Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[GoodGrief741]

That's true but those characters were put in because they cost significantly less time to make and thus, padded the roster, I just don't understand why people would want to get nothing but clones for a pass when DLC allows you to make every character unique due to not needing to work on the game as a whole, not to mention it'd pretty much be begging to have those characters give people ire, let's say we get Impa as a Sheik echo, now Zelda only has 1 character with a unique moveset and as a result, gets the same treatment from people who whine about how every FE character is just another Marth clone. Add in Ninten, a character who looks exactly like Ness who plays the exact same as Ness too without anything to make him stand out.

TLDR: You can do so much better now

Echoes are a happy medium. Nobody's saying they'd rather get an Echo Pass instead of a Pass of unique fighters. But if the budget or whatever doesn't allow for a third Fighter Pass, and it can get us an Echo Pass, I'd be very excited about that.

I really like Echoes because they kinda fast-track characters that otherwise would either never get in or be super low priority, and it's still neat to see those characters shown some love. Like, in what other scenario would we have seen Richter counted amongst the ranks of Smash? And yet there he is, and that's awesome.

 

[7NATOR]

Since we're talking about Echoes, How do you guys feel about the Implementation of Echoes? do you think it was wasted potential? Should we have gotten more?

Personally I think the selection is Perfect. Chrom, Dark Samus, and Daisy were poplar requests, Richter was to Japan what Simon was to the West, and Ken is Legendary. I think any other New echo candiates wouldn't work well as these 5. They either work better as Alt Costumes (Ms.Pac-Man, Dry Bowser), arent Notable enough, Or them being an echo is too Controversial (any Sonic Character, Dixie Kong).

 

[Idon]

Since we're talking about Echoes, How do you guys feel about the Implementation of Echoes? do you think it was wasted potential? Should we have gotten more?

Personally I think the selection is Perfect. Chrom, Dark Samus, and Daisy were poplar requests, Richter was to Japan what Simon was to the West, and Ken is Legendary. I think any other New echo candiates wouldn't work well as these 5. They either work better as Alt Costumes (Ms.Pac-Man, Dry Bowser), arent Notable enough, Or them being an echo is too Controversial (any Sonic Character, Dixie Kong).

Mixed bag. If you're unique enough to be put in the game, you should be unique enough to do at least *something* different, enough to justify being there beyond aesthetics. Some echoes do that, some don't, Lucina does it so much she's straight up superior to Marth.

You could put in 5 characters that are actually the same version, but if they all do their own thing, I'm completely fine with that (cough DBFZ cough).

 

[Hadokeyblade]

Since we're talking about Echoes, How do you guys feel about the Implementation of Echoes? do you think it was wasted potential? Should we have gotten more?

Personally I think the selection is Perfect. Chrom, Dark Samus, and Daisy were poplar requests, Richter was to Japan what Simon was to the West, and Ken is Legendary. I think any other New echo candiates wouldn't work well as these 5. They either work better as Alt Costumes (Ms.Pac-Man, Dry Bowser), arent Notable enough, Or them being an echo is too Controversial (any Sonic Character, Dixie Kong).

I feel like Ultimate should have had one more year of development just to squeeze in some more echoes because we all know we ain't getting anymore.

Yeah what we got is pretty good but it feels like someone like Shadow should have gotten a spot in there, maybe somehow get Square to sign off on Zack as a Cloud echo.

 

[cashregister9]

Since we're talking about Echoes, How do you guys feel about the Implementation of Echoes? do you think it was wasted potential? Should we have gotten more?

Echoes are just clones from the previous smash games just with a symbol next to their name so they were implemented fine like every other smash game. Nothing to spectacular nothing awful either

EDIT: I've always liked clones as they allowed for more playable characters which is always a good thing

 

[Evil Trapezium]

Since we're talking about Echoes, How do you guys feel about the Implementation of Echoes? do you think it was wasted potential? Should we have gotten more?

Personally I think the selection is Perfect. Chrom, Dark Samus, and Daisy were poplar requests, Richter was to Japan what Simon was to the West, and Ken is Legendary. I think any other New echo candiates wouldn't work well as these 5. They either work better as Alt Costumes (Ms.Pac-Man, Dry Bowser), arent Notable enough, Or them being an echo is too Controversial (any Sonic Character, Dixie Kong).

