Q&A Mechanics & Techniques Discussion

[Smooth Criminal]

@ Shaya , @Aerodrome, hell, at anybody dissecting this game

Speaking of shields, I was talking a little bit on Skype with Raziek and a few others about 'em. I know the shielding mechanics in Smash 4 are consistent with Brawl's, but what about attacks that do damage to shields? Are those beefier across the board?

Smooth Criminal

 

[san.]

It seems so. Attacks that dealt damage to shield seems to deal a little to a lot more damage to shield. It may be individual tweaks or across the board, since moves such as Donkey Kong's side B can break an almost full shield, while Jigglypuff can deal more damage than before with her side B.

Speaking of shield, shield push no longer sliding you off of ledges seems awkward to me at first glance. I can't immediately think of anything that can abuse this other than continuous jabs or powerful smash attacks.

 

[Shaya]

There have been some instances where people have been knocked off the edge while in shield for unknown reasons. I think shield shuffling inputs may still allow you to do this.

 

[mimgrim]

On the subject of shields... there have been a few times where Perfect/Power Shielding has reflected a projectile straight back instead of at a useless angle, basically how it worked against projectiles in Melee instead of Brawl. Has this been the case for anyone else by chance?

 

[Chiroz]

How do you do this and what uses does it have?

 

[Indigo Jeans]

This was in Brawl. If you did it at the edge, you could "sticky walk" continuously and not fall off.

You can still do this in smash 4 and it's hilarious.

 

[Empyrean]

The only times I've seen people knocked off the stage while shielding was when a move pushed them back as they dropped their shield.

 

[BSP]

Does priority work the same way it did in brawl?

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

One major complaint people had with Brawl was that the 10-frame buffer could lead to them accidentally performing an NAir out of shield instead of a jab when pushed off the ledge by an attack, leading to a self-destruct with some characters. I suspect the inability to be pushed off a ledge while in shield is in response to this complaint.

Oh, also, something that seems to be new to Smash 4 that I'm not sure I like: You can now tech a meteor smash hit into the ground even if you were already on the ground. I'm quite sure this isn't just SDI upward into a tech because I accidentally did it while trying to roll-dodge around the incoming attack. I was somehow taken by surprise by a CPU Link's DAir and tried to roll at the last possible moment, but ended up taking the hit and the game registered my R-button press as a tech.

 

[Roko Jono]

I love that its back, why? Because Ganon's obese walk will be even slower and look funnier. Is it useful? Not really but I still love it

 

[Opana]

SKID TOSSING

Villager:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaK29kMUNTY

Link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPpPp-iPp2c

Mega Man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjsQuVo3CJE

Not possible out of a Foxtrot due to no skidding, seems to give a larger slide than just JCTing out of a pivot. I don't believe this was mentioned anywhere, and is not character specific.

 

[Indigo Jeans]

Yo alright so idk if this has already been addressed, but attacks seem to do less damage in training against the sandbag than in an actual game.

For example in a match, a fresh, fully charged FSmash from the Villager deals 22%. Against the sandbag, it only deals 21%. In a match, the tree's early falling hitbox deals 26%. Against the sandbag, it deals 25%. The late hitbox weakens from 16% to 15%. What's up with that?

*snip* skid tossing *snip*

This works under the same mechanics as skidding tilts and jabs, except since you're holding an item you toss it. Pretty cool nonetheless.

Edit: ugh in training the rocket does 17% but in a match it does 16% WHAT IS GOING ON HERE SOMEBODY HELP

 

[SonicZeroX]

We know that some attacks actually deal damage in non-integer values, so maybe hitting the sandbag takes the ceiling value of the damage while hitting a player will round or take the floor?

 

[Pikabunz]

For example in a match, a fresh, fully charged FSmash from the Villager deals 22%. Against the sandbag, it only deals 21%. In a match, the tree's early falling hitbox deals 26%. Against the sandbag, it deals 25%. The late hitbox weakens from 16% to 15%. What's up with that?

In a match, fresh moves do 105% of their base damage. In the waiting room, They're at a constant 100% and never stale.

