Roster Discussion Thread (Closed)

[---]

Don't we already have both a Sheik and Impa thread for this kind of stuff?

 

[FlareHabanero]

Don't even get started with the whole Mewtwo thing ether. That character sucked so badly on the competitive scene but gained a cult following of sorts after being cut from Brawl. In fact Mewtwo didn't get to his current position until after Super Smash Bros. Brawl came out.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Why though? She was only added to give Zelda a gimmick, which isn't all that unique anymore compared to ZSS and Pokemon Trainer. And speaking of Zero Suit Samus, it just proves the point even the oldest of veterans can have their moveset changed significantly (Samus, original 8). Sheik would probably never get in separately, nor ever return to a Zelda game that's not a OoT remake. Plus, Ganondorf with his own style would probably satisfy the true fans more, especially if they do it based on the boss battle in OoT.

Brawl Sheik wasn't good in competitive play at all. So any fan following is only for Melee players, who will probably chose to keep on playing Melee anyways. For in being Melee. Sheik is mostly vallued for her moveset and playstyle, so if Impa proves a good replacement there's no huge issue.

We have a thread for just about any character and nobody posts there. We speak about all characters, all of the time. Should that be moved to those char's specific threads?

 

[Deleted member]

Again, Mewtwo is not that bad. You make it sound like he's within the bottom 3.

EDIT: Anyone who tries to use ZSS or Pokemon Trainer as reason against Sheik (despite the "beloved" Impa being no different in this regard) is being stupid.
Sheilda: Able to switch between two "characters" at will.
Samus/Zamus: Can only switch through Final Smash (or through secret command from Samus to Zamus only).
Trainer: Switching is required due to Stamina. Autoswitch occurs with every fall.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Which he was, at one point. People just aren't motivated to play as him, as he's difficult. Hence why I was also upset, cause of the potential he could have to be buffed significantly. Much like G&W, who's High Tier now in Brawl, and pretty much Bottom tier in Melee.

 

[FlareHabanero]

Again, Mewtwo is not that bad. You make it sound like he's within the bottom 3.

He WAS in the bottom 3 for years, until 2010 when he got out of that general area.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

Roy isn't that great in the competitive sense, yet still retains popularity just for being a redhead with a flaming sword.
I'm sure losing "Ninja Zelda" (that's pretty much what Sheik is) would cause similar issue even if she wasn't near the top in competitive game in Melee.

And Sheik is still better than Zelda in the current metagame. Because she isn't as badly designed. Albeit, Sheik was weakened and Zelda was buffed, but that didn't change many in the grand schemes of things. Few use them combined for it to matter.

 

[BKupa666]

I hope it didn't sound like I was implying that low tier characters are inherently unpopular. That's absolutely false, because Smash leads to instant popularity for even the most unplayable characters, bar none.

However, I do believe that, for some characters, their competitive abilities can boost their fandom quite a bit. I believe this applies to Falco even more heavily than it does for Sheik, since Sheik at least has an original moveset and the 'ninja' image to her name. It's realistic to imagine that, had Falco been in Melee's bottom tier, as a clone, he wouldn't have been brought back for Brawl. And likewise, had Mewtwo been top tier, he may have been a higher priority to keep.

/hypothetical speculation

 

[Deleted member]

He WAS in the bottom 3 for years, until 2010 when he got out of that general area.

And that automatically means that he still is that bad because people didn't know **** about playing as him?
Well then, that must mean Jigglypuff is not one of the best characters, since she only got added to the Top Tier in 2010.

 

[Diddy Kong]

Which is why the mechanic proves to be uneffective in it's design. In Melee, Sheik was clearly too powerful, as it was assumed you play Sheik to do damage, then finish with Zelda. Yet, Zelda sucks, and Sheik can finish better herself. In Brawl, Sheik was nerfed, yet Zelda also remained poorly designed. Hence they really need to work on Zelda, and removing the gimmick of Sheik would be able to make her more well-rounded. And give her a Down B.