I don't like Echo Fighters. They're like Melee clones but lame. I don't like how Lucina and Chrom are just easier versions of Marth and Roy, I don't like how Richter and Dark Samus don't have any damage or knockback differences, I don't like that Dark Pit hasn't differed enough from Pit and I don't like how Peach and Daisy are the exact same characters. Ken is the only echo fighter I like and it shows they could have put more effort into them. Melee had a tight schedule and they were still able to add another six characters during that time so there is no excuse why they couldn't have added some additional knockback and damage differences to each character or even copy and paste some smash 4 custom moves to characters.

I usually have the echoes stacked so I can forget they exist.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Basically the sign of a good echo is if there is a practical reason to pick one over the other gameplay wise.

are all good echoes. Lucina and Chrom allow you to bypass sweetspots. Dark Pit's special moves directly affect matchps (and which stages you should pick). Ken is almost entirely unique.

are not good echoes. Dark Samus is almost there but the differences are too tiny to matter. Richter's difference only affects a handful of matches. Daisy got her only difference patched out, otherwise she'd be in the good category.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Many of the echoes, an offshoot of clones, are fine, but yeah, 3 stand out poorly.

Daisy is almost the same, bar the hitboxes and taunts. She could easily just have a few differences, outside of purely aesthetics. Incidentally, where's the "Hi I'm Daisy!" bit? Bringing back the accidental turnip differences is a good start(could also redesign them as carrot with different hitboxes too?).

Richter could just have some damage values swapped and a few hitbox/hurtbox changes updated. Having his Holy Water being a different element is not bad in itself. A different Final Smash would be cool too.

Dark Samus having some different elemental moves(electricity) isn't awful or anything, but they could just update her with smaller changes, namely weight and speed.

The rest are pretty good. I like having an easy mode Marth and easy mode Roy. Sometimes the mechanics of a character can make them less fun to play as. Not everyone needs to be technical. Simplicity is not bad.

 

[ZelDan]

For me, as long as the echo character is a cool character and as long as them being an echo makes sense and is reasonable, then their inclusions are fine by me. Whether it be Jeanne or Protoman or Dixie K-*gets ganged up on and beaten up by Dixie Kong fanbase*

 

[StrangeKitten]

I greatly prefer it if echoes have differences. They don't have to be the biggest differences, but I'd love some if we do get echoes. Give Dixie DK's up special but it travels further, and uses her hair (I know I said the same about Tails but it applies here too), maybe give her one or two of DK's other moves (maybe a slightly weaker DK up tilt, so she has a reliable kill move, which Diddy lacks). Now you've differentiated her well from Diddy. Make Impa slightly slower and heavier (not a heavy by any means, but maybe 93ish), but more damage and knockback on her moves. Give Shadow Witch Time for his down special, but it's called Chaos Control, and maybe a little more damage and knockback at the cost of slight speed reduction. These don't sound like changes that would take that much extra time, but would do worlds of good in terms of differentiating characters. Daisy is one of the least played characters not because she's bad or anything, but because there's no reason to play her over Peach, and most Peach players were Peach players in past games, so they stick with her. I'd like reasons to play originals over echoes and vice versa.

 

[PSIGuy]

Basically the sign of a good echo is if there is a practical reason to pick one over the other gameplay wise.

ok but if Lucina and Chrom were the base characters there'd be no reason to pick Marth or Roy instead because the weak hits make it not worth risking it all for the sweetspots. they're an example of a terrible echo gameplaywise imho - they remove the mechanic that the original character is designed around and make the original redundant at most levels of play. imagine a shulk who is just 15% better all the time but has no neutral special, or robin with infinite durability but he takes 1% damage each spell.

meanwhile Richter's only downside is he isn't Simon and his upside is he's RICHTER LOVING BELMONT FROM RONDO OF BLOOD.

echoes as expanded character slots are fine if the characters are fitting and cool which most are.

 

[GoodGrief741]

Since we're talking about Echoes, How do you guys feel about the Implementation of Echoes? do you think it was wasted potential? Should we have gotten more?

