Return of the PM Character Survey

[Choice Scarf]

So I'm probably going to be double posting in this thread quite a bit I guess as updates continue. Apologizes in advance.

Anyway huge props to @ShadowGanon for sending me a method for making the box-plots, but unfortunately I think I realized that a greater problem existed where the box-plot concept wasn't that great of a representation of the data than I originally thought. This is inherent to the data set being limited by its range, as in it going from -3 to +3 makes the quartiles overlap or just look way to big and it's hard to understand that. So I'm going to just list the averages and medians and just mention which MUs were generally agreed and disagreed on because that's simpler to get the point across. We'll worry about how accurate the MUs actually are later, and hell it probably doesn't even matter at this stage.

So bad news out of the way, the good news is that cutting my losses freed me to finish up Bowser, so if any Bowser mains want to see what's on the slides for a quick quality check that would very much be appreciated (as in if anything doesn't make sense whether about the presentation or the data). I'm not sure what the order of characters will be when it's discussed on the subreddit, so I'm just going to do Ganon since A) he's popular and B) there's so much data that I'd want to just get it over with.

The next person to reply decides on the next character after that

 

[JayTheUnseen]

Hey,why not Ivysaur?

The effort you're putting in is super cool,dude!
I think I wished before there was a main guide to help me choose.While I don't need anymore,others surely will.

Props for taking the first steps in a big project!More people need to do this for other fighting games.After all,a lot of them are a lot more complex than Smash.Something like Soul Calibur,you gotta put hours in before you even see how the character fights.

 

[Choice Scarf]

it is.

I'd like to see how far this can go, and yeah it would actually be pretty cool if others can follow this example with other games just to prove that this concept actually works. Any improvements people think of is probably why I'm documenting the little nuances I find. Maybe someone could totally try doing this for sm4sh as well, since it's in the same situation being new and all (at least for preliminary impressions).

Just keep in mind, this is more of an overview thing instead of character specific guides. I'll leave that up to the experts and have the guide vicariously give the same info through hyperlinks because Google Docs are awesome like that. Thanks for the support!

 

[Choice Scarf]

Ganondorf is done! Ton of data out of the way, any quality checks are welcome. Kind of interesting to see how similar he is to Bowser but trades better defensive options for better combo potential.

I'm kind of sick with a cold though and have finals and a tourney coming up so I'm taking a break for a couple of days. I'll pick up on with Ivy maybe Tuesday. Also, just assume requesting the next character on deck in the following post is default from now on.

 

[Soft Serve]

Diddy please

A+ response times

 

[_Chrome]

Ness please! But Soft Serve was first, so serve him first.

 

[TreK]

Fantastic work !
Can't wait to see what the other Ivies have answered

 

[Soft Serve]

I'm most excited for the MU charts for each character. Its interesting to see how the character's mains see the MU's. I was surprised to see that most ganons thought the Diddy MU was only -1, go even with Ness and that they beat Yoshi.

Although I know the Diddy results are super inconsistant MU wise, the only things agreed on are that we lose to spacies and beat the fatties lol.

 

[Choice Scarf]

The averages don't really convey everyone's input quite as well as I hoped, so I'm also listing everyone's "vote" in notes for each MU cell here. Looking at Ganon v Diddy, it seems that it would actually hover closer to -2 but there's some evens and on outlier +2 that may be bumping the score up. There are probably similar nuances with the rest of the MUs too.

I'd like to implement the scale you see on the right later after processing is done, where more weight is given to people of higher skill level (which for now translates to where you are on the Smashboards rankings) and how much discussion you input. But this will come later once I'm sure about how to quantify various things

 

[Choice Scarf]

So after trying and failing to readjust my sleep schedule after some weirdly timed finals I've completed Ivysaur! I got the impression that there seemed to be a bit of positive bias, but that might just be aftershock of going through Bowser and Ganon who were traditionally on the disadvantageous end of the spectrum. Weird how the Marth MU averaged out to be not as bad as Smashboards would indicate otherwise, but I'm not going to judge beyond that. Also, no one mentioned what Ivy's unique techs were, so I'd appreciate it if someone could fill me in, or I might ask the Ivy boards later.

