Olimar Flowering Rework

[steelguttey]

guttey makes a new thread about his dumb olimar ideas part 3

ok so, i came up with an idea to rework flowering and have been talking about it with people in the oli skype group for a few days now and i would like to see opinions from people not in the group. i'll justify it as people go on with the arguments.

how it works is:

every time pikmin hit an enemy, throw an enemy, latch onto an enemy, fall off of an enemy at the end of a side b latch, or every 30 seconds, they get one "flower point". three flower points gets you from flower to bud, and 2 flower points from bud gets you to flower. when you hit someone with a pikmin, you only get a point for that pikmin. reasoning: a couple, mostly that you actually have to interact with your opponent to have your pikmin flower now, also in most situations this is faster if you are making the right decisions and you can still camp because of how easy it is to flower pikmin by just throwing them, but with an emphasis on the counterplay of “hit the pikmin before they hit you” so you can’t ignore side b in some matchups.

also, please dont try to argue that it wouldnt be possible in the realms of coding unless you have raw evidence that it isnt, because that wont really get us places

 

[Ridel]

Hmm I like this idea. It would definitely promote a more agro style rather then conserving your Pikmin to flower status. On the contrary I'm not sure if the budding system needs a redesign, it seems fine as is imo.

 

[Ningildo]

Holy **** you actually did make it.

As I mentioned on Skype, a mixture of the current timer system and this one might work out as a good compromise. We gain the potential to get flowered pikmin much faster, but can still fall back on the waiting game if we have to. The bigger questions with such a system imo are:
-How many points do we get for waiting x amount of time?
-How long is x going to be in the first place?
-Should certain pikmin that tend to avoid getting their point from latch (purple, for example) gain more points or gain points faster?

There are other things that I think should be discussed as well, but feeling lazy right now, so I'll get to that when I do 9.9

 

[steelguttey]

this is a point i want to add, i dont think it makes oli play aggro at all. i think it makes him play even more defensively.

to get flowers, you have to hit the opponent. you not only hit people more with side b when you are further away but you also get hits yourself for punishing people for hitting side b's. you get less hits going aggro because you get hits less, aggro oli sucks lol

 

[GrizzleDrizz1ed]

guttey makes a new thread about his dumb olimar ideas part 3

ok so, i came up with an idea to rework flowering and have been talking about it with people in the oli skype group for a few days now and i would like to see opinions from people not in the group. i'll justify it as people go on with the arguments.

how it works is:

every time pikmin hit an enemy, throw an enemy, latch onto an enemy, fall off of an enemy at the end of a side b latch, or every 30 seconds, they get one "flower point". three flower points gets you from flower to bud, and 2 flower points from bud gets you to flower. when you hit someone with a pikmin, you only get a point for that pikmin. reasoning: a couple, mostly that you actually have to interact with your opponent to have your pikmin flower now, also in most situations this is faster if you are making the right decisions and you can still camp because of how easy it is to flower pikmin by just throwing them, but with an emphasis on the counterplay of “hit the pikmin before they hit you” so you can’t ignore side b in some matchups.

also, please dont try to argue that it wouldnt be possible in the realms of coding unless you have raw evidence that it isnt, because that wont really get us places

I am thoroughly against this idea for many reasons. I will refer to this new system and the On Hit System.

What the On Hit System does is fundamentally change the need for opponents to approach Olimar. This is because with the Timer System that is currently in place, opponents are encouraged to approach Olimar as quickly as possible. This is because as time passes, Olimar becomes stronger. It's in the opponents best interest for them to deal as much damage to Olimar before he reaches his prime so the hit's they receive deal less damage than if he stalled. This is incredibly important for Olimar, because Olimar does not do well in approaching. To say it another way, It gets the opponent to come to him.

With the On Hit System, it removes that incentive for the opponent to approach. The only way then to get them to approach, is by tossing Pikmin at them. Pikmin have health. Some have very little health. Tossing a White Pikmin on an opponent will very likely get it killed before it's able to do anything. Pikmin also take damage when trading attacks, and this occurs quite often. If a White Pikmin trades, it will die. Having an On Hit System will make it very difficult for Whites to survive long enough to flower. The only reall way to get them up is if they are the follow up Pikmin from an attack.

The On Hit System does reward more aggressive play, and Olimar would be encouraged to play more aggressively. Without the threat of Pikmin growing stronger, opponents won't feel the need to approach. Tossing Pikmin is a really risky way to motivate the opponent to approach because good players will have no problem sitting far away knocking away and killing your Pikmin. Should you decide to toss Pikmin at a closer range, the opponent could close the gap quickly and punish. Pikmin toss is not a reliable motivator for good players to approach.