Personally I think the selection is Perfect. Chrom, Dark Samus, and Daisy were poplar requests, Richter was to Japan what Simon was to the West, and Ken is Legendary. I think any other New echo candiates wouldn't work well as these 5. They either work better as Alt Costumes (Ms.Pac-Man, Dry Bowser), arent Notable enough, Or them being an echo is too Controversial (any Sonic Character, Dixie Kong).

I think we should have gotten more, especially given how few newcomers the base roster ended up having.

As for the ones we got? They're cool, though I would like it if Daisy and Richter were different at all from their counterparts (Dark Samus gets a pass because her animations are so different and much cooler). But Alph and Shadow were robbed, that fact can't be erased.

 

[DMTN]

I think the echo fighters are great. Most of the echo fighters had a slim chance of becoming playable without the concept, except maybe Ken, who could have passed for a semi-clone. It was either this or not having them at all.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

I would've loved more Echoes, though the only one I don't mind as an Echo I'd prefer as something else(Dixie Kong as a Tag Team character, with Kiddy or Cranky).

Otherwise;

Shadow(just needs different animations, like more karate chops. Not too unlike how Luigi is changed up)
Pikmin & Alph(definitely needs new Pikmin as well. Both are part of the full character. It's not just the Captain, after all)
Octoling(new guns? I know they have similar visuals, but they still have distinct features. It's as bad as Pit and Dark Pit at that point, who only had one issue, the Metal Box. That was fixed with a redesign of how Metals are done, so)
Black Knight(the notable thing here is that Ike and Black Knight both can be fast or slow, and the core thing is animations. They have the same actual proportions, it's just Black Knight has more armor pieces in the way Meta Ridley does. I can visualize him using a similar moveset, with animation differences and of course damage change-ups. The other thing to note is that Echoes do not have the same hitboxes/hurtboxes inherently, so it wouldn't matter that... he has an actual extra pieces to his model).

Special Note to Metal Mario(different visuals, though I guess weight can't be a thing so it wouldn't work. The actual Metal Mario has a hard color, while the new Metal Box designs have a soft hue to show off whatever costume color they have. It's mainly a visual difference that separates them, besides Metal Mario having his own moveset, so he'd probably make sense as a Dr. Mario echo but using Mario's visuals otherwise, like the regular Fireball or even a metallic variation).

Other ideas exist, but eh.

 

[I.D.]

I don't get the fascination with echoes. And which characters are echoes and which aren't is almost arbitrary. Some of them are just glorified alt costumes. Can't we just go back to good ol' clones who had very severe gameplay differences despite borrowed movesets?

 

[Cosmic77]

Echoes are a rose with thorns.

On one hand, characters who realistically had no chance of getting in as a unique character can be included. Dark Samus and Chrom benefited from this, as both had missed their chance in previous games.

On the other hand, characters who have maintained relevancy and could easily have been added as unique characters in future games are suddenly stuck as clones — possibly forever. Daisy was a victim of this, and she's probably never going to be a fully unique character now that her clone status is set.

I like Echoes, but only when they're used for characters who would never get in without them. I'm in no rush to get certain characters in Smash, and I'd honestly prefer waiting for the next Smash game instead of getting immediate gratification and being stuck with Echo Fighters of Dixie, Shadow, and Octolings.

 

[Eremurus]

Echoes like Dark Samus, Simon, and Daisy are just that- wasted slots. Not only did they take the spot away from more unique possibilities, but they themselves should have been... well, unique, too. Did nobody learn anything from Melee?

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Echoes like Dark Samus, Simon, and Daisy are just that- wasted slots. Not only did they take the spot away from more unique possibilities, but they themselves should have been... well, unique, too. Did nobody learn anything from Melee?

There was nothing to learn. You get your less-time-needed clones, or you get nothing at all. That's all they had time for. Those clones in Melee? Combining all the time needed for them wouldn't make for an actual unique character. And Sakurai used Wario as an example, who could use Mario's model and modify it, as an example to how much extra time is needed. Wario's point was that to add him, he'd have to be a clone as is or wouldn't work.

