SSB4 frame data and other intricacies!

[Luco]

Welcome!!! to the SSB4 frame data discussion!

Hi everyone, this will be the discussion pertaining to SSB4's intricate details. While a lot of it will be devoted to frame data, hit/hurtboxes and similar aspects, quite a bit of it will also be looking at things such as small changes to movesets on existing characters and balanced movesets of new characters.

Kuma will be taking the second post of this thread for a reserve to chronicle existing thoughts and ideas and add new ones.

The global rules apply, so you all know.

If this thread gets enough of an interest, I believe it would be a useful resource as a sticky thread. Though, that's not really for me to decide.

In essence, while I do not want a lot of spam, do attempt to have fun discussing the relevant ideas and we'll see where we end up.

With that in mind,

Enjoy!

 

[Big-Cat]

All righty, since this thread's about frame data, let's identify some concepts for the sake of making discussion easier.

Every attack is made up of three types of animation frames.

1. Startup - These are the initial frames of the attack before it hits. This is commonly reffered to as startup in most FGC circles, but the Smash community tends to prefer using the term lag(which I think is a misnomer).
2. Active - These are the frames where the attack can hit someone. To make things easier to understand, if someone says that an attack comes out on the fourth frame, this means that there are three frames of startup before the attack hits.
3. Recovery - This is usually referred to as ending lag/cooldown in order to prevent confusion with the other recovery. This is the period after the attack lands.

Frame data also has two additional elements that are not as obvious to the viewer, hitstun and shieldstun(also known as blockstun). Hitstun refers to when Player A attacks Player B and Player B is temporarily incapable of doing anything, including blocking. Naturally, this is the thing that makes combos possible. Shieldstun refers to when Player A attacks a defending Player B. This is the time period for when the defender cannot do anything, but this is more often than not much shorter than hitstun.

The length of these stuns are in frames units just like startup, active, and recovery of an attack. This is commonly referred to as frame advantage to identify how many frames the attacker has available to them before player B can do anything. To give an example, an attack that hits the opponent may have a +7 frame advantage for the attacker, but if it's blocked, the attacker is at an -5 advantage meaning the defender can take action five frames before the attacker.

Now, this may seem rather complicated, but it really isn't. No one memorizes frame data for every single character. It's neither possible nor practical for a human. Needing to know which frame data for which attack is something determined on a need-to-know basis. Like, if I know a particular attack my opponent has is rather safe on block, I know that it's in my best interest to just keep blocking instead of trying to get out that impossible attack. Another example is if you're trying to find attacks that can be linked together due to hitstun or to find small advantages that let you keep going for pressure or fish out counter hits.

Two other additional properties of an attack are the knockback and pushback of an attack. These are easy to indentify. Knockback is how far they're pushed(or launched) away on hit while pushback refers to how much a blocked character is pushed away. Having the length of these changed can made radical differences depending on the character's playstyle. A character who goes for what are called frame traps will want to have little pushback on his/her attacks so he can continue the shield pressure is just one example of where this is a good thing. A bad case would be if there's little pushback and the attack is very unsafe.
I'll add in more information as time goes on/requested.

 

[Shadic]

..Are you making a frame data thread for a game that hasn't even had an announcement video?

 

[Luco]

..Are you making a frame data thread for a game that hasn't even had an announcement video?

Yessir, just as others are making character movesets, stages and music. If those are being accepted, why not this? You have to remember that there is a very large chance none of this will matter, thus while it's good to make a concerted effort to put thought in to this, it's not like itmeans the world.

Basically what i'm saying is, with stages and characters being discussed, this has as much right to be talked about as any other facet of SSB4.

 

[Big-Cat]

At the very least, this thread can be used to help identify balance issues. Like, we have Squirtle that has either a 1 or 2 frame startup on his jab (IIRC) while the fastest attack Link has is a jab with six frames of startup. Obviously, this is incredibly unfair. One thing that can be done is to ensure that no attack (outside of final smashes) has nothing faster than a 3 frame startup and ensure that everyone has a 3 or 4 frame jab.

 

[Luco]

At the very least, this thread can be used to help identify balance issues. Like, we have Squirtle that has either a 1 or 2 frame startup on his jab (IIRC) while the fastest attack Link has is a jab with six frames of startup. Obviously, this is incredibly unfair. One thing that can be done is to ensure that no attack (outside of final smashes) has nothing faster than a 3 frame startup and ensure that everyone has a 3 or 4 frame jab.

Personally, I wouldn't mind a little variation in jabs but obviously too much is unfair, depending on whether the person at a disadvantage for jabs is also at a disadvantage for other moves.

Yea, I don't think there should be huge variations in jabs. Anything bigger than about 2-3 frames of start-up can be potentially unbalancing in jabs. I'd worry about it more if there were huge differences in other attacks as well that unbalance it particularly towards one person (which is the case, thuis why it becomes important)

 

[Snakeyes]

For jabs, it kinda makes sense that characters with high priority and longer range have slower startups.

A range from 3-6 is fine IMO.

 

[Ultimate kaos]

For jabs, it kinda makes sense that characters with high priority and longer range have slower startups.

A range from 3-6 is fine IMO.

I agree. Variation in jabs would be fine for characters with higher priority and range. It might be unbalanced if a character had longer range and priority with the same start up as a character with low range.

 

[Luco]

That's a rather good argument. You'd have to balance out the jabs/priority/range so that all characters had beneficial traits with it. Perhaps some jabs would be deliberately slow whilst the rest of the moveset was rather fast or had high priority? I only suggest it because for the most part there's like 10 different combinations for jabs/range/priority, so I guess other factors would need to be included as well.

Or we could add more factors, such as knockback and percent damage?

 

[Big-Cat]

For jabs, it kinda makes sense that characters with high priority and longer range have slower startups.

A range from 3-6 is fine IMO.

I say 3-4 at best. The thing with jabs is that they provide an invaluable option for OOS/Blocking in any game. They also help with close ranged combat. What should be done then is that the jabs should just be a quick jab or kick, even if they have a weapon.

If you're concerned about diversity, that's not that big of a deal. Tekken, starting with 6, gave everyone a 10 frame jab, the fastest attack available in that game and Tag 2. Likewise, Virtua Fighter gives everyone either a 10 or 11 frame jab. Despite this similarity, the roster in both these games are very well balanced while having a lot of diversity. In Street Fighter, everyone has either a 3 or 4 frame jab and has achieved a similar balance, but not as great the other two, or so I hear.

 

[Johnknight1]

At the very least, this thread can be used to help identify balance issues. Like, we have Squirtle that has either a 1 or 2 frame startup on his jab (IIRC) while the fastest attack Link has is a jab with six frames of startup. Obviously, this is incredibly unfair. One thing that can be done is to ensure that no attack (outside of final smashes) has nothing faster than a 3 frame startup and ensure that everyone has a 3 or 4 frame