SD Remix - 3.3 Full with Slippi Rollback Released!

[_Snover_]

I agree, this sounds interesting.

 

[Stormghetti]

I don't want this to die this early...

 

[♡ⓛⓞⓥⓔ♡]

Is this the future of SD Remix?

I really think it should be. THIS is what I am talking about, conservative buffs is the way to go

 

[_Snover_]

Yesss, I agree very much with what Scrumpy had to say.

 

[Ripple]

scrumpy is a fool if he actually thinks that roy would be viable after fixing the roy zone and giving him a slightly better recovery. he still a huge weaknesses

 

[♡ⓛⓞⓥⓔ♡]

scrumpy is a fool if he actually thinks that roy would be viable after fixing the roy zone and giving him a slightly better recovery. he still a huge weaknesses

He's version looks more polished than the SDR one with a gimmicky Bair kill move. Also, didn't you see the hitstun on Roy's aerials?

 

[_Snover_]

scrumpy is a fool if he actually thinks that roy would be viable after fixing the roy zone and giving him a slightly better recovery. he still a huge weaknesses

Scrumples's changes are on the right track, even if they don't make Roy the best he could be. They stay true to his playstyle in Melee. Sure, there probably should be more buffs to make him viable, but I think that his current changes start the concept off so that he can be improved in ways that are healthy for the game.

 

[Ripple]

having a kill aerial not a gimmick. wtf? having no aerial that can kill or even edgeguard people going high is a ridiculous weakness that HAS to be addressed.

dair is stupid but like I said, 2 characters with identical movesets is stupid

 

[Quillion]

MagicScrumpy should definitely be brought on to help with SDR. If not, he should just make his own balance patch as a "competitor" to this one.

As was said earlier we have been seeing a little more publicity with SDR, especially as it's been incorporated into 20XX (but, please Achilles1515 , remove the "Falcon Shine"), and that alone gives us more hope. But as both ♡ⓛⓞⓥⓔ♡ and I think, there needs to be a serious analysis and revamp on the skill-reward ratio akin to the PM 3.0 -> 3.5 update.

And again, if there was an SDRL update that allows vanilla/SDR character switching, our lives would be made so much easier for this task.

 

[MagicScrumpy]

For real? I'd love to help with the project! I'd much rather help out than make my own because I don't want to compete to try to make the more fun balance patch; besides, if we all put our heads together, we can come up with something way better than anything we could come up with individually. It would be an honor to work with you guys and help create the best Melee balance patch we can.

 

[_Snover_]

OMG MOMG MOGMOGMOMG OMG YES PLEASE LET SCRUMPY HELP

 

[Stormghetti]

I called this! (Probably no one's going to believe me, since I didn't say that MS would help anywhere, but I had that feel)

 

[Quillion]

MagicScrumpy : I think the only issue we have is that your balance philosophy allegedly involves nerfing the top tier characters. The current SDR developers and you will have to hammer out a design philosophy that makes all characters feel they have tons of good options while not feeling "jank" or "gimmicky" like a lot of people have put it.

I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself, but I still think it would benefit the game if there were a vanilla/SDR switch. Since one of the big inspirations of this was SSF2THDR (not typing that out), which allowed "iteration" switching, SDR could be the same. One of the main reasons I want this is so that we can see what a "balanced" Fox/Falco/Sheik/Marth etc. could be if their over-advantageous characteristics were reigned in.

But, if you have a good idea how to make characters incredibly effective while maintaining an even skill/reward ratio (I cannot stress that enough), go right ahead.

 

[MagicScrumpy]

Quillion My balance philosophy does involve nerfing top tier characters at least a little bit. I'm totally willing to compromise on this and come up with something that works for the entire team, but I believe that nerfing the top tiers is a good way to make SDR feel more balanced, more fun, and less gimmicky.

I believe buffing everyone to be as good as a top tier is a bad idea because the top tier characters are so good. If you want characters to be able to compete with, say, Fox, who has a completely busted move that is safe in almost all situations and leads to guaranteed followups on so many characters at any percent, you have to give them something similarly good. To make a character as good as a broken character, you have to make a broken character. Buffing everyone to be as good as Fox is essentially buffing everyone to be as good as a broken character, so in the end everyone is broken and the game feels gimmicky and unfair.

