Official Newcomer/DLC Speculation Discussion

[ErenJager]

I’m new here and I just wanted to say that Sackboy is my most wanted and I definitely feel he really deserves a spot in smash, he was the PS3s icon after all.

Welcome to Smashboards.

 

[Rie Sonomura]

You know the more and more I think about it the more I realize Rex is a pretty mid choice for Smash.

I mean I’ll probably be excited for him if he gets announced on the basis that it’s more Xenoblade content we’d be getting, but there’s just so many other better options.

He doesn’t really stand out aesthetically much from Shulk, only that he’s blue, has brown hair, and is more exaggerated, and in terms of abilities not only does he have foresight thanks to Mythra but he’s also a traditional sword-user, just like Shulk, and while there are a few things he would do differently I imagine he’d have a lot of similarities to other characters in general. (Like Anchor Shot for example would be a lot like Joker’s Grappling Hook).

Tbh I’m more neutral at this rate on Rex than anything, but tbh I’d rather have someone who’d be more diverse like Elma or Fiora. But hey more Xenoblade is always welcome in my book.

What’s your take on Lora from Torna in that case? Even though she’s probably even LESS likely than Rex, whom I basically consider all but completely out of the running due to his Mii costume being DLC

Queen Sectonia would make a pretty cool boss. Magolor and Magolor Soul would be my picks for another Kirby Boss though. Just imagine the final section where you have to land a bunch of Final Smashes on him. It'd be so cool or hilarious depending on who you play as.


I thought it'd just be a guaranteed tripping move.
EDIT: Though the Joker grappling hook thing does make sense since Rex doesn't really have any jumping moves and neither Pyro nor Mythra have the leaping ability.

Anchor Shot can work like Simon/Richter’s whip or Zero Suit Samus’s plasma whip extension too

Speaking of Xenoblade characters with jumping moves...

Elma. Shadowstrike.

Just sayin’.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Speaking of Xenoblade characters with jumping moves...

Elma. Shadowstrike.

Just sayin’.

Funny enough the Elma moveset I made turned that into her Down Aerial, and her Up Special is Hundred Shells (Acts simmilarly to Robin's Elewind). I did this because I wanted her special attacks to use TP (except her Neutral Special: Soul Voice).

 

[KatKit]

I’m new here and I just wanted to say that Sackboy is my most wanted and I definitely feel he really deserves a spot in smash, he was the PS3s icon after all.

Welcome to the forum! Nice to meet ya. Little Big Planet 2 was so fun. I didn't use Sackboy/Sackgirl in PlayStation All-Stars (Kat main here), but I loved their super creative moveset.

You know there's real people with purple hair right? Hair dye is a thing that exists.

Well, see, that's where it turns into an argument, because a lot of people would disagree with that. Because the definition of what "anime" means is a highly debated topic.

I hate to sound pedantic, but nobody is born with lavender hair.

A lot of people who? It's not a secret that Ninja Gaiden both originates from and is associated with Japan, and that it's animated.

 

[3BitSaurus]

To the people saying we should "discredit all fan polls"... any suggestions on how to get "the silent majority" to vote?

Because a lot of these polls are as accessible as it gets, yet only the core fanbase votes anyway. We can speculate about what the casual fanbase wants all day, but I don't think anyone knows because they never seem to go out of their way to speak out. And the one source we could have, which is the Smash Ballot itself, never had its results released.

Troll votes/spamming? Sure. Small sample size? Absolutely. Doesn't take a lot of demands into account? Okay. These are all valid criticisms, but it really seems like people are just mad the results weren't what they expected. Which is funny, because I remember even smaller polls being used in this thread in favor of certain characters - sometimes by the same people who are now hating on this one.

It's also funny to me how people keep saying the poll is unrealiable specifically because of PapaGenos when his following is the smallest of the three involved, but that's neither here nor there...

... Anyway. Going back to what this thread is supposed to be about: people here seem to generally agree that the next season will open with something really big. What kind of curveball could Sakurai throw at us then? If it's at TGA, then I doubt it's related to online or mobile games, as it really doesn't seem like the place for them. So what's the next biggest thing?

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

A lot of people who? It's not a secret that Ninja Gaiden both originates from and is associated with Japan, and that it's animated.

The arguments I've seen are in term of a given show being an anime or a cartoon, particularly on stuff like Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Literally, all animated shows are anime, but people argue about what style of show constitutes as anime specifically.

 

[NintenZ]

What’s your take on Lora from Torna in that case? Even though she’s probably even LESS likely than Rex, whom I basically consider all but completely out of the running due to his Mii costume being DLC

I would LOVE Lora, she’s not really a swordsman as much as she is a brawler, and she can fight in sync alongside Jin and Haze.

