Ness in Balanced Brawl (BBrawl) discussion

[Dajayman]

There is a new hacked version of Brawl just recently made, this project is called Balanced Brawl (BBrawl). Here is the link to the official thread if you want more details: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=239604

Basically the idea of BBrawl is to hack Brawl to make it more balanced like Brawl+ intends, but without all the physics changes Brawl+ has like quicker game speed and hitstun. BBrawl has the same physics of Brawl.

Some of the big things they changed in BBrawl was remove grab release stuff, removed DDD/Falco/Pikachu chaingrabs, remove jablocks/dtilt locks, and footstool combos some characters like Pikachu had that took advantage of the landing animation of the tumble. Many characters, especially in the low tier, received minor buffs to increase their playability. Characters like MK and Snake had some of their "broken" moves like MK's dsmash/SL and Snake's utilt killability nerfed.

So what does this mean for Ness? The main change is grab release nonsense no longer can hurt poor Ness. One of Ness' biggest weaknesses was removed! Also here is what they have as the changes for Ness:

4. Ness
-More damage on forward smash (18, 20, 22, or 24%) -> (19, 21, 23, or 27%)
-Up smash and down smash are more consistent (initial hit knockback halved)
-Much more damage on down throw (9% total) -> (14% total)
-Pk Fire pillar requires more SDI to escape: knockback (30/10) -> (30/7), angle (68) -> (112)
-More knockback on Pk Flash (70/10) -> (75/20)

Pk Fire is much more rewarding now, since it's going to be very hard to avoid a Ness aerial if you are hit by it, and it's easier for Ness to get a grab or potential forward smash if he catches you by surprise with it. Yeah, Pk Flash is better too, but it's still just as hard to land. However, the down throw now does a whopping 14%! Ness already had 3 of the best throws in the game, and now he has 4. Choose carefully!

Feel free to discuss your opinions and thoughts on this new and interesting project.

My opinion is that Ness greatly improved. While he no longer has his great jablock and some of the footstool stuff we were just starting to discover and test will no longer work, those seem to be his only minor nerfs. Overall I say BBrawl makes Ness better than before.

 

[Cacti]

It looks like Ness got better. The 14% dthrow seems like a nice buff. Has anybody played this yet? I'd like to know how hard PK Fire is to SDI out of now.

 

[CarVac]

Wow. Dthrow is beast.
I would never use upthrow anymore.

Also, this is making me consider hacking my wii.

 

[NintenJoe]

I've played this, and I must say that aside from a few chaingrab removal flaws, BBrawl is an amazing hack. PK Fire is probably one of Ness' most **** attacks after this buff. It drags opponents in slightly instead of pushing them out, ensuring that only masters of DI will escape. Yoyo attacks are also much more reliable, especially the Dsmash double hit.

Dedede is a huge controversy though...

 

[Uffe]

I'd definity play this. I like the idea of patching some problems up. I was starting to hate Brawl because everybody needed to find a "CG" for their main. That's all Brawl really came down to.

 

[Dajayman]

This hack is very interesting and hopefully gains some popularity. MY big hope is that this replaces Brawl since this hack has the potential of being an unofficial "update" of Brawl that is done by hackers instead of Nintendo. If something or someone is clearly overpowered or underpowered, wouldn't make sense to buff/nerf it? I would like to see Brawl tournaments being a wide variety of characters instead of just MK and Snake.

 

[kennypu]

Nope, not good enough, they don't know ness at all.
All they had to do was make ness's PK thunder like lucas's where it goes through people.
If he has that, Ness is S Tier already xD

 

[Uffe]

I agree. While people would probably say, "Play Brawl+," the thing is is that nothing was changed entirely and so people don't have to learn a new game. Brawl+ was basically made for people who felt Brawl wasn't "competitive" enough or lacked combos and speed. For speed, just play Lighting Brawl or whatever it's called. Anyway, my brother brought this to my attention and it sounded pretty cool. There will be a number of things I will most likely miss, but for now, I'm just happy to hear the CGing is gone. It made the game boring and that's all Brawl was turning into.

 

[NintenJoe]

Nope, not good enough, they don't know ness at all.
All they had to do was make ness's PK thunder like lucas's where it goes through people.
If he has that, Ness is S Tier already xD

I thought that their buffs were modest and improved a lot of things that Ness needed. I personally kind of prefer Ness' PKT, but it definately would prevent a ton of gimping.

 

[Man of Popsicle]

The only problem is lesser availability of Wii's and accesibility due to the need for an SD card/ reader.
Some people don't want to pay 10 more dollars.

 

[NintenJoe]

The only problem is lesser availability of Wii's and accesibility due to the need for an SD card/ reader.
Some people don't want to pay 10 more dollars.

most modern computers are equpped with SD card readers and many digital cameras use SD cards. It probably won't be the biggest issue facing BBrawl, but probably the biggest facing competitive hacking as the standard.

 

[Dajayman]

The best kind of SD Card reader is a USB drive that opens up to insert a SD Card, those cost like $15. Then all you need is any size SD Card really, a 1G is at most $30. So you won't end up spending over $50. And if you are that poor (Even I'm not that poor! I own a 256MB SD Card and one of the SD USB drives) just borrow one from a friend since they are pretty common.

