Exate
Smash Journeyman
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2014
- Messages
- 243
I was originally going to make this a reply to this thread, but there's a lot of potential discussion for this topic that would probably be better segregated from that.
While this topic applies to all variants of the Mii Fighter, all of my testing was done with Brawlers, so I posted it here. Maybe it belongs in competitive? I don't know; I'll let the moderators decide.
Throughout my experiences with the Miis, I've noticed some anomalies about them as I played with different sizes through different game modes. I'm well aware of what Sakurai said about their sizes having effects, but what I assumed about varying Mii size was very far off. Some things about large Miis in particular didn't feel... right.
Perplexed by how these variables affect them (being the minmaxer that I am), I went off to search if anybody had written up anything on variance in Mii sizes. This article was the only thing I found. If you go just a short way down, you'll see a table. The author, Laguna Levine, took it upon their time to do some experimenting. A good start, but this information wasn't satisfactory enough for me. I needed to know more.
So, having done most that I can content-wise in Sm4sh 3DS, I decided to start experimenting with these characters. First, I'd like to make note of something: While my tests were somewhat in-depth, they weren't as in-depth as they could have been. Some of you may consider these experiments as sufficient, and some of you may want more work done — that's fine. I like to think of this thread as only the beginning of the research into the variables that affect the performance of the Miis.
To start things off, I used Levine's table as a means of determining how to go about this. While Miis virtually have several variants of height/weight, I also decided to use general "extremes" of sizes: Short, Medium, and Tall; and Thin, Medium, and Wide. I will be referring to these sizes as a two-letter acronym: Each letter represents the first letter of each word. The first letter of the acronym represents the height, and the second represents the width (eg. SW means Short & Wide).
Here were the "tools" for the experiment:
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These three weren't important to the initial tests. They were used for specific comparisons that I'll be explaining later on in the thread.
The first thing on my agenda was to find differences in knockback between sizes — to opponents, and by extension, how far the Miis themselves are launched.
For this experiment, I went into training mode and chose FD Golden Plains. The move I used was Brawler's neutral B #2: Ultimate Uppercut. For each test, the move is fully-charged, then sweet-spotted on my opponent from the right edge of the stage, facing leftwards (to avoid the CPU moving or vectoring [assuming they vector], as they have a tendency to move when hit beyond the edge of the stage). If — when hit — it seemed as though my opponent didn't go straight up, I reattempted it until they did. Their respective percentage when hit was recorded after each successful test.
The following image were the results. The first column is the type of character I hit, and the second is the minimum percent they must be at for the uppercut to vertically KO them. In addition to the Miis, I threw in some of the heavier characters for comparison.
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I think the first thing you'll notice is that the strength between Miis doesn't differ much at all. What may raise your concern, though, are the parentheticals. First off, they aren't global between all three individual cases, but are exclusive to the ones they are listed in.
My guess for the inconsistencies has to do with the overall hitbox of the Mii that was hit, and when it comes into contact with the upper blast line. For the tests conducted with the MM Mii, I think that the MT and TT-sized Miis' hitboxes were just large enough to hit that blast line to result in the KO. The ST one, however, needed the extra percent to give it that extra boost. The situation is basically the same thing for the TW tests. The TT-sized one hits the blast line a percent lower than the other thins, due to the presumed bigger hitbox from the height of the Mii. I tested the parenthetical cases quite a few times, and the result was the same. There are so many variables involved that this is what makes the most sense to me given the situations.
Amongst all those tests, I played with the Miis individually in a couple of fights in training mode, and some runs in Smash Run. Here's what I've been able to infer about Mii sizes:
I'm not 100% certain that's everything, but that seems to be the gist of it.
What I need to further elaborate on is that last detail. To put it shortly: Short Miis are disproportionately better than tall Miis. I know that sounds like an opinion (and maybe it is), but I'll let you decide:
Pros:
Cons:
As for the tall Miis? Just flip the categories and assert the contrary to each one.
Tall Miis are the slowest, jump at the lowest height, have the most delay after attacks (easier to punish), and they're easier to hit due to their size. The only real pro about them is the larger hitbox associated with their attacks, and that's really not enough.
