Probably a dumb idea but...

[Shellfire]

I had thought of the idea in passing some months ago, but the stuff Lz was saying about Judge reminded me of it. What if PM tied G&W's judge numbers to the seconds on the game clock instead of RNG? I haven't thought very hard of the balance implications of this, but it seems like a cool idea that makes thematic sense considering what Game & Watch is. I wanna hear people who are actually decent at the character weigh in.

My main concern is that I have absolutely no idea how realistic it would be for players to time their judges to the clock, nor whether retuning and reordering the numbers would be a fair and well-received way of making Gdubs more balanced if it proves to give him too much control.

 

[tavarner17]

First problem: what do we do with a 0, like 3:50 (min:sec) since there is no zero on the current system.

 

[Shellfire]

Yeah, I thought about that, too. My main ideas were A) make it random, B) add a 10th effect, or C) make it apply whatever he rolled previously.

 

[zen-bz-]

I don't even main/secondary GnW and this idea seems extremely OP if used correctly.

Storing a 9 that GnW can use for 10% of the match, or another useful hammer # just adds another mechanic that's unfun to play against, and if the person has a decent sense of this mechanic it could promote shielding/dodging for 1 second every 10 which is just unfun. If you use your (c) idea, that chance increases to 20%.

It seems cool in practice but the game wouldn't be nearly as fun if this were present, not to mention that GnW would need to be rebalanced heavily to make this a reality.

 

[Shellfire]

No offense, but what you're saying implies you don't understand how his judge fits into his meta. It's not just some safe poke you throw out randomly in the neutral. Judge is slow and easily punished, meaning he needs to set it up or get a read to hit it already. If the opponent knows exactly when G&W wants to judge, they can play around that, and playing around a G&W going for a judge would be a little more complicated than "just shield and dodge whenever the clock strikes 9". In such a case, G&W could probably just grab into Dthrow, then Judge. Or he could if it didn't take so long to do all of that. He'd have to specifically grab at a certain time before 9.

The main issue is that most of Gdub's good numbers are the higher ones, meaning even if he botches his setup into a 9 by being a little too late, he still gets an 8 which is just as deadly in many situations. My thinking is that we keep this in check by rearranging his numbers, possibly starting with giving 8 the effect 1 has

 

[BEEP B00P]

1) If you're semi-competent with G&W judge can be easy to land.
2) adding predictability to judge would ruin one of its most important functions, being able to mix up strategies/combos at a moment's notice.
3) adding that level of predictability would make it completely broken.