As said even by HyperFalcon, nobody plays as both the characters anyway. With Pokemon Trainer for example, you're kind of forced to play as all characters, cause if you get KO'd, the next Pokemon comes into place. With Zelda / Sheik such a thing wouldn't make sence. Plus, there's potential for much different duo characters to be included instead. Impa preserving Sheik's old style would be a good replacement therefore I feel.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

It's realistic to imagine that, had Falco been in Melee's bottom tier, as a clone, he wouldn't have been brought back for Brawl.

Not exactly. Piichu actually does evolve to Pikachu, so it can still be the same person being played again.(some even think Pichu could've evolve into Pikachu for his new version, but other than a few costumes, it means little. Pikachu was based mainly upon Ash's anyway)

Doctor Mario technically is Mario(albeit, they're clearly different people in Smash, as the Doc, if I remember correctly jumps onto Mario in Adventure Mode to replace him. Or was that just Luigi? But every playable new slot(and some within the same slot) are different people anyway), so his loss wasn't as huge. Falco is more like losing Roy, an entirely unique person(in every way that just happened to be a clone.) Or like losing Mewtwo was.

 

[Deleted member]

You STILL believe that removing Sheik will automatically make Zelda better?
Do you ever learn?

 

[FlareHabanero]

And that automatically means that he still is that bad because people didn't know **** about playing as him?

He is still bad despite the increase in popularity. He absolutely get's decimated by all of the High Tier threats in the game due to his combination of large size and floaty weight making him a huge target for combos, which is not a good thing because Melee has a notable pension for favoring characters that can preform very wickedly fast actions from the likes of Fox, Sheik, and Marth. Combined with the awkward KO options, and Mewtwo struggles against the bigger threats in the game, which in turn means he will struggle to rise even further. Seriously, flaws are flaws regardless on how you view at them.

Of course this more on a base by base situation, as I am well aware of individual strength being a factor too.

Well then, that must mean Jigglypuff is not one of the best characters, since she only got added to the Top Tier in 2010.

At least Jigglypuff was consistently within the above normal range, with her average being around position 8 or so. The lowest she ever was on the first tier list back in 2002, which was around the time people were still experimenting with the characters. As such it's no longer reflective of anything at this point.

 

[DragonSniperNintendo]

Lucina would perhaps indeed take priority as a 'secondary' character, but Sothe / Micaiah are easily more unique.

Could help you, but am not too experienced. If you Google 'Fire Emblem 6 English' you already come a long way. YouTube has instuctions as well.

Wish Fire Emblem was more popular. Then we could've perhaps indeed have 5 characters...

Ike's cut would kinda upset me, but I could see it happening. Especially if they wanna keep the roster to a minimum, thus only having 2 chars for FE. Was really supportive to his inclusion in Brawl, and his playstyle in Brawl is quite unique. Also don't think Chrom call pull of the same playstyle quite as easily, as Ike also looks a lot more brutish than Chrom, but as with Lucario / Mewtwo, Chrom could just take priority over Ike.

Would miss Ike though. He's still the most awesome FE char to this date imo.

I think the Fire Emblem roster at this point deserves to at least be 3. I could see 3 on the disc and you could easily download 1-2 more. 5 with DLC is not that farfetched given the fact of how popular it is in Japan and the fact we could easily see quite the amount of DLC as well (giving other franchises' boosts to their rosters as well).

I think for now I am sticking to the Marth, Micaiah (w/ or w/o Sothe), and Chrom roster on the disc while Radiant Dawn Ike and Lucina (or Awakening Lyn) is DLC.

Outside of Lyn, quite the roster of recent and relevant characters.