I don't consider myself a professional at Smash, but here's my understanding about characters:
If a character has a drawback (eg. horrid delay after an attack), there must be other qualities about this character to mitigate that issue. Some characters like these (eg. some of the heavy ones I included on part of the chart) are heavier, and take much more to be KO'd. They also tend to hit a lot harder, and have much more knockback to their moves. Characters that are lighter and faster rely on their quick attacks into combos to be effective. They tend to be KO'd more easily, and do lighter damage with their moves.
While Smash isn't perfectly balanced, I think what I say is general principle for how a great deal of the cast is. There are certainly mixed bags of the aforementioned things — and characters inevitably end up in specific tiers due to them — but how their moves function is what really sets them all apart.
The problem with the Miis is that the very difference in their weight/power is practically neglibile between sizes. With the drawbacks tall Miis have, them having a larger attack hitbox just doesn't cut it — they need to be able to hit harder, knockback further, and take a bigger beating to mitigate such drawbacks... and that just isn't there for them. I know what I'm saying sounds a little too definitive of things (especially considering my isolated tests), but I think Sakurai made a big mistake with the weight/power between sizes.
ofc i dont really blame him with the sheer size of this roster what with all the balancing needing to be done but dang its a pretty big imbalance
Anyway... let's move on.
Seeing as the shorter Miis had so many advantages, I decided to turn my focus entirely on them. My next test was to find out the differences between each of their widths. While I haven't delved too much into this territory yet, I've discovered a few things. Levine's table explains some of this stuff, but I'd like to just elaborate a bit further:
At this point, I wondered if the size of the Miis were just as varied in the game to their potential sizes when making them in the Mii Maker. This goes back to the second image I posted above. I decided to make two more Miis (the green ones) as middle-of-the-roads between the primary three I used. The first is slightly taller and wider than a ST, but not quite as much as a MM. The second is like the first, but falls between the MM and TW. I compared them to the primary ones, and they are indeed different in size (smallest to biggest, left to right):
![]()
I think it's safe to say the green ones will have differences in jump height and initial dash than the others... but that's a test of mine for another time.
To sum things up as of now, I think that SM feels the best — it doesn't have what I think is a slippery mechanic to the weight, and good enough jump height for recovery situations. Seeing as my findings about their widths are inconclusive, my opinion is certainly subject to change. There's also the matter of initial dashing and jump height for the other classes — some other variant may be preferable depending on what kind of Mii you're using.
Anyway, that cyan female Mii in the second image? She's a MM that I used to verify whether or not female Miis had differences from the males (they don't, thankfully). Tests with her matched up to the male MM. Only difference between the genders are some aesthetics with outfits (and the female being slightly thinner overall). I took note of some differences in outfits, so here they are if you're interested:
Well, those are all of my findings so far. It'd be great to get other people to join in on this, as it'd be quite daunting to do alone. At the very least, I'd like to hear everyone's opinions, or rebuttals.
While this topic applies to all variants of the Mii Fighter, all of my testing was done with Brawlers, so I posted it here. Maybe it belongs in competitive? I don't know; I'll let the moderators decide.
Throughout my experiences with the Miis, I've noticed some anomalies about them as I played with different sizes through different game modes. I'm well aware of what Sakurai said about their sizes having effects, but what I assumed about varying Mii size was very far off. Some things about large Miis in particular didn't feel... right.
Perplexed by how these variables affect them (being the minmaxer that I am), I went off to search if anybody had written up anything on variance in Mii sizes. This article was the only thing I found. If you go just a short way down, you'll see a table. The author, Laguna Levine, took it upon their time to do some experimenting. A good start, but this information wasn't satisfactory enough for me. I needed to know more.
So, having done most that I can content-wise in Sm4sh 3DS, I decided to start experimenting with these characters. First, I'd like to make note of something: While my tests were somewhat in-depth, they weren't as in-depth as they could have been. Some of you may consider these experiments as sufficient, and some of you may want more work done — that's fine. I like to think of this thread as only the beginning of the research into the variables that affect the performance of the Miis.
