, "wait, why would this prove his point about not having similar moves behave similarly?" Well that's because while both spells do the same thing, they are balanced differently, and they are balanced differently because of how the rest of those heroes function.

Shadow Shaman has more emphasis on pushing towers and very VERY strong disables on enemy heroes with a huge weakness of short range and being in danger while doing it. Meanwhile Lion is about disabling as well, but in more in service of a huge burst of damage as well as crippling enemies' mana. So how do their Hexes differ? Shadow Shaman's has a shorter cooldown with a shorter duration in order to be a very common to throw out set up for his much stronger disables and more consistent damage. Lion's Hex is a very long cooldown comparatively with a longer duration because he wants to kill the enemy, and having a longer duration gives him more time to actually attack before his next disable. The longer cooldown is to make sure it's something deliberate, since he's about bursts of usefulness on the battlefield, unlike Shaman who is consistently useful, just at high risk.

What I'm getting at here is that, despite all those UAirs being similar looking, having different strengths and weaknesses as well as not sizing up their viability in a vacuum is the way to go.

How does this affect 1v1? I understand that not everything would be the same, which is why they'd be similar. I wouldn't expect Charge Shot, Shadow Ball, Aura Sphere, and Kafrizz to deal the same amount of damage or have the same shield stun, but then, those are oddly special attacks, rather than standard attacks. Because Samus, Sheik, and Joker don't all share the same moves, what they could do out of u-air would be different. I just think it's odd that Samus' u-air had more frames added in SSBU.

When you say "kill confirm", do you mean a super low startup move that can just be thrown out willy nilly in neutral that will always lead to a kill? Cause if so, no, that's a bad idea, because you have to factor in how easily a character can combo vs not, as well as how many ways they have the ability to kill from singular moves like projectiles.

Not quite. Greninja has d-tilt to u-smash, and Joker has d-air to u-smash. Both will kill at a certain percentage on the opponent. Toon Link, I believe, has f-air to Spin Attack. Roy and Chrom can use jab to RAR b-air. Projectiles in SSBU don't seem to be a reliable option in killing anymore. Sure, they can kill and that can depend on where it's used. However, only in SSBU have projectiles been nerfed and staled upon hitting shields. This actually weakens projectiles. Well, unless you're Villager or Isabelle, considering they mostly spam f-air and b-air and kill easily with either in spite of being stale.

All characters already have combos though... unless you mean they all need to have extensive combos or be combo based? In which case, no. Every character should have at least a few combos, but some should have more than others and are able to do them more often than others.

Ness' d-throw to f-air (2x) doesn't work anymore in SSBU. It might work on big bodies, but that's not practical at all considering the size of the roster. Ness can use f-air a certain way to follow up with another f-air, but he's mostly stringing, which is like a combo, but it's more of a pseudo-combo, since it doesn't work 100% of the time, even on the same opponent. I don't think some should have more than others, unless their kill power is reduced. A good example is Sheik. She can rack up damage quickly, but has a hard time killing. She doesn't even have a kill throw. That's right. Even if you were on Sudden Death and played as Sheik, none of your throws would kill. Then there's Mario, who combos easily and can close out a stock that way. I don't think a character with a lot of combos should even be killing easily like Mario.

I don't think this is necessary per se, though it wouldn't be bad to try. I'm pretty sure why most multi-hit moves fail is more due to a combination of SDI as well as rapidly shifting positions on hitboxes from, say, fast falling. I'd rather do away with SDI entirely and see if that helps the problem.

To use Ness' d-smash or u-smash attack as an example, there is a clip somewhere on Twitter where Link is at 999%. Ness uses d-smash, I think, and Link doesn't die. He simply plops out. This is even true at 0%. No DI or SDI is necessary. There is a reason why this happens, which I don't remember, but I'm not interested in why it happens. I'm interested in it being fixed so it's functional and consistent, otherwise it's useless. I believe that when a move or when anything, really, isn't consistent, that just upsets consumers. Upset consumers complain. If their complaint isn't heard or ignored, that consumer will go find something better. I want all characters to have moves that work, that are reliable, and that should be used. My brother got fed up with using Ness' yo-yo to keep opponents from returning, so he just ended up going off the stage to intercept his opponent's recovery. That works, but I don't see any reason a move should just never be used anymore all because it's unreliable.

Overall this is amazingly basic, and I wish you gave an example of this not being followed. But there are multiple ways to balance moves' power than simply making them hit hard or not. What about being safe on shield vs not? Or having low base knockback but high knockback growth. What about set knockback? What about hitbox size? What about range? What about being disjointed? What about priority? These are many factors to put into balancing a singular move.