 

[CarVac]

A 1 gig is 30 dollars? they practically give them away free. I've seen 2-gig ones for 5 bucks.

 

[Man of Popsicle]

The best kind of SD Card reader is a USB drive that opens up to insert a SD Card, those cost like $15. Then all you need is any size SD Card really, a 1G is at most $30. So you won't end up spending over $50. And if you are that poor (Even I'm not that poor! I own a 256MB SD Card and one of the SD USB drives) just borrow one from a friend since they are pretty common.

To set up homebrew for gecko OS you need at least a 512.

 

[PMKNG]

there are certain sites you can get 4 gbs for like 8 dollars, but that requires a debit card.
computer came with an sd card reader, so i can't say much about that.

also the BBrawl sounds cool i guess, but idk, kind of a stickler for how the game was meant to be played i guess.

 

[AvariceX]

Hmmm....

Fsmash needs more speed, not more damage... it already has damage in spades.

I'm really starting to love jab locks...they can turn the game around really fast. The other buffs are probably enough to offset the loss of those though...can't really be sure.

 

[NintenJoe]

Hmmm....

Fsmash needs more speed, not more damage... it already has damage in spades.

I'm really starting to love jab locks...they can turn the game around really fast. The other buffs are probably enough to offset the loss of those though...can't really be sure.

Lets just say Ally will have a much harder time getting out of those PK Fires

 

[Thinkaman]

Nope, not good enough, they don't know ness at all.

Except Ness is my main secondary, who I use in regional tourneys for bad puff matchups.

I hope Ness mains enjoy this public preview of our project, and I really hope you guys will share your feedback. How do the changes impact Ness? How does Ness work on some of the stages that can now be legal? How are Ness's matchups, especially with the other changes characters?

Lots of feedback from lots of players is required. Even if Ness is my own second best character, one player is never enough.

 

[Uffe]

I'm kind of neutral about the getting rid of footstooling. Jab locks on the other hand, I never see anyone pull those off in an actual match. The only time I've ever experienced that was when I fought Earthbound360. Other than him, I have experienced getting trapped in Lucas' d-tilt lock by Irsic. Anyway, I wish the footstooling stayed. But whatever.

 

[Thinkaman]

Who said anything about getting rid of footstooling? It's a great part of the game and removing it would be silly.

 

[Lightosia]

What about Ness' PK Thunder in Brawl+ ?
That thing is too good!

I agree that FSmash need more speed.
And what about Fair having more hitstun? Or you don't want to change it in BBrawl?

 

[Uffe]

Who said anything about getting rid of footstooling? It's a great part of the game and removing it would be silly.

So it's there? :D I can go footstool nair still?

 

[Dajayman]

They didn't remove footstooling, they got rid of footstool abuse from things like Pikachu's QAC uair footstool lock.

 

[Uffe]

Can we still do the footstool > nair or Brainshock?

 

[AvariceX]

Well I looked over the whole balanced brawl thread and I'll just say that it will never be balanced if the team making it sticks to the rules they have laid out for themselves; particularly not adjusting speed. You can make a move as strong as you want, but MK is still going to be as fast as a Kenyan and have better options than you. Better PK Fire pillar; so? It's still easy to powershield the bolt and punish.

No matter how much your moves improve in power, if there's a fast enough character to shut down your options using less of his own options (MK is the perfect example here) then your useless moves that get buffed are still going to be useless.

Even with all the massive improvements to Ganon, he's still going to be bottom tier.

But I'll give my input on what needs to be changed for Ness in the hopes that eventually moves are actually made faster:

-faster fsmash
-Brawl+ PKT and/or less ending lag on PKT
-more shield push-back or more shield poke on fair (way too easy to get shield grabbed out of this and it's our bread & butter move).
-faster jab 3 (as far as I know jab 3 can always be power shielded if opponent times right).

 

[Thinkaman]

Everything related to footstool is the same; the only things affected are obscure infinites involving the grounded footstool state.

No attacks will be changed with regard to startup lag, ending lag, or hitbox size. (With only the most obscure exceptions.) There will be no changes to global physics, including the hitstun ratio.

Avarice, you are very drastically overvaluing the value of attack speed. Even if you only hit Meta Knight half as much as he hits you, it doesn't matter if you are Ike or Ganon. Snake and Wario manage to be top characters with less than steller timings on their moves, and Sheik and Luigi are not great characters; they have the fastest and secodn fastest average move speeds in the game respectively.

Fast, weak attacks and slow, strong attacks can be balanced. This idea is true and tested, older than dirt. No element of smash, be it speed, damage, knockback, or priority, can make the others obsolete.

If you wish to actually help playtest and report your feedback on matchups, that would be great and would provide valuable input. However, armchair analysis really just creates theorycraft that isn't helpful.

 

[Gaussis]

Fsmash needs more speed, not more damage... it already has damage in spades.

