Improvements I'd like to see in SSB4.

[poega]

I've read the blog not the posts (might later but in a hurry). I agreed with some of the really obvious points (like smashballs and ****) but overall I think you are very far from grasping what really makes brawl awful. The clone situation in brawl is by your logic a million times better than in melee (I dont mind 'clones' personally, because theyre actually really far from clones). And the stage design in brawl is actually the one thing it does really really well imo. The list could go on.

 

[Vkrm]

The problem with brawl is the lack of control and the type of skill it rewards. Also it's boring as all hell.

 

[DekuTree]

I did agree on a few of the points you made. In particular the one about different character costumes. Nothing would be cooler than samus striding onto the stage in her phazon suit, or Link wearing his fierce diety mask and looking just awesome.

However I do disagree with a few points. The one you made about the graphics in the background distracting you from the actual gameplay I found to be quite like nitpicking. Personally in my (rather lengthy) experience of brawl I never found the space battle in the background of lylat cruise to be at all distracting. When playing a fighting game your attention should be on the fight the whole time, and if it gets really intense you would be getting to the point of simply ignoring the background. I guess it could be to do with an individuals attention keeping capabilities, but I digress.

Another point, that while not as large, I can't agree on is replacing one of the earthbound or fire emblem characters for another obscure game character. These franchises are already obscure enough. We haven't even had a new earthbound game since Mother 3 on the GBA (sob!). And while there is a new fire emblem game coming out for the 3DS, it is still not as successful as I think it should be.

Anyway, aside from that, I agree completely with your essay. Good work!

 

[Hypercat-Z]

I did agree on a few of the points you made. In particular the one about different character costumes. Nothing would be cooler than samus striding onto the stage in her phazon suit, or Link wearing his fierce diety mask and looking just awesome.

And what about Mario as Doctor Mario, with pills instad of fireballs, or Mario and Luigi in their Wrecking Crew suit and with little hammers instead of fireballs (like when they are wearing the Hammer Bros. suit)?
Also: what about Shadow The Hedgehog and Mighty The armadillo as alternate suits for Sonic?

 

[DekuTree]

And what about Mario as Doctor Mario, with pills instad of fireballs, or Mario and Luigi in their Wrecking Crew suit and with little hammers instead of fireballs (like when they are wearing the Hammer Bros. suit)?
Also: what about Shadow The Hedgehog and Mighty The armadillo as alternate suits for Sonic?

Yea, I agree completely. I was just listing a few examples, but the more costumes the better.

 

[Hypercat-Z]

Oh! And I forgot to tell Donkey Kong with Donkeky Kong's Jr.'s tanktop, like in Super Mario Kart for SNES.

 

[looprider]

However I do disagree with a few points. The one you made about the graphics in the background distracting you from the actual gameplay I found to be quite like nitpicking. Personally in my (rather lengthy) experience of brawl I never found the space battle in the background of lylat cruise to be at all distracting. When playing a fighting game your attention should be on the fight the whole time, and if it gets really intense you would be getting to the point of simply ignoring the background. I guess it could be to do with an individuals attention keeping capabilities, but I digress.

Yeah, in retrospect, I was too harsh (and just plain wrong in some cases) on some aspects of Brawl - my criticisms on clones were very misguided for the most part, and I was too keen on stressing the simplicity of Brawl's stages, as they definitely do try to be engaging in at least some subtle manner - Lylat Cruise may be some random floating platforms, but it does tilt about and stuff.

My points on graphical busyness were more directed towards the idea of Nintendo's handling of the franchise on Wii U, where they'll have much more hardware grunt to throw about, and my fears that they may ultimately end up as a detriment to the game rather than a boon. To be fair, moments where I died in a screen transition were few and far between, and Brawl certainly doesn't intrude much at all with its "busy" backgrounds. However, I did find its items to be a tad too small and indistinct.

In fact, much of my dislike of Brawl could be put down to my disappointment towards Nintendo for failing to improve over Melee in the myriad of ways I'd hoped they might - but again, to be fair to them, they were working with a console which was, by and large, about as powerful as the Gamecube.

 

[Ultimate kaos]

I would love for Nintendo to reduce airtime. Just slightly so it is like that of melee. I loved being down there, combos after combos on the ground, then some in the air. But in brawl, there is just too much airtime in the game. It seems the lack of gravity and more floaty, flying characters took that aspect away from me...

Also, the tripping must go.