I could understand not nerfing the top tiers if they didn't have insanely busted options, but since they do I think they need to be reigned in a little bit. If everyone is designed to be about as good as Falcon or Samus (who I think are two of the most fairly balanced characters in the game), then you don't have to worry about giving characters that are too powerful, gimmicky, or over-centralizing. The only reason I could see for not buffing top tiers is to remain non-controversial and not piss off top tier mains who can't stand the thought of their main's stupid stuff getting reigned in. I think people see their characters' broken options as totally normal because everyone's so used to them, and it's totally reasonable to not like the thought of nerfing something totally normal. However, there are moves (like Fox's shine) that are way too good and totally unfair if you want a well-balanced game. Shine is a virtually zero risk insanely high reward tool, AND you can use it just about anytime, just about anywhere. I don't see why it should stay in the game as it is if good balance and fair skill/reward is what you're looking for.

I just don't think giving everyone tools to compete with something as stupid as shine is the right answer. It may be more controversial to nerf top tiers, but I think that it's the right answer.

 

[Quillion]

MagicScrumpy : I see where you're coming from. But let me put this into perspective.

There's a big difference between Melee Fox and Brawl Meta Knight. Melee Fox is incredibly well-loved by the Melee fandom, while Brawl Meta Knight is near-universally considered to have severely brought the competitive game down (among other things).

The reason for this is that Melee Fox is Difficult, but Awesome incarnate. Sure, the shine is very useful, but absolutely NO ONE will say that it's easy to use. It requires a mix of fast fingers and precise timing to be able to use it to its fullest potential. It gives high reward for high skill. The same goes for pretty much everything about his options.

On the other hand, Brawl Meta Knight is stupidly easy to use. You can spam nearly any attack with him with no variance whatsoever and be an unstoppable force. It's high reward for nearly no skill.

The beauty of Melee is that the skill/reward ratio for the top tier characters are quite even. They're never seen as "broken" within the community because it requires a lot of practice juggling both technical and mental skill to properly use them. That is why their options (however overpowering they are) are seen as normal: because the player is getting fair reward for skill.

As of now SDR is suffering from a poor skill/reward ratio, leading to calling "everyone broken". Even Project M suffered from it prior to the "great 3.5 nerfing" as a lot of people there call it.

From your "Make X Viable" videos, I can see that you have a much more solid idea when it comes to preserving the skill/reward ratio than what Ripple and glook currently have come up with. The real key here is to make key buffs in places while leaving a ton of room for skill development just like the shine.

Anyway... sdremix_troubleshooter , given that we do have a good amount of criticism going from our tiny playerbase, I think it's certainly time for SDR 4.0 to come about.

 

[Stormghetti]

Oh, boy! I can't wait to bomb some Dodongos!






... Jokes aside, I really appreciate all of the work that has been put into SD Remix, and I really consider it an "official" patch. I play Link mostly, which is my vanilla Melee main, but Link's buffs were not 100% harmful, since I think most of it is great. It would be such a great idea if MagicScrumpy joined this, since I think he seems to great idea of balance, no offense.

I think both SD Remix Roy and MS' Roy are great, but it's up to you guys to decide how Roy and the rest of the cast is going to be. I love all of you people's work so much. <3

 

[_Snover_]

MagicScrumpy : I see where you're coming from. But let me put this into perspective.

There's a big difference between Melee Fox and Brawl Meta Knight. Melee Fox is incredibly well-loved by the Melee fandom, while Brawl Meta Knight is near-universally considered to have severely brought the competitive game down (among other things).

The reason for this is that Melee Fox is Difficult, but Awesome incarnate. Sure, the shine is very useful, but absolutely NO ONE will say that it's easy to use. It requires a mix of fast fingers and precise timing to be able to use it to its fullest potential. It gives high reward for high skill. The same goes for pretty much everything about his options.

On the other hand, Brawl Meta Knight is stupidly easy to use. You can spam nearly any attack with him with no variance whatsoever and be an unstoppable force. It's high reward for nearly no skill.