She would be pretty good ngl.

 

[TheCJBrine]

This is what I got from the Most Wanted votes for some characters, including variations (multiple spellings, multiple characters in same vote (not all of those kind), and variations like Steve/Alex or Minecraft Steve, Doomguy or Doom Slayer, etc.):

Spoiler: I’m good at math I swear; ask me for a certain character and I’ll add them

Steve had at least 376 votes, including a lone Minecraft vote, one with Frisk, two with Geno, one with Crash and another in the same vote, and one with Rayman.

Hatsune Miku had at least 11.

Isaac had at least 371.

Doom/Doomguy/Doom Slayer had at least 326.

Geno had at least 635 (including one with Sora).

Master Chief had at least 107.

I saw one Mickey Mouse vote.

Reimu had at least 339.

Ryu Hayabusa had at least 38 (including one standalone Hayabusa vote I believe I saw).

Ridley had 2 votes for some reason.

Porky Minch had at least 34 (including one with Geno).

Sabi had three votes with the exact same choices for the other options (just misspelled Pyra in one) so idk what this is.

I saw a single Gengar vote and am sad.

Monster Hunter had at least 27.

Monokuma had at least 22

Crash Bandicoot had at least 230 (including one with Sora).

Spyro had at least 22 (including one with Sora).

Sora had at least 377 (including one with Shantae and another with Heavy).

There were two Shreks.

Skull Kid had at least 36.

Shovel Knight had at least 16.

Shantae had at least 353 (including three with Geno).

Sans had at least 18.

Frisk had at least 64 (including one with Sans).

Flowey had at least 2.

Rayman had at least 250 (including one Ray Man and one with Geno).

Rabbids had at least 2.

Quote had at least 19.

Heavy had at least 279.

SpongeBob had one.

What sucks is that a lot of people tend to want multiple characters, just one the most if not more equally, so the poll still isn’t 100% accurate regarding some characters’ popularity. The ones with multiple characters will likely be removed.

edit: Forget my counts, the raw data has some more Steve votes so I’m probably wrong. I’ll just wait.

What I did was subtract the numbers on the side, the beginning of a character’s section in alphabetical order from the end, and added whatever other examples there were, so I don’t know what I did wrong.

 

[Plank08]

Than

Welcome to the forum! Nice to meet ya. Little Big Planet 2 was so fun. I didn't use Sackboy/Sackgirl in PlayStation All-Stars (Kat main here), but I loved their super creative moveset.
.

Thanks! Yeahs that’s kind of one of the reasons I want him in( apart from LBP being my childhood) their moveset could be so fun and different that It’s just hard not to want them in.

 

[GoodGrief741]

Everytime we get a poll and people go "Oh, it didn't get 15 million votes? Then it's worthless." I wonder if they actually know how polling works.

Polls don't have to be big, they just have to be representative of a larger population.

 

[Deleted member]

To the people saying we should "discredit all fan polls"... any suggestions on how to get "the silent majority" to vote?

Because a lot of these polls are as accessible as it gets, yet only the core fanbase votes anyway. We can speculate about what the casual fanbase wants all day, but I don't think anyone knows because they never seem to go out of their way to speak out. And the one source we could have, which is the Smash Ballot itself, never had its results released.

Troll votes/spamming? Sure. Small sample size? Absolutely. Doesn't take a lot of demands into account? Okay. These are all valid criticisms, but it really seems like people are just mad the results weren't what they expected. Which is funny, because I remember even smaller polls being used in this thread in favor of certain characters - sometimes by the same people who are now hating on this one.

It's also funny to me how people keep saying the poll is unrealiable specifically because of PapaGenos when his following is the smallest of the three involved, but that's neither here nor there...

... Anyway. Going back to what this thread is supposed to be about: people here seem to generally agree that the next season will open with something really big. What kind of curveball could Sakurai throw at us then? If it's at TGA, then I doubt it's related to online or mobile games, as it really doesn't seem like the place for them. So what's the next biggest thing?

Online polls are difficult to get people to participate, pretty much the only one who could make a poll like that is Nintendo by the Switch account system and even then not all people would vote.

Going blind and considering all the possibilities without cornering yourself to one choice being "in" is the best thing we can do at the moment as Nintendo has demonstrated a lot of times, they can surprise us.

Everytime we get a poll and people go "Oh, it didn't get 15 million votes? Then it's worthless." I wonder if they actually know how polling works.

Polls don't have to be big, they just have to be representative of a larger population.