Edit: ugh in training the rocket does 17% but in a match it does 16% WHAT IS GOING ON HERE SOMEBODY HELP

Probably what SonicZeroX said.

 

[Indigo Jeans]

Alright see I actually knew about non-integer valc but if in training moves have a flat x1 multiplier then testing a move's damage 100 times should have indicated that, but it didn't for any moves. Then I considered that maybe in a match moves begin with a multiplier greater than x1 cause I was aware of training being non-staling but it didn't seem likely to me because I ain't never heard of such a thing and it wouldn't explain why one attack would do less.

In any case neither of them explain why some do more in a match while another does less, but I guess for now I'll just roll with the training mode values since they are at 100%. The "hitting a sandbag take the ceiling but hitting a player rounds/takes the floor" theory doesn't fit because like I said one attack does 1% more in a match while another does less. I didnt know that it was confirmed matches start moves off at 105% though, so I'll assume that that's what's going on and the one move is an anomaly for now.

 

[Pikabunz]

Let's say Villager's rocket base damage is 16.1%. So in training, it will always do 16.1%, but it will display 17% since it rounds up. In a match, a fresh rocket will do 16.905% with the 105% boost, so that rounds down to 16% on the display. So it's actually doing more damage in match even though it's showing you a lower value. If you want proof that the rocket is doing more damage in matches, then just use 3 fresh rockets on someone and it should show 50%. If you did the same on the sandbag it should be 49%.

 

[infiniteV115]

I didn't know about the rounding thing, but I suppose it's worth mentioning that the multipliers of 1.00 in training mode and 1.05 when fresh in vs mode are the same in Brawl

 

[TheReflexWonder]

As far as I can tell, this hasn't been brought up within ledge mechanics yet, but there are some pretty huge changes there that aren't being talked about (the first being one I've wanted since I was dissatisfied with ledge abuse in Melee/Brawl/PM):

If you let go of the ledge by pressing Back/Down, any remaining ledge invincibility goes away. This means that invincible aerials are a thing of the past and varying your options is that much more important.

Other ledge options have also been improved from previous games; aerials can be done very quickly out of a Ledge Jump, and Ledge Attacks are active before the invincibility on them wears off (as far as I can tell).

Ledge invincibility is also dependent on percent (as was mentioned in a Miiverse post by Sakurai). You seem to be able to get off the ledge slightly earlier than you could in Brawl (which allowed you to release around Frame 22, iirc), but staying on the ledge at 0% seems to give you invincibility for about a full second (60 frames). That lessens as percents go up; at 300% (via Sudden Death), it appears to be a few frames longer than when you're first able to use a ledge option.

 

[Indigo Jeans]

As far as I can tell, this hasn't been brought up within ledge mechanics yet, but there are some pretty huge changes there that aren't being talked about (the first being one I've wanted since I was dissatisfied with ledge abuse in Melee/Brawl/PM):

If you let go of the ledge by pressing Back/Down, any remaining ledge invincibility goes away. This means that invincible aerials are a thing of the past and varying your options is that much more important.

Other ledge options have also been improved from previous games; aerials can be done very quickly out of a Ledge Jump, and Ledge Attacks are active before the invincibility on them wears off (as far as I can tell).

Ledge invincibility is also dependent on percent (as was mentioned in a Miiverse post by Sakurai). You seem to be able to get off the ledge slightly earlier than you could in Brawl (which allowed you to release around Frame 22, iirc), but staying on the ledge at 0% seems to give you invincibility for about a full second (60 frames). That lessens as percents go up; at 300% (via Sudden Death), it appears to be a few frames longer than when you're first able to use a ledge option.

You probably implied it in your post but

You also don't get any invincibility frames if you regrab the ledge after letting go and before landing back onstage. It's a really simple yet really elegant fix to the horrid amounts of planking in the last game

Let's say Villager's rocket base damage is 16.1%. So in training, it will always do 16.1%, but it will display 17% since it rounds up. In a match, a fresh rocket will do 16.905% with the 105% boost, so that rounds down to 16% on the display. So it's actually doing more damage in match even though it's showing you a lower value. If you want proof that the rocket is doing more damage in matches, then just use 3 fresh rockets on someone and it should show 50%. If you did the same on the sandbag it should be 49%.