 

[ChronoBound]

Here is a poll I looked at in regards to Star Fox that I think is interesting:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/633202-super-smash-bros-wii-u/65162191/730777851

Which of these would you have as the playable representation? - Results (105 votes)
Fox, Falco, Wolf: 42.86%: (45)
Fox, Falco, Wolf, Krystal: 14.29%: (15)
Fox, Falco, Krystal: 5.71%: (6)
Fox, Wolf, Krystal 16.19% (17)
Fox, Falco 6.67% (7)
Fox, Wolf 11.43% (12)
Fox, Krystal 2.86% (3)

Total votes for Wolf: 89 (84.76%)
Total votes for Falco: 73 (69.52%)
Total votes for Krystal: 41 (39.04%)

Votes for four playable characters: 15 (14.29%)
Votes for three playable characters: 68 (64.76%)
Votes for two playable characters: 22 (20.95%)

There are two interesting things that I got from looking at this poll:
1. There seems to be more interest in Wolf returning than Falco.
2. That there is more support for Star Fox to go back to two playable characters than to jump to four playable characters.

By far the most popular option for Star Fox in terms of playable characters is to leave the representation the same as it was in Brawl (Fox, Falco, Wolf). Four playable characters was not even the second-most popular option (rather it was another three character selection). Krystal is also much less popular than both Falco and Wolf (the discrepancy between Falco and Krystal in terms of votes is much greater than the discrepancy between Falco and Wolf), so hijacking a spot from one of those two would be met with a very negative reaction. The fact that there is more support for two playable character scenario than a four playable character one means that there are many people who feel the series has more playable characters that it needs/deserves right now.

Overall, I think that Fox, Falco, and Wolf is the most likely scenario for Smash 4.

I am curious if anyone else has any thoughts about this.

 

[Verde Coeden Scalesworth]

As said even by HyperFalcon, nobody plays as both the characters anyway.

...That is NOT what I said. I said many don't play as both. Also, it's because Zelda sucks and Sheik is better in both Brawl and Melee. Removing the better character is... really stupid.

No, it would not make Zelda better. The only way to make Zelda better is to make her actually better. Removing Sheik at best makes her worse.

 

[Johnknight1]

NINE-THOUSAND POSSSSTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!

Also, how the heck did this topic go through over 800 posts in under a week=??? Was there some huge announcement I missed=???

Personally, I'd like Chun-Li in Smash since I feel she'd just be a lot more interesting. And we can have the awaited battle of Samus against Chun-Li.

Nah, if we ever get a Street Fighter character in smash, it should be one of the weird ones, like Blanka!

However, I do believe that, for some characters, their competitive abilities can boost their fandom quite a bit. I believe this applies to Falco even more heavily than it does for Sheik, since Sheik at least has an original moveset and the 'ninja' image to her name. It's realistic to imagine that, had Falco been in Melee's bottom tier, as a clone, he wouldn't have been brought back for Brawl. And likewise, had Mewtwo been top tier, he may have been a higher priority to keep.

I don't think it is tiers as much as how much work it would be to recreate characters. The ideas and changes to Falco probably were seamless. Sheik only required small changes.

With Mewtwo, his entire moveset was awful, his hit boxes were some of the worst I've seen, and he had so many moves that he shouldn't have had to begin with. That plus Sonic being re-added late, a rookie C-grade development team with no fighting game experience, and deadlines lead to Mewtwo unfortunately getting a late-ish development axe.

 

[Big-Cat]

Nah, if we ever get a Street Fighter character in smash, it should be one of the weird ones, like Blanka!

How about Hakan?

 

[DragonSniperNintendo]

The Zelda Roster:

-Link (Skyward Sword)
-Zelda w/ Impa (Skyward Sword)
-Ghirahim (Skyward Sword)
-Ganondorf (Ocarina of Time 3D)
-Toon Link (Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks)

Alt Costumes:

-Skyloft Link
-White "Priestess" Dress Zelda w/ Scarf Impa
-2nd Form Ghirahim
-Twilight Princess Ganondorf
-Conductor Toon Link

Alt Characters:

-Ocarina of Time 3D Link
-Ocarina of Time 3D Zelda w/ Sheik

 

[3Bismyname]

Here is a poll I looked at in regards to Star Fox that I think is interesting:
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/633202-super-smash-bros-wii-u/65162191/730777851

Which of these would you have as the playable representation? - Results (105 votes)
Fox, Falco, Wolf: 42.86%: (45)
Fox, Falco, Wolf, Krystal: 14.29%: (15)
Fox, Falco, Krystal: 5.71%: (6)
Fox, Wolf, Krystal 16.19% (17)
Fox, Falco 6.67% (7)
Fox, Wolf 11.43% (12)
Fox, Krystal 2.86% (3)