And for being representative, you need a method of selecting from the population. These open polls don't have that.

 

[3BitSaurus]

Online polls are difficult to get people to participate, pretty much the only one who could make a poll like that is Nintendo by the Switch account system and even then not all people would vote.

Going blind and considering all the possibilities without cornering yourself to one choice being "in" is the best thing we can do at the moment as Nintendo has demonstrated a lot of times, they can surprise us.

Oh, I'm sure. I also dislike the other extreme, which is using fan polls as the argument to end arguments. At the end of the day it is a small sample size relative to Ultimate's sales. Thing is, they're still the best we can get, unreliable as they can be at times. So just discarding them is not the best of ideas either.

And I agree that going in blind can lead to good things. Joker was awesome and being one of the few people on the SNK prediction train felt really rewarding in the end. I guess it's just that I'm seeing a lot of people looking at fan requests and going "but that's not what most people want" when in reality we have no clear data on what "most people" would want either way.

 

[yeet123]

I’m new here and I just wanted to say that Sackboy is my most wanted and I definitely feel he really deserves a spot in smash, he was the PS3s icon after all.

Sackboy would be a cool add

 

[TheCJBrine]

Y’know, can’t you restrict Google surveys/polls to only allowing one vote per account? I came across one like this before, wanting to vote for another character as well but nope. This time I just voted Steve. They could’ve restricted it to prevent most spam if that’s still a thing you can do.

 

[Deleted member]

Everytime we get a poll and people go "Oh, it didn't get 15 million votes? Then it's worthless." I wonder if they actually know how polling works.

Polls don't have to be big, they just have to be representative of a larger population.

And is it representative of the larger population? It's representative to three specific viewer bases, but it doesn't really reach outside those viewer bases beyond Smashboards support threads advertising it rampantly, like the Geno thread.

By all means, if it's not reliable, then it's not reliable even if it's the best we've gotten so far. Unless Nintendo or the United Nations conducts a private study that randomly selects a **** ton of people from all over the world, I don't think we'll get anything from fan polls that'll give a reliable estimate with the silent majority in mind, at least globally.

Pretty much why I denounce fan polls as nothing other but a fun experiment.

 

[Ridrool64]

To be fair, Heavy's presence in that poll tells me it might have some meaning when it comes to connecting with the outer parts of the fanbase.

Most people in the Smash Bubble never, ever discuss him as a serious contender since he, his game, and his parent company have nothing to do with Nintendo. Casual fans probably don't care about nitty-gritty details like that, they just wanna see somebody iconic who would be unique and just awesome in Smash. (If I recall, before Cloud got in, he was seen as a joke character by the Smash fandom solely for not being Nintendo enough but was really popular among casuals.) So he sticks out compared to many others, who are a part of our regular circular discussions.

 

[SMAASH! Puppy]

Everytime we get a poll and people go "Oh, it didn't get 15 million votes? Then it's worthless." I wonder if they actually know how polling works.

Polls don't have to be big, they just have to be representative of a larger population.

And in order to be representative of a larger population they have to be big. Any poll we do isn't likely to get the casuals, or other countries (besides the UK perhaps).

 

[SNEKeater]

Your reactions?

75. Doom Slayer (Doom)
76. Geno (Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars)
77. Bandanna Waddle Dee (Kirby)
78. Crash (Crash Bandicoot)
79. Ryu Hayabasa (Ninja Gaiden)
80. Arle Nadja (Puyo Puyo)
81. Akira Howard (Astral Chain)
82. Travis Touchdown (No More Heroes)

36ε - Dixie Kong (Donkey Kong Country)
64ε - Octoling (Splatoon)
71ε - Kasumi (Persona 5 Royal)

Maybe I will say something unpopular, but I'm the only one who doesn't get why some people suggest Kasumi from Persona 5 Royal as an echo of Joker?
Yeah I know back then there was some data in the game suggesting about a different alt for Joker, maybe a female one. But I'm not talking about that. I'm a Persona fan, I consider P5 the best game of 2017 and I'm buying P5 Royal day one. I know there's a support thread for Kasumi and I don't wanna sound agressive or anything, but I honestly don't understand why Persona fans would prefer her over any other phantom thief. I mean, P5 Royal hasn't released yet and we know nothing about her, her inclusion wouldn't be that different from Sylux like some suggested as a promotional DLC a few months ago.

Maybe it's because personally she doesn't excite me that much like the other new features Atlus announced for Royal. It's possible she ends being my favourite character when the game comes out, but at this day for me it's a bit bizarre seeing her being mentioned over any other Persona character when we don't almost nothing about her. Also we don't know how she fights beyond some footage from trailers, so I'm not sure if she would make sense as an echo of Joker. The only thing they would share, I think, is the down B and the Persona.