One quick thing before moving on to Diddy, one person said their favorite costume was "chromisaur", but I have no clue what color that might mean. Chrome is usually silvery and I don't think any of the costumes match this. Anyone have any ideas about which one this means?

 

[Soft Serve]

I think it's the light blueish one

Also idk how you would explain terms like staggered game states, slanted neutral, or whatever other than calling it pressured neutral or neutral where one character had control, normally through positioning

 

[CORY]

Ganondorf is done! Ton of data out of the way, any quality checks are welcome. Kind of interesting to see how similar he is to Bowser but trades better defensive options for better combo potential.

I'm kind of sick with a cold though and have finals and a tourney coming up so I'm taking a break for a couple of days. I'll pick up on with Ivy maybe Tuesday. Also, just assume requesting the next character on deck in the following post is default from now on.

just reading over this. who the hell said his roll and spot dodge are poor? is that pre 3.5? because, he literally has a fox tier spot dodge now, and he's always had (at least) decent rolls. (the comment is on p29).

then the one on p31 about not having a dthrow chain is flat wrong. it works at different percentages for slightly less time, but it's still present on almost every character you could do it to before.

 

[Choice Scarf]

@ Soft Serve I'd probably make it more clear that stagger game is keeping the opponent staggered/on tilt/at a disadvantage/etc. so the definition extends into combos, getting/keeping the opponent offstage, and outright kills. This splits the original definition of punish game, where the new punish game is more like the act of instantaneously being able to capitalize off of an opponent's mistakes. As an analogy, punishing is stealing the ball in soccer, while stagger game is keeping possession (****ty example since I'm not sure what counts as a neutral game in soccer but :/)

@ CORY Good info to know, it's just that those sections I kept unedited from the original responses just because I wasn't sure how to handle them. I could maybe do something similar to how I summarized people's beginner advice, but the comments in these sectioned are nowhere near as focused on the topic at hand (usually mixing topics instead of focusing solely on attributes/ATs/etc.). Pretty sure this is because of the inherent ambiguity of the questions.

I opened up comments for the PPT for further correction suggestions. Once I get the time I'll comment quoting you about this unless you want to do it yourself, and I'll italicize anything that's under contention. After going through all of the characters I'll probably try to make a better guidelike synopsis for all of these points, but I'm not sure I trust myself on how accurate it will be, and that may be for the meta resource instead since the PPT is just meant to report what people said.

 

[TreK]

Looking a bit harder into it, why are there two rows in the matchup spread ? I thought one was the exact average and the other was the rounded up value but it doesn't seem to be the case, actually.

It looks like none of what recall saying has made the cut, have I forgotten to press the send button ? God I'm stupid sometimes.

Also, no one mentioned what Ivy's unique techs were, so I'd appreciate it if someone could fill me in, or I might ask the Ivy boards later.

Yeah she lost a lot of them in 3.5 due to the changes to tethers, dacus, side B and footstools notably. What's left isn't really all that relevant, but here's a quick list, from most useful to most gimmicky imo :
-jab 1 and bair 1 are jab resets. This is important because Ivy can heal off of a jab reset.
-Ivy's dash grab is superior to her standing grab in almost every way, so no JC grabs as Ivy.
-You can grab the ledge backwards after an upB and a solar beam, allowing you to shoot those moves backwards while holding the ledge. It's used to cover high recoveries like Snake and Pit in example.
-Dair bumps you upward, but Ivysaur can press and hold down during that move to bump downwards instead.
-aerial up B has no landing lag if you land before entering freefall. Doing an aerial upB while under a platform will typically trigger this.
-You can shoot a down B from under the stage to put to sleep people who are standing near the ledge.

 

[Choice Scarf]

Second row is the median. No good way of really representing the MU stuff but for the purposes of the survey it's kind of minor for now.

And did you check if you were on the survey results list with the rest of the Ivys or anywhere else? I can't ctrl+F with your Smashboards name so maybe you used a different name?