The beauty of Melee is that the skill/reward ratio for the top tier characters are quite even. They're never seen as "broken" within the community because it requires a lot of practice juggling both technical and mental skill to properly use them. That is why their options (however overpowering they are) are seen as normal: because the player is getting fair reward for skill.

As of now SDR is suffering from a poor skill/reward ratio, leading to calling "everyone broken". Even Project M suffered from it prior to the "great 3.5 nerfing" as a lot of people there call it.

From your "Make X Viable" videos, I can see that you have a much more solid idea when it comes to preserving the skill/reward ratio than what Ripple and glook currently have come up with. The real key here is to make key buffs in places while leaving a ton of room for skill development just like the shine.

Anyway... sdremix_troubleshooter , given that we do have a good amount of criticism going from our tiny playerbase, I think it's certainly time for SDR 4.0 to come about.

Yes, Fox is difficult, but he still should be nerfed. A few changes that could preserve his strengths while toning down his broken-ness that I've heard could be increasing landing lag on firefox, preventing his shine from being JC-able (MS's idea), and applying PAL nerfs. Fox cant be kept in his current state if you want a balanced game. Concerning skill to reward ratios, Fox's shine does require a good amount of skill to use correctly, but it also pretty much lacks any risks to it. Since you can jump out of it, you aren't really committing frames to a really strong move. This makes his risk-reward ratios ridiculously unbalanced since shine leads into so many things. Of course, shine isn't fox's only good tool, so even if it were nerfed he'd still be a great character.

Also side note, glook added cool features to 3.2 but he doesn't work on balance. That was SDRTS and Ripple

 

[Quillion]

Yes, Fox is difficult, but he still should be nerfed. A few changes that could preserve his strengths while toning down his broken-ness that I've heard could be increasing landing lag on firefox, preventing his shine from being JC-able (MS's idea), and applying PAL nerfs. Fox cant be kept in his current state if you want a balanced game. Concerning skill to reward ratios, Fox's shine does require a good amount of skill to use correctly, but it also pretty much lacks any risks to it. Since you can jump out of it, you aren't really committing frames to a really strong move. This makes his risk-reward ratios ridiculously unbalanced since shine leads into so many things. Of course, shine isn't fox's only good tool, so even if it were nerfed he'd still be a great character.

We're at a Morton's Fork here. Nerf the shine, and we lose much of the appeal to Fox and his high yet even skill/reward ratio. Keep it, and the game remains unbalanced.

I think the only way to acceptably nerf Fox for SDR is to (sorry for repeating), include a vanilla/SDR switch so that we can freely switch between the two, and to make a hypothetical nerfed SDR Fox easier to use. No need for him to have a ridiculously high skill wall if he's going to be nerfed.

 

[_Snover_]

Nerfing shine won't make Fox bad though. He still has tons of options in many situations. There's no need to make him easier.

 

[MagicScrumpy]

Bring on the nerfs! If people don't want to play because "How dare they nerf my broken character?", then that's on them. As a balance patch, the goal should be to balance the game so that it's fun to play and doesn't feel gimmicky or cheap. Of course being able to switch between vanilla Fox and a nerfed Fox is a good solution because it upsets absolutely no one, but that doesn't address the problem at hand.

Also keep in mind that the only people yelling at you are the vocal minority: a few loud vitriolic Fox mains who, at the very worst, will cry about SDR on Reddit. Don't get bullied into making a worse game, much less by a small group of people. I can tell you there's definitely a demand for a good Melee balance patch in which the top tiers are nerfed. Maybe some competitive Melee players won't like it, but they're competitive players and don't want to play with modified characters anyway. Therefore, the people telling you not to nerf Fox likely don't even play the game much if at all, yet you're listening to them.

Bust out the nerfs! Bring on the buffs! Make SDR the best Melee balance patch the world will ever see! Don't be a coward about it; it's okay to be controversial.

 

[HillustratedJ36]

Bust out the nerfs! Bring on the buffs! Make SDR the best Melee balance patch the world will ever see!

I can totally see these words on a (Photoshopped) poster about the mod.

 

[sdremix_troubleshooter]

Well, color me surprised this thread received so much attention lately.

First off, with both @_glook and I being busy lately, I'm not sure if an update is viable, both from a programming perspective (glook) and a battle designer/administrative perspective (yours truly). After what happened with 3.0, I am also -highly- weary of handing people the keys, so to speak.