Yep, you're right. The first rocket registered as 16%, but the second one bumped it up to 33%, and the last to 50%. In training, the first and second rockets showed up as 17%, but the total after two was only 33%. So the game does take the ceiling in training and the floor in a match when displaying damage, but not calculating it.

And if the tree has a base damage of 24.762% (26/1.05) this would work out. With the 1.05 multiplier it comes out to 26.0001%, which the game would floor in a match to 26%. In training the game would round up to 25%.

So that covers that. You learn somethin new every day

cripes what a pain though

 

[Virgman]

Before landing on stage, you can also get invincibility frames back by taking damage, either in the air or while hanging on the ledge. Once you regrab, even though you haven't landed on stage, your invincibility is refreshed.
I'm just wondering if you need to take knockback in order for it to refresh, or does invincibility come back even when hit with Fox's laser (1), for example. I can't test that out in the demo.

 

[pikmin.org]

I haven't heard anybody mention this, is the mechanic from brawl where characters charging smash attacks receive greater knockback in smash 4?

 

[TheReflexWonder]

My anecdotal evidence certainly suggests that this is still the case, yeah. I've died pretty early while charging a Smash, and it wasn't a result of vector stuff.

 

[Opana]

I haven't heard anybody mention this, is the mechanic from brawl where characters charging smash attacks receive greater knockback in smash 4?

I feel stupid not knowing this lol.

 

[Giygacoal]

The thing is that previously the grabber was still able to throw the opponent regardless of the damage taken as consequence of the trade, unlike at Smash 4, where the grabber not only takes damage, but also loses his/her hold of the opponent.

Oh, that's an interesting change.

 

[Funkermonster]

As far as I know (correct me if I'm wrong) the past Smash games, Sudden Death Matches are ignored should they happen in tournaments due to potential possibilities of giving unfair comebacks to losing players and unbalanced advantages to certain characters, especially those who were good at planking. Some fighters could plank on the ledges to avoid the falling Bo-ombs and camp until his/her opponent dies, and those who couldn't didn't stand much of a chance and were gonna get killed. For whatever reason, its allowed in For Glory online matches (WTF?) whenever two players are at equal stocks, rather than determining the winner by damage.

But if I heard planking is almost impossible now since the ledge becomes immune to your grab for about a after grabbing it, and its really hard for those who don't have delayed flip jumps like Charizard; while those with flip jumps like Pikachu still seem to be able to perform it to some extent. And if somebody grabs the same ledge you hang on. Although I personally wish that they never allowed SD matches in For Glory in the first place, I just have to ask: Does anyone think planking would still be at least an OK idea to plank and camp for some fighters if you do end up in an SD match with the new ledge mechanics and FD being the only stage? Or is it completely useless now?

I just had to ask since I have never seen any footage of something like this in the New Game, and am still learning the ropes of competitive smash myself..

 

[TheReflexWonder]

The issue is that after grabbing the ledge, any future ledge grabs without touching the ground or being hit will not have any invincibility left. A bomb may very likely tag you anyway.

 

[san.]

Ledge invincibility also decreases the higher your percent. I imagine that the invincibility at 300% is incredibly small unless you extend it by staying in the air a while before first grabbing it.

I made a post about being unable to be pushed off the edge of platforms and ledges in shield earlier. I am happy to know that if your shield is still moving from a heavy hit, you slide off properly once you let go of shield.


Edit:

I have 2 questions that I hope someone can answer:
-Do stale moves deal less damage/stun to shields?
-Do attacks to shields count towards the stale move queue?

I'm hoping the answers are yes and no respectively. I hate to say it, but I never noticed stale moves doing less to shields in Brawl if it was there. Trying Link's fresh dair almost destroys a shield, but barely does anything when stale.

Edit 2:

Tried it out in Brawl and it was similar. The scaling seems a bit different since attacks in general deal better damage to shields. Staling against shields feels like it's more powerful in this game, but I am not certain.

