Something feels slow

[kupo15]

Ok, I think we made some good changes in the plussery to make the game a little faster and tighter but something is lacking and I think we forgot to transition something. Something about this game feels slow and I'm not entire sure what that is

At first I thought that maybe it would be better to just give everyone a constant gravity setting seeing how characters that are not named Falcon and Fox fall quite slow.

Here are two things I think could possibly be what I think is a problem:
1. throws
2. kb (either base or the other one, not sure)

Throws. I think throws have too much knockback. I realize that this isn't melee but if I were to compare to melee falcon and ganon for example, the kb on throws are really different. At 0%, a falcon dthrow sends ppl really far upwards and the same for ganon. In melee, a dthrow from falcon/ganon at low percents usually put midweights for tech chasing and Falcon/ ganon did not get out of the throw cool down until slightly before the tech. Most of the characters in brawl from a dthrow act as if they were luigi in melee. In brawl+, I can successfully land an aerial from a dthrow at 0% when I think you need to work a little to get their damage up before being able to combo air moves from throws. Its too easy and it feels slow.

Going to uthrows. Mookie a while back suggested that uthrows have too much kb (all of them) and that it should be toned down. I agree. Looking at some melee falcon dittos, a Uthrow set up tech chasing combos but in brawl+, the Uthrow sends falcon (and everyone) away quite far. If I use ganon as an example, his uthrow in brawl+ at 0% sends them almost two ganons stacked on each other. Compared to melee ganon, a uthrow at 100% almost sent them as far as brawl+ ganon.

What made me think about this whole thing was when I play against my roommate who plays sheik and I play ganon. When sheik does a Bthrow, no matter how I DI, I float in front of her face for what seems like an eternity and it takes forever for me to get out of stun and get to the floor and this is at at very low percent mind you. The fact that ganon was so floaty from a throw at a low percent is what made me think that gravity wasn't high enough but the more I think about it, I think it is the throws. When I looked at a Darkrain match against a sheik, sheik did a bthrow at around the same percent and falcon reached the ground much quicker than my Brawl+ ganon to setup for a tech chase. This doesn't make much sense because isn't Ganon heavier than falcon yet it takes ganon a longer time to reach the ground?

The throws imo have too much kb that I don't consider them to be brawl+ throws. They feel like brawl throws in a brawl+ environment and this is what I feel makes the game feel sluggish. I'm stuck in hit stun for too long which gives the impression of 64 stun. We can't lower the hitstun value because is perfect for the rest of the game which I feel plays out very well as far as speed goes and everything. What we can do is universally reduce the kb of all throws so you can get to the ground quicker and have most throw combos rely on proper tech chasing to rack up damage before transitioning to the air game. This is something I think melee did right that we should consider.

Another thought that came to mind as to a possible problem with speed is that moves in general send people away too much. So I thought that maybe reducing the base kb or the scaling kb of moves might work. I came to this conclusion through melee training mode. I noticed that from 0-80%ish, the kb from moves in general didn't change a whole lot. But it seems like throws are the major culprit and we shouldn't look into this now (or ever) until the throws are fixed. If you don't agree about reducing kb on ALL throws, then at least consider kb reductions on the dthrow and the uthrow

I am by no means saying we should replicate melee to the "T" but I think a significant reduction in throw kb would do great for the game in terms of speed and skillful throw>tech chase skill combos. Something is holding this game back from being really great and it is still not at the speed I think it can be. It is surely not faster than melee either. Whether or not that is our goal is something I don't know. I will be doing some more testing and studying the differences in other throws and matchups later on today to confirm my thoughts.

 

[Dark Sonic]

When I looked at a Darkrain match against a sheik, sheik did a bthrow at around the same percent and falcon reached the ground much quicker than my Brawl+ ganon to setup for a tech chase. This doesn't make much sense because isn't Ganon heavier than falcon yet it takes ganon a longer time to reach the ground?

Ganon is much, much floatier than Falcon, and gets much more vertical height from the back throw (note that Falcon was actually the hardest character to kill off the top in melee).

The throws imo have too much kb that I don't consider them to be brawl+ throws. They feel like brawl throws in a brawl+ environment and this is what I feel makes the game feel sluggish. I'm stuck in hit stun for too long which gives the impression of 64 stun. We can't lower the hitstun value because is perfect for the rest of the game which I feel plays out very well as far as speed goes and everything. What we can do is universally reduce the kb of all throws so you can get to the ground quicker and have most throw combos rely on proper tech chasing to rack up damage before transitioning to the air game. This is something I think melee did right that we should consider.

I agree that throws should have reduced knockback, but that was a bad example.

 

[shanus]

I actually feel most characters throws are fine, as does Cape. We had a fairly lengthy discussion running through each character and found almost every character had at least 1 or 2 useful throws which have established opportunities or combos clearly linked from them. We both felt that decreasing the knockback will scale poorly and lead to only more guaranteed combos in a game where the approach and initiation is already fairly simplistic.