A couple things outside of that:
- I think a version switcher would be ideal, but I am not sure of the feasibility without ISO modifications. I mention this mainly to point out that the SDR Lite versions would be in murky waters. Plus, I'm not sure _glook has the time to dedicate to the project anymore.

- Let's assume for a moment a version switcher is viable: I would be open to nerfing the top tiers, probably making some amends between NTSC and PAL as a start.

- There are two groups of people to consider in changing SDR beyond just nerfing/fixing what I've kept tab on for months (nearly a year?): those who like SDR as a concept (i.e a balance patch) and those who like what it is currently. Believe it or not, the latter crowd seems to exist, so particular care has to be taken to ensure that crowd is not alienated in our collective good efforts to balance SSBM. Basically, the toughest part will be to strike out a balance: failing to do so will alienate everyone, which SDR has already done in the past in my absence.

MagicScrumpy seems to have his heart in the right place, so I would love for him to join the team, but I am not sure how much oversight or insight I could provide. I do not want to be the bureaucrat that gets in the way of the creative momentum you get doing things like this. I'm hinting that as things are, it may be more beneficial for MagicScrumpy to do his own thing, or unofficially incorporate into SDR proper and we can officially regroup at a later time.

MagicScrumpy if you would like to throw ideas my way and we brainstorm together, PM me and I will send you my Facebook or Twitter information. If Ripple is also interested, the three of us can do so via group chat/DM. I don't frequent Smash circles anymore and this project is one of my last ties to the community.

 

[Olhi]

I just don't think giving everyone tools to compete with something as stupid as shine is the right answer. It may be more controversial to nerf top tiers, but I think that it's the right answer.

Regardless what you do, I hope you won't change Peach, as she is the only Character that's the same in every version of Melee, NTSC, PAL and SD Remix alike. Plus, she's the worst out of the Top 6, only one Tier above the groups of Captain Falcon and Ice Climbers.

 

[TTTTTsd]

As much as I agree with Scrumpy about ideal game design I do wonder what he thinks of how SDR handled Mario and Doc. Those characters got tangible improvements but they don't really seem unnecessary or flat out weird. Mario was mostly a slight mobility and dashdance upgrade, Fair being made good (because it was honestly way too slow to justify use outside of techchases before and the meteor itself was quite weak) and some stuff like Dtilt functioning better as a poke and Utilt. Dr. Mario on the other hand got REALLY minor changes that I kinda like as well. Who knows though?

I do agree that top tier nerfs would be interesting however, if only for the creative challenge it provides. How to make them feel good while still removing certain tools that a lot of players have come to love (and of course, hate as well.)

 

[Quillion]

sdremix_troubleshooter : I say give MagicScrumpy the keys!

His "Make X Viable" ideas are more popular than SD Remix can currently imagine to be. The crowd who likes SDR as it is currently is few and far between, and quite a bit of people are coming out and criticizing it, which is discouraging people from trying it out (and keep in mind, I'm kinda a hipster, and like how it's not very active). Letting Scrumpy rebalance the whole mod would bring in a lot of fans.

Besides, a lot of his ideas for making characters viable aren't too different from what we've come up with. The common thread of difference is that there are no unreasonably strong moves, but otherwise, it's not too different. He even had the same idea of decreasing lag all around for Bowser as SDR had.

Also, I'll also have you know that PM actually had an alienation problem from the 3.0 -> 3.5 update, as despite the across-the-board nerfing to even out the skill/reward ratio, some people found 3.0 more fun to play.

 

[_Snover_]

The main thing I'd miss from SDR 3.1/3.2 is Pichu. I thought he was super cool and well designed.

 

[Stormghetti]

The main thing I'd miss from SDR 3.1/3.2 is Pichu. I thought he was super cool and well designed.

Fun to play, but not against, sadly.

 

[_Snover_]

Eh, he's really easy to kill and he has to go really aggro. I thought he was pretty fun to play against.

 

[Sycorax]

As of now SDR is suffering from a poor skill/reward ratio.

- There are two groups of people to consider in changing SDR beyond just nerfing/fixing what I've kept tab on for months (nearly a year?): those who like SDR as a concept (i.e a balance patch) and those who like what it is currently.

