Mechanics of Tripping

[Hitaku]

[Note: I've pretty much abandoned this thread because it would take to many tests to get a real answer/percent. I hope that someone can make use of my research though.]

As promised, I have spent many hours testing the mechanics of tripping after coming to the conclusion that it is somewhat character-specific. I was really hoping to provide you guys with some better information, but unfortunately I really don't think that any feasible amount of testing is going to give us conclusive results. Because of that, I didn't finish all of the characters as planned, it just took way to much time for something that wouldn't give us a correct percent per character.

For these tests I tested each character until they tripped thirty times, figuring thirty would be enough for some solid data. Unfortunately, when I reached character seven I really realized how varied these numbers were. In reality I did more like thirty two tests per character, because at the end of each character I would eliminate the highest and lowest number to provide more correct data. Even while doing this I noticed with one unlucky streak, such as a 500 or two, it really threw off the data. At this point I wanted to see if the data would stay the same if I reran the tests using a character I had already used. When I did this I used Toon Link and the number of dashes before tripping 30 times increased by around 300. Now that isn't all that much, but it is enough to skew the percent by a good deal. That being said, in order to get a correct percentage on each character we would need to run about a thousand trips.

Because these numbers vary so much, I can't say for sure that tripping is character-dependent, but it really seems that way (example; Toon Link vs. Mario). Having said all this I still think it's important that I provide you with the data I have gathered, seeing as it took far too long to do it for it to go to waste. I'm hoping that someone out there will be able to make better use of it.

As for some of the rumors that are going around:

Person in the lead trips more: It's hard to say for sure with the large difference in numbers, but I am almost certain that there is no difference. I tested this with Ike before hand by setting the stocks to four and killing my opponent till he was at one. When running the tests under those conditions, the results stayed relatively the same.

Tripping happens more when turning/skidding: When I was testing some of the characters I started to think I was tripping more often when turning, because of that I started recording what type of movement I was doing when I tripped. The data showed that I tripped just as many times simply moving forward as I did when turning (yes, I did take into consideration that I did more forward dashes than turns when moving from one side of Final Destination to the other).

Pressing the joystick perfectly forward prevents tripping: On a few of the beginning tests for Toon Link I made sure to be very very careful with how I pressed the joystick. The results didn't change.

Moves increase the probability of tripping (not sweeping attacks which cause tripping): I tested this by running another 30 trips with Toon Link after having Lucario hit him quite a few times with his different moves. The results were different, but not by enough to make me think moves have any impact.

Higher percent increases probability of tripping: The test above also helped me come to the conclusion that this is false.

Faster characters trip more/less often: Seeing as Sonic doesn't trip very often, that rules out the chance of faster characters tripping more. As for them tripping less, Mario isn't all that fast and he trips less than Sonic. Speed seems to have nothing to do with it.

If anyone had an idea that can help us find more accurate results I would be more than happy to continue testing. I just don't really want to waste that much time for nothing.

Tripping Results:
Note: All tests are done on Final Destination

Test results (Done with: Toon Link)
Trip/dash
1-82
1-97
1-49
1-34
1-22
1-61
1-201
1-6
1-89
1-48
1-35
1-54
1-215
1-16
1-67
1-98
1-120
1-32
1-36
1-77
1-37
1-74
1-90
1-227
1-10
1-174
1-51
1-212
1-12
1-74
1-51


Test results (Done with: Toon Link v.2)
Trip/dash
1-337
1-78
1-18
1-120
1-77
1-68
1-74
1-23
1-20
1-91
1-68
1-32
1-64
1-160
1-134
1-19
1-61
1-141
1-31
1-11
1-23
1-220
1-42
1-210
1-48
1-150
1-9
1-82
1-284
1-65


Test results (Done with: Ike)
Trip/dash
1-261
1-35
1-226
1-217
1-304
1-20
1-140
1-104
1-19
1-33
1-57
1-88
1-28
1-386
1-64
1-133
1-32
1-98
1-7
1-18
1-92
1-147
1-26
1-10
1-28
1-71
1-214
1-143
1-147
1-91
1-90


