Just for fun: brainstorm ways to make L-canceling interesting

[Paquito]

This is a thread to theorycraft ways to make l-canceling an interesting gameplay decision, rather than "always the right decision". Ideas?



Because this topic is so prone to flame, lemme quote one of the stickied threads:

Project M FAQ's & Credits

Feel free to discuss the merits L-Canceling has as a gameplay mechanic, though, so long as you don't derail threads in the process.

That's all this thread is. A discussion. Just for fun. This isn't a demand the devs change anything, so please don't react to random ideas as if it.

**EDIT 12/1**
Just to emphasize the last point, any idea that would actually make l-canceling an interesting gameplay decision could very well require a balance change across the board that probably wouldn't make sense to do for PM. So treat this thread as if we were creating a new Smash game from scratch

 

[Paquito]

What if l-canceling added 25% of your current damage to your total? At 0 damage, you can l-cancel all you want. As your damage increases, you'd have to start being selective about when to do it. It'd be like your character started moving slower due to battle fatigue.

 

[Jamble]

Well, what would you do? Kick us off to a start here, cap'n.

EDIT: Bah, your post popped up before I hit enter. And while I think that's an interesting idea in that it adds an element of risk to L canceling, I think that huge of a penalty for doing it would rack up damage to obnoxious levels and really slow the flow of the game a lot since people would use it less. Would also disproportionately punish aerial-based characters.

L-canceling is a weird beast, because any change to make it interesting usually means adding some kind of weird drawback to the maneuver. Being sort of an input tax in itself, it's hard to make it interesting in a way that didn't feel cumbersome just because it's so inherently uninteresting as a mechanic.

 

[Paquito]

Well, what would you do? Kick us off to a start here, cap'n.

Just did! Sorry for the double post though.

 

[CORY]

Simple ways would be to add a fail window, so you can't spam inputs regardless of counterplay, then make shield angling easier and/or more potent (so more lenient inputs so you won't roll/dodge/jump on accident as easily and maybe allow for the shield to move further in the chosen direction).

This makes it so the opponent would need to think more about when they would hit a shield, so they would have to alter their input timing slightly, and a fail window means you can't just spam it on your way down.

Don't think any extra lag would be necessary, despite some people thinking the only way to have counterplay is to make abigger drawback for missing vs just "normal" landing animations. Most noncancelled animations are probably punishable, outside of odd spacing situations, anyway.

 

[Paquito]

Adding a fail window just raises the skill ceiling though, right? L-canceling would still be always the right decision. There would need to be a draw back to l-canceling to get around this.

What if there was some inherit risk to l-canceling. Maybe there's a chance l-canceling would cause your character to trip. (Brawl has those wonderful trip animations ready to use!) Consecutive l-canceled ariels in a certain time frame raise that risk. Damage could also factor into that risk.

 

[CORY]

The risk is that you fail the lcancel because your opponent did proper shield angling, throwing off your timing.

Now, you're vulnerable to getting oos'd in your normal landing lag.

The fail window would be present for the same reason a teaching fail window is present, interpret that as you will.

There doesn't need to be a reason to not lcancel. There just needs to be enough counterplay to make the input not just a brain dead one and done deal. In melee that counterplay existed but was still pretty weak; it's even worse with the lack of light shield in pm.

Strengthen the counterplay and you don't need obtuse punishments for attempting to keep your offense safe and tight.

 

[PMS | LEVEL 100 MAGIKARP]

what if we made it so that certain emergent mechanics of the punish and neutral game became apparent upon mastery of L-cancelling

oh wait

 

[ECHOnce]

What if l-canceling added 25% of your current damage to your total? At 0 damage, you can l-cancel all you want. As your damage increases, you'd have to start being selective about when to do it. It'd be like your character started moving slower due to battle fatigue.

So...we get punished for surviving longer at high %s? Reverse S4 rage mechanic, but instead of KB, we get worse options and frame data? Hmmm

 

[Paquito]

Double post

 

[Paquito]

what if we made it so that certain emergent mechanics of the punish and neutral game became apparent upon mastery of L-cancelling

oh wait

What if there was an option to make l-cancel happen everytime?

oh wait

So...we get punished for surviving longer at high %s? Reverse S4 rage mechanic, but instead of KB, we get worse options and frame data? Hmmm

Ya. I imagine it'd make games ridiculously snowbally too. Land a good string of combos, and your opponent either has to expose himself to damage to comeback, or severely gimp his play to try to avoid that. 4 stocking would prob be way more common.

 

[Boiko]

Ya. I imagine it'd make games ridiculously snowbally too. Land a good string of combos, and your opponent either has to expose himself to damage to comeback, or severely gimp his play to try to avoid that. 4 stocking would prob be way more common.

That's only fun for the person winning. Why get kicked when you're down?

 

[Paquito]

I updated the OP with this:

Just to emphasize the last point, any idea that would actually make l-canceling an interesting gameplay decision could very well require a balance change across the board that probably wouldn't make sense to do for PM. So treat this thread as if we were creating a new Smash game from scratch

That's only fun for the person winning. Why get kicked when you're down?

Ya. I wonder if this implies a penalty would be the wrong way to go, or if just this specific idea wouldn't work. You def run into a similar issue with the tripping suggestion I made above.

Maybe it would work better if it didn't apply to all l-canceled aerials. Staying vague about the penalty, what if one were applied if you l-cancel an aerial that didn't deal damage to your opponent?

 

[Bleck]

take it out of the game

 

[Jenna Zant]

I think an interesting mechanic would be that L-cancelling adds to staling. It doesn't inherently stale, though. It only makes the effects of staling more severe.

 

[4tlas]

L-cancelling uses your shield. L-cancelling only works if you hit. L-cancelling has a small cooldown (like 1-2 seconds).

The first would make it a calculated offensive play. The second would make neutral more about spacing as aerials would not be nearly as safe on whiff or block, but would still allow ridiculous combos using L-cancelling. The third would create a "flow".