 

[TreK]

oh the median I see. That explains it

oh right, that'd have been a nice place to check. Yeah I'm not in there so I must have forgotten to press send.
I can always fill the survey again, but I doubt it'd be worth your time to change the whole Ivy results because of me =P

 

[Choice Scarf]

I guess just double check next time lol. I want to say the survey is actually still open but will redirect your submission to "Form Responses 2" (or at least it should, haven't tested it yet). Since no one's bothered to fill out the survey again and if you are one of the few to submit a late opinion then after going through everything maybe I can sneak you in

Basically that means if you want to do it again you have ample time to do so at the cost of having to wait a while before you'll see your results in.

 

[TreK]

I do have a bit of time, so I'll fill it again. But my previous answers might be in that folder as well, I only discovered this thread recently. If that's the case, just delete the older one I've filled when you go back on older characters =P

 

[Choice Scarf]

Diddy Kong done! See here.

Guide wise, because of the low numbers stuff for the ratings and MU stuff is somewhat limited and probably inaccurate, and the amount of beginner advice was surprisingly low, but this will probably be a trend for the characters with relatively fewer surveys. Otherwise it's like it always has been, though the wordcloud is kind of meh but the site I'm using has very limited options for color palettes.

I would at least like to clear up some thoughts for Diddy mains though probably to @ Soft Serve . For Diddy's strengths and weaknesses, I get the impression that a lot of them are interrelated, for example how Diddy has a good neutral game because of great stage control, and that's because of his bananas (or at least that's my impression). I'm just looking for ways of making the strengths and weaknesses more concise, since the lists as is are rather large right now.

EDIT: Also, mentioning that the next char is Ness, then Ice Climbers via reddit suggestion. I may just go with another high data (many surveys) char like Roy if no one says anything else.

 

[Soft Serve]

Strengths:
great combo game
fast
flexible recovery
Bananas (Punish tools, OoS options, best stagger game tools, etc)
cons:
exploitable/bad hitboxes on recovery
Combo food
****ty hitboxes outside bair
low kill potential, gets "marthed"
Low tier character if the opponent steals the banana (diddy loses all options but grab and bair, opponent gets all banana options plus thier own)

 

[Choice Scarf]

I think what I have is mostly like what you have, so that's good lol.

When you say bad hitboxes, do you mean they have bad range, or something weird like they don't last long enough or are not in line with the animations?

 

[Soft Serve]

They are really small, no disjoints, poor range, small active frames, other than bair. Bair is godlike.

I feel like I went over board on the survey compared to what everyone else put in lol.

 

[Choice Scarf]

It's all up to you if the effort is worth it, but I have many arguments supporting it. Whenever discussion about this stuff actually happens it saves you the trouble of having to retype it if it's saved somewhere. On my end as both the surveyor and a neutral viewpoint on most characters I find more comprehensive info always appreciated to better understand the characters. And it shows how much dedication and passion you put into your main, which can hopefully inspire others to do the same and open up further discussion.That's partially why I started the survey in the first place.

So thanks for filling in the blanks! Much obliged!

 

[Choice Scarf]

Ayyy, so it's been way too long since I last updated this, but to compensate I've finished both Ness and Captain Falcon! Look at what you will, though there are still a couple of things to clean up. For Ness I'm not sure what his fighter archetype exactly is, as it feels like everyone said different things, and it would be nice if someone could elucidate the strengths and weaknesses a little better as some traits ended up being listed as both. For Falcon, some people commented that their favorite costumes were "Ronald McDonald", "Batman", and "Star Trek", and I can't tell if they're trolling, these are custom costumes, or they're actually nicknames that I was unaware of. I'm most inclined to say one of the first two.

Anyway, the request format will change a little as it will be following the smashbros subreddit BKAM series (AKA alphabetical) so those characters will take priority. I'll probably try to alternate between alphabet and requests though, so I'm still working on Ice Climbers next, but Charizard will follow right after, then request, and so on.

And just a warning that this whole process might slow down like it has been just because grad school decided to kick it into high gear now. I'll have less time for smash let alone this . If anyone wants to help contribute for any of the remaining characters, now would be a good time to let me know!