Test results (Done with: Pit)
Trip/dash
1-129
1-98
1-97
1-56
1-33
1-131
1-104
1-132
1-7
1-92
1-13
1-5
1-87
1-18
1-240
1-89
1-39
1-64
1-101
1-20
1-307
1-172
1-622
1-76
1-18
1-283
1-52
1-30
1-209
1-112
1-47
1-16
1-130
1-120
1-79
1-25
1-215

Test results (Done with: Lucario)
Trip/dash
1-22
1-13
1-107
1-83
1-132
1-37
1-84
1-16
1-127
1-52
1-68
1-28
1-53
1-26
1-53
1-351
1-154
1-130
1-77
1-25
1-119
1-109
1-38
1-57
1-143
1-212
1-75
1-15
1-129
1-124
1-196

Test results (Done with: Sonic)
Trip/dash
1-23
1-110
1-362
1-56
1-112
1-15
1-46
1-22
1-77
1-237
1-116
1-394
1-142
1-221
1-84
1-14
1-1
1-47
1-261
1-57
1-167
1-362
1-388
1-2
1-101
1-42
1-128
1-70
1-85
1-260

Test results (Done with: Olimar)
Trip/dash
1-13
1-102
1-50
1-189
1-84
1-249
1-107
1-121
1-110
1-85
1-58
1-72
1-150
1-43
1-12
1-17
1-96
1-17
1-39
1-155
1-43
1-13
1-18
1-6
1-85
1-128
1-34
1-359
1-18
1-202


Test results (Done with: Mario)
Trip/dash
1-79
1-47
1-53
1-13
1-164
1-240
1-415
1-45
1-69
1-8
1-162
1-61
1-297
1-250
1-285
1-114
1-490
1-334
1-498
1-144
1-586
1-95
1-2
1-108
1-38
1-16
1-129
1-566
1-122
1-484
1-128


Test results (Done with: Donkey Kong)
Trip/dash
1-36
1-328
1-209
1-372
1-30
1-69
1-12
1-177
1-312
1-404
1-35
1-269
1-245
1-52
1-50
1-90
1-43
1-50
1-108
1-53
1-187
1- 306
1-69
1-70
1-126
1-28
1-275
1-44
1-65
1-80

Test results (Done with: Link)
Trip/dash
1-30
1-45
1-119
1-117
1-95
1-266
1-43
1-96
1-9
1-75
1-1
1-61
1-4
1-340
1-153
1-30
1-289
1-183
1-13
1-81
1-23
1-150
1-78
1-58
1-67
1-5
1-21
1-252
1-76
1-107


Test results (Done with: Samus)
Trip/dash
1-334
1-8
1-109
1-38
1-9
1-26
1-60
1-75
1-268
1-50
1-54
1-32
1-354
1-32
1-238
1-50
1-152
1-229
1-67
1-119
1-100
1-178
1-1
1-66
1-52
1-2
1-151
1-1
1-53
1-112


Test results (Done with: Zero Suit Samus)
Trip/dash
1-7
1-199
1-98
1-35
1-127
1-15
1-245
1-181
1-92
1-454
1-5
1-64
1-134
1-36
1-277
1-19
1-47
1-95
1-128
1-175
1-147
1-219
1-8
1-14
1-103
1-264
1-23
1-43
1-178
1-118


Test results (Done with: Kirby)
Trip/dash
1-7
1-55
1-2
1-93
1-145
1-243
1-97
1-126
1-11
1-109
1-84
1-132
1-37
1-50
1-161
1-3
1-249
1-93
1-64
1-249
1-39
1-45
1-14
1-215
1-291
1-386
1-99
1-4
1-365
1-56


Test results (Done with: Fox)
Trip/dash
1-94
1-59
1-32
1-104
1-80
1-40
1-143
1-282
1-84
1-56
1-119
1-233
1-12 5
1-120
1-170
1-204
1-81
1-119
1-264
1-340
1-46
1-188
1-27
1-18
1-346
1-7
1-85
1-29
1-99
1-250