Total votes for Wolf: 89 (84.76%)
Total votes for Falco: 73 (69.52%)
Total votes for Krystal: 41 (39.04%)

Votes for four playable characters: 15 (14.29%)
Votes for three playable characters: 68 (64.76%)
Votes for two playable characters: 22 (20.95%)

There are two interesting things that I got from looking at this poll:
1. There seems to be more interest in Wolf returning than Falco.
2. That there is more support for Star Fox to go back to two playable characters than to jump to four playable characters.

By far the most popular option for Star Fox in terms of playable characters is to leave the representation the same as it was in Brawl (Fox, Falco, Wolf). Four playable characters was not even the second-most popular option (rather it was another three character selection). Krystal is also much less popular than both Falco and Wolf (the discrepancy between Falco and Krystal in terms of votes is much greater than the discrepancy between Falco and Wolf), so hijacking a spot from one of those two would be met with a very negative reaction. The fact that there is more support for two playable character scenario than a four playable character one means that there are many people who feel the series has more playable characters that it needs/deserves right now.

Overall, I think that Fox, Falco, and Wolf is the most likely scenario for Smash 4.

I am curious if anyone else has any thoughts about this.

makes sense. Wolf always seemed more popular than Falco to begin with. but i'm glad people are sensible about the size of this franchise. and im pretty glad people would rather keep Falco than add Krystal

 

[Johnknight1]

VEGETA, WHAT DOES THE SCOUTER SAY ABOUT MY POST COUNT LEVEL!?!?!? also, this video is EPIC!!!

@ Chrono
This is to be expected, since Krystal only appears in the unpopular Star Fox games, and she is terribly characterized. That and Wolf and Falco are pure Western-styled BAMFs.

How about Hakan?

Green Guys > Red Guys normally. But since the Niners are in the playoffs sure, why not=??? Also, M. Bison would make a fine choice, and notjjust because he wears red.

 

[Starphoenix]

I thought the Smash Bros community already buried Krystal a long time ago?

 

[ChronoBound]

I thought the Smash Bros community already buried Krystal a long time ago?

Krystal is still within the Top 10 most wanted characters (or at least on this site). However, this site does have a lot of furries. Though I do think she is definitely the second-most wanted female character in the West (behind only Palutena). Dixie Kong is the third-most wanted one in the West, though second worldwide. I think Dixie Kong would probably become the most wanted female character if K. Rool AND Palutena are confirmed early on.

 

[Johnknight1]

^^^ Krystal's fan base is largely relegated into a super hardcore post-Star Fox fan base centered around games that most gamers who game frequently do not realize exist.

I thought the Smash Bros community already buried Krystal a long time ago?

We already largely did. Although I wouldn't mind we bury the post-Star Fox 64 history of Star Fox, sans Star Fox 64 3D and Star Fox characters' non-Star Fox appearances.

I suppose an exception can be made for some of the Assault soundtrack, which is surprisingly good. More proof that orchestrated versions of songs are nearly always better!

 

[Starphoenix]

All I know is if there was a character whose boat has already passed, it would be her. Just seperate Fox, Falco and Wolf some more, and there shouldn't be any complaints.

 

[Johnknight1]

All I know is if there was a character whose boat has already passed, it would be her. Just seperate Fox, Falco and Wolf some more, and there shouldn't be any complaints.

I think we can put Victini, Medusa, and perhaps even Genesect in that boat as well. Although most of those characters' fan bases seem to have all but dissolve, save for Genesect.

Genesect may still yet have a small but realistic chance to be playable, but at the current time it seems to be very minimal at best.

Victini and Medusa... you can scratch them off your lottery tickets. Heck, I thought you could scratch Medusa's chances off a year ago!

 

[Big-Cat]

@Star
You mean under the whole "rep limit" and "deemed unlikely" stuff?

