Project: I (Would You Play It?)

[clubbadubba]

Huh I've always considered smash di to be "real" di and that other stuff to be "fake". Meh I think smash di only is best for this game

 

[Fireblaster]

"purists" wouldn't want this to begin with

Project M is pretty similar to Melee. This project having regular melee DI would simply make it an entirely different game than 64.

 

[LiteralGrill]

"purists" wouldn't want this to begin with

Still, it's worth trying to keep the integrity of the game close to Smash 64 if we can, I want it to play mostly like the original with only a few changes.

Capps I noticed that you already have obtained many codes. If you are missing anything in particular, I have the brawl+ codeset and could quickly search it or better yet post it if it isn't available elsewhere.

PLEASE search! On the main post for the project I have a list of codes 'll need, take a look over there for ideas. I'll take your stages input to mind, for the first version it would be silly to mess with stages, I should just be getting a product out.

 

[Sangoku]

Huh I've always considered smash di to be "real" di and that other stuff to be "fake". Meh I think smash di only is best for this game

Thing is smash 64's DI isn't about influencing a direction, so it technically has no DI. Which doesn't mean other games aren't fake games. Pwn.

 

[mixa]

'directional' to me was always one name for the stick you use to DI

hence I never had problems with the term Directional Influence

but even if

PI is just not sonorous


I also prefer L-cancel to the Z, but that deserves a thread on its own

i'll make a thread for it after this post

 

[Fireblaster]

I also prefer L-cancel to the Z, but that deserves a thread on its own

i'll make a thread for it after this post

Just call it whatever you want. As long as most people know what you're talking about it should be fine. I often call some matchups mirror matchups because I think dittos sounds silly and mirror matchup is what it's called in every other fighting game ever. Everyone knows what I'm taking about when I say it, so it doesn't matter.

 

[Yobolight]

Prediction: this will never be released ever.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Prediction: this will never be released ever.

Bring it on, this shall be a Reality

 

[B-Town]

This is copied from a promotional thread Capps made in the Brawl workshop, I figured I'd critique it here as this has become the theory thread.

• • • Peach's Castle [remove bumper, remove angled platforms,
    • Congo Jungle [lighten up stage so dark characters can be seen]
    • Hyrule Castle [remove tornado]
    • Planet Zebes [remove acid]
    • Yoshi's Island [remove clouds, reduce size slightly]
    • Dream Land
    • Sector Z [remove firing Arwings, reduce stage size]
    • Saffron City [remove hazards, rearrange stage to decrease camping ability, reduce size slightly]
    • Mushroom Kingdom [possible serious redesign]
    • Final Destination
    • Duel Zone
    • Meta Crystal

- Peach's Castle hazards aren't mapbreaking (not overpowered or random) and actually add to the map in my opinion. Every been b-aired tipper u-aired by falcon into the bumper which knocks you into the angled platforms where falcon is ready for an up-b? I'm sure there's many other similar combos with other chars.
- Hyrule should be made less campy, maybe smaller is better? I haven't seen the P:M one.
- Yoshi's Island without clouds exists within N64 via 1p mode Yoshi team, dunno if that helps to make it.
- Sector Z's wall on the right side is also an issue
- I personally think saffron is a great map if not for the Pokemon hazards, maaaybe raise the leftmost building or lower the others slightly to reduce camping

 

[LiteralGrill]

This is copied from a promotional thread Capps made in the Brawl workshop, I figured I'd critique it here as this has become the theory thread.


- Peach's Castle hazards aren't mapbreaking (not overpowered or random) and actually add to the map in my opinion. Every been b-aired tipper u-aired by falcon into the bumper which knocks you into the angled platforms where falcon is ready for an up-b? I'm sure there's many other similar combos with other chars.
- Hyrule should be made less campy, maybe smaller is better? I haven't seen the P:M one.
- Yoshi's Island without clouds exists within N64 via 1p mode Yoshi team, dunno if that helps to make it.
- Sector Z's wall on the right side is also an issue
- I personally think saffron is a great map if not for the Pokemon hazards, maaaybe raise the leftmost building or lower the others slightly to reduce camping

Noted. I'm thinking it may really be smarter for the first version to just get the stages in there before editing them around, but I'm really happy for feedback on the idea. I know how much of a strain it is in 64 with having good stages to play on so I want to provide more of them.

 

[Sangoku]

'directional' to me was always one name for the stick you use to DI

hence I never had problems with the term Directional Influence

but even if

PI is just not sonorous


I also prefer L-cancel to the Z, but that deserves a thread on its own

i'll make a thread for it after this post

"His π is really good". Also z-cancel >>> l-cancel. Except if you talk about taunt cancelling.

