Single-Button Mode - Potential Side Event?

[Menace13]

Last night I stumbled upon Single-Button Mode, perhaps the most forgotten Special Melee mode. In Single-Button Mode, only four controls work: the two joysticks, the A button, and the Start button. What does this mean for gameplay and controlling your character?

You cannot:

• Use X or Y to jump
• Wavedash
• Dodge
• Shield
• Wavedash
• Recover with Up-B (you better save that double jump and hope you sweetspot the ledge)
• Grab
• Wavedash
• L-Cancel
• Tech
• Wavedash
• Taunt

Did I mention you can't wavedash? This makes it a lot more simplistic movement-wise, but does not detract as much from the gameplay as one might think (in my opinion, at least). Spacing is ever-important as is keeping the center of the stage; if you get hit hard, you're pretty much dead, unless you use certain characters (I'll mention some good characters a bit further down). Another REALLY important thing is NEVER using your second jump if there's even the slightest chance of you getting hit afterwards (unless you're at really low %s). If you get hit offstage without your second jump, you're dead. You can't do **** to recover. It's also very important to gimp/edge guard people effectively, but it's also ridiculously easy. Any hit that knocks them away from the ledge will kill them (except for some of the good characters I'm about to mention). Just keep in mind that you're extremely vulnerable in this mode and you should do fine as long as you can keep yourself in check and you don't go up against characters who have more priority than you.
Now, for that list of good characters, and why I think they are good (I'll list my top 10, in no specific order after the first one):

• Jigglypuff - I'm pretty sure Jigglypuff is by far the best character in this mode, and I don't think anyone else is even close. She loses very little of the important parts of her moveset and still has 5 aerial jumps with which to wreck opponents after she knocks them offstage. Her jumps also allow her to recover where no other character can. She plays pretty much the same as always, and her best "counters" are all terrible in this mode (Young Link has no projectiles, Fox has no up-throw, etc.). She isn't even fair in this mode.
• Ness - With a ridiculous double jump, good aerials for keeping opponents offstage, and an amazing dash attack which murders recovering opponents who fail to sweetspot the ledge, Ness is definitely a character to watch out for. He has a lot of viable moves and characters can't really go offstage to gimp him without risking their own death due to lack of Up-Bs. He does lose PK Fire and his Up-B recovery along with his amazing grabs, but he has better recovery than most of the cast, which earns him a spot on this list.
• Marth - Even though Marth is known to have amazing grab combos with his great grab range, he doesn't lose much by losing his grab. Marth's aerial game, range, and easy edge guarding makes it really easy for him to get kills at low percents. If he fails to get the gimps and edge guards, however, he has trouble killing his opponents, especially when he is much easier to kill without his usual recovery. It is also much harder to tipper some moves without wavedashing, but he is still more than strong enough to get the kills when he needs them, especially when he needs less strength due to the terrible recoveries of pretty much every member of the cast when you remove their Up-Bs.
• Ganondorf - Ganondorf has always been known for his strength, and his strength and weight are both extremely useful tools for winning in this mode. His quick and strong jab and F-Tilt can both push opponents off the stage and then kill them if they fail to sweetspot the ledge with their jump. He also has strong aerials which wreck opponents who carelessly use their double jump, as they will have no recovery afterwards. His weight also prevents opponents from sending him as far offstage, which makes it easier to recover even with his terrible double jump.
• Sheik - I don't think I really need to explain why Sheik is still great, but I will anyways. Sheik, while losing her teleporting edge shenanigans, still has amazing aerials, a good combo game, fairly good tilts, and good smashes for getting opponents offstage, all of which makes it easy to rack up the damage and proceed to edge guard the opponent. Her losses are more than offset by the losses of her opponents in this mode, and she remains a threat to watch out for. Keep in mind, however, that she cannot change into Zelda in this mode. If you forget to hold down A, you're screwed, because Zelda is not particularly good in this mode.
• Peach - Peach remains one of the hardest to kill characters in the game with a float with which to recover which no other character has. While she cannot ground-float due to her only way to jump being holding up on the joystick, she still has its benefits while recovering. Her aerials are less viable without ground-floating, but they are still strong and can easily edge guard opponents after they use their second jump. Her D-Smash also has the potential to kill opponents on its own. She needs to be careful after using her float to recover, however, as she cannot use it more than once while in the air and she can't dodge to safely land.
• Fox/Falco/Captain Falcon - The fast-fallers have a lot more trouble recovering, and Fox and Falco lose their grab combos and shines and lasers while Falcon loses his grab combos. However, in a mode where everyone dies ridiculously easily, the ability to quickly combo the opponent and get them offstage easily makes these three completely viable. None of them can really afford to go offstage to follow their opponents, but it doesn't take much for them to get their opponents too far offstage to recover, so they are still viable in this mode, and the knee is as strong as ever. (YESZ!)
• Luigi - Luigi is really strong and floaty, which is a great combo in this mode. His aerials are also really good for edge guarding, and his smashes can ensure early kills. He isn't as good as some of the other characters I have listed, but he is one of my top 10 characters that I have tried regardless.