I would also say that the implementation, testing, and balancing of the On Hit System would take a lot of time and people to properly implement. I believe it's possible to implement it, but the coding of it would take some time, and the testing and balancing would take significantly longer.

I don't think that this is a change that Olimar needs, as the current timer system has a solid function that benefits Olimar and is not in need of major adjustments. The Only thing I would consider changing about it is making it 12 seconds per flowering stage, instead of 15.

 

[steelguttey]

What the On Hit System does is fundamentally change the need for opponents to approach Olimar. This is because with the Timer System that is currently in place, opponents are encouraged to approach Olimar as quickly as possible. This is because as time passes, Olimar becomes stronger. It's in the opponents best interest for them to deal as much damage to Olimar before he reaches his prime so the hit's they receive deal less damage than if he stalled. This is incredibly important for Olimar, because Olimar does not do well in approaching. To say it another way, It gets the opponent to come to him.

With the On Hit System, it removes that incentive for the opponent to approach. The only way then to get them to approach, is by tossing Pikmin at them. Pikmin have health. Some have very little health. Tossing a White Pikmin on an opponent will very likely get it killed before it's able to do anything. Pikmin also take damage when trading attacks, and this occurs quite often. If a White Pikmin trades, it will die. Having an On Hit System will make it very difficult for Whites to survive long enough to flower. The only reall way to get them up is if they are the follow up Pikmin from an attack.

i disagree completely. olimar can force people to approach just fine with side b because pikmin are made to be dispensable. pluck is relatively fast and if you get a hit, then you can flower a pikmin but a leaf pikmin isnt all that important for losing. not only that, but there are much more ways youcan force someone to approach as a player. dash dancing, playing smart and baiting approaches by "pretending" to go in then wavedash back, etc. there are a ton of ways, not only that but there arent a ton of characters that can out-camp us but fox even without pikmin flowering over time. think about this, if we cant hit someone because they are c amping us while our pikmin are leafed, then why can wedo it when theyre flowered? what changes? sure, we'll eventually get a hit, but with that logic the flowering over time doesnt matter because if we eventually get a hit then the on hit system still works. whites will survive to flower because they are very good combo pikmin, how many times do i have to say this. so that means you can get hit with them very easily if you use them in the middle of combos, therefore flowering them. also, whites arguably have the highest reward for flowering, bar maybe purples, so its good for them to be "hard" to flower even though you did something wrong if a pikmin dies and you didnt get a hit because of it. player problem. trading is not something you should be doing unless it is in your favor, especially with olimar. not only that, but the forcing people to approach thing is still there because pikmin still can flower over time and oliamr is still rewarded for "stalling", just less. so you can still force them to approach, which gets you hits, which gets you flowers.

The On Hit System does reward more aggressive play, and Olimar would be encouraged to play more aggressively. Without the threat of Pikmin growing stronger, opponents won't feel the need to approach. Tossing Pikmin is a really risky way to motivate the opponent to approach because good players will have no problem sitting far away knocking away and killing your Pikmin. Should you decide to toss Pikmin at a closer range, the opponent could close the gap quickly and punish. Pikmin toss is not a reliable motivator for good players to approach.

this is completely wrong. not many characters have a projectile that can out-camp olimar and like i said, you can punish people for hitting pikmin with a projectile or whatever with good positioning, so you are getting hits by playing defensive, unless its fox, which youre ****ed anyway. you are acting like olimar can only get hits because pikmin flower over time, thats completely wrong. pikmin still flower over time anyway. its your fault if youre getting punished for side b-ing. jump back, side b at them waveland back is very hard to punish and it puts you in a perfect position at most times for a punish yourself if they try to run at you while you did it. pikmin toss is a viable motivator to force good players to approach, because if they keep hitting it off then pikmin not only get flowers but olimar can put himself in a position to punish them for doing that.

im ignoring the comment about time because its pointless to have. you arent in the pmdt, im not in the pmdt, none of us are. none of us know how much time the people work on olimar have on their hands.