 

[Boss N]

I apologize if this has already been addressed, but how does hit stun behave in this game compared to the other smash games?

 

[-RedX-]

I can't seem to "jiggle" out of the tumble animation when I know you can in Melee and Brawl(I think) but it seems like it's gone from this game?

 

[Virgman]

Yeah, I haven't found a way to break hit stun. Until a method of breaking hit stun is discovered, we'll have to rely primarily on vectoring/VI'ing/KI'ing/whatever you want to call it, to survive longer.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

I can't seem to "jiggle" out of the tumble animation when I know you can in Melee and Brawl(I think) but it seems like it's gone from this game?

Seems like this game only registers left-right circle pad presses for grab/pitfall/daze escapes rather than full circles, so perhaps the same applies to tumble.

 

[infiniteV115]

Diddy can cancel hitstun with his popgun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IxkIIG_Q0E

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Has anything outstanding been pointed out about traction, shield pushback and shield DI mechanics yet? Some moves seem to have rather inconsistent shield pushback but I couldn't tell whether it's staleness , the defending character's percent, both or something entirely different that makes the difference.

 

[san.]

Has anything outstanding been pointed out about traction, shield pushback and shield DI mechanics yet? Some moves seem to have rather inconsistent shield pushback but I couldn't tell whether it's staleness , the defending character's percent, both or something entirely different that makes the difference.

All I can answer for you with confidence is that staleness has a great effect on shield damage, pushback, and stun after your move has staled twice or so.

 

[Shaya]

I think the scaling for damage has been amped up in this game.
% Damage determined shield damage, push back and shield stun, hit lag (there existed modifiers on how potent those values scaled, but still the base is always the move's damage %).

I've seen really low damage moves hit bowser's shield and easy shield drop ftilts come out that makes the game look like it has no shield drop lag / safety on shield at all. And then you have a move like Sheik's down b that's 15% and flips horizontally off of shields (DUMB) and the punishment option (dash OoS into something) doesn't look to be very possible at all, but could be just how "slow" people are playing right now; but if you can't punish sheik's down b on shield with solid inputting I'll be a bit upset (if it requires power shields for guaranteed punishes that's fine).

So I'm thinking that shield stun stuff is just scaling harder but as a result is less effective at earlier percent.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

I think the scaling for damage has been amped up in this game.
% Damage determined shield damage, push back and shield stun.

I've seen really low damage moves hit bowser's shield and easy shield drop ftilts come out that makes the game look like it has no shield drop lag / safety on shield at all. And then you have a move like Sheik's side b that's 15% and flips horizontally off of shields (DUMB) and the punishment option (dash OoS into something) doesn't look to be very possible at all, but could be just how "slow" people are playing right now; but if you can't punish sheik's side-b on shield with solid inputting I'll be a bit upset (if it requires power shields for guaranteed punishes that's fine).

I presume you're referring to her Down Special and not her Side Special, right? Down Special is Bouncing Fish. Side Special is the Burst Grenade.

 

[NoviceSmasher]

im playing on the demo version but..marios fair has loads of landing lag right?....(call me out if im being a noob on any of this) if you full jump and fair just as mario reaches his full jump ,,it will have little to no landing lag,,,i have tried it also with megamans fair and pickachus bair same result,,it seems that if you do an aerial rising into your full jump ,,there is little to no lag,,,please can someone with the full game test this??????

 

[TheReflexWonder]

There's no lag in that case because the move is over at that point. Of course you don't have lag if the move is finished.

 

[Virgman]

im playing on the demo version but..marios fair has loads of landing lag right?....(call me out if im being a noob on any of this) if you full jump and fair just as mario reaches his full jump ,,it will have little to no landing lag,,,i have tried it also with megamans fair and pickachus bair same result,,it seems that if you do an aerial rising into your full jump ,,there is little to no lag,,,please can someone with the full game test this??????

Lol I felt like that was a troll attempt. Sorry for not answering.

 

[NoviceSmasher]

But it works with airdodges aswell...and I know your supposed to get landing lag after air dodging..