To start things off, I used Levine's table as a means of determining how to go about this. While Miis virtually have several variants of height/weight, I also decided to use general "extremes" of sizes: Short, Medium, and Tall; and Thin, Medium, and Wide. I will be referring to these sizes as a two-letter acronym: Each letter represents the first letter of each word. The first letter of the acronym represents the height, and the second represents the width (eg. SW means Short & Wide).
Here were the "tools" for the experiment:
These three weren't important to the initial tests. They were used for specific comparisons that I'll be explaining later on in the thread.
The first thing on my agenda was to find differences in knockback between sizes — to opponents, and by extension, how far the Miis themselves are launched.
For this experiment, I went into training mode and chose FD Golden Plains. The move I used was Brawler's neutral B #2: Ultimate Uppercut. For each test, the move is fully-charged, then sweet-spotted on my opponent from the right edge of the stage, facing leftwards (to avoid the CPU moving or vectoring [assuming they vector], as they have a tendency to move when hit beyond the edge of the stage). If — when hit — it seemed as though my opponent didn't go straight up, I reattempted it until they did. Their respective percentage when hit was recorded after each successful test.
The following image were the results. The first column is the type of character I hit, and the second is the minimum percent they must be at for the uppercut to vertically KO them. In addition to the Miis, I threw in some of the heavier characters for comparison.
I think the first thing you'll notice is that the strength between Miis doesn't differ much at all. What may raise your concern, though, are the parentheticals. First off, they aren't global between all three individual cases, but are exclusive to the ones they are listed in.
My guess for the inconsistencies has to do with the overall hitbox of the Mii that was hit, and when it comes into contact with the upper blast line. For the tests conducted with the MM Mii, I think that the MT and TT-sized Miis' hitboxes were just large enough to hit that blast line to result in the KO. The ST one, however, needed the extra percent to give it that extra boost. The situation is basically the same thing for the TW tests. The TT-sized one hits the blast line a percent lower than the other thins, due to the presumed bigger hitbox from the height of the Mii. I tested the parenthetical cases quite a few times, and the result was the same. There are so many variables involved that this is what makes the most sense to me given the situations.
Amongst all those tests, I played with the Miis individually in a couple of fights in training mode, and some runs in Smash Run. Here's what I've been able to infer about Mii sizes:
- The height affects movement speed, hitbox size (including attacks), and delay after attacks
- The width affects initial dash and character weight
- Attack power and jump height is determined by both
- Weight/attack from the extreme smallest to the extreme largest doesn't seem much different
- Qualities affected by height are very noticeable, however
I'm not 100% certain that's everything, but that seems to be the gist of it.
What I need to further elaborate on is that last detail. To put it shortly: Short Miis are disproportionately better than tall Miis. I know that sounds like an opinion (and maybe it is), but I'll let you decide:
Pros:
- Run the fastest
- Jump the highest
- Have the least amount of delay after attacks
- Have a smaller hitbox, therefore being harder to hit
Cons:
- Smaller hitbox with attacks
As for the tall Miis? Just flip the categories and assert the contrary to each one.
Tall Miis are the slowest, jump at the lowest height, have the most delay after attacks (easier to punish), and they're easier to hit due to their size. The only real pro about them is the larger hitbox associated with their attacks, and that's really not enough.
I don't consider myself a professional at Smash, but here's my understanding about characters:
If a character has a drawback (eg. horrid delay after an attack), there must be other qualities about this character to mitigate that issue. Some characters like these (eg. some of the heavy ones I included on part of the chart) are heavier, and take much more to be KO'd. They also tend to hit a lot harder, and have much more knockback to their moves. Characters that are lighter and faster rely on their quick attacks into combos to be effective. They tend to be KO'd more easily, and do lighter damage with their moves.
While Smash isn't perfectly balanced, I think what I say is general principle for how a great deal of the cast is. There are certainly mixed bags of the aforementioned things — and characters inevitably end up in specific tiers due to them — but how their moves function is what really sets them all apart.
The problem with the Miis is that the very difference in their weight/power is practically neglibile between sizes. With the drawbacks tall Miis have, them having a larger attack hitbox just doesn't cut it — they need to be able to hit harder, knockback further, and take a bigger beating to mitigate such drawbacks... and that just isn't there for them. I know what I'm saying sounds a little too definitive of things (especially considering my isolated tests), but I think Sakurai made a big mistake with the weight/power between sizes.
ofc i dont really blame him with the sheer size of this roster what with all the balancing needing to be done but dang its a pretty big imbalance
Anyway... let's move on.