Anyways, I hope for a more, fast paced gameplay style. It is just more fun for me, more than just waiting, and playing defensively. :/

 

[Lanthanide]

The floaty thing is big to me, brawl changed the whole tempo of the game with slower fall speeds, easier ledge grabs, slower attacks, and also the fact that KOs happen more at 200% or more rather than 100%, though I know many casual players insist that it should be this way to be easy, maybe a hardcore setting with faster tempo, no items, etc. is due

I'd also like to see some corrections to characters to be more potent, an example being jiggly puff, a direct hit of rest is supposed to be tough to pull off but powerful and exciting, melee did this well but it was completely pointless in brawl

With clones, tough to say, falco has pretty much proved his residency here but I don't care for clones too much

The new costumes thing is great, but I disagree with your "store idea" as I think that would be a waste of time, just make costumes and color changes like warios in brawl

Anyway I would like to see them fix some shortcomings we saw in melee, floating down to catch a ledge backwards at 300% playing a light character is ******** IMO, sorry for my harshness

 

[grizby2]

i could have sworn ive posted here before but anyway...
what this next game needs a tutorial for BASIC and ADVANCED maneuvers.

not some lame tiny demo showing us the least amount of information pertaining to as how to loosely play the game.

this would at least bring about the competitive players arise faster.

 

[Wobbly Headed Bob]

Zelda should be able to switch instantly into Sheik just like Gen can switch stances in SF4. It would add a ****load of depth and provide a better reason to use the characters intermittently instead of having everyone treat them as separate characters all the time. Brawl was just stupid.

 

[Hypercat-Z]

Also, I'd prefer the stages being more balanced this time. Various, yes, but not too large, too small or too dense of hazards.

 

[Wobbly Headed Bob]

Make Mario's Up B walljump possible even if Mario didn't start at the wall, but with the same timing. This probably would go better in the Melee Remix thread.

 

[Biz_R_0]

Am I the only one who legitimately likes the auto-target ledges? It makes recovering at low percentages easier than edgeguarding at low percentages, and it allows for characters with not-so-great recoveries to not get gimped easily. In Melee, people were dying at, like, 70% because of how easy edgeguarding was compared to recovering. In Brawl, you'd have to pull some impressive crap to kill someone at less than 100%.

Although, I do have a problem with the ledges; infinite ledge invincibility. Theoretically, you could just go grab, release, and then immediately re-grab the ledge over and over again once you get the stock lead until the timer runs out. This obviously wouldn't happen in tournaments because of the LGL, but I don't think that TO's should have to manually fix this. My solution? Make it so that 1. you can't just hold up to snap the ledge, you'll have to actually initiate a recovery move (that includes jumps), and 2. the ledge doesn't refresh your recovery moves. This way, you'll have to eventually get back on the stage.

 

[Vkrm]

70 seems reasonable. People be living to long in brawl anyhow.

 

[Wobbly Headed Bob]

Am I the only one who legitimately likes the auto-target ledges? It makes recovering at low percentages easier than edgeguarding at low percentages, and it allows for characters with not-so-great recoveries to not get gimped easily. In Melee, people were dying at, like, 70% because of how easy edgeguarding was compared to recovering. In Brawl, you'd have to pull some impressive crap to kill someone at less than 100%.

Although, I do have a problem with the ledges; infinite ledge invincibility. Theoretically, you could just go grab, release, and then immediately re-grab the ledge over and over again once you get the stock lead until the timer runs out. This obviously wouldn't happen in tournaments because of the LGL, but I don't think that TO's should have to manually fix this. My solution? Make it so that 1. you can't just hold up to snap the ledge, you'll have to actually initiate a recovery move (that includes jumps), and 2. the ledge doesn't refresh your recovery moves. This way, you'll have to eventually get back on the stage.

Do you not see the irony in the convention / terminology?

You're saying that people shouldn't have less than 100% damage to die. Does anybody remember the good old days in Smash 64 when if you managed to reach 100%, you were considered to be long overdue?

Dying at 70% is really reasonable. Recovery in Brawl is too easy and mindless.

I think that Brawl gameplay should be a special vs mode so people can have their casual mindless gameplay and that way we can still have a competitively viable game.

 

[Biz_R_0]

70 seems reasonable. People be living to long in brawl anyhow.

I disagree, I think that the ability to survive for long periods of time is a skill that should be encouraged and rewarded. I also think that the opponent should have to work harder for the kill at lower percents and you should have to work harder at recovering at higher percents. Like a sliding scale, as the former gets easier the latter gets harder. In my opinion, the former scaled too fast in Melee, while in Brawl the latter scaled a little too fast. I think it should be exactly even.

 

[Twinkles]

You just can't please everyone.

