imnotdannyboy
Smash Cadet
Hi! I just thought I'd make a discussion post on controller options and control bindings for Shulk. This feels like the first release of Smash where we have actual control options (Four Ways to Play my bum) and Shulk can benefit greatly from being a bit open to switching it up.
I haven't gotten my hands on a GC adaptor yet, so I'm mainly going to focus on the Wii U Pro Controller, and by extension, the Gamepad. Besides, we all have an idea as to how the GC controller works, and I don't think there's a lot of room for discussion for it outside of how it was discussed in Brawl.
I'll post diagrams if this picks up in popularity, but otherwise I won't bother. Also, for all intents and purposes, the right analog stick on the Pro will be referred to as the C-Stick. YOLO
My initial control setup for Wii U was made to mirror my control setup for the 3DS, as it was what I was comfortable with. I moved Jump off of X and replaced it with Grab, then made both the shoulder buttons Shield. I did this because I traditionally ignored R in Melee, and I always hated grabbing with Z. Using my thumb to grab just felt more comfortable. The problem I had with this was that the jump button and the attack button were on the opposite side of the controller, which was an issue for quickly and errorlessly doing aerials, something very important with my three mains, Shulk, Lucina, and Ganondorf. This resulted in me swapping the Special attack and Attack button, as quick aerial specials weren't very important.
This was great on the 3ds version where my controls were remembered. However, on the Wii U version I would constantly forget to swap back to my name after changing game modes, and it became increasingly difficult to remember my bindings. I'd have to swap back and forth between specials and attacks being on B, and even now my play is diminished as I find myself hesitating and thinking about my bindings before I Up-B. I decided I had to get used to the vanilla controls for Attack and Special to counteract this. This, of course, meant moving Jump to X. I could move Grab to Y, but it felt weird and I found myself hesitating a lot. Besides, if I forgot to swap to my controls again, grabbing would be a challenge, and I might find myself hesitating on grabs. I decided to keep jump on XY, which allowed me to do quick aerial specials. Again, they aren't very important, but it's still handy to have.
The other possibility that the Pro possessed was two sets of triggers. Initially I put shield on ZL/ZR and grab on LR to reflect the GC's placement of Shield and Grab (why on earth did they swap those buttons? ZL/ZR is behind LR on the Pro, and grab is still bound to ZL/ZR). If I forget my controls I might find myself grabbing instead of shielding, but I'll just have to get used to it.
However, the last bit of tech that Smash Wii U offers over the 3ds is the C-stick. I can't imagine using it for anything other than Smash Attack, as I'm addicted to Aerial C-sticking (people have been saying that Attack works better than Smash Attack for aerials, but I haven't noticed a difference. Perhaps I'll experiment more). The weakness of C-stick aerials from melee is the difficulty in swapping your thumb from X/Y to C when you want to quickly hop up and aerial someone. I was a Marth main in Melee, so this gave me a lot of trouble. The Pro controller has two great ways to handle this. First off, X is right next to the C-stick in the Pro, allowing for quick transitions. Unfortnately it's much harder to accurately flick due to it's bulkier build and lack of 8-way indents. So, I decided to make use of my neglected ZR button (again, I only block with ZL as per Melee habits) and bind a third Jump to it. This way, when it comes time to Fair or Bairplane, I can take my whole right thumb off of the buttons and place it on the C-stick, and all I'm missing out on is specials.
To recap, my current bindings are...
ZL-Shield
ZR-Jump
L-Grab
R-Grab
C-Stick- Smash Attack (maybe normal attack?)
X-Jump
Y-Jump
A-Attack
B-Special Move
In total, this allows me to do aerials far more effectively than in Melee, quickly jump and do attacks OR special moves, grab and block as I did in Melee, and most importantly, totally forget to turn on my control bindings without being punished too harshly. Most of the important controls are exactly as they are in vanilla.
Some additional thoughts. L is currently redundant, as I mostly grab with R. I'm considering binding Special Move to it. That way, I can use specials AND jump using nothing but the shoulder buttons. This frees up my thumb for the C-Stick without removing the option to use Special Moves. This also means that X, Y, A and B are all mapped elsewhere on the controller, potentially freeing them up for anything I want. I think I'll keep 'em vanilla, but a more creative player than myself might take advantage of that.