Just call it whatever you want. As long as most people know what you're talking about it should be fine. I often call some matchups mirror matchups because I think dittos sounds silly and mirror matchup is what it's called in every other fighting game ever. Everyone knows what I'm taking about when I say it, so it doesn't matter.

Yeah obviously, that's what nomenclature is all about. But even if it's all fine between us, we can't expect someone from outside the 64 microcosm to use the same terminology as us (ie a Mêlée player talking about smash DI or something). As I said, some even use DI to describe the direction you go when falling after hitstun wears off... Conventions overcome silly naming, but confusion can be expected if no global consensus has been established.

- Peach's Castle hazards aren't mapbreaking (not overpowered or random) and actually add to the map in my opinion. Every been b-aired tipper u-aired by falcon into the bumper which knocks you into the angled platforms where falcon is ready for an up-b? I'm sure there's many other similar combos with other chars.
- Hyrule should be made less campy, maybe smaller is better? I haven't seen the P:M one.
- Yoshi's Island without clouds exists within N64 via 1p mode Yoshi team, dunno if that helps to make it.
- Sector Z's wall on the right side is also an issue
- I personally think saffron is a great map if not for the Pokemon hazards, maaaybe raise the leftmost building or lower the others slightly to reduce camping

-Peach's Castle: on the contrary, I think the goal of this is to have competitively fair stages, not fun ones.
-Yoshi's Island: the problem with the stage is the blastzone which is a lot shorter on the left.
-Safron: the main problem there is Kirby utilting on the helipad.

Noted. I'm thinking it may really be smarter for the first version to just get the stages in there before editing them around, but I'm really happy for feedback on the idea. I know how much of a strain it is in 64 with having good stages to play on so I want to provide more of them.

Totally agree. Let's first focus on making the game as similar as possible, then we can think about ways to improve things.

 

[KnitePhox]

hype!

hyrule is too small in P:M imo

 

[clubbadubba]

The way "falcon dittos" rolls off the tongue is why dittos > mirrors

 

[mixa]

"His π is really good". Also z-cancel >>> l-cancel. Except if you talk about taunt cancelling.

hadn't thought of it as an acronym, haha!

it's like when there is a crew battle USA vs The World
"oh no, the world is in peril!"

Mêlée

I figured out how to say it, I'll just roar the name like this guy. Mistaken-for-a-native here I come.

 

[DMoogle]

hype!

hyrule is too small in P:M imo

Yeah, seriously, what's up with that? The designers obviously put a lot of time into making it look like the original, but the sizing is way off, and kind of ruins it.

 

[Fireblaster]

Yeah, seriously, what's up with that? The designers obviously put a lot of time into making it look like the original, but the sizing is way off, and kind of ruins it.

The death walls are really damn close too. Like the instant you get off screen you die and the camera barely shows anything beyond the ledges

 

[Kati]

There is a version of hyrule that was recently release with no hut; likewise, there are two sizes available for hyrule 64 in general, but after probing multiple times on the P:M boards, they have never told me why they chose the small version.

edit
Boundaries are not an issue, and literally anyone can edit them due to how easy it is in brawlbox. But yes, the smaller version is flawed in multiple ways.

edit edit

It is definitely smarter as Capps put it to worry about stages in a future release, rather than the initial.

 

[Sedda]

is it possible to remove the left side of hyrule? lol

 

[bloodpeach]

Having physics that feels like 64 is WAY more important than stage sizes. No one should even be thinking about stages at all yet. What stages we play on doesn't matter if we don't have a game.

 

[Kati]

Having physics that feels like 64 is WAY more important than stage sizes. No one should even be thinking about stages at all yet. What stages we play on doesn't matter if we don't have a game.

^this completely.

I posted the codes that modify things like gravity and hitstun in the other project thread, but I don't know how to tweak them.

 

[bloodpeach]

Me and Madao (mostly Madao) have some experience with that, so we can proably figure most of that out. I hope to have a working test setup this weekend (I left my copy of brawl 1000 miles away. whoops), so I'll try out some of the codes and see how much tweaking they need to bring back that 64 feel.

 

[Madao]

^this completely.

I posted the codes that modify things like gravity and hitstun in the other project thread, but I don't know how to tweak them.

Ya it's pretty hard to even tell what the code does. Having a float to hex calculator will help you for any codes that use constants. It looks like most of those codes are instructions though, so someone would have to write the hex code in an assembler to see what it does.