Echoes take even less time than regular clones, due to using less assets overall and less playtesting needed. Ken is about the only one who comes close to a regular clone, and that's more due to having more moves than normal, as his moves are similar generally to Ryu's bar the Mechanic moves(or ex moves, or gimmick moves. Same point).

Also, to correct it, Simon isn't the echo. Richter is. In addition, Richter specifically had his moves mixed with Simon in order to create a full feasible character. Essentially they're very close to a "palette swap" option, but they have very slight gameplay differences(slightly more than Daisy, who has a hurtbox difference and unique taunts). They're not wasted slots, they're just ones who could've gotten a few more differences. Some damage or knockback, really. Dark Samus was a lot better by, again, having electrical moves in place of fire ones and... that's kind of it. The animations also look nice and fit her well, but that's every Echo anyway. They are visually distinct in their own way. Dark Pit is the only one to look almost the same. And that's who he is, so.

 

[osby]

Echoes like Dark Samus, Simon, and Daisy are just that- wasted slots. Not only did they take the spot away from more unique possibilities, but they themselves should have been... well, unique, too. Did nobody learn anything from Melee?

We, as humanity, have outgrown the need for slots argument.

 

[PSIGuy]

why didn't they just put all the characters in one slot so we could have infinite characters? smh dumb sakurai

 

[Eremurus]

I would rather have had no clones. Less matchups to grind. This game is ridiculously bloated.

*edit* Yep, good old snarky Smashboards. Then you guys wonder why this site is stagnating.

 

[Guynamednelson]

I would rather have had no clones. Less matchups to grind. This game is ridiculously bloated.

*edit* Yep, good old snarky Smashboards. Then you guys wonder why this site is stagnating.

Yeah, I can't believe I need to work on my MU experience against Daisy alongside Peach.

Also this site is stagnating because of Twitter.

 

[TwiceEXE]

I would rather have had no clones. Less matchups to grind. This game is ridiculously bloated.

*edit* Yep, good old snarky Smashboards. Then you guys wonder why this site is stagnating.

So you want unique characters instead of Echoes which would mean grinding many more matchups? It sure would suck if that happened and the game got all bloated.

 

[Eremurus]

Yeah, I can't believe I need to work on my MU experience against Daisy alongside Peach.

Also this site is stagnating because of Twitter.

Nah. There are many people who prefer the forum message board layout to social media platforms like Twitter. This site is dying because it is absurdly rigid, and is a big echo-chamber. Sorry.

So you want unique characters instead of Echoes which would mean grinding many more matchups? It sure would suck if that happened and the game got all bloated.

No, I just want the clones removed, if anything.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Echoes like Dark Samus, Simon, and Daisy are just that- wasted slots. Not only did they take the spot away from more unique possibilities, but they themselves should have been... well, unique, too. Did nobody learn anything from Melee?

Echoes take less time to develop than original characters.

Even if we removed all the echoes, we might not have enough resources to get one original character.Heck that's why Melee had so many clones, Sakurai didn't want the roster to be tiny. Apparently six Melee style clones was roughly the work of one original character (apparently slightly below). Sakurai used the term "free desert" or something along those lines when discussing Doc, Lucina and Dark Pit in Smash 4. They aren't alternatives to original characters. Just bonuses.

 

[Eremurus]

Echoes take less time to develop than original characters.

Even if we removed all the echoes, we might not have enough resources to get one original character.Heck that's why Melee had so many clones, Sakurai didn't want the roster to be tiny. Apparently six Melee style clones was roughly the work of one original character (apparently slightly below). Sakurai used the term "free desert" or something along those lines when discussing Doc, Lucina and Dark Pit in Smash 4. They aren't alternatives to original characters. Just bonuses.

Deep down inside I know you're right, but darn, if only reality allowed for more time.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Deep down inside I know you're right, but darn, if only reality allowed for more time.

It'd be nice if they were all original, I agree. It's possible for all the echos to have completely original movesets.

But the way I see it, echoes are the developers trying to give us more bang for our buck. Trying to work smarter, not harder. I can't get mad at the developers for that.

Besides, many of these characters wouldn't have been in at all without the developers looking for characters who could have been potential echoes. I know Dark Samus could have been original, but I'm just glad she's in a game after 2008. Best of all, I get to play as her!