I mentioned Sylux before and I'd say the same about him, as a Metroid enthusiastic I think that at this day Mother Brain or a Metroid would be more likely than Sylux, at least until Prime 4 releases. The same goes for Kasumi. I don't want to sound offensive or anything because I know she has some fans (maybe I will be one in the future haha), but I don't know, I would honestly prefer other echoes if we're getting some in the future, even echo fighters from series I'm not really invested, like Shadow from Sonic.
I'm not saying it's impossible and yeah, she hasn't any type of presence in Smash so in that sense Kasumi would be more likely than any other phantom thief.

 

[ErenJager]

To the people saying we should "discredit all fan polls"... any suggestions on how to get "the silent majority" to vote?

Because a lot of these polls are as accessible as it gets, yet only the core fanbase votes anyway. We can speculate about what the casual fanbase wants all day, but I don't think anyone knows because they never seem to go out of their way to speak out. And the one source we could have, which is the Smash Ballot itself, never had its results released.

Troll votes/spamming? Sure. Small sample size? Absolutely. Doesn't take a lot of demands into account? Okay. These are all valid criticisms, but it really seems like people are just mad the results weren't what they expected. Which is funny, because I remember even smaller polls being used in this thread in favor of certain characters - sometimes by the same people who are now hating on this one.

It's also funny to me how people keep saying the poll is unrealiable specifically because of PapaGenos when his following is the smallest of the three involved, but that's neither here nor there...

... Anyway. Going back to what this thread is supposed to be about: people here seem to generally agree that the next season will open with something really big. What kind of curveball could Sakurai throw at us then? If it's at TGA, then I doubt it's related to online or mobile games, as it really doesn't seem like the place for them. So what's the next biggest thing?

I'm not mad about the results, they're irrelevant, it's just silly to put any kind of stock into them.
The Smash fan base is known for it's fanatics.
Remember that guy who was all about Daisy?
Mariotehplumber buying all the Rosalina amiibos?
The guy who made the grinch leak?
There are legit psychopaths in this fanbase, you doubt more then one is sitting at home botting or spamming polls for their character?
It's a near certainty in my opinion.
When I see a meme character like an anime loli such as reimu, above massively popular and well known characters like Lara Croft, Doom etc.
You more then likely know it's a bunch of -redacted- spamming.
I've been playing video games since the early 90's all kinds of games.
I had never heard of Reimu until a month ago.
But some how this obscure, niche, literal who is more popular then legacy characters with Hollywood movies known on mass by the general public?
Lots of doubt, in my opinion.
But you'll have the flocks of people that see that their obscure, niche or beloved character is ranked high so they don't want to accept it's an echo chamber/ spam poll.
The older individuals know polls are BS, just like in politics. They don't bother with fan polls, but its no surprise to see the characters that the "boomers" support are ranked low and the "zoomer" and "meme" characters are ranked high. It's the maturity difference, attitude, and behaviours within the fan base.

 

[Plank08]

How would you guys feel if the very last character announced for Ultimate was a fourth party like Spiderman, but he only used his PS4 appearance and voice and his attacks were all based on the many games Spider-Man’s in(Specifically Marvel Vs Capcom and Spider-Man PS4)?

 

[GoodGrief741]

Online polls are difficult to get people to participate, pretty much the only one who could make a poll like that is Nintendo by the Switch account system and even then not all people would vote.

Going blind and considering all the possibilities without cornering yourself to one choice being "in" is the best thing we can do at the moment as Nintendo has demonstrated a lot of times, they can surprise us.

And for being representative, you need a method of selecting from the population. These open polls don't have that.

And is it representative of the larger population? It's representative to three specific viewer bases, but it doesn't really reach outside those viewer bases beyond Smashboards support threads advertising it rampantly, like the Geno thread.

By all means, if it's not reliable, then it's not reliable even if it's the best we've gotten so far. Unless Nintendo or the United Nations conducts a private study that randomly selects a **** ton of people from all over the world, I don't think we'll get anything from fan polls that'll give a reliable estimate with the silent majority in mind, at least globally.

Pretty much why I denounce fan polls as nothing other but a fun experiment.

These kinds of polls automatically have a process of selection in that they're voluntary. They might not be representative of the millions of people that buy Smash, but given the opt-in status and the means of spreading the word, I wouldn't discount the likelihood that they're representative of the portion of Smash buyers who care about who gets in.