Also, I have a hacked wii with an external hdd and Brawl. Would there be any convenient way for me to transfer the game to my laptop? If not, I'll have to just download it using my school net. Unless someone else is willing to run dolphin with cheat engine to test stuff, I'll probably have to do that myself. I think it's time for me to start learning more info about more recent games. I just hope dolphin is any good for debugging. Maybe I won't even need to debug though since memory viewing / editing does wonders.

What you guys think about shrinking the characters? Iirc in Brawl, the characters are bigger right? I'd imagine there's a body size multiplier like there is in SSB64 and other games I've explorered. Then again, that might mess up certain characters moves but it was just an idea.

I'm still going to focus on obtaining more info for SSB64, but I'm just talking about what I should do after I'm finishing finding out what we need to know about SSB64.

 

[bloodpeach]

if you have a softmodded wii you can use riivolution to apply codes from a file. I'm not exactly sure how it works having never created a code file myself, but the config files at least are straight forward xml, and you can apply codes in there too.

 

[Madao]

Is there a way to edit the codes through riivolution after already loading the game? I didn't really do any Brawl hacking myself, it was my bro who set everything up.

My wii is softmodded. I just wanted to use Dolphin to see variables like X & Y coordinates. If the sizes are totally different, we will need to use some math to convert numbers for the physics. Knowing coordinates could later on help with stage stuff too, once we are done with physics. For example, if moving a character by 400 X in SSB64 gives the same result as moving a character 200 X in Brawl, then you would have to modify the SSB64 formulas accordingly.

 

[bloodpeach]

Ah i understand. Im pretty sure you cant view memory while within a game, so you definitely couldnt do it on console. Thats a good thing to check up on though, i wasnt even thinking about that.

To make the game TRU 64 style, somewhere down the line we might have to write some serious assembly to change the hitboxes from spheres backto boxes. I dont think 64 would feel the same without cubic eggs

 

[Kati]

I once got the impression that ocarina can be used on a console, but I couldn't get it to work (not that I tried very hard). I strongly believe that P:M also shrinks the characters.

 

[bloodpeach]

Riivolution is basically a frontend to ocarina, but for Madao's purposes at least, the key feature needed would be to toggle codes while playing the game, which I dont think is possible. Afaik the only way to watch memory is through Dolphin.

Also did a bit more research and I think making ocarina/riivolution patches wont be too much of a challenge once we get going. Kati, do you know any good places to look for info about the brawl physics engine and the things the P:M folks had to change?

 

[B-Town]

Also, I have a hacked wii with an external hdd and Brawl. Would there be any convenient way for me to transfer the game to my laptop? If not, I'll have to just download it using my school net.

You can use a homebrew app to rip the data to your HDD and then transfer it to your computer. I did this years ago and remember it was easy. You might need an extra program to make the ripped data readable by Dolphin. USB Loader and WBFS Manager were the app and program I used respectively, I think? Regardless there are probably similar and/or better resources to do the same nowadays

 

[tehz]

Yeah, the best way to go is probably using USB Loader GX to rip brawl. The Dolphin wiki has a bare bones guide on it. Since usb loader supports FAT32 (and even NTFS, if you're feeling frisky) drives now, you don't have to use the weird WBFS formatted drives anymore. So, it should be as simple as: rip on wii to an external HD; plug in HD to a pc and copy the game iso.

For memory viewers/debuggers, the alpha and omega of wii hacking was (is?) a device known as a usb gecko. It allowed you to connect your wii to your pc over usb, and view/control the wii's memory and registers from a program like gecko.net. I've never used one, but I'm pretty sure you can value search, set breakpoints, frame advance, instruction advance, etc.; basically anything you'd want to do game hacking-wise. Luckily, Nintendo (probably) shut down usb gecko production with legal pressure, which means that usb geckos are pretty pricey on ebay.

So, dolphin is probably your best bet. Dolphin has a robust debugger. You can change memory values realtime, view asm, and probably more; I've only been playing around with it for a couple weeks looking for VC ssb64 codes. I don't know about inserting/changing asm in realtime, though.. The only problem with Dolphin is that it's not a very accurate emulator. Codes that would do nothing on, or even crash, a real Wii run fine in Dolphin. Having said that, Brawl should be pretty well understood (although not well documented, it seems), so it might not be necessary to make too many original codes.

 

[Zenyore]

IIC you want to keep Side Special attacks? Thats way too much of a game changer.

 

[LiteralGrill]

IIC you want to keep Side Special attacks? Thats way too much of a game changer.

I am thinking on that one actually, I do admit there are some problems to it and there is an easy code to remove them too. That may change depending on how it turns out to have the side special.