Seeing as the shorter Miis had so many advantages, I decided to turn my focus entirely on them. My next test was to find out the differences between each of their widths. While I haven't delved too much into this territory yet, I've discovered a few things. Levine's table explains some of this stuff, but I'd like to just elaborate a bit further:
- When I compared a ST's jump height to a SW, their peak height during the first jump is about 75% of a default Mii's head size above the SW. When compared to a MM, it seems to be one full head, and two full heads compared to a TW. ST Miis certainly jump the highest.
- Short hopping seems to be the same height between all widths. Not 100% certain, though.
- As aforementioned, width seems to affect the distance of the initial dash. Running speed, however, doesn't look any different... but I could be wrong.
- While this may be just me, the thin variants seemed to have a kind of "sliding" feel to them. Think like Luigi, but far less. This detail needs more attention, I think. I'm really not sure if it's there or not.
At this point, I wondered if the size of the Miis were just as varied in the game to their potential sizes when making them in the Mii Maker. This goes back to the second image I posted above. I decided to make two more Miis (the green ones) as middle-of-the-roads between the primary three I used. The first is slightly taller and wider than a ST, but not quite as much as a MM. The second is like the first, but falls between the MM and TW. I compared them to the primary ones, and they are indeed different in size (smallest to biggest, left to right):
To sum things up as of now, I think that SM feels the best — it doesn't have what I think is a slippery mechanic to the weight, and good enough jump height for recovery situations. Seeing as my findings about their widths are inconclusive, my opinion is certainly subject to change. There's also the matter of initial dashing and jump height for the other classes — some other variant may be preferable depending on what kind of Mii you're using.
Anyway, that cyan female Mii in the second image? She's a MM that I used to verify whether or not female Miis had differences from the males (they don't, thankfully). Tests with her matched up to the male MM. Only difference between the genders are some aesthetics with outfits (and the female being slightly thinner overall). I took note of some differences in outfits, so here they are if you're interested:
- for brawler
biker gear (shirt)
fighter uniform (slightly longer top for female)
mecha suit (green for male, yellow for female)
standard outfit (longer top for female)
vampire garb (differences in boots, and front and back of coat)
- for swordfighter
cybernetic suit (colored sections are shaped differently)
ninja suit (male has a shuriken on the front, female's is a more... rounded-shaped one?)
pirate outfit (female has closed coat and no belt sash)
plate armor (female has a slight skirt at the bottom of the top piece. different design in front)
standard outfit (longer top for female)
- for gunner
fancy suit (female shoes are heeled)
standard outfit (longer top for female)
steampunk getup (different vests/pants)
wild west wear (distinctly different between genders)
As minimalistic as this info is, I suppose it's useful in the respect that you prefer some differences in one gender's outfits than what you usually use. Can just remake the Mii into the opposite gender to get what you want, etc..
biker gear (shirt)
fighter uniform (slightly longer top for female)
mecha suit (green for male, yellow for female)
standard outfit (longer top for female)
vampire garb (differences in boots, and front and back of coat)
- for swordfighter
cybernetic suit (colored sections are shaped differently)
ninja suit (male has a shuriken on the front, female's is a more... rounded-shaped one?)
pirate outfit (female has closed coat and no belt sash)
plate armor (female has a slight skirt at the bottom of the top piece. different design in front)
standard outfit (longer top for female)
- for gunner
fancy suit (female shoes are heeled)
standard outfit (longer top for female)
steampunk getup (different vests/pants)
wild west wear (distinctly different between genders)
As minimalistic as this info is, I suppose it's useful in the respect that you prefer some differences in one gender's outfits than what you usually use. Can just remake the Mii into the opposite gender to get what you want, etc..
Well, those are all of my findings so far. It'd be great to get other people to join in on this, as it'd be quite daunting to do alone. At the very least, I'd like to hear everyone's opinions, or rebuttals.
| 10 (for all X/X sets)