I'd like to represent the group of people who believe SDR is fine just how it is. I would argue that SDR's skill/reward ratio is just fine. The fact of the matter is that this sort of judgment you, I, MagicScrumpy , and others are making is only a rough intuitive judgement based loosely on empirical evidence if at all. IT's really not the kind of thing one can argue meaningfully about since it is so abstract.

I am willing to concede the fact that the new SDR characters have wild skill to reward ratios if you, too, concede that their skill/reward ratios are no worse than the Melee top tiers. Like, Jesus H. Christ, they have some dumb ****. Mess up your DI on Falcon combos? Die at 80% to a fair. Don't know how to play neutral against ICs? Get grabbed and lose a stock. Don't know how penetrate Sheik's defenses? Flail and get grabbed until you die to dthrow fair/uair. Don't know how to deal with Falco's lasers? Complain on Reddit. Don't know how to space your moves against Peach or when it's safe to hit her? Get CC dsmashed into a death combo or nair reversaled. I've heard stories about how people complained about Link's dthrow up-b back in the day for being over powered. There is literally no developed meta-game for SDR. No one knows how to deal with or truly exploit these character's options. It has been, what, a year and a half of maybe 20 people giving two ****s about this mod? Look where the vMelee tier list was a year and a half after it came out. Ness above Pikachu!? Roy 17th!? Captain Falcon 11th!?

I'm not arguing that I know SDR is balanced. I'm not arguing that SDR is balanced. I'm arguing that no one actually knows. No one could possibly know. So people like Magic Scrumpy or Quillion can't, in good conscience, make these claims that SDR is anything but a close shot at making Melee balanced. Advocating for a change to SDR right now is jumping to conclusions in an extreme way.

There are multiple ways to design a game, and I respect Magic Scrupmy's personal preference, but the claim that SDR has a low skill to reward ratio is indefensible. Magic Scrumpy's design decisions in his recent videos are reasonable, and I think they would make a good game. I don't think they align with the stated philosophy of the SDR project. If those two groups wish to work together, that is their prerogative. However, I implore sdremix_troubleshooter to be extremely conservative in authorizing any changes to SDR.

 

[♡ⓛⓞⓥⓔ♡]

I don't mean to bash MagicScrumpy but I tried out his balanced Roy and Kirby yesterday and wasn't very fond of it. Roy, while better still has a very hard time against floaties due to lack of kill setups. In order to win against a Puff or Peach you basically either need to win neutral million times, get them to ridiculous percents or get a lucky dmash or fsmash read. I do like Roy's more conservative approach of buffing but imo it's not enough. But then again, Scrumpys balance philosophy is different and I respect that. Just wanted to share my sentiments

And then there's Scrumpys viable Kirby.

Holy

****ing

****

Ok to start things off Kirby's aerial mobility is INSANE. In the making-off video Scrumpy mentions it being little less than Jigglypuff's but I have very hard time believing it. It feels like his aerial mobility is faster than Puffs. OK. So what do we get then? His bair walling is insane. In addition to his speed in the air he's still decently fast in the ground. Jigglypuffs insane aerial mobility is balanced due to the fact that she kinda sucks in the ground. Moreover Pufffs bair, while insane in range and very disjointed, has a decent amount of startup. Kirby's bair...doesn't. Even though it isn't disjointed. And his upair is still as strong is in vanilla. Think about that. tl:dr Kirby's really good in a weird way now.

Here are the videos (yes I suck at Melee), all are vs. Puff:

 

[TTTTTsd]

I think Viable Roy is really close to perfect, I just think he needs an aerial that can close stocks that isn't Dair (primarily for floaties) and likely some damage adjustments on some (not all) of his moves, because Viable Roy is still greatly outdamaged by Marth (I wouldn't even mind if the KB was adjusted to match the old values on moves that just get a flat dmg buff and not a KB buff) and Marth kills fastfallers AND floaties.