 

[Kati]

1. You can always try multiple builds.

2. Some character's neutral specials were changed to be their side-specials. I don't see how you could get Pk fire or the boomerang back to neutral B.

3. Don't make claims against a game that is only in the rough planning stages. If you are interested, give Capps support, and when a playable build comes out, then provide input.

---

There used to be a code archive that iirc had little explanations accompanying each code. It should be on the brawl workshop board, maybe codesets to be more specific, but I can't find it anymore.

The P:M team explains some breakthroughs on their website, projectmgame.com, but the community used to be based on smashmods.com. Just straight up asking Magus, Shadic, Dantarion, Internet explorer or anyone else found on the P:M team list could yield very fast results. Unlike brawl+, P:M isn't opensource, so they won't give anything away that pertains directly to their game such as landing detection or the clone engine.

Perhaps talking to the brawl- team would be best. Brawl- is opensourced last time I checked, and the team is still going.

 

[Madao]

I don't know about inserting/changing asm in realtime, though.. The only problem with Dolphin is that it's not a very accurate emulator. Codes that would do nothing on, or even crash, a real Wii run fine in Dolphin. Having said that, Brawl should be pretty well understood (although not well documented, it seems), so it might not be necessary to make too many original codes.

Thanks for the info. I find that weird how codes could work on emulator and not the real system. Assembly is pretty straightforward. I've had experience in making custom N64 and Super Nintendo codes, and I know most of the N64 codes I made worked on N64. I guess when you try to exploit glitches, it could work differently. I look forward into playing with dolphin.

Hex editting is practically the same thing as changing asm in realtime, so I know I will be able to do that. I'm pretty good at making codes, except when the code im writing is bigger than the code I'm trying to replace. I hope some other people will also debug with dolphin so we can have more improvements. Cheat Engine will also be very useful.

 

[clubbadubba]

2. Some character's neutral specials were changed to be their side-specials. I don't see how you could get Pk fire or the boomerang back to neutral B.

Would this actually be hard? I don't have much insight into this but it seems like this would be one of the easiest things to manipulate in this whole project... Maybe the way its done makes it difficult?

 

[Zenyore]

3. Don't make claims against a game that is only in the rough planning stages. If you are interested, give Capps support, and when a playable build comes out, then provide input.

Having side Bs like Fox Illusion or Luigi/pikas missiles are a gamechanger in that they affect overall character performance. That's a fact not a claim.

Since PM was able to completely change Marios FLUDD to his original tornado, Id assume it shouldnt be too hard to change some neutral B to their 64 counterpart and then remove Side Bs alrogether as Capps stated there is already a code for that.

 

[clubbadubba]

Having side Bs like Fox Illusion or Luigi/pikas missiles are a gamechanger in that they affect overall character performance. That's a fact not a claim.

Since PM was able to completely change Marios FLUDD to his original tornado, Id assume it shouldnt be too hard to change some neutral B to their 64 counterpart and then remove Side Bs alrogether as Capps stated there is already a code for that.

I think its safe to say that overall character performance will be completely different no matter what upon first release of this project. That being said, side-b's that actually move a character certainly change the game a bit more than side-b's that are only another hitbox. I'm cool with either way, though probably partial to having side-b's.

 

[bloodpeach]

It's going to be a different game regardless, since we intend to reblance the game at some point anyway.

Besides, I don't think any of the new specials (outside of fox illusion) are that big of a concern.
I forsee little use falcon/pika/kirby/yoshi/jiggs/ness.
mario's cape might give him the edge he needs to break into top teir.
luigi's might improve his recovery enough to put him on equal footing with mario.
dk, samus and link get new moves which fit nicely their movesets, essentially adding a different version of moves they already have.
fox's is just too good of a neutral game and recovery option though, and will probably get a significant nerf if it stays in its current form at all. I think turning fox's nspec into a melee style no-stun laser and making his fspec into a somewhat nerfed version of his 64 laser is an option worth considering.

This is all a bit premature though. Gotta get that physics engine working before moves matter at all.

 

[Zenyore]

This is all a bit premature though. Gotta get that physics engine working before moves matter at all.

This really. While I do think sidespecs largely interfere with the game as 64 players are used to aiming the stick in either direction without expecting the Nspec to become an entirely different move, all this stuff is secondary taken the project's current development.

 

[clubbadubba]

oh **** i forgot if there are side-b's it makes it more difficult to do running shdl. damn

 

[LiteralGrill]

Yeah, I actually started thinking about how side B moves would REALLY mess with the game.

For the initial build I probably can't take them out just yet as some do need to be moved around, but I do know a code for no side B so that's easy when the time comes.