I'm all for a few characters receiving slight throw revamps, but many characters already see combos and have a fairly clear metagame defined by it which I would like to preserve as much as possible.

Example of a character in need: Lucas & possibly jiggs/ganon

 

[kupo15]

I'm confused. How would decreasing throw kb provide more guaranteed combos instead of leading into skillful tech chasing combos which are not guaranteed combos? I feel that the throws lead into guaranteed combos too early and that lowering kb would require more skill in getting their damage up to a point where these guaranteed combos happen. I fail to see how lowering throw kb would hurt the game instead of really helping it out.

 

[shanus]

Imagine your throw at 0% giving a guaranteed link vs at 40%. What normally might have been a damage rack combo can open avenues of death combos in its replacement. Also, to make most of these techchasing would require DRASTIC lowering of throw knockback.

 

[kupo15]

Imagine your throw at 0% giving a guaranteed link vs at 40%.

Huh?

What normally might have been a damage rack combo can open avenues of death combos in its replacement.

What do you mean

Also, to make most of these techchasing would require DRASTIC lowering of throw knockback.

That would be the point but whats wrong with that? Throws are really powerful so whats wrong with adding some skill in the mix so that the best players are the ones who can get the most out of throws? A lot of people think that Brawl+ has too many guaranteed easy setup combos and I think many have to do with the lack of skill in the throw combos. Plus I think it will help the pace of the game.

I'm all for a few characters receiving slight throw revamps, but many characters already see combos and have a fairly clear metagame defined by it which I would like to preserve as much as possible.

We won't be removing their metagame. It will just take a little more time to get the damage up to the point where their metagame takes over.

 

[shanus]

You lower the knockback of a throw. So now imagine this. The knockback it would normally do at 0% would be applied at say 40. Now, I have a guaranteed set–up for example into nair nair knee, or even more. OUT OF A THROW. What this will do is faciliate stronger attacks out of a throw at higher percents, and encourage shieldgrabbing a great amount.

Throwing isn't broken except for very few characters. Fix what needs to be fixed, tech chasing is already happening plenty.

 

[kupo15]

But you are forgetting that at higher percents, your guaranteed setup won't be guaranteed anymore because the kb of your Nair nair knee will be greater than it was at 0% meaning that that combo won't work at that percent. Shield grabbing is already very encouraged as it stands so that fact won't change. You need to be more clever with your combos and more skillful to find another way to get that combo to work and it won't be from an easy shield grab. This will make combos feel more satisfying and more skillful which is the biggest complaint among many.

 

[shanus]

But you are forgetting that at higher percents, your guaranteed setup won't be guaranteed anymore because the kb of your Nair nair knee will be greater than it was at 0% meaning that that combo won't work anymore at that percent. Shield grabbing is already very encouraged as it stands so that fact won't change. You need to find another way to get that combo to work and it won't be from an easy shield grab.

Nair nair knee works easily at percents 40-60%. What you are doing is guaranteeing things like that out of a throw.

 

[kupo15]

We are not guaranteeing anything. That combo is not guaranteed against all characters at that percent at all times. Percents change meaning that its not guaranteed that you will get them at the perfect percent at all times and they are not guaranteed to DI the same way every time. There are a lot of factors and I don't believe for a second that a 3 hit combo such as that is a guaranteed combo. Falcon had a guaranteed uthrow to knee combo against some characters in melee around this percent (I think) and this is not broken. If you chose to do this powerful move this early, it will not kill them and it will make comboing a little harder since you jacked their percent up a significant bit so its a trade off.

I'm not saying that this will happen in brawl+ but I think you are blowing this out of proportion and trying to make something sound broken when its not. People are also complaining that .484 hitstun is too much and want to go down to .483 or maybe lower. The addition of reduced kb on throws can help facilitate a lower hit stun quite nicely but we simply won't know if we blow it off on assumptions such as these and without trying.

 

[shanus]

I didn't say that combo was guaranteed. I said your guaranteeing things like that.

I'm also not blowing it out of proportion as clearly most throws work well as is. This is a radical global change completely modifying every chars individual throw knockback dramatically. Its unnecessary and going to introduce a hell of a lot more chaingrabs, too.

I vote no for global.

As I said before, I support this on individual basis: i.e. lucas and jiggs, and maybe dorf. But I do not support this globally.



Also, posting for Cape, he also votes no on global changes.

 

[kupo15]

We will just have to wait and see when the character specific kb code comes out then and we should be able to FF things like in spunits frame speed mod. I think it will work wonders in theory but none of us can be completely sure until we actually test it out. Emphasis on the testing

 

[goodoldganon]

Globaly changing throws open up to too many possibilities that might not really help. Only a few characters need changed throws (Pika's d-throw). It's kind of a lame argument, but why try and 'fix' something that truly isn't broken?

Throws might not be the best option at all times, but they still have their places in this game. As always I'm not against testing a code that changes throws, but it's not a code I really feel is necessary. Watching TV kind of ruined my train of thought but hopefully that made sense.