 

[Guynamednelson]

Deep down inside I know you're right, but darn, if only reality allowed for more time.

I mean, it should be obvious. A character using the same animations and code as another should take less time than one whose animations/code are original. Unless those original animations are like Sonic's in that they used his ball form liberally to add him late into Brawl.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

I mean, it should be obvious. A character using the same animations and code as another should take less time than one whose animations/code are original. Unless those original animations are like Sonic's in that they used his ball form liberally to add him late into Brawl.

It's not obvious to everyone.

To anyone with a little bit of development knowledge, its obvious what's being done.

But not everyone has development knowledge.

 

[SKX31]

ok but if Lucina and Chrom were the base characters there'd be no reason to pick Marth or Roy instead because the weak hits make it not worth risking it all for the sweetspots. they're an example of a terrible echo gameplaywise imho - they remove the mechanic that the original character is designed around and make the original redundant at most levels of play. imagine a shulk who is just 15% better all the time but has no neutral special, or robin with infinite durability but he takes 1% damage each spell.

Redundant is not the word I'd use (at least not for Roy / Chrom) - consider this usage chart (up to April 2020):

Characters statistics from 251 power rankings across 5 continents, dozens of countries, and over 3000 players. First, here is a shorthand of percentage stats of characters used worldwide among ranked players, as up to date as possible. pic.twitter.com/SiUHDx1X04

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) April 21, 2020

In case the tweet doesn't load: Lucina (12th most popular) and Roy (14th) sit close to each other at 2.0-2.9 %, Chrom's (19th) a bit behind Roy at 1,5-1,9 %... and Marth's the third least used character in competitive, only edging out Mii Brawler and Corrin. I'm also using the competitive usage chart since Nintendo won't release the online usage chart unless it's on their terms (something Sakurai hinted at).

The fact that Chrom is used quite a lot but not more popular than Roy tells a lot - there are people who prefer Roy's sweet / sourspot based gameplay, there are also people who prefer without. There's a good reason to pick any of the four because the (lack of) sweet / sourspots lead to different attack strings and overall gameplans.

...Aaaaaand I should talk about the elephant in the room. Marth. Why he cratered in competitive. He did finish SSB4 in a strong position - in a stronger position than Lucina, in fact. But changes in Ultimate didn't favor him overall:

Overall, the benefits Marth gained from the engine do not compensate at all for the nerfs he received and the large hindrances the engine has also indirectly given him, as Marth now has a harder time landing his tipper sweet spots, while his already weak and less effective sour spots were only nerfed. The spacing nerfs he received were extremely detrimental, as he relies on spacing the most out of any swordfighter to be used at his best. In addition, the knockback nerfs he received have made it very difficult for him to consistently KO his opponents. Thus, Marth is now generally agreed to be inferior to all three of his derivatives; particularly, his Echo Fighter, Lucina...

Consider sourspots: Both Roy and Marth's sourspotted attacks have utility - they can set up for the sweetspots and potential combos / KOs. For example, Roy's sourspotted up air leads to different attacks than his sweetspoted up air. However, neither characters' sourspots are 100 % reliable... and Marth's sourspots were further weakened in order to discourage them. Roy's sourspots aren't 100 % discouraged, though.

It's not a case of "people wouldn't pick Marth / Roy if they were Echoes because of a redundant gameplay mechanic" people aren't picking Marth because he's seen as too reliant on spacing - an area he's inconsistent at. At least in competitive, casuals care much less about that. We'll simply have to see if the buffs Marth got in 8.0 - the hitboxes on several attacks got moved so his sweetspots are easier to land - help him out.

I greatly prefer it if echoes have differences. They don't have to be the biggest differences, but I'd love some if we do get echoes. Give Dixie DK's up special but it travels further, and uses her hair (I know I said the same about Tails but it applies here too), maybe give her one or two of DK's other moves (maybe a slightly weaker DK up tilt, so she has a reliable kill move, which Diddy lacks). Now you've differentiated her well from Diddy. Make Impa slightly slower and heavier (not a heavy by any means, but maybe 93ish), but more damage and knockback on her moves. Give Shadow Witch Time for his down special, but it's called Chaos Control, and maybe a little more damage and knockback at the cost of slight speed reduction. These don't sound like changes that would take that much extra time, but would do worlds of good in terms of differentiating characters. Daisy is one of the least played characters not because she's bad or anything, but because there's no reason to play her over Peach, and most Peach players were Peach players in past games, so they stick with her. I'd like reasons to play originals over echoes and vice versa.