Test results (Done with: Pikachu)
Trip/dash
1-200
1-431
1-187
1-121
1-22
1-38
1-113
1-44
1-412
1-150
1-53
1-72
1-72
1-13
1-55
1-140
1-4
1-111
1-54
1-43
1-264
1-6
1-33
1-105
1-238
1-187
1-42
1-29
1-54
1-94
1-204


Test results (Done with: Marth)
Trip/dash
1-90
1-29
1-203
1-115
1-6
1-59
1-187
1-67
1-55
1-13
1-34
1-33
1-123
1-139
1-2
1-113
1-86
1-19
1-34
1-22
1-309
1-194
1-186
1-42
1-103
1-9
1-85
1-8
1-128

 

[Dark Sonic]

sticky please?

And dude seriously, thanks for doing all this testing. However there are some rumors that have been going around for a while.

If you're winning (as in, you have a stock lead) do you trip more often? You've already said that percentage does not affect tripping, so that's another rumor gone I guess.

 

[Dojo Sam]

Thanks, Hitaku. This is helpful.

 

[Fredd]

Interesting material.

This is just a theory, but do you think heavier characters trip less?
-Dun dun dun-​

 

[TheManaLord]

It's random.

 

[Taymond]

Thanks for reorganizing this, Hitaku. It's been a bit of a hassle to have to direct people to the Tripping (ink dropping) thread, since all of your results are spread out all over the place in that thread. Much more readily-available now, thanks again.

 

[Tooth]

It's random.

Can anyone say, "dice roll?"

 

[Hitaku]

If you're winning (as in, you have a stock lead) do you trip more often? You've already said that percentage does not affect tripping, so that's another rumor gone I guess.

Yeah, without testing this I'm almost sure it isn't true. I'll give it a shot though, no harm in trying.

 

[Tooth]

If tripping is random, do you kids think that maybe it was designed to take the thirst of competition out of the game? I can imagine how pissed off some people will get when they lose a ton of money because their character falls flat on their face.

 

[ElSpaniard]

niccce, this info proves how much i hate tripping.

 

[TechnoMonster]

Also, does this mean that if you're walking, then sprint to a dash, you won't trip?

 

[SpikeSpiegel19]

Do u think its possible to find the input u did that caused u to trip? Tripping on purpose could b useful.

 

[Hitaku]

If you're winning (as in, you have a stock lead) do you trip more often? You've already said that percentage does not affect tripping, so that's another rumor gone I guess.

I added a small rumor section and included my results for this in it. If one player has the winning advantage in a match he or she does not have an increased chance to trip.

If tripping is random, do you kids think that maybe it was designed to take the thirst of competition out of the game? I can imagine how pissed off some people will get when they lose a ton of money because their character falls flat on their face.

If someone loses a lot of money because they tripped that means that they have an very good chance to win next tournament they attend. That being said, I doubt they are going to quit playing and pass up on the cash from the next event.

As far as Sakurai implementing tripping in the first place, I think we can all agree it was a mistake. I highly doubt he had any intentions of "killing the competition" though. When game designers make games they do it with making money in mind, that being said he wouldn't purposely take out something the game had going for it (the competitive scene). He probably placed it in for some humor effect, or who knows, maybe this was his method of making the aerial game better. ><

Either way, there is no point in complaining about tripping or even asking why it is in. Odds are it will never be patched and Sakurai will never comment on it. All we can do from this point on is learn to improvise and deal with it.

Also, does this mean that if you're walking, then sprint to a dash, you won't trip?

When I found out that walking didn't cause tripping I prayed for this to be true, but sadly, it is not. Even if you start out in a walk you will will have a chance to drip when going into a dash.

Do u think its possible to find the input u did that caused u to trip? Tripping on purpose could b useful.

I explained what the input for tripping is. Because there is a 1% (3% on an icy surface) chance to trip when going into a dash or using a smash attack without the c-stick, this isn't something that can be controlled.