I was being rather simplistic, I admit. When I was thinking of a slow move with a lot of power, I was thinking of moves that are direct, like punches or kicks. I wasn't considering disjointed moves or projectiles. Projectiles seem like a good example, though. While they're safe, since the player doesn't need to commit, they do tend to take time to charge up. With that amount of time, the reward is more damage and KB. Fox's Blaster is quick, but doesn't deal much damage and lacks KB. I understand this is more complex than I granted. In SSBU, it seems there are quick projectiles, though, that deal a lot of KB like Villager's and Isabelle's f-air and b-air. I don't think such characters need that much KB, if any, when it's quick, stuns, and can kill. By the way, I wish all projectiles would deal more damage and KB when the opponent was at point-blank range. It seems only to occur on Mega Man's jab, f-tilt, and n-air, and Villager's and Isabelle's f-air and b-air.

 

[Deleted member]

give Mr. Game & Watch his Smash 4 moveset

 

[Necro'lic]

How does this affect 1v1? I understand that not everything would be the same, which is why they'd be similar. I wouldn't expect Charge Shot, Shadow Ball, Aura Sphere, and Kafrizz to deal the same amount of damage or have the same shield stun, but then, those are oddly special attacks, rather than standard attacks. Because Samus, Sheik, and Joker don't all share the same moves, what they could do out of u-air would be different. I just think it's odd that Samus' u-air had more frames added in SSBU.

Well, I was sorta giving you general advice rather than pertaining to singular characters, but behavioral differences is more what I meant. Like, for example, Samus's UAir could be safe on shield while Sheik's isn't or something, but Sheik's is faster and has less landing lag while Samus's has more. Already they would have different uses despite being visually similar.

Not quite. Greninja has d-tilt to u-smash, and Joker has d-air to u-smash. Both will kill at a certain percentage on the opponent. Toon Link, I believe, has f-air to Spin Attack. Roy and Chrom can use jab to RAR b-air. Projectiles in SSBU don't seem to be a reliable option in killing anymore. Sure, they can kill and that can depend on where it's used. However, only in SSBU have projectiles been nerfed and staled upon hitting shields. This actually weakens projectiles. Well, unless you're Villager or Isabelle, considering they mostly spam f-air and b-air and kill easily with either in spite of being stale.

That sounds exactly like the kill confirm I was talking about. And I said projectiles simply as an example of a singular move not comboed into anything doing a kill instead of a combo.

Ness' d-throw to f-air (2x) doesn't work anymore in SSBU. It might work on big bodies, but that's not practical at all considering the size of the roster. Ness can use f-air a certain way to follow up with another f-air, but he's mostly stringing, which is like a combo, but it's more of a pseudo-combo, since it doesn't work 100% of the time, even on the same opponent.

So you mean true combos then? Honestly, I don't think Smash should follow the footsteps of other fighters and blindly give every character true, inescapable combos. That's what DI is for.

I don't think some should have more than others, unless their kill power is reduced. A good example is Sheik. She can rack up damage quickly, but has a hard time killing. She doesn't even have a kill throw. That's right. Even if you were on Sudden Death and played as Sheik, none of your throws would kill. Then there's Mario, who combos easily and can close out a stock that way. I don't think a character with a lot of combos should even be killing easily like Mario.

Well that's simply Sheik and Mario being fighters that are built to combo a lot. Nothing unusual. Like I said, it's fine for some characters to have more combos than others, but they shouldn't all be around that gameplan.

To use Ness' d-smash or u-smash attack as an example, there is a clip somewhere on Twitter where Link is at 999%. Ness uses d-smash, I think, and Link doesn't die. He simply plops out. This is even true at 0%. No DI or SDI is necessary. There is a reason why this happens, which I don't remember, but I'm not interested in why it happens. I'm interested in it being fixed so it's functional and consistent, otherwise it's useless. I believe that when a move or when anything, really, isn't consistent, that just upsets consumers. Upset consumers complain. If their complaint isn't heard or ignored, that consumer will go find something better. I want all characters to have moves that work, that are reliable, and that should be used. My brother got fed up with using Ness' yo-yo to keep opponents from returning, so he just ended up going off the stage to intercept his opponent's recovery. That works, but I don't see any reason a move should just never be used anymore all because it's unreliable.

I already agreed that this needs fixing. Seems Ness's yoyo smash attacks are edge cases, cause I think overall the problem would be fixed with lack of SDI. Obviously you'd want to fix up any moves that show up with the problem, but that's just a place to start.

In SSBU, it seems there are quick projectiles, though, that deal a lot of KB like Villager's and Isabelle's f-air and b-air. I don't think such characters need that much KB, if any, when it's quick, stuns, and can kill.

I actually think there is a way to have your cake and eat it too in regards to quick moves that can kill, and that's having more variables to affect these moves. For example, what if these slingshot moves were horribly unsafe on shield and low priority? This means that when attacking shields, Villager/Isabelle needs to be at a safe distance to not get punished, and if they are hit someone in the process of hitting them, the move does nothing (or less damage/knockback). These two weaknesses combine to make these moves punishable by rushing down the Villager/Isabelle. Meanwhile, they still keep their powerful quick aerial projectile.