Well, considering Diddy can pull this off:

Dixie's recovery mixups would be insane, which I support.

And yeah, there really is no reason to pick Daisy (which is why they shouldn't have removed the turnip differences grumble grumble). Giving her Peach's old moves like her old up-tilt and Toad-less grab would probably help a lot.

 

[Geno Boost]

one of the character i am surprised we dont have is Ms. Pac-man as an echo of
Her history in the video industry is that she was the first female protagonist and has a long history she definetly deserves better than being a pixelated stage hazard.

 

[Guybrush20X6]

Since we're talking about Echoes, How do you guys feel about the Implementation of Echoes? do you think it was wasted potential? Should we have gotten more?

Personally I think the selection is Perfect. Chrom, Dark Samus, and Daisy were poplar requests, Richter was to Japan what Simon was to the West, and Ken is Legendary. I think any other New echo candiates wouldn't work well as these 5. They either work better as Alt Costumes (Ms.Pac-Man, Dry Bowser), arent Notable enough, Or them being an echo is too Controversial (any Sonic Character, Dixie Kong).

I think they should have given Richter, Daisy and Dark Samus a little more to go on than the minute hitbox shifting and the Holy Water effect. I'm glad we got the extra Echos, I just wish they all got at least Dark Pit levels of gameplay tweaks.

 

[3BitSaurus]

UPDATED, so here is the HoK and Tencent rep who will appears in Samurai Shodown.

Anyone want to gives their opinion on this character or another HoK/AoV rep being a possible Smash newcomer? Or do you want to go for a LoL rep guessing game again, and if so, here I will limit the selection to the one who are confirm to appears in Project L (LoL Fighting Game), Darius, Ahri, Jinx, and Katarina.

I find it interesting how they straight up open the trailer with "SNK x Tencent". Don't remember them doing that for other companies or guests.

Yeah, I think League would fare better than HoK/AoV in Smash. Pretty sure even Tencent would be aware of this.

Speaking of options for a LoL guessing game: it's possible we'll see a rise in some champion's popularity due to some of the spinoffs (Ekko was seemingly getting an adventure game, Vi will be prominently featured in an OVA, etc).

Then again, League's latest event and Champion reveal casts the spotlight on two of the usual suspects - Ahri and Yasuo - possibly hinting at their appearance in the RPG spinoff that's in the works.

Ultimately, it all depends on how these things and Tencent's relationship with Nintendo develop over the coming months. We'll see.

 

[J. Bond]

This person clearly knew about Min Min being Fighter 6, before the announcement of an ARMS character. (March Mini Direct was 12 days later)

https://arch.b4k.co/v/thread/499362173/#q499386904

I have tried searching in the archive for the same picture with the same filename and found a few other posts, seemingly almost all of them by one person, but none of them have any similar leaks.

(warning: link includes offensive/NSFW language) https://arch.b4k.co/v/search/image/x6rBJp5dnk9CxPKn8ukzpg/ (obv. the first post does not have the same filename and is completely unrelated)

The next step would be to
-determine what type of filename this is: How does one get such a filename? How common is it?
-find posts about the same topics (Nintendo, Smash, Bandai Namco), with the same style of posting, and with the same filename type. It's probably a wild goose chase. It would be extremely hard to find other posts of this anonymous individual. But in any way, could anyone tell me what type of filename this is?

 

[DarthEnderX]

Since we're talking about Echoes, How do you guys feel about the Implementation of Echoes? do you think it was wasted potential? Should we have gotten more?

I like a lot of them. But the ones that are barely/not at all different like Richter and Daisy could stand to be a little more different.

Also, any character that's currently still a clone, should either be fully decloned(Ganondorf, Falco, etc.), or made into an Echo(Dr. Mario, Pichu, etc.)

Echoes like Dark Samus, Simon, and Daisy are just that- wasted slots.

Echoes don't take slots.