 

[SpikeSpiegel19]

My tripping rate increased substantially while trying to perform new ATs. For example:
While trying to perform Pivot wave grab with fox i tripped 1/3 times when i first started but what was the reason and how???
Was my input to fast? it didn't feel like it
Was it my specific input? maybe but i knew the order for the buttons

I thinking tripping on purpose is possible, its just a matter of finding the correct input and timing to do it.

 

[Yuna]

Finally something I can easily dig up and link to whenever someone makes some outlandish claim(s) about tripping. Thanks, Hitaku-chan.

 

[Hitaku]

My tripping rate increased substantially while trying to perform new ATs. For example:
While trying to perform Pivot wave grab with fox i tripped 1/3 times when i first started but what was the reason and how???
Was my input to fast? it didn't feel like it
Was it my specific input? maybe but i knew the order for the buttons

I thinking tripping on purpose is possible, its just a matter of finding the correct input and timing to do it.

There is no specific input, you just got ***** by probability.

Finally something I can easily dig up and link to whenever someone makes some outlandish claim(s) about tripping. Thanks, Hitaku-chan.

Np, happy you are all finding it useful. Thinking about it, I really should have just done this from the start. ><

 

[SamuraiPanda]

Something I've always wondered about is if taking specific attacks can cause you to have a higher chance of tripping. And no, I'm not talking about sweeping people, which is a trip directly cause by the attack, but I wonder if some attacks actually increase the probability the opponent trips. This is just something I randomly thought of a loooong time ago, and don't have the time/patience to test out myself since I don't think its likely to be true.

And I swear I'm going to add this to the sticky like I said I would soon. I just need to take a quick nap first :D

 

[Yuna]

Something I've always wondered about is if taking specific attacks can cause you to have a higher chance of tripping. And no, I'm not talking about sweeping people, which is a trip directly cause by the attack, but I wonder if some attacks actually increase the probability the opponent trips. This is just something I randomly thought of a loooong time ago, and don't have the time/patience to test out myself since I don't think its likely to be true.

As in "If you get hit by a certain attack, the chances of you tripping in the next 30 seconds will be higher"? Or "If you get hit by a certain attack, you will possibly trip out of it" (which isn't true since we haven't heard of people getting tripped out of getting Fsmashed by Marth or whatever)?

I once air tripped by getting dashattacked by Game & W (IIRC) if that counts .

And I swear I'm going to add this to the sticky like I said I would soon. I just need to take a quick nap first :D

While you're at it, take a look at my post in that thread as well.

 

[Hitaku]

Something I've always wondered about is if taking specific attacks can cause you to have a higher chance of tripping. And no, I'm not talking about sweeping people, which is a trip directly cause by the attack, but I wonder if some attacks actually increase the probability the opponent trips.

I'm pretty sure moves don't effect the probability of tripping unless it is by a small percent. If they did we would see people that survive for long periods of time tripping much more consistently.

The only defense I can think of for this theory is that maybe the effects of the increased probability of tripping have diminishing returns as they apply on the character. An example could be...a player that has survived for a majority of the match has a 2% (an example cap) chance to trip, while the player that just died will refresh back to 1%.

When I did my test with Ike I had him set to 300%, the percent was not cause by any attacks. To test this I'll bring a character to 300% through attacks and then run some tripping experiments.

 

[Ørion]

Thanks for the info

 

[Twin Dreams]

How did you conduct your trip testing?


Did you use IDs or turnaround? Do they have the same probability?

 

[Hitaku]

How did you conduct your trip testing?


Did you use IDs or turnaround? Do they have the same probability?

I'm not sure exactly what IDs means, but when doing my test I dash forward and then stop. I go from one end of Final D to the other end over and over again. Sometimes I also fox-trot across the stage, but I haven't found any difference in results of the two methods.


Test results for attacks that add to the probability of tripping.

Test Results (done with Bowser at 304% [from Meta Knight's attacks]):
Trip/Dash
1/60
1/274
1/190
1/351
1/56
1/50
1/121
1/351
1/68
1/26

Through these 10 trips, bower tripped about 1/154 steps. That is a higher percent than the usual 1%, but I don't think it's anything more than me getting really lucky twice with those 351s (weird though that they were both 351...).