Viable Roy is very, VERY close to being godlike though. The little nuances really add to him, mostly the improved hitboxes (Roy zone being gone is massive), but I think the increased distance and reduced landing lag on Up+B is incredible. This actually lets Roy recover onto the stage as a viable mixup, I don't even know if advertising Viable Roy's new Up+B as a combo move is even accurate, it not only makes his return to the ledge that much more likely but it lets him recover onto the stage and not get killed for it, which freshens things up and gives Blazer a very unique edge over a move like Dolphin Slash, especially when you factor in the ability to angle it.

 

[Quillion]

I am willing to concede the fact that the new SDR characters have wild skill to reward ratios if you, too, concede that their skill/reward ratios are no worse than the Melee top tiers. Like, Jesus H. Christ, they have some dumb ****. Mess up your DI on Falcon combos? Die at 80% to a fair. Don't know how to play neutral against ICs? Get grabbed and lose a stock. Don't know how penetrate Sheik's defenses? Flail and get grabbed until you die to dthrow fair/uair. Don't know how to deal with Falco's lasers? Complain on Reddit. Don't know how to space your moves against Peach or when it's safe to hit her? Get CC dsmashed into a death combo or nair reversaled. I've heard stories about how people complained about Link's dthrow up-b back in the day for being over powered.

But are those options considered easy with very high reward? Do those characters offer no room for skill development? These are the questions you should be asking.

 

[Sycorax]

But are those options considered easy with very high reward? Do those characters offer no room for skill development? These are the questions you should be asking.

Yes, they are easy with high reward. That's part of what makes them top tiers. So if you're trying to improve the low tiers by making their options difficult with high reward, then they're still going to be considered worse than the current top tiers. The options seem to be the nerf the high tiers or make the low tiers have easy stuff with high reward like the top tiers. SDR has expressed its choice in that mattter (option B), and Magic Scrumpy has expressed his preference too (option A).

But also, SDR characters DO offer room for development. Comboing is no easy task in the Melee engine. DI to counter the combos of SDR characters has not been developed. Lots of characters have improved movement options which improves and complicates their neutral games. Being able to play around that is difficult, interactive, and fun.

I think people don't understand what is happening to them and don't understand how to find counters to it. When I hear people complain about SDR characters having easy options with high reward, I think of all the same complaints about "Falco's lasers are so stupid. How do I do anything?" or "Marth's gimps spacies too easily. I'm just going to play Sheik against him." or "Puff's bair is too easy, too good. I can't beat it." or "Peach/Luigi just nairs out of everything. It's impossible to combo this broken character."

I guarantee you that a vast majority of these easy options with high rewards that you're thinking of have counters. Name as many as you like, and I bet I can come up with ways to deal with them. It would be a fun exercise.

I don't mean to come off as "I'm so good. You're so bad. Your opinions are wrong." I'm just frustrated by these sorts of defeatist opinions. I feel that, despite having played SDR tons, including with DruggedFox and SDRTroubleShooter, and talking about the mod with them, I am very ignorant of the potential of each character. There's just too much that has not been rigorously thought through and considered. I don't understand how people such as you and Magic Scrumpy can come to the conclusion and form such concrete opinions that SDR characters go to far with their buffs.

 

[Quillion]

Well, here's MagicScrumpy 's vision on how to nerf Fox:

So he pretty much did the obvious: nerf Blaster, Shine, USmash, and Uair.

However, he also nerfed the distance on Fire Fox, which I don't entirely agree with. IMO, the fact that it's linear and has a long windup makes it perfectly good the way it is.

Can't wait to see the others getting the nerf hammer!

 

[_Snover_]

IMO adding more landing lag to firefox would be a better nerf than shortening its distance, but making it shorter is still justified since it goes super far, and is probably more agreeable since it was in PAL.

 

[Quillion]

Just wondering, would it still be possible to do waveshine combos with the longer lag-before-jump-cancel?

 

[Achilles1515]

I played a few games of SDR the other day (Kirby and Link) with my friend and had a good time with it.

 

[Stormghetti]

I played a few games of SDR the other day (Kirby and Link) with my friend and had a good time with it.

Yeah, both are really fun.

 

[Kalebsanders007]

Does this mean that there's not be am update, sdremix_troubleshooter?

 

[Shadow]

hmm must of not posted this...
anyways can you guys reimplement pichu's grab->up throw->up air juggle combo?
there seems to be a delayed reaction time between up throw and jumping that wasn't in vanilla melee.