After X number of successive l-canceled hits, a Smash Ball appears. You can break it in one shot, your opponent has the opportunity to do so with a lot more shots.
Final Smash's would have to be balanced first though.
Hm...
I was thinking something like this...
- You each start off with 100 points in the meter [making a number up]. You can fill the meter up to 150 points (this is hard).
- Various moves landing restore various amounts of meter (can't be a flat rate, or else Fox lasers would still be awesome, but it COULD be a flat rate based on percent or something else, and these numbers may suck). For example, most aerial normal moves (A attacks) either restore unique points for each move (character-dependent), or they restore 3 points when they connect the attack, 1 point when they hit a shield (any hit counts, but I would think Fox dair doesn't give back 3 points if 3 parts connect, but rather a single point), and you get 40 points when you land a KO (since people love offensive play, this rewards that, and this can also reward using meter to finish the job). Jabs restore 1 point of meter when they connect for each hit (SDI those rapid jabs!), except certain multi-hits do more (Ike would probably get like 2 or 3 points back for his jabs). Tilts do various amounts, with generally less useful tilts restoring more points (Fox utilt probably gives a point or two, but his ftilt can restore ... 4 points? 5?). Throws would restore small amounts of meter (of course, even if just a point), and a pummel would restore a single point (probably). Landing a smash also depends, but some harder to land smashes restore more points (I could see Ike fsmash landing 8 points uncharged, whereas Fox usmash gives you like 3 points). Charging the smash gives more points to restore meter. Breaking an opponent's shield could give a huge charge (50 points, 30 against Jigglypuff since this scores you the KO [or if it doesn't, 70 points])? Shielding a move nets you a single point, regardless of the move (more on this way below). We might be able to somehow tie stale moves in (so like, a knee chain could be worth more, but after 5 Fox lasers you stop gaining any meter from them), but I don't know how this would look - just throwing it out.
- Players auto-regen meter at a rate of about 1 point per ~2-3 seconds (may be questionable, I don't know... again, this is basically off the top of my head, but if two players lose all meter, they can still start offense rather soon with at least attempted pokes with aerials, hm... in 12-18 seconds even w/out projectiles they get a whiffed aerial and still can aim again, but if they're confident can start safer aggression as soon as 2-3 seconds after they lost all meter).
- L-cancelling, and L-cancelling only, may be done as long as you have ANY meter, but it costs 5 points [or could be character-dependent, I don't know] - if you have fewer than 5, you lose all remaining meter but do still L-cancel (so shield pressure is still possible, but a good roll/ISSDI/etc. is rewarded). Others require full meter [so you can't do X if you don't have all Y points].
- Buffing a Smash to 1.2X [more? less?] knockback requires 20 points of meter. You lose 15 points on whiff and drain the full 20 on connections (But some attacks fill meter, so it is more rewarding to land it in many cases, and KOs ensure a positive payoff).
- Airdodging and not being helpless requires 50 points of meter. You can also airdodge out of helplessness for 80 points of meter (that is, if you up+B'd, or airdodged earlier, you can airdodge out of helplessness and re-enter it, but lose 80 points).
- In exchange for 100 points of meter, the next attack that hits your shield in the next 15 seconds will not inflict shieldstun - and it counts the entirety of the attack, so a multihit move will have all the hits with zero shieldstun. Projectiles that hit the shield are reflected. You get your point back here so you can mount an offensive with aerials if you want, even if you had exactly 100 meter, since the first whiffed aerial you have at least a point of meter back so you can L-cancel.
- IF people like the final smash idea, then 150 points = you can trigger the FS glow? It would probably need various drawbacks besides just fully draining meter, but I don't know...
- Death could put you at either current meter (gross in my opinion), 50 meter (less to not reward SDing when out of meter, but I don't like this either - but throwing it out), 75 meter (halfway, probably a fair place), or 100 meter (my original thought, but I realized this may be a bit high based on how the shielding option works).
The downside to all of this?
A) I have some ideas for inputs, but I don't know how workable they are... and I didn't mention them here
B) It's a way different game like this, and I don't think the PMBR would really support it, so this change seems INSANELY unlikely since it's way less like Melee if all of this is done.
C) All the stuff being character-dependent is probably a TON of work (see landing lag on aerials - think of the time that took...), and if it's standardized, even just on aerials vs jabs vs tilts vs smashes, it nerfs/buffs various characters for different strategies/attributes.
D) The final smash thing would give Mewtwo free stocks while Meta Knights gets a single-use chance to basically land a KO punch (like in Smash 4 with Little Mac). As Paquito pointed out, they'd have to rebalanced if present (personally, I'm against the Final Smash idea, but I did include it just because it was brought up).
Pros do not miss L-canceling 90% of the time, no matter what the stats say. If you land an aerial that knocks the opponent of stage, most people don't L-Cancel because it doesn't do anything for you. There are times you don't L-Cancel because there's no point to. (not because it's better not to, just because it does nothing for you.)
Even if they are, it doesn't matter. Bottom line is it adds nothing to the game.
As for the L-Cancel meter idea, this heavily punishes players for shffling and disproportionately hits cerain characters like falcon or roy. It's too late for a mechanic like that to be in the game because the game isn't balanced around it. If the game was being built from the ground up, maybe.
As for the smash ball after so many L-Cancels, LOLOLOOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOOOLOLOL No. nononononon. That's ********. You get a kill, spam tech skill and get a free smashball to end the next stock with almost instantly. Falcon and spacies are the only characters that can be played. Even if it only worked on hit, it would buff characters like fox and falcon heavily for no good reason. That means they'd have to be changed to compensate and then they aren't the same character. Try again (or stop trying)
Oh, and the only L-canceling when fast falling idea. If you had to fast fall to L-Cancel that would nerf multihit aerials since fast falling means fewer hits.
It says you edited it, but you misread that - they said they HIT them 90% of the time. And while it punishes for mindless shuffling (ala M2K and Zero when they 2v1'd Wizzy at TBH4), you could also make rates different for different characters - that would have to be looked at as well [as I noted above].