When racking up damage on Bowser with Meta Knight, I made sure to use as many different moves as possible. When I tripped the first four times, I thought maybe Bowser had actually built up some form of resistance to the tripping. But from the later results it just seems that it was luck.

 

[salaboB]

I had someone insist that the chances of tripping was increased if you were tapping the stick off-center, like slightly up or slightly down (But still detecting horizontally). I don't know if there's any chance of that, or if you were already doing the stick at non-centered positions for some of these tests but if you were it might be worth making a note of for other tests to have even more details to start off of.

 

[Hitaku]

I had someone insist that the chances of tripping was increased if you were tapping the stick off-center, like slightly up or slightly down (But still detecting horizontally). I don't know if there's any chance of that, or if you were already doing the stick at non-centered positions for some of these tests but if you were it might be worth making a note of for other tests to have even more details to start off of.

I was told this a while back so I did a few tests being very very careful (I didn't post the results sadly). I didn't personally see any difference. Some time tonight I will try again, mostly so I can post some results for the rumor section.

 

[SCfury]

i heard a rumor about tripping was put in to stop dashdancing, is this true?

 

[Hitaku]

i heard a rumor about tripping was put in to stop dashdancing, is this true?

Sakurai never said exactly why he put tripping in the game, but it was not to stop dash dancing (my opinion at least).

 

[Twin Dreams]

ID = Initial Dash, or the start of up of a dash animation



What about if you're already running and do a turn around?

 

[Yuna]

If it was to stop Dashdancing (which has already been nerfed), he could've just made tripping set in if you dashdance, not whenever you dash at all. But maybe that'd take a lot more work and he felt lazy.

 

[DrakeFreedom]

wow such commitment , great job

 

[Hitaku]

ID = Initial Dash, or the start of up of a dash animation



What about if you're already running and do a turn around?

When I turn around I press lightly on the joystick so that I only face the other direction. Because of that, I don't count it in the number of dashes. I can test later to see if the turn around has a different result when turned with a full tilt on the joystick.

 

[hizzlum]

I wonder why they even thought of putting tripping into the game, its just a really annoying and doesent actually affect gameplay

 

[Hitaku]

I wonder why they even thought of putting tripping into the game, its just a really annoying and doesent actually affect gameplay

It affects gameplay, just not in a positive way.

 

[zaf]

thanks for all the info, ill try and take your info and apply it. been looking for good tripping calculations.thanks again

A part of me still says it is 100% random

 

[Corigames]

Thanks for doing this.

And for those who say this won't affect tournaments, read the first line in my sig.

I'd say even 1 stock in a tournament match lost to tripping is too much.

 

[protokid]

This must have cost a long time to test.
Thnx for doing that, it clears up some rumors I`ve been hearing.

 

[Sosuke]

Tripping on purpose could b useful.

....uhhhh....

 

[Crizthakidd]

how about the controller type rumor. only from observation my friends and i would deem it viable.

i mean one uses the wii mote alone and one with the chuck and i use a Cg and i trip 2x more than he does ( wii mote and chuck) and 4X than the wii mote alone

 

[skelo10]

it most likely is influenced by the character. I play with sonic and dedede a lot. sonic trips constantly and dedede never trips for me.

 

[Judo Chop Action Super Buddha]

Amount of tripping is influenced by:

1. Surface being walked/ran on.
2. Speed of movement.
3. Character.
4. Person who is in the lead (the person in the lead trips more often).

 

[DanGR]

Thanks for taking the time to do this. It must have taken QUITE a while.

Why did Sakurai even include tripping? Personally, I think it's to give the underdog a better chance to pull off a comeback. They eliminated many skill factors from Melee to Brawl, and Nintendo has a notorious record of doing like things in other games (Ex. Mario Kart-player behind gets better weapons and speeds up) I bet that the player that's ahead has a better chance of tripping. There's my two cents.