 

[Starphoenix]

@Star
You mean under the whole "rep limit" and "deemed unlikely" stuff?

Don't even need to dig that deep; just in terms of popularity alone.

 

[BKupa666]

Krystal's only real shot at this point is Sakurai adding her based off her Brawl popularity, which is far lower than Falco and Wolf's current popularity anyways.

Palutena is ten times the staff user Krystal would ever be.

 

[ChronoBound]

Medusa was only popular for like two years. Victini probably not even one year. They burned up much more quickly than Krystal did. Krystal's burn off was much more slow (especially when you compare it to other popular pre-Brawl characters like Geno and Lyn). Initially, there were a lot of people angry that another "Fox clone" got in over Krystal (I think the reason why people thought Krystal was a shoe-in was due to the "dark colored" Fox and Krystal's voice actress saying she did voice work for Brawl). However, as the years went on, people realized that Sakurai made the right choice. Its also important to keep in mind that the Wolf fanbase was on par with Krystal's even in the West during pre-Brawl, its just that over time the Wolf fanbase was being demoralized and made more passive during the twilight of pre-Brawl (from September 2007 onward).

Speaking of Lyn, I think Lucina is going to be the next female Fire Emblem character they will board the next bandwagon to (that or Anna). Ever since Lyn was de-confirmed during pre-Brawl, her fanbase has gravitated toward whatever female Fire Emblem character they felt was the most likely at the time. Next was Micaiah, then when Marth's two remakes came out, it was Sheeda/Caeda. Then it was Liz (when people were assuming that she was the second lord of FE13). Then it was Anna (when she was confirmed as a playable character in FE13), who didn't take off compared to the previous ones. Now, when FE13 is released its going to be Lucina.

I expect Lucina fans to argue that despite her very close design similarities to Marth that she could be a very light, very quick character, that Marth should be a middle-ground character (based off of his Shadow Dragon/New Mystery of the Emblem design), and that Chrom should be the heavy-weight and power character. The dumber ones will argue for Lucina to replace Marth, and for it just to be Lucina and Chrom.

 

[3Bismyname]

at this point the only thing i think that really helps Krystal is that she has the potential to be very different from the other Star Fox characters. not much else.

 

[Johnknight1]

@ Chrono
What's funny is although Krystal's voice actresses did Krystal's voice, she did do a playable character in Zero Suit Samus. IMO she did Zero Suit Samus' voice quite well.

Back on topic, a lot of fading popularity has to do with:
1. People supporting characters because they're popular. People are quick to jump on the hype train for little to no reason, other than it's the flavor of the day. I remember about 4 months ago some random Fire Emblem support characters' GameFAQs popularity took off, and afterwards, her true fans wondered where all those random "sudden converted fans" went.

2. People want sexually arousing characters. A few pervs want more females w/ boobs in smash. A few creepy pervs want fury females w/ boobs/fur in smash. Once that initial attraction period is over (up to 6 months usually, as per a "common crush"), the sore fictional female-obsessed male finds another desired fictional mating partner.

3. Once a ship seems to have sailed, people stop vocally supporting it, because it seems worthless to support. For example, I would love to play as Proto Man in a Smash Bros. game as much as I would want to play as Mega Man, but quite frankly, Proto Man will never be playable in smash bros other than player-made mods. Because of this, you don't see me or other Proto Man fans support Proto Man as a playable character. Instead, we focus more on wanting Mega Man (usually) in hopes of Proto Man colored Mega Man outfits, Proto Man serving some kind of role, and easier and better Proto Man fan-made mods.

I think something similar happened with support of K. Rool/Dixie fans. Once we saw Diddy confirmed, support for K. Rool and Dixie went up, and stayed up. Of course, with Proto Man, that's a different story, because he's a 3rd party character, and so far the "rule" seems to be 1 per franchise/company (which, if broken, it will be broken by Tails).

4. Once the newness of a game or series wears off, people seem to get over it. For example, Kid Icarus: Uprising came out, and a lot of posters were all over Paletuna and Medusa, and they were easily 2 of the 5 or so most posted about characters. Now, Medusa support is for all intensive purposes dead, and Paletuna support has stabilized into a borderline top 10 posted about character. Part of this change came with a realistic realization and expectation that Paletuna also may very well not be playable.