I don't think that this is a change that Olimar needs, as the current timer system has a solid function that benefits Olimar and is not in need of major adjustments. The Only thing I would consider changing about it is making it 12 seconds per flowering stage, instead of 15.

bowser didnt "need" down throw koopa claw, but its still nice. nobody really "needs" any changes in this game at all unless you are bowser, everyone is viable. this is a quality of life change that will make olimar better IF you play correctly and get a ton of punishes, and will hinder you if you play incorrectly compared to the current system. and i dont see a problem with that and i really hope you dont either

 

[Ridel]

this is a point i want to add, i dont think it makes oli play aggro at all. i think it makes him play even more defensively.

to get flowers, you have to hit the opponent. you not only hit people more with side b when you are further away but you also get hits yourself for punishing people for hitting side b's. you get less hits going aggro because you get hits less, aggro oli sucks lol

Yeah actually I take back my last statement. It was a very early call without a lot of thought put into it.Also I thought this included normal attacks as well and not just tossing. Do you think it would be possible to add this over to normal's as well? You could maybe make it shave off seconds depending on the move.

 

[GrizzleDrizz1ed]

White Pikmin surviving already is hard to do. You often have to whistle to keep them out of harms way and hold back tossing them in some situations.Trading isn't really something that players generally have control over with Olimar, seeing as how most attacks cut through the Pikmin. Forcing the White Pikmin to engage is counter to how how White is supposed to be treated. It should be protected from combat until it's flowered and then used in the right situation.

The 1 Point that you would give for every 30 seconds is negligible. The only way I could see this system being viable is if you kept the current timer as it functions. That way you wouldn't need to put some of your Pikmin in harms way when they can't take it. It wouldn't render the On Hit System pointless because you would have all flowered Pikmin at 15 seconds Max, if you scored 3 points with each Pikmin. It covers mostly all the issues I have with it and also increases his overall effectiveness.

I can see that it may not make him aggro, but it removes the incentive for the opponent to approach you. That's my biggest issue. I don't see Tossing Pikmin at them as a solution to get them to approach you.There's a lot of risk there and I'd rather have the passive ability then tells them to come get me.

 

[steelguttey]

White Pikmin surviving already is hard to do. You often have to whistle to keep them out of harms way and hold back tossing them in some situations.Trading isn't really something that players generally have control over with Olimar, seeing as how most attacks cut through the Pikmin. Forcing the White Pikmin to engage is counter to how how White is supposed to be treated. It should be protected from combat until it's flowered and then used in the right situation.

you have complete control over trading, dont throw out hitboxes you know are gonna trade. it isnt hard. especially with whites, whites are high risk high reward pikmin, you get a free combo for hitting them in neutral and if you hit them at the beginning of a combo the combo will have an extender with the explosion and will have much more damage. you can still protect them from combat by only using them in combos where they cant get hit.

The 1 Point that you would give for every 30 seconds is negligible. The only way I could see this system being viable is if you kept the current timer as it functions. That way you wouldn't need to put some of your Pikmin in harms way when they can't take it. It wouldn't render the On Hit System pointless because you would have all flowered Pikmin at 15 seconds Max, if you scored 3 points with each Pikmin. It covers mostly all the issues I have with it and also increases his overall effectiveness.

its not negligible unless the only thing youre doing is running around. if you are hitting the opponent, it isnt negligible at all. it still forces them to approach because eventually, no matter how far away it is, you will get a flower if the pikmin doesnt die. you can still get flowers just as fast, if not faster.

I can see that it may not make him aggro, but it removes the incentive for the opponent to approach you. That's my biggest issue. I don't see Tossing Pikmin at them as a solution to get them to approach you.There's a lot of risk there and I'd rather have the passive ability then tells them to come get me.

like i said, it cant remove the incentive for the opponent to approach you if you still flower over time. not only that, taking damage from side b is an incentive to approach, no? in what situation will you lose if you keep throwing pikmin while theyre not approaching? if you lose a pikmin, so what, you still are getting free damage/stage control.

 

[GrizzleDrizz1ed]

Trading happens. Sure you can try not to trade, but it's going to happen when you weren't planing on it. You can try to make it like it isn't a problem with Whites, but when you have a function that requires contact in order to flower, you're killing the lifespan and effectiveness of Whites.

Two Minutes and Thirty Seconds to reach flower is not an incentive to approach Olimar. 1 point per 30 seconds 5 times. That 1 point that pops up every 30 seconds is very rarely going to help in the flowering process. Each stock generally lasts a tad above a minute on average. That means a Pikmin would be lucky to get 2 points during the entire stock. I don't see why you wouldn't want the current timer as is with the On Hit System.