We, as humanity, have outgrown the need for slots argument.

Disagree. It's still completely valid with unique characters. If it makes you feel better you can use the nomenclature "time and money required to develop this character" instead of "slot". But when one character gets in, another character doesn't. That's still a basic reality.

But not for Echoes. The whole point of them is they barely take any time and money to develop.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

This person clearly knew about Min Min being Fighter 6, before the announcement of an ARMS character. (March Mini Direct was 12 days later)

https://arch.b4k.co/v/thread/499362173/#q499386904

I have tried searching in the archive for the same picture with the same filename and found a few other posts, seemingly almost all of them by one person, but none of them have any similar leaks.

(warning: link includes offensive/NSFW language) https://arch.b4k.co/v/search/image/x6rBJp5dnk9CxPKn8ukzpg/ (obv. the first post does not have the same filename and is completely unrelated)

The next step would be to
-determine what type of filename this is: How does one get such a filename? How common is it?
-find posts about the same topics (Nintendo, Smash, Bandai Namco), with the same style of posting, and with the same filename type. It's probably a wild goose chase. It would be extremely hard to find other posts of this anonymous individual. But in any way, could anyone tell me what type of filename this is?

I mean. I see no proof this is more than a lucky guess at this point.

Also, uh wow.

This guy's a real piece of work. You can practically feel the hate coming off of those posts.

 

[J. Bond]

I mean. I see no proof this is more than a lucky guess at this point.

Also, uh wow.

This guy's a real piece of work. You can practically feel the hate coming off of those posts.

I think it's extremely unlikely to be a lucky guess. Who expected Min Min to be the first fighter of FP2 before the ARMS announcement? The way he phrases it clearly gives off him knowing info the public doesn't know yet and wanting to gauge reactions, if I knew info I too would phrase it this exact same way and I believe most people would also. This person clearly knows things.
Yes he expresses hate as is common in anonymous imageboards but that is not related to Smash newcomers so let us not get derailed here.

 

[Garteam]

This person clearly knew about Min Min being Fighter 6, before the announcement of an ARMS character. (March Mini Direct was 12 days later)

https://arch.b4k.co/v/thread/499362173/#q499386904

I have tried searching in the archive for the same picture with the same filename and found a few other posts, seemingly almost all of them by one person, but none of them have any similar leaks.

(warning: link includes offensive/NSFW language) https://arch.b4k.co/v/search/image/x6rBJp5dnk9CxPKn8ukzpg/ (obv. the first post does not have the same filename and is completely unrelated)

The next step would be to
-determine what type of filename this is: How does one get such a filename? How common is it?
-find posts about the same topics (Nintendo, Smash, Bandai Namco), with the same style of posting, and with the same filename type. It's probably a wild goose chase. It would be extremely hard to find other posts of this anonymous individual. But in any way, could anyone tell me what type of filename this is?

I'd say this is somewhere between the infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters that is Smash discussion on /v/ accidentally getting something right like the Gothitelle leak and Richter and a genuine leak that was overlooked like the Born to Feel leak with Ken, Incineroar, and Piranha Plant.

I'm leaning a little bit towards it actually being legit though. Almost no one had their eye on ARMS at the time in terms of Smash and the few that did universally gravitated towards Spring Man. In the case of the Gothitelle leak, Simon was basically all but confirmed by that point, so predicting another Belmont in his place for the sake of contrarianism isn't as far of a shot as predicting Min Min when all everyone had their eyes on were big third parties. That being said, this really could just be "hey /v/ what if my waifu got into smash ha ha ha" ****posting.

That being said, I think this is basically guaranteed to be a dry well by this point. Even if we assume those other posts are him and he was going to continue leaking on /v/, I don't think he's going to pull the same stunt twice now he's been figured out. Given that someone just posted a Wild Woody leak using the same image, it's fair to say that this format is going to be memed to hell and back before another legit leak comes out of it.