Well, those are my top 10 characters for this mode. I haven't had a chance to try everyone, but these were the ones who seemed especially good to me in my testing. DISCLAIMER: All testing was done vs. Level 9 CPUs because I have no friends. :[ (Also it was like 4 AM and I live with my parents.) Other characters who might be good: Mewtwo, Yoshi, Kirby (all three have big double jumps or multiple double jumps), DK (strong moves and a quick B-air), and Ice Climbers (strong attacks due to having two climbers). I haven't tested everybody, but these are ones which I think might be good.

Anyways, the real point I'm making this thread is to ask this: Does this have the potential to be a fun side event at a tournament? I know I'd love to watch this on a stream someday, although Jigglypuff might have to be banned to prevent an all-puffball top 8. I'd love to hear your opinions on this, as I'm sure I'm not the only one who forgot this mode even existed.

Thanks for reading!
- Menace

 

[Subrava]

No love for Yoshi?

 

[dRevan64]

No, you're not the only person who remembers this mode. I've been trying to forget it. That said this would be HILARIOUS to see on a stream, in a kind of schadenfreude way.

 

[failninja21]

pretty interesting, sounds fun to me but i feel like for most people the inability to l-cancel, wavedash, etc. hence resulting in less control over their character will just frustrate them.

 

[Menace13]

No love for Yoshi?

I love Yoshi D: I just haven't tried him yet. He used to be one of my secondaries, actually.

pretty interesting, sounds fun to me but i feel like for most people the inability to l-cancel, wavedash, etc. hence resulting in less control over their character will just frustrate them.

Oh it is VERY frustrating. That's one of the funny parts about it. It's fun, but it's ridiculously hard to forget years of training when it comes to L-Canceling, Wavedashing, jumping off the stage to edge guard, etc. Even though I killed myself at least once every 2-3 games, it was fun to play.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Something funny to play with your friends while drunk =/= something that is good for a side event at a tournament

 

[Ezzee]

Something funny to play with your friends while drunk =/= something that is good for a side event at a tournament

It isn't supposed to be a good side event, it's supposed to be a hilarious side event. I'm pretty sure everyone would pay good money to see mango vs M2K one button mode

 

[Problem2]

You would have to ban Jigglypuff imo. The only noteworthy loss for her is Rest. B-air for days.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

It isn't supposed to be a good side event, it's supposed to be a hilarious side event. I'm pretty sure everyone would pay good money to see mango vs M2K one button mode

You really want to see M2K ledge camp with jigglypuff for 8 minutes?

 

[Ezzee]

Honestly? Yes

 

[SAUS]

Lol it would be hilarious but painful at the same time. As a side event, I don't see why not.

 

[Respect38]

In regards to the Jigglypuff discussion, I think it's notable to mention that, if such a side-event were to be attempted, that running with a significantly different stage list could somewhat help the problem--since so much of the problem for the balance of single-button is that you have some characters (with Jigglypuff being the most broken example) that have extra recovery that allows them to survive when sent a large distance away from the stage, then a stage that either (1) has blast zones that are close enough so that poor recovery rarely comes into play or (2) has elements off the stage that save the player even when they're off the main platform(s), or (3) has a low ceiling, which, because of the fact that most of the characters with good recovery are also low-weight, can be useful for balance.