Something similar-ish happened with Krystal in Star Fox 64 3D coming out. Even though she wasn't playable in that game, it was still used as a platform to promote Krystal because Star Fox was relevant through the only popular and well-received game being re-made 16 years later! Krystal also appeared in 3 games as a "main character" released across about 4 years, whereas Victini/Genesect were in 2 versions of 2 games, which were released about a year apart.

5. People are super fans of games. They want "representation" of those games' characters, rather than wanting the characters for themselves. Look at Pokémon Black and White: lots of people were talking about how it might be the best Pokémon release ever. The same thing happened with Black and White 2. Now, with X and Y, those fans have shifted over to the newer games, and they'll clamor for a new "representation" for that game instead.

6. People like character designs over characters. For example, people opposed Zoroark merely because he looked ugly and was anthropomorphic (like Mewtwo, Lucario, Deoxys, etc). Some people opposed Victini (and other Pokémon) because they were too "kiddie." The inverse was true. I find that many supporters of Dark Samus just want Dark Samus because she looks cool, for example.

There's more examples of this, but I don't feel like going any further into any such areas that may or may not be true beyond a small fan base.

 

[ChronoBound]

Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (Luigi's Mansion 2) now has a release date in North America. Its March 24. I was thinking Nintendo was planning on holding this game off until Q2 but looks like its going to be a very late Q1 game.

 

[DragonSniperNintendo]

Medusa was only popular for like two years. Victini probably not even one year. They burned up much more quickly than Krystal did. Krystal's burn off was much more slow (especially when you compare it to other popular pre-Brawl characters like Geno and Lyn). Initially, there were a lot of people angry that another "Fox clone" got in over Krystal (I think the reason why people thought Krystal was a shoe-in was due to the "dark colored" Fox and Krystal's voice actress saying she did voice work for Brawl). However, as the years went on, people realized that Sakurai made the right choice. Its also important to keep in mind that the Wolf fanbase was on par with Krystal's even in the West during pre-Brawl, its just that over time the Wolf fanbase was being demoralized and made more passive during the twilight of pre-Brawl (from September 2007 onward).

Speaking of Lyn, I think Lucina is going to be the next female Fire Emblem character they will board the next bandwagon to (that or Anna). Ever since Lyn was de-confirmed during pre-Brawl, her fanbase has gravitated toward whatever female Fire Emblem character they felt was the most likely at the time. Next was Micaiah, then when Marth's two remakes came out, it was Sheeda/Caeda. Then it was Liz (when people were assuming that she was the second lord of FE13). Then it was Anna (when she was confirmed as a playable character in FE13), who didn't take off compared to the previous ones. Now, when FE13 is released its going to be Lucina.

I expect Lucina fans to argue that despite her very close design similarities to Marth that she could be a very light, very quick character, that Marth should be a middle-ground character (based off of his Shadow Dragon/New Mystery of the Emblem design), and that Chrom should be the heavy-weight and power character. The dumber ones will argue for Lucina to replace Marth, and for it just to be Lucina and Chrom.

I am more of the person looking at the last 4 games of Fire Emblem. Three from last gen (the main gen they will look at) and one from the current gen (where some of the more recent things will come from).

I believe the five choices I posted earlier fit those four games really well and best rep them.

Marth, Micaiah, Chrom, Lucina (DLC), & Ike (DLC)

The likes of Liz, Frederick, Sheeda, Lethe, Soren, etc are best saved for ATs.

 

[IntelliHeath1]

Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon (Luigi's Mansion 2) now has a release date in North America. Its March 24. I was thinking Nintendo was planning on holding this game off until Q2 but looks like its going to be a very late Q1 game.

I wonder if Sakurai will ever change Luigi's moveset. I thought they would give him Luigi Mansion moveset for Brawl but I was wrong. I don't think they will change his moveset for SSB4.