 

[Cap'n Jack]

I'd love an echo pack with 12 characters with the only purpose of having 100 characters in the game.
Here are my picks:
Mario - Toad (Toadette alt, with Yoshi/Bowser's Down-B)
Captain Falcon - Black Shadow (Basically Melee Ganondorf)
Bayonetta - Jeanne
Inkling - Octoling
Ness - Ninten (Mix Ness & Lucas, as Chrom is a Roy & Ike's mix)
Olimar - Louie (Brittany & Charlie alts, maybe with Rock Pikmin instead of purple)
Luigi - Gooigi (Super ball instead of Fireball)
Pac-Man - Ms. Pac-Man (dif fruits and taunts)
Palutena - Medusa (Different Elemental Properties)
Diddy Kong - Slippy (Granade instead of banana, Laser gun instead of peanut popper and some neutral adjustments for attacks that used Diddy's tail)
Donkey Kong - Donkey Kong Jr. (A little faster)
Mega Man - Proto Man (Mega Man with Link's shield)

Ms PAC-Man is the echo I want the most

 

[Opossum]

ok but if Lucina and Chrom were the base characters there'd be no reason to pick Marth or Roy instead because the weak hits make it not worth risking it all for the sweetspots. they're an example of a terrible echo gameplaywise imho - they remove the mechanic that the original character is designed around and make the original redundant at most levels of play. imagine a shulk who is just 15% better all the time but has no neutral special, or robin with infinite durability but he takes 1% damage each spell.

meanwhile Richter's only downside is he isn't Simon and his upside is he's RICHTER LOVING BELMONT FROM RONDO OF BLOOD.

echoes as expanded character slots are fine if the characters are fitting and cool which most are.

Redundant is not the word I'd use (at least not for Roy / Chrom) - consider this usage chart (up to April 2020):

Characters statistics from 251 power rankings across 5 continents, dozens of countries, and over 3000 players. First, here is a shorthand of percentage stats of characters used worldwide among ranked players, as up to date as possible. pic.twitter.com/SiUHDx1X04

— Barnard's Loop (@LoopBarnard) April 21, 2020

In case the tweet doesn't load: Lucina (12th most popular) and Roy (14th) sit close to each other at 2.0-2.9 %, Chrom's (19th) a bit behind Roy at 1,5-1,9 %... and Marth's the third least used character in competitive, only edging out Mii Brawler and Corrin. I'm also using the competitive usage chart since Nintendo won't release the online usage chart unless it's on their terms (something Sakurai hinted at).

The fact that Chrom is used quite a lot but not more popular than Roy tells a lot - there are people who prefer Roy's sweet / sourspot based gameplay, there are also people who prefer without. There's a good reason to pick any of the four because the (lack of) sweet / sourspots lead to different attack strings and overall gameplans.

...Aaaaaand I should talk about the elephant in the room. Marth. Why he cratered in competitive. He did finish SSB4 in a strong position - in a stronger position than Lucina, in fact. But changes in Ultimate didn't favor him overall:



Consider sourspots: Both Roy and Marth's sourspotted attacks have utility - they can set up for the sweetspots and potential combos / KOs. For example, Roy's sourspotted up air leads to different attacks than his sweetspoted up air. However, neither characters' sourspots are 100 % reliable... and Marth's sourspots were further weakened in order to discourage them. Roy's sourspots aren't 100 % discouraged, though.

It's not a case of "people wouldn't pick Marth / Roy if they were Echoes because of a redundant gameplay mechanic" people aren't picking Marth because he's seen as too reliant on spacing - an area he's inconsistent at. At least in competitive, casuals care much less about that. We'll simply have to see if the buffs Marth got in 8.0 - the hitboxes on several attacks got moved so his sweetspots are easier to land - help him out.



Well, considering Diddy can pull this off:

View attachment 280550

Dixie's recovery mixups would be insane, which I support.

And yeah, there really is no reason to pick Daisy (which is why they shouldn't have removed the turnip differences grumble grumble). Giving her Peach's old moves like her old up-tilt and Toad-less grab would probably help a lot.

Essentially what SKX said. With Marth and Lucina, yes, Lucina's game plan makes her like, objectively better than Marth in Ultimate, but with Roy and Chrom it's much more of a sidegrade. Both have their benefits and drawbacks so it's not nearly as polarizing as Marth/Lucina.

(Hey Sakurai if you're somehow reading this please give the tipper buff to the rest of Marth's moves...especially the tilts.)