With that in mind, some stages that could be added into the mix include:
Kongo Jungle (cannon and the logs)
Great Bay (turtle + low ceiling in relation to main platform)
Green Greens (close blast zones from all directions)
Venom (low ceiling in relation to top wings)
Brinstar (lava)
Brinstar Depths (low ceiling)
Mute City (track [during movement])
Yoshi's Island N64 (clouds)
Kongo Jungle N64 (cannon)
(Technically, you have some stages that would count for this list that aren't included because of walk-offs [Yoshi's Island, Flat Zone, Onett, Mushroom Kingdom, and Mushroom Kingdom II] which are an unsatisfying solution)

Including the fact that some out the currently 6 legal stages could be removed from the list, I find that there has to be some way that a single-button stage list that reduces the dominance of the characters with special recoveries [Peach, Yoshi, Ness, Kirby, Jigglypuff, Mewtwo] when fighting someone from the remaining 20 of the cast, while at the same time making sure that there are as few useless characters among those remaining 20.

Of the regular 6:
Yoshi's Story (Randall)
Final Destination (unique stage; should be included)
Pokémon Stadium (low ceiling)

The remaining three regulars [Fountain of Dreams, Battlefield, Dream Land N64] could be included or banned depending on whether or not they are deemed to be too imbalanced to justify.

If after all this is done, Jigglypuff is still blatantly *the* top tier, then I think that just using the in-game handicap system to handicap Jigglypuffs by one point would be more satisfying than removing Jigglypuff completely.

The main question I have is: I've seen that some of these levels were banned for wall infinites, but I was wondering if any wall infinites still exist within the system of single-button Melee? This only affects Venom and possibly Great Bay and Green Greens, but if the problem no longer exists, then these stages could potentially be legalized.

 

[Respect38]

Upon further reflection on the game mode, I think that I was sending it in the wrong direction. Instead of being necessarily so concerned with game balance, I think that Single-Button would be better served by a statelist that serves to build upon its interesting elements and to minimize its negative ones. I think something that would do that would be a list of stages that

1. Include ceilings or walls that players could use for comboing in this techless environment, in the same style as Smash 64's wall combos. [which, at least in the guaranteed sense, is unique to this mode of Melee]
   
2. Have large areas to fight over in order to minimize the influence of the weak ledge game found within Single-Button Mode. [or in any other way help the ledge game]

With that in mind, I believe that some stages that have a higher value in Single-Button would include:

Princess Peach's Castle*
Great Bay**
Yoshi's Island***
Green Greens
Corneria*
Venom*
Flat Zone***
Brinstar
Onett***
Mute City
Big Blue
and possibly others.

And most of the default stages would have lower value due to almost all of them having very little room to fight before reaching a ledge.

Now, obviously, I don't think all of those stages listed above would be legal, but I believe they should be given higher priority than the Normal Melee stages, since they fit into Single-Button gameplay much better. Part of the reason I even include Flat Zone is because I want to make the point that I really think that Flat Zone is on the same level--if not better--than BF, YS, and FoD. Why? Because there is simply more room to fight on Flat Zone than there is on either of those stages. This is more about saying how bad YS is than saying how good FZ is, though; I'm kind of embarrassed that I originally thought that YS was a good stage for this mode.

Yeah, some of those stages may have hazards, but I think that even the competitive nature of the mode is healthier if characters are permitted to live to decent percentages rather than being quickly brought to the ledge and then gimped--even if the larger stage has a random element or two.

FD, PS, and DL might not be as bad in this regard, but I still think there are stages that are better than them in this mode. Single-Button simply isn't Normal Melee, and using identical stage lists robs Single-Button of what it can be, and makes it look worse than what it can me, I think.

*without specials, so the only kinds of wall infinites that could exist have to be normals.
**without specials, so circle camping may no longer be an issue.
***without throws, so one of the main excuses of being anti-walkoff fades away, from what I can see. Onett in particular could make an excellent starter.

You really want to see M2K ledge camp with jigglypuff for 8 minutes?

If truly a problem, [i.e. assuming the more reasonable solution of "ban Jigglypuff" isn't taken] then the side-event could just have a ledge grab limit. The ledge game is weak in Single-Button anyway, so it would be significantly less of a controversial thing than it was in Brawl. [granted, it would obviously be removed for matches on Onett and the such.]

The game lists ledge grabs under "Cliffhangers", even though it was never needed to be utilized within Normal Melee.