Living long is a skill incredibly rewarded by both games. However, what I like in Melee is that certain characters can be killed particularly early (Fox/Falco) by other certain characters (Marth) for not playing smart at low percents (or not playing smart in general). It a) gives certain characters great ability for comebacks against the best characters in the game and b) forces players to not get complacent with a lead and play worse. You gotta be at your best as often as you can, or get terrifically, terribly, and severely punished.

To each his own I suppose though.

 

[Biz_R_0]

One of my bigger problems with Brawl is that percent leads are too easy to keep, which I think could be solved pretty easily by adding more hitstun. Although, I'm not fond of gimps because it's my belief that the norm for KO's should be knocking the opponents past the blast line. I think that gimping should require you to actively go off the stage and put yourself at risk. Basically, I think the game should be Melee-ish against low percent opponents and transition into a Brawl-ish game as the percents get higher.

 

[Wobbly Headed Bob]

I disagree, I think that the ability to survive for long periods of time is a skill that should be encouraged and rewarded. I also think that the opponent should have to work harder for the kill at lower percents and you should have to work harder at recovering at higher percents. Like a sliding scale, as the former gets easier the latter gets harder. In my opinion, the former scaled too fast in Melee, while in Brawl the latter scaled a little too fast. I think it should be exactly even.

I agree with the whole skill thing. The issue is that it takes no skill to survive for long periods in Brawl. In Melee, if you want to live, you need to know how to DI, tech, space, etc. In Brawl you just have kindergarten stuff like auto-ledge-grab. It kills comebacks and punishes.

In Melee, you do have to pull some impressive stuff to kill at low percents. In Brawl the game mechanics discourage such attempts to the point that it's unwise to attempt low percent kills. Virtually, the only low percent kills that exist in that game are the cheap inescapable combos and chain grabs.


IMPROVEMENT SUGGESTION:

Talking about mechanics that hinder comebacks. If footstool jumping is going to remain, make it a different command than just "jump". Make it pressing jump while holding up or something. I've lost in tournaments because that ******** mechanic ruined my perfect comeback edgeguard setup.

I'm so angry.

 

[Twinkles]

Although, I'm not fond of gimps because it's my belief that the norm for KO's should be knocking the opponents past the blast line. I think that gimping should require you to actively go off the stage and put yourself at risk. Basically, I think the game should be Melee-ish against low percent opponents and transition into a Brawl-ish game as the percents get higher.

But that's kind of how gimping works. I'm a big fan of gimping because it makes the edge that much more of a danger zone. I think it's right that a person should feel incredibly threatened by the edge compared to center stage, it's where all their options are slowing being taken away from them.

Keep in mind I play Falcon, a character who is one of if not THE most gimped characters in the game. I still think gimping should be a part of the game, even if I hate getting gimped with a passion LOL

 

[Hypercat-Z]

Speaking about items. I think they should study an algorythm to make the appearance of the items proportional to the total damage of the players. More the damage and more recovery items and less attack items appear.

 

[Biz_R_0]

But that's kind of how gimping works. I'm a big fan of gimping because it makes the edge that much more of a danger zone.

I agree, but gimping in Melee is really only a danger zone for the recovering player, the edgeguarding player is still relatively safe. I think it should be a danger zone for either both characters or it should be a safe zone for both characters.

Keep in mind I play Falcon, a character who is one of if not THE most gimped characters in the game. I still think gimping should be a part of the game, even if I hate getting gimped with a passion LOL

And I'm a former Ganon main. I played a character that was one of the heaviest in the game, meaning that he was supposed to survive at higher percents because of reduced knockback. However, he wound up being an extremely easily gimped character due to piss poor recovery. Rarely ever do I see a Ganon get KO'd during hitstun, and I really don't think it's fair that you practically lose the stock when you get knocked off of the stage instead of when you get knocked out of bounds.

 

[Vkrm]

Well since who ever is recovering was sent off stage in the first place, it's fine that he's at a disadvantage.

 

[Biz_R_0]

Well since who ever is recovering was sent off stage in the first place, it's fine that he's at a disadvantage.

He would still be at a disadvantage, just not a completely one-sided "you gonna get *****" disadvantage. If you can't recover safely at lower percents, then why even have damage? Why would there be a system where you get knocked farther the more damage you accumulate if you can easily be killed regardless? And, like i said, why have heavy and light weight characters if high knockback moves at high percents are as effective as just comboing them off the stage and then forward smashing the ledge until they die?

 

[Vkrm]

Surviving is easier at lower percents. So that keeps % relevant. Heavier chars still live longer, and I think a lot of the time in brawl recoveries go unpunished when they shouldnt. Player preference I guess.