 

[ChronoBound]

Toise brought this up a long time ago, but I will repeat it here because I think few people have heard this, but his belief is that Star Fox series got lucky twice to get to three playable characters. Falco, like the other six clones, was not originally planned to be a part of Melee's roster, and it only happened when Sakurai felt Melee's roster was too small. With Brawl, Wolf was either the last or second-to-last character added to the game. A Star Fox newcomer barely got in both times, and in both of those times, the newcomer was based off of a character already on the roster.

Anyway, I have been exploring the idea of character DLC more. A lot of people seem to support the idea, and personally I would be in support of the idea too if its the only way to bring back everyone (even Dr. Mario and Pichu). However, I am looking into it and a lot of questions remain.

1. How many fighting games have DLC characters that are not already on-disc?
2. How many characters are offered as DLC for these fighting games (especially for ones in which the characters are not on-disc).
3. What is the amount of time from the game's launch to the final DLC character release?

I need to know the answers to these questions in order to make a much better assessment on what the probability of us receiving character DLC for Smash 4.

Mortal Kombat 2011 (which I heard did not have its DLC characters on disc) had four DLC characters.
Street Fighter X Tekken (which had its DLC characters on disc) has 14 DLC characters.
Marvel vs. Capcom 3 had two DLC character (with half of their files already on disc).
PlayStation All-Stars (which I am not sure if the files for its DLC characters were on disc) has had two DLC characters so far (no word whether there will be any more).
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (which at least had some of its DLC characters on-disc) had 14 DLC characters.

Overall, from what I have been reading DLC is usually a scam. Most of the time the characters are already on disc (especially for games in which there is a high number of them). For the few games in which they are not on-disc (at least that I am aware of), there is only a few of them in number.

This brief research I have done does not inspire optimism for possible character DLC in Smash 4. I know Sakurai as a gamer designer would vehemently be against leaving characters on disc, and having us pay for them to be unlocked as "DLC". The only characters I could see Sakurai doing as DLC are characters he had the intention of putting in the roster, but had to cut them out due to time constraints (basically like most of Brawl's Forbidden 7).

 

[MarioNPinkie]

I wonder if Sakurai will ever change Luigi's moveset. I thought they would give him Luigi Mansion moveset for Brawl but I was wrong. I don't think they will change his moveset for SSB4.

Luigi's moveset will be tweaked slightly my guess is im pretty sure that will happen

 

[JPW]

I feel Luigi's moveset is fine. To me he no longer feels like a clone. The only thing Mario and Luigi share i think are fireballs and the spinning uppercut.

Fireballs make sense though. Cause Luigi also shoots fireballs when he gets a fireflower in NSMB games and SMB. So it's not really a clone move.

The Spinning UpperCut kind of works for both of them too. And it's slightly different.

 

[Diddy Kong]

I think the StarFox cast is fine now as it is. Maybe revamp a few specials of Falco and Wolf, and of coarse a different Final Smash, and they're good to go. Especially Wolf, cause in his regular attacks he plays nothing like Fox.

I do indeed think StarFox is lucky to get all the characters it has in Smash. And therefore I doubt we'll get another.

 

[Robert of Normandy]

Mortal Kombat 2011 (which I heard did not have its DLC characters on disc) had four DLC characters.
Street Fighter X Tekken (which had its DLC characters on disc) has 14 DLC characters.
Marvel vs. Capcom 3 had two DLC character (with half of their files already on disc).
PlayStation All-Stars (which I am not sure if the files for its DLC characters were on disc) has had two DLC characters so far (no word whether there will be any more).
Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (which at least had some of its DLC characters on-disc) had 14 DLC characters.

Overall, from what I have been reading DLC is usually a scam. Most of the time the characters are already on disc (especially for games in which there is a high number of them). For the few games in which they are not on-disc (at least that I am aware of), there is only a few of them in number.

Keep in mind that TTT2's characters are free(at least I think they are). It's my understanding that some of the DLC characters were originally used as pre-order bonuses, but were eventually released to everyone for free. Given that TTT2 was developed by Namco, I don't think you should worry about Smash 4 DLC being a scam.