Nah, I think fsmash needs more range for the damage it does. If it gets more damage, it would be nice if its killing power was on par with something like DK's fsmash.

 

[Dajayman]

I am probably the only one who thinks fsmash's range is fine, though I wouldn't mind it having Melee bat's range.

What fsmash needs is either a knockback boost or a speed boost.

 

[Thinkaman]

Nah, I think fsmash needs more range for the damage it does. If it gets more damage, it would be nice if its killing power was on par with something like DK's fsmash.

I am probably the only one who thinks fsmash's range is fine, though I wouldn't mind it having Melee bat's range.

What fsmash needs is either a knockback boost or a speed boost.

We won't be changing any hitbox sizes, since no one needs to relearn moves moving between versions. There is also no need for a speed change on the bat; it is fine as a difficult move, as long as the reward matches the difficulty.

Also, adding damage does increase knockback. The +3% on the tip of the bat makes it quite deadly, actually.

 

[Alphatron]

I agree. While people would probably say, "Play Brawl+," the thing is is that nothing was changed entirely and so people don't have to learn a new game. Brawl+ was basically made for people who felt Brawl wasn't "competitive" enough or lacked combos and speed. For speed, just play Lighting Brawl or whatever it's called. Anyway, my brother brought this to my attention and it sounded pretty cool. There will be a number of things I will most likely miss, but for now, I'm just happy to hear the CGing is gone. It made the game boring and that's all Brawl was turning into.

The part about brawl+ is completely incorrect except for where you mentioned that people would have to learn a different game. But this isn't the place to discuss it so I'll refrain from saying why it's wrong.

I'd like to try BBrawl as a whole to be honest. But no cpu acess hurts me.

 

[thesage]

Bat needs a knockback buff. The tipper only kills like 4% earilier than Lucas' lolwut. Especially if you are not considering any speed buffs.

Dair needs to do a lot more than 12 damage, considering it's 4 frames slower than ganon's dair, practically the same in terms of meteor smashing, has less range, and deals a lot less damage than ganon's...

Pk fire is terrible because it's slow, can be shielded, the first hit can be shielded, dumb shenanigans like Marth being able to use his down-b while in it lol, etc. The part you buffed can be entirely avoided with di, it's not even hard.

Uair should be more powerful, and b-throw should kill at 110.

All the hits of fair should connect, it's way to easy to di out of.

The pk flash change is barely useful considering how situational pk flash is.

A lot of Ness' problems involve the speed and range of his moves. If those are aspects you won't change then he'll pretty much be suck.

Also BBrawl will sucks since vbrawal will suck. The atmosphere of vbrawl tournaments (ie boring, tiring, and sleep inducing) is just so different from melee and even Brawl+ tournaments.

 

[AvariceX]

Pk fire is terrible because it's slow, can be shielded, the first hit can be shielded, dumb shenanigans like Marth being able to use his down-b while in it lol, etc. The part you buffed can be entirely avoided with di, it's not even hard.

Pit can down-b while in it too, and it changes ownership of the pillar to Pit. -_-

 

[Dajayman]

Pit can down-b while in it too, and it changes ownership of the pillar to Pit. -_-

Zelda, Fox, and Falco can do the same as well.

 

[Gaussis]

Meh, PK Fire will always be below average without any speed changes. Unless if...the pillar was set off on the shield. That would be interesting at least.

 

[AvariceX]

If the pillar could be triggered on shields then it would actually be a great move. One of its biggest strengths already is the zoning it accomplishes (hence why it's such a pain for D3 when he has minions out). If it were a (near) guaranteed zoning tool then it would always be useful in someway.

 

[thesage]

If it came out in 12 frames it would be like shiek's needles but better lol.

Also, when you speed it up, Ness gets that weird momentum stuff that lucas gets with his pk fire just more horizontally than vertically. Kinda funny.

 

[OfTheEarth]

SOMEONE TELL ME HOW TO GET THIS

BBRAWL seems better then BRAWL+
BRAWL plus is so stupid it's like melee without the training. Your not cool playing it. You just need to move on.
I don't think anything will actually take over BRAWL, but it's fun to experiment.

 

[NessBrawler]

THis should be fun

I love ness in brawl already so this hack may be the thing for my freinds to think I'm even better.

 

[Alphatron]

SOMEONE TELL ME HOW TO GET THIS

BBRAWL seems better then BRAWL+
BRAWL plus is so stupid it's like melee without the training. Your not cool playing it. You just need to move on.
I don't think anything will actually take over BRAWL, but it's fun to experiment.

Yes, brawl+ is EXACTLY like melee. It has less hitstun than melee, less shield stun, No manual L-cancelling and no wavedashing. And it's making an effort to balance the characters.
But yes, it's EXACTLY like melee. You're absolutely correct. -_____-;;

 

[Lightosia]

Please, don't say Brawl+ is EXACTLY like Melee...
Have you ever played both?
There are many differences between those two...

In melee, for example, Ness don't have that amazing PK Thunder that he has in Brawl+.
Brawl+ is also trying to balance characters.
Look at Melee most used chars: Marth, Shiek, Falco, Fox.... Is it like Brawl +??