How would you guys feel if the very last character announced for Ultimate was a fourth party like Spiderman, but he only used his PS4 appearance and voice and his attacks were all based on the many games Spider-Man’s in(Specifically Marvel Vs Capcom and Spider-Man PS4)?

Angry anyways.

 

[perfectchaos83]

To the people saying we should "discredit all fan polls"... any suggestions on how to get "the silent majority" to vote?

You can't, and it's largely because the vast majority of the casual fanbase doesn't play the game for that long. The silent majority gives no ****s about the roster, they're fine with Mario vs Link vs Pikachu vs Samus.

 

[Schnee117]

apart from LBP being my childhood

Time goes by too quickly

 

[TheCJBrine]

I think polls would be better if they let you vote for at least two or three other characters; even the lowest-voted characters could have a lot more popularity and we won’t know it since a lot of people will just put one character as their most-wanted even if they love other characters equally, and of course they could love others in general.

 

[Curious Villager]

I think polls would be better if they let you vote for at least two or three other characters; even the lowest-voted characters could have a lot more popularity and we won’t know it since a lot of people will just put one character as their most-wanted even if they love other characters equally, and of course they could love others in general.

Yeah I think that's probably the main gripe with polls that only allow for one character votes. I can understand disallowing multiple votes for a single character but most people have at least a handful of different characters they'd like to see, which would probably paint a little better picture to what kinds of characters people are interested to see.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

Maybe I will say something unpopular, but I'm the only one who doesn't get why some people suggest Kasumi from Persona 5 Royal as an echo of Joker?
Yeah I know back then there was some data in the game suggesting about a different alt for Joker, maybe a female one. But I'm not talking about that. I'm a Persona fan, I consider P5 the best game of 2017 and I'm buying P5 Royal day one. I know there's a support thread for Kasumi and I don't wanna sound agressive or anything, but I honestly don't understand why Persona fans would prefer her over any other phantom thief. I mean, P5 Royal hasn't released yet and we know nothing about her, her inclusion wouldn't be that different from Sylux like some suggested as a promotional DLC a few months ago.

Maybe it's because personally she doesn't excite me that much like the other new features Atlus announced for Royal. It's possible she ends being my favourite character when the game comes out, but at this day for me it's a bit bizarre seeing her being mentioned over any other Persona character when we don't almost nothing about her. Also we don't know how she fights beyond some footage from trailers, so I'm not sure if she would make sense as an echo of Joker. The only thing they would share, I think, is the down B and the Persona.

I mentioned Sylux before and I'd say the same about him, as a Metroid enthusiastic I think that at this day Mother Brain or a Metroid would be more likely than Sylux, at least until Prime 4 releases. The same goes for Kasumi. I don't want to sound offensive or anything because I know she has some fans (maybe I will be one in the future haha), but I don't know, I would honestly prefer other echoes if we're getting some in the future, even echo fighters from series I'm not really invested, like Shadow from Sonic.
I'm not saying it's impossible and yeah, she hasn't any type of presence in Smash so in that sense Kasumi would be more likely than any other phantom thief.

The reason people even talk about it is partially echo fever but also because in game files suggest it was outright planned for Kasumi to be an alt but scrapped judging by the mysterious Jane files and ponytail bone coding in them. They ended up going unused but the obvious answer avoids it being the biggest Smash mystery in a while

 

[Rie Sonomura]

The reason people even talk about it is partially echo fever but also because in game files suggest it was outright planned for Kasumi to be an alt but scrapped judging by the mysterious Jane files and ponytail bone coding in them. They ended up going unused but the obvious answer avoids it being the biggest Smash mystery in a while

It’s possible Sakurai thought Kasumi was going to be a Female Protagonist option a la P3P, but when that was revealed to not be the case (she has her own different Persona) he scrapped it. I definitely see him repurposing the leftover files in the future though. After all, Joker’s grappling hook also comes from P5R and not vanilla P5.

 

[Deleted member]

Your reactions?

There was a problem fetching the tweet

75. Doom Slayer (Doom)
76. Geno (Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars)
77. Bandanna Waddle Dee (Kirby)
78. Crash (Crash Bandicoot)
79. Ryu Hayabasa (Ninja Gaiden)
80. Arle Nadja (Puyo Puyo)
81. Akira Howard (Astral Chain)
82. Travis Touchdown (No More Heroes)

36ε - Dixie Kong (Donkey Kong Country)
64ε - Octoling (Splatoon)
71ε - Kasumi (Persona 5 Royal)