 

[Foo]

Who the !@#$ gave falcon "fair" for ground mobility and "average" shffl? Like... wtf...

 

[gtAngel]

Just filled out the survey for Marth. Incidentally I'd like to request the results for Marth because I want to see where people stand on a bunch of matchups. :D

 

[Blazing Ambition]

That falcon word cloud is legit.

 

[Choice Scarf]

So fantastic news but luckily survey info after the cut off WAS saved without me even realizing it, so like I said way before you'll be able to submit a survey but I'll add the data in after the initial submissions are processed. I guess it would be a good opportunity to sway the data post mortem if you don't agree with anything about votes about attributes/ATs/Game Phase (like what Foo was talking about), MU opinion contribution (like what gtAngel said) and probably the auxiliary things, particularly costume tallies. Anything about the character's overview, pros and cons, and advice can probably left on this thread directly with a much better chance of being updated in a timely fashion

Anyway, Marth has claim after Charizard now. Going to try to hammer out ICs and Charizard this week or next week at latest.

So um, let's see...

@ Foo , psst, you could possibly look up everyone's answers from the survey sheet, though remember that this survey was also posted to reddit where the average character knowledge is... different

@ gtAngel Again, your Marth request is good, I only ask for patience from you and whoever else is below the cutoff line of this spreadsheet, which is just all of the submissions in chronological order. I'll get to them eventually!

 

[Cubelarooso]

Batman is a 20XX costume, Ronald is an amazing, classic custom skin, and I'd guess Star Trek refers to Retro Falcon, since the arrow is almost kinda vaguely reminiscent of the Starfleet emblem.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Very important project, too bad I missed the first survey analysis deadline. This could be very useful not only for PM, but for fighting games in general.

 

[Choice Scarf]

Psst. New survey that can automatically process the data here. Don't tell anybody it's still a work in progress.

 

[Choice Scarf]

Timeleaped double posts yay!

So now that 3.6 is officially gold, it may be good to reopen this character survey to see where people stand with their characters before we get too deep with the meta. I updated the survey for relevance (aka no more clone character placeholders). If anyone wants to try the survey is here and you can see the results here. If you already tried the version from my last post it's essentially the same thing so unless you want to do another character you can just edit your previous responses or something. I've updated the OP properly to and will probably add more details as needed.

I unfortunately can't get the survey to update the attribute and MU pages automatically. Every time a response is sent it adds another row to the subsheet instead of replacing one already there, and the formulas detecting the filters gets confused because the max range suddenly increases. I'll need to go in and manually delete extra rows, so expect that around 8 pm EST tonight I guess.

Feedback is appreciated as always, especially if you know how to fix my problem

 

[_Chrome]

I finished the survey! Where's my cookie?

 

[Choice Scarf]

Check your browser :3

 

[_Chrome]

Check your browser :3

I see what you did there.

 

[Choice Scarf]

Okay, weighting system is removed because it was interfering with the range detection. Now it automatically updates at the cost of the numbers looking much worse! Weighting can be something we try again later if this gets serious I guess.

 

[KinGly]

Well... I think I just spent the last half hour accidentally filling out the outdated survey.

RIP

Its 1 AM. I think I'll just fill it out tomorrow.

edit: decided to do it anyway

 

[AuraMaudeGone]

Can I use these results for the Community MU Chart?

 

[Choice Scarf]

KinGly Sorry bud, I guess I'll just remove the links from the OP to make it less confusing. Or find the old survey and update that to say use the new one. Nah I'll do both.

AuraMaudeGone I can give you permission but the numbers don't follow the same standards your chart does so that data may not be helpful. Also because users can edit their answers the results can change anytime. I think it may be better to stay separate for a while, since yours is definitely more accurate since it's backed up by discussion whereas mine just asks the survey taker to pick a number and I don't want to ruin that.

 

[Saproling]

Fudge I did this on my phone and messed some stuff up. I meant to put 4 for edge guarding 1 for recovery as well as 2 for dash dance and 3 for zoning sorry for the inconvenience.