A lot of players are binding Jump to AB and attack/special to XY. This is to remain consistent with many platformers, especially SNES-era platformers, where bindings are similar. In the end it's all about comfort, but I'm going to make the argument that, overall, this is a worse setup.
For ease of reading, I'm going to use the Wii U Pro button names to describe the location of the buttons. Y is the left button, X is the top, A the right, and B is the bottom. Also note that to a frequent gamer, nothing I'm about to say is really 'new information' or worthy of an "Oh, I never though about that!". It's just helpful to put it into perspective.
The reason why platformers are setup with Jump on B/A is because when you rest your thumb on the controller, your thumb naturally overlays either B and Y, or X and A. Therefore, if B and Y are bound to two important interactions, you can comfortably do either at a moments notice without moving your thumb. This is why Jump is naturally on X and Y for Smash Wii U, and not Y and B, or X and A. Those combinations would be redundant, as My thumb would overlay over two Jump buttons. Then I'd have to shift awkwardly over a row to attack or use a special.
There is a reason, however, why Jump is on X and attack is on A, and not the other way around. Try quickly pressing X and then A. Your thumb naturally 'flicks' or 'rolls.' from X to A. Try doing it from A to X and it works, but it's not nearly as natural or comfortable, and it's much slower. It also leaves your thumb in a weird spot, that might make it more difficult to move back to jump/attack, or over to special. The combo we have now is great because in Smash we often need to jump and then attack, but we NEVER need to attack and then jump, because when we attack we're locked in lag that prevents jumping.
The reason why platformers do this in reverse is because in a platformer, jumping is the focus button. Take Super Mario World, my all time favorite platformer. In Super Mario World run is on Y and jump is on B. This is because you'll often want to hold down Run, then jump later. You almost never want to jump, then quickly run, but you'll CONSTANTLY find yourself running and THEN jumping, and being able to quickly roll your finger back is so much more convenient than rolling it forward.
Therefore, I feel that X and Y are a much better place for Jump, as that thumb rolling function retains utility, allowing for quick aerials and specials. Of course, if the platformer layout is more comfortable for you, then do what feels best. But definitely consider the alternative.
Anyone else have any control layouts that they feel superior or more comfortalbe to the vanilla layout?
I haven't gotten my hands on a GC adaptor yet, so I'm mainly going to focus on the Wii U Pro Controller, and by extension, the Gamepad. Besides, we all have an idea as to how the GC controller works, and I don't think there's a lot of room for discussion for it outside of how it was discussed in Brawl.
I'll post diagrams if this picks up in popularity, but otherwise I won't bother. Also, for all intents and purposes, the right analog stick on the Pro will be referred to as the C-Stick. YOLO
My initial control setup for Wii U was made to mirror my control setup for the 3DS, as it was what I was comfortable with. I moved Jump off of X and replaced it with Grab, then made both the shoulder buttons Shield. I did this because I traditionally ignored R in Melee, and I always hated grabbing with Z. Using my thumb to grab just felt more comfortable. The problem I had with this was that the jump button and the attack button were on the opposite side of the controller, which was an issue for quickly and errorlessly doing aerials, something very important with my three mains, Shulk, Lucina, and Ganondorf. This resulted in me swapping the Special attack and Attack button, as quick aerial specials weren't very important.
This was great on the 3ds version where my controls were remembered. However, on the Wii U version I would constantly forget to swap back to my name after changing game modes, and it became increasingly difficult to remember my bindings. I'd have to swap back and forth between specials and attacks being on B, and even now my play is diminished as I find myself hesitating and thinking about my bindings before I Up-B. I decided I had to get used to the vanilla controls for Attack and Special to counteract this. This, of course, meant moving Jump to X. I could move Grab to Y, but it felt weird and I found myself hesitating a lot. Besides, if I forgot to swap to my controls again, grabbing would be a challenge, and I might find myself hesitating on grabs. I decided to keep jump on XY, which allowed me to do quick aerial specials. Again, they aren't very important, but it's still handy to have.
The other possibility that the Pro possessed was two sets of triggers. Initially I put shield on ZL/ZR and grab on LR to reflect the GC's placement of Shield and Grab (why on earth did they swap those buttons? ZL/ZR is behind LR on the Pro, and grab is still bound to ZL/ZR). If I forget my controls I might find myself grabbing instead of shielding, but I'll just have to get used to it.