Doomguy: He's alright I'm not a big fan of DOOM but he's the best option to represent FPS' and that would be a new Genre to Smash so sure I wouldn't mind it.
Geno: YES YES YES YES YES I love Geno so much I would be so excited if he gets in. Just yes.
Bandanna Dee: Eh, I don't mind him but my nephew wants him so good for him. I'd like to see BDee get in for him.
Crash: He's alright I don't have any connection to Crash but he would be cool.
Ryu Hayabusa: I've played Ninja Gaiden a bit and I can say that he would be a neat addition sure he's not someone I would want 100% but he would be cool so sure.
Arle Nadja: Yes please Puyo Puyo is such a good franchise and I would love to see our first Puzzle genre rep (excluding Dr. Mario).
Akira Howard: I haven't played Astral Chain yet so meh they seem alright.
Travis Touchdown: Sure I don't have much of an opinion on him but he could be cool.

Dixie Kong: Yes please I would absolutely love for Dixie to get in as she'd complete the DKC franchises' representation.
Octoling: Makes a lot of sense for an echo and I'd be fine with them getting in.
Kasumi: The game isn't out yet so I can't say if I would want them or not but just so a friend of mine could get someone they want sure I'd be fine with Kasumi.

Over-all it's a really good roster and I would be excited for it. (though I would love for a new Xenoblade rep to happen be it Rex/Pyra or Elma and I would also like Isaac and a Rhythm Heaven rep but we take what we can get).

 

[SKX31]

To be fair, Heavy's presence in that poll tells me it might have some meaning when it comes to connecting with the outer parts of the fanbase.

Most people in the Smash Bubble never, ever discuss him as a serious contender since he, his game, and his parent company have nothing to do with Nintendo. Casual fans probably don't care about nitty-gritty details like that, they just wanna see somebody iconic who would be unique and just awesome in Smash. (If I recall, before Cloud got in, he was seen as a joke character by the Smash fandom solely for not being Nintendo enough but was really popular among casuals.) So he sticks out compared to many others, who are a part of our regular circular discussions.

I'm one of those who def. think Valve is being severely underrated. Whether it's the Orange Box trio (especially Gordon, but Heavy and Chell count here too) or Dota 2, they're a very real (if an outlier) dark horse. I wouldn't mind Heavy (or any TF2 / Valve character either for that matter), for the record.

That said, I do think it's a major missed opportunity to not port the Orange Box or anything like that over to the Switch. Yes, Valve's focusing only on Dota 2, CSGO and Steam nowadays - but I don't think they'd lose anything by an OB port. Whether Half Life Tactics was actually in development or not, OB still remains the easiest way for them. If only Gabe and Valve weren't stubborn around their company culture (maximising money, minimizing amount of workers!). Gah. Sure, my fandom here is clear (my sig tells it all), but not at the expense of major series, Valve!

It's saying something when Dota Underlords looks to be the most likely Valve project on the Nintendo Switch. I'm bringing this up again since Dota 2's former mod turned amiciable competitor Auto Chess* is coming to the Switch. So chances are, if Sakurai wanted a Valve rep Valve might be more interested in a Dota 2 character making in. Simply because they might not be interested in creating a new dev teams for even a OB port (again, Gah!). I'm not sure how to rate Dota 2's chances, since it depends on a couple major factors to start with.

That's why I have some reservations around my dream (pipedream or not) pick, and would be happy with lets say Gordon / Heavy / Chell (+ optional Dota 2 Mii Costume), or a Dota 2 character. Anything.

*(Long story short, Auto Chess - alongside Dota Underlords and LoL's Teamfight Tactics, belong to the very new Auto Battler genre. Chess-like games where the pieces are AI-controlled during battles, but the player buys, manages and upgrades the pieces. Synergy between the pieces is key. 8 players, they're paired off into 4 1 v 1 battles, and the winner of each 1 v 1 deals damage to the loser. The players start with 100 HP as a general rule.)

 

[3BitSaurus]

I'm not mad about the results, they're irrelevant, it's just silly to put any kind of stock into them.
The Smash fan base is known for it's fanatics.
Remember that guy who was all about Daisy?
Mariotehplumber buying all the Rosalina amiibos?
The guy who made the grinch leak?
There are legit psychopaths in this fanbase, you doubt more then one is sitting at home botting or spamming polls for their character?
It's a near certainty in my opinion.
When I see a meme character like an anime loli such as reimu, above massively popular and well known characters like Lara Croft, Doom etc.
You more then likely know it's a bunch of "autists" (forgive this word) spamming.
I've been playing video games since the early 90's all kinds of games.
I had never heard of Reimu until a month ago.
But some how this obscure, niche, literal who is more popular then legacy characters with Hollywood movies known on mass by the general public?
Lots of doubt, in my opinion.
But you'll have the flocks of people that see that their obscure, niche or beloved character is ranked high so they don't want to accept it's an echo chamber/ spam poll.
The older individuals know polls are BS, just like in politics. They don't bother with fan polls, but its no surprise to see the characters that the "boomers" support are ranked low and the "zoomer" and "meme" characters are ranked high. It's the maturity difference, attitude, and behaviours within the fan base.