 

[steelguttey]

Trading happens. Sure you can try not to trade, but it's going to happen when you weren't planing on it. You can try to make it like it isn't a problem with Whites, but when you have a function that requires contact in order to flower, you're killing the lifespan and effectiveness of Whites.

but you can make contact in ways that arent trading, thats what im saying. comboing, what you should be doing with whites, is rewarded with this system. trading happens, but you can be extra-careful with whites so they dont trade, so you can save them. exactly like how they are now

Two Minutes and Thirty Seconds to reach flower is not an incentive to approach Olimar. 1 point per 30 seconds 5 times. That 1 point that pops up every 30 seconds is very rarely going to help in the flowering process. Each stock generally lasts a tad above a minute on average. That means a Pikmin would be lucky to get 2 points during the entire stock. I don't see why you wouldn't want the current timer as is with the On Hit System.

two minutes and thirty seconds, reduced by 30 evrey time you get a hit. it is an incentive, because that means they have to eventually approach, no longer how long it takes. and for them to take a stock/for you to take a stock in a minute, they have to hit you no? so they are approaching or you did something wrong. two points during the entire stock if you played like ****, basically. i wouldnt want the current timer with the on hit system because thats extremely fast, maybe 15 seconds per point so you bloom in a minute and 15 seconds would be fine. you ahve to understand that getting a point shaves off a certain amount of time from flowering.

 

[Ridel]

I'm never gunna get my question answered lol.

 

[Boiko]

If I'm worried that you're Pikmin are going to flower because of how many times that you have hit me, I'm going to disengage. When you throw Pikmin at me in an attempt to control space, I'm going to kill them from a distance and your work will be for naught.

Your system is ultimately no different from the current system in that it will not affect the way that Olimar plays his game. No matter what, controlling space from a distance is generally considered the most effective way to play Oli's neutral game. You're saying that you're benefitted from playing more defensively because you can Pikmin toss from a distance and blossom that way. What you're not considering is that your opponent will now also benefit from playing more defensively because it gives them more opportunities to damage your Pikmin with significantly less risk to them.

Conclusively, your system does not affect the way that Olimar will play his neutral game, it will instead affect the way the opponent plays against Olimar. I do not think this is beneficial for him, however. As a defensive character, you typically want your opponent to be offensive. You want to control their space, limit their offensive options, and punish them by forcing them to do something punishable. If you make it so your opponent has greater benefit by playing defensively, you're just weakening a strength of your character.

 

[steelguttey]

If I'm worried that you're Pikmin are going to flower because of how many times that you have hit me, I'm going to disengage. When you throw Pikmin at me in an attempt to control space, I'm going to kill them from a distance and your work will be for naught.

olimar can still hit punish you for hitting the pikmin out of the air, you dont exactly have to get hit by it. its all positioning. if im near you when i throw a pikmin and i do something like pikmin toss waveland back, depends on the move youre using, i can punish you for hitting it out of the air. plus, this adds counterplay to side b other than "attack him anyway because side b has no knockback"

Your system is ultimately no different from the current system in that it will not affect the way that Olimar plays his game. No matter what, controlling space from a distance is generally considered the most effective way to play Oli's neutral game. You're saying that you're benefitted from playing more defensively because you can Pikmin toss from a distance and blossom that way. What you're not considering is that your opponent will now also benefit from playing more defensively because it gives them more opportunities to damage your Pikmin with significantly less risk to them.

i think it will. people have a reason to not get hit by pikmin other than taking damage now, because it will ultimately make olimar more powerful. olimar has trouble controlling space because side b doesnt put out real hitboxes, there isnt a direct punishment for getting hit by a pikmin unless olimar is near you at the time. it'll change the way olimar plays because it changes the way your opponent plays, and olimar has to have counterplay to camping and just hitting the pikmin out of the air. this will give olimar better rewards for positioning and keeping an effective dash dance.

Conclusively, your system does not affect the way that Olimar will play his neutral game, it will instead affect the way the opponent plays against Olimar. I do not think this is beneficial for him, however. As a defensive character, you typically want your opponent to be offensive. You want to control their space, limit their offensive options, and punish them by forcing them to do something punishable. If you make it so your opponent has greater benefit by playing defensively, you're just weakening a strength of your character.

olimar is a defensive character that beats offensive characters through anti-approach options like fsmash, purple side b, utilt and usmash. olimar can beat defensive characters that just hit pikmin off him by encroaching onto their space and punishing them for hitting it out of the air, because side b is quick enough to do that.

just realized i talked in circles there, sorry for repeating some bits

 

[Major_League_Odish]

Ultimately pikman are way to weak and die that a system like this won't be beneficial to us at all.

As Boiko said if the opponent disengages it just makes it harder for you to play neutral, under the current system your opponent disengaging means you get stronger and can farm your pikman line. Having something as a defensive character that MAKES them approach is key to us being viable in any sense of the word