However, the last bit of tech that Smash Wii U offers over the 3ds is the C-stick. I can't imagine using it for anything other than Smash Attack, as I'm addicted to Aerial C-sticking (people have been saying that Attack works better than Smash Attack for aerials, but I haven't noticed a difference. Perhaps I'll experiment more). The weakness of C-stick aerials from melee is the difficulty in swapping your thumb from X/Y to C when you want to quickly hop up and aerial someone. I was a Marth main in Melee, so this gave me a lot of trouble. The Pro controller has two great ways to handle this. First off, X is right next to the C-stick in the Pro, allowing for quick transitions. Unfortnately it's much harder to accurately flick due to it's bulkier build and lack of 8-way indents. So, I decided to make use of my neglected ZR button (again, I only block with ZL as per Melee habits) and bind a third Jump to it. This way, when it comes time to Fair or Bairplane, I can take my whole right thumb off of the buttons and place it on the C-stick, and all I'm missing out on is specials.
To recap, my current bindings are...
ZL-Shield
ZR-Jump
L-Grab
R-Grab
C-Stick- Smash Attack (maybe normal attack?)
X-Jump
Y-Jump
A-Attack
B-Special Move
In total, this allows me to do aerials far more effectively than in Melee, quickly jump and do attacks OR special moves, grab and block as I did in Melee, and most importantly, totally forget to turn on my control bindings without being punished too harshly. Most of the important controls are exactly as they are in vanilla.
Some additional thoughts. L is currently redundant, as I mostly grab with R. I'm considering binding Special Move to it. That way, I can use specials AND jump using nothing but the shoulder buttons. This frees up my thumb for the C-Stick without removing the option to use Special Moves. This also means that X, Y, A and B are all mapped elsewhere on the controller, potentially freeing them up for anything I want. I think I'll keep 'em vanilla, but a more creative player than myself might take advantage of that.
A lot of players are binding Jump to AB and attack/special to XY. This is to remain consistent with many platformers, especially SNES-era platformers, where bindings are similar. In the end it's all about comfort, but I'm going to make the argument that, overall, this is a worse setup.
For ease of reading, I'm going to use the Wii U Pro button names to describe the location of the buttons. Y is the left button, X is the top, A the right, and B is the bottom. Also note that to a frequent gamer, nothing I'm about to say is really 'new information' or worthy of an "Oh, I never though about that!". It's just helpful to put it into perspective.
The reason why platformers are setup with Jump on B/A is because when you rest your thumb on the controller, your thumb naturally overlays either B and Y, or X and A. Therefore, if B and Y are bound to two important interactions, you can comfortably do either at a moments notice without moving your thumb. This is why Jump is naturally on X and Y for Smash Wii U, and not Y and B, or X and A. Those combinations would be redundant, as My thumb would overlay over two Jump buttons. Then I'd have to shift awkwardly over a row to attack or use a special.
There is a reason, however, why Jump is on X and attack is on A, and not the other way around. Try quickly pressing X and then A. Your thumb naturally 'flicks' or 'rolls.' from X to A. Try doing it from A to X and it works, but it's not nearly as natural or comfortable, and it's much slower. It also leaves your thumb in a weird spot, that might make it more difficult to move back to jump/attack, or over to special. The combo we have now is great because in Smash we often need to jump and then attack, but we NEVER need to attack and then jump, because when we attack we're locked in lag that prevents jumping.
The reason why platformers do this in reverse is because in a platformer, jumping is the focus button. Take Super Mario World, my all time favorite platformer. In Super Mario World run is on Y and jump is on B. This is because you'll often want to hold down Run, then jump later. You almost never want to jump, then quickly run, but you'll CONSTANTLY find yourself running and THEN jumping, and being able to quickly roll your finger back is so much more convenient than rolling it forward.
Therefore, I feel that X and Y are a much better place for Jump, as that thumb rolling function retains utility, allowing for quick aerials and specials. Of course, if the platformer layout is more comfortable for you, then do what feels best. But definitely consider the alternative.
Anyone else have any control layouts that they feel superior or more comfortalbe to the vanilla layout?
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on the GameCube Controller or Wii Classic Pro Controller as Specials, so I can B-stick.