Ignoring a few thousand people because of 3 dudes who did strange things and had a lot of free time isn't exactly something we should be doing, methinks. I mean... yeah, even the official Ballot got spammed with memes, but these aren't even counted in most cases.

About your Reimu tidbit... she's not a meme pick in the slightest. Maybe some sites support her in this way, but I assure you that she would probably be a bigger deal to japanese audiences than Lara or Doom Slayer. Touhou is bigger than people give it credit for - I'd even go as far as saying Reimu is one of our best shots at an indie character if you don't count Shovel Knight, Undertale or Shantae.

 

[Plank08]

Geno, Doomslayer and Crash are great, Bandanna dee and Ryu are cool, and everyone else I don’t really care but I’ll take anyway.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

Ignoring a few thousand people because of 3 dudes who did strange things and had a lot of free time isn't exactly something we should be doing, methinks. I mean... yeah, even the official Ballot got spammed with memes, but these aren't even counted in most cases.

About your Reimu tidbit... she's not a meme pick in the slightest. Maybe some sites support her in this way, but I assure you that she would probably be a bigger deal to japanese audiences than Lara or Doom Slayer. Touhou is bigger than people give it credit for - I'd even go as far as saying Reimu is one of our best shots at an indie character if you don't count Shovel Knight, Undertale or Shantae.

2 dudes, it's believed mariotehplumber's the guy who was in charge of the grinch stuff

 

[DaybreakHorizon]

To the people saying we should "discredit all fan polls"... any suggestions on how to get "the silent majority" to vote?

Because a lot of these polls are as accessible as it gets, yet only the core fanbase votes anyway. We can speculate about what the casual fanbase wants all day, but I don't think anyone knows because they never seem to go out of their way to speak out. And the one source we could have, which is the Smash Ballot itself, never had its results released.

Troll votes/spamming? Sure. Small sample size? Absolutely. Doesn't take a lot of demands into account? Okay. These are all valid criticisms, but it really seems like people are just mad the results weren't what they expected. Which is funny, because I remember even smaller polls being used in this thread in favor of certain characters - sometimes by the same people who are now hating on this one.

It's also funny to me how people keep saying the poll is unrealiable specifically because of PapaGenos when his following is the smallest of the three involved, but that's neither here nor there...

... Anyway. Going back to what this thread is supposed to be about: people here seem to generally agree that the next season will open with something really big. What kind of curveball could Sakurai throw at us then? If it's at TGA, then I doubt it's related to online or mobile games, as it really doesn't seem like the place for them. So what's the next biggest thing?

There really isn't any way to get the silent majority to vote. They don't care about silly fan polls like this, so they won't participate. They'll only show up for official polls with wider advertising, like the Ballot.

I don't ever really use any fan polls in my arguments since they're only indicators of what the core fanbase wants. I've discredited all but the Randomized Reddit poll in the past, and I'll discredit this fan poll too due to the sporadic advertising and bias of each fanbase majorly involved.

 

[NobleClamtasm]

I'm not mad about the results, they're irrelevant, it's just silly to put any kind of stock into them.
The Smash fan base is known for it's fanatics.
Remember that guy who was all about Daisy?
Mariotehplumber buying all the Rosalina amiibos?
The guy who made the grinch leak?
There are legit psychopaths in this fanbase, you doubt more then one is sitting at home botting or spamming polls for their character?
It's a near certainty in my opinion.
When I see a meme character like an anime loli such as reimu, above massively popular and well known characters like Lara Croft, Doom etc.
You more then likely know it's a bunch of "autists" (forgive this word) spamming.
I've been playing video games since the early 90's all kinds of games.
I had never heard of Reimu until a month ago.
But some how this obscure, niche, literal who is more popular then legacy characters with Hollywood movies known on mass by the general public?
Lots of doubt, in my opinion.
But you'll have the flocks of people that see that their obscure, niche or beloved character is ranked high so they don't want to accept it's an echo chamber/ spam poll.
The older individuals know polls are BS, just like in politics. They don't bother with fan polls, but its no surprise to see the characters that the "boomers" support are ranked low and the "zoomer" and "meme" characters are ranked high. It's the maturity difference, attitude, and behaviours within the fan base.