 

[Biz_R_0]

Everything is player preference, really. I just don't like easy gimping because it undermines details like damage and weight. Pretty much any problem I have with something could be divided into "unbalanced", "inaccessible", or "counteracts/undermines existing mechanic".

 

[Vkrm]

It doesnt undermine any thing. It's harder to put heavies and low% characters in a position where you can gimp them.

 

[Biz_R_0]

Tell that to Gimpondorf.

 

[Twinkles]

Ganondorf's pretty easy to edgeguard, but I wouldn't say he's very easy to gimp. Apart from Fox shine, I don't think there's any move that could seal a good gimp against Ganon at low percent.

 

[Biz_R_0]

By "gimp" I also meant "getting effortlessly edgeraped at low percent and then you die".

 

[Gea]

To his defense, while Ganon is easy to keep offstage, it requires quite a bit of work/repetitions to kill off Ganon with most characters. I can understand that some characters need better recovery tools (Doc, Roy) but if Ganon was just sliiightly better onstage, his offstage weaknesses but longevity due to the distance by which he can recover would be a great character spread.

 

[Biz_R_0]

Not really, he's big heavy and not floaty, so he's pretty easy to combo. Jigglypuff, Fox, and Sheik all don't have that much of a problem comboing him offstage, and since these three are used a lot, that leads to early deaths for Ganon. I really only see edgeguarding deaths being given to Ganon when I watch high level Melee. All I'm saying is that I don't like how easy it is to edgeguard in Melee, and I think that it should take a much larger amount of effort to kill someone at low percent or without knocking them past the blast zone.

 

[Vkrm]

Jiggs and shiek combo everybody.
I don't like how easy it is to recover in brawl.

 

[Twinkles]

Jiggs comboing Ganondorf and carrying him offstage takes some specific setups and DI though. Fox and Sheik I will admit are pretty good a swatting ganon away, but even then ganon should have quite a few mixups that should help him against this (DJ to edge vs. DJ uair, airdodge to stage, airdodge above ledge to bait on-stage punishment -> drift to ledge, up-B high or up-B low, reverse up-B to grab ledge, etc.).

And in all honesty, I think someone who's off-stage should in general be working harder than the edgeguarder to get on-stage because that is how I feel a bad situation should work.

 

[Biz_R_0]

And in all honesty, I think someone who's off-stage should in general be working harder than the edgeguarder to get on-stage because that is how I feel a bad situation should work.

I disagree, because then you'd just have to get them off of the stage and you basically have the stock. If this happens, then percent would mean almost nothing and knockback scaling wouldn't really matter because all you need to do it combo off the stage. At this point, why not just have the blast line be at the end of the stage?

 

[Twinkles]

Work harder, not make it impossible. In other words, the person who is off stage was pushed into a really bad, high risk position because they were outplayed in some significant way. Now their options are limited and they have to effectively outmanuever the dude with the better position to live.

And you talk about combo off stage, but the only character I know that can really carry a character all the way offstage with combos is Jigglypuff due to her incredible recovery, but even then it requires a situational setup.

Edgeguarding is hardly as free as you make it out to be in Melee, there are many ways to fool an edgeguarder into doing something stupid, whiff, and let you on for free.

 

[Vkrm]

You aren't dead when you leave the stage though. You can come back. It's just not as free.

 

[Biz_R_0]

I really don't think you understand at all what I'm trying to say, so here it is; I do not think that people should be getting KO'd at low percents at all unless the other person pulls some crazy maneuver that is very uncommon or they make a huge mistake. I think that Brawl had it right where you could usually only kill someone by hitting them with a high knockback move when they're at a high percent. I feel this way because it emphasizes the mechanics of weight, damage, and knockback more than allowing constant gimping or edgeguard deaths would (notice I said that Brawl's way does it more, not that Melee's way doesn't do it at all). I do not think that recovery should be an issue because of the above dislike of gimping and easy edgeguarding. Do you understand?

 

[Wobbly Headed Bob]

I disagree, because then you'd just have to get them off of the stage and you basically have the stock. If this happens, then percent would mean almost nothing and knockback scaling wouldn't really matter because all you need to do it combo off the stage. At this point, why not just have the blast line be at the end of the stage?

That's why you don't let yourself get walked into the corner.

I play Mario in melee, and he has like the most laughable recovery in Smash (way worse than Ganon). And I play Vega in SF4 and he has like 0 tools to get out of the corner. However, I don't think that the game should just hold my hand and make it so that it is universally easier to get out of the bad situations like in Brawl because otherwise the entire game suffers. Instead, characters like Mario should be individually given more tools like a useful down b goddammit.

Oh wait, I just remembered you don't play fighting games.

HAH