Just because a character is popular doesn't directly translate into people wanting them in Smash Bros. For example, I absolutely adored Tales of Symphonia growing up, but I personally don't think Lloyd would bring anything interesting to Smash. The only positive I can think about his inclusion is potentially amazing Motoi Sakuraba remixes, but at the end of the day he's another swordsman and I think we already have plenty of those.

Reimu, on the other hand, is an inherently unique character as one of gaming's few Mikos, has tons of iconic music that she can bring, and is from a long lasting franchise with loads of legacy. You think she's a literal who, but only in your bubble. Many people who grew up with the internet in the pre-2010 era have been exposed to Touhou memes at its peak, and know how much of an impact it has had on internet culture in general.

 

[Ninjaed]

Wait, you had never heard of Touhou before?? Wow.

As for Heavy, I could actually see him as the FPS rep. TF2 is known for being goofy and memeable, that's right at home in Smash. From what I could find, you can easily find it in pretty much any Japanese mangakissa (a cafe where you drink, read manga, etc). The others like doomguy, gordon, master chief, etc... Nah, not the style.

 

[3BitSaurus]

There really isn't any way to get the silent majority to vote. They don't care about silly fan polls like this, so they won't participate. They'll only show up for official polls with wider advertising, like the Ballot.

I don't ever really use any fan polls in my arguments since they're only indicators of what the core fanbase wants. I've discredited all but the Randomized Reddit poll in the past, and I'll discredit this fan poll too due to the sporadic advertising and bias of each fanbase majorly involved.

Even in the ballot, there were conflicting reports with the number of voters and double voting, so I'd say even that may not account for all of the fanbase.

My point is that yes, fan polls only indicate what a part of the fanbase wants, but the argument that "the silent majority doesn't want this" is null, because we have no way of knowing. Besides, using polls as arguments to talk about the core fanbase is still perfectly acceptable.

... Well, that and an "unbiased poll" seems like a pipe dream to me.

 

[Blade of Evil's Bane]

Most people consider anime to be an art style. And Ninja Gaiden, at least in the modern era, doesn't use that style.

I know that the conversation has deviated quite a bit since this post but i think KatKit was originally talking about the old trilogy. The cutscenes from the NES games seem heavily inspired by anime (which i think is a term that applies only to movies and animated series but i could be wrong), remember this cutscene? :

Spoiler

...probably not because it doesn't exist (i just made it up) but you get the point

The modern games imo are kind of a mix between a realistic style and an anime inspired style (but with clearly less anime elements than the NES trilogy). Basically, it doesn't have to be one or the other, a mix of both is also a possibility.

Anyway, it's just my two cents on the subject ... and i don't think it has much to do with newcomer speculation at this point ...

I’m new here and I just wanted to say that Sackboy is my most wanted and I definitely feel he really deserves a spot in smash, he was the PS3s icon after all.

Welcome!

 

[Evil Trapezium]

Wait, you had never heard of Touhou before?? Wow.

As for Heavy, I could actually see him as the FPS rep. TF2 is known for being goofy and memeable, that's right at home in Smash. From what I could find, you can easily find it in pretty much any Japanese mangakissa (a cafe where you drink, read manga, etc). The others like doomguy, gordon, master chief, etc... Nah, not the style.

Heavy would be pretty cool and Valve is very much open to having any of their characters appear in Smash Bros however from the emails I've read from the Valve news network channel, it just seems that they're quite apathetic to the idea so I can't see Heavy being the first FPS rep if that's what you're saying.

 

[DaybreakHorizon]

Even in the ballot, there were conflicting reports with the number of voters and double voting, so I'd say even that may not account for all of the fanbase.

My point is that yes, fan polls only indicate what a part of the fanbase wants, but the argument that "the silent majority doesn't want this" is null, because we have no way of knowing. Besides, using polls as arguments to talk about the core fanbase is still perfectly acceptable.

... Well, that and an "unbiased poll" seems like a pipe dream to me.

Your view seems rather reductionist. We can infer what the silent, casual fanbase wants based off of what's popular within more casual fanbases that can overlap with Nintendo. Just because we don't have quantitative data doesn't mean we can't draw inferences and speculate based off of those. Nintendo does the same when considering characters, so we ought to do the same.

If you like the poll you have every right to, just know it's not the best indicator of wider popularity, and this one in particular is incredibly biased.

 

[Cutie Gwen]

A write-in poll would sound unbiases but then you remember that people can go from never talking about a character to constantly talking about them due to initial lack of consideration, hence how bandwagon characters even became a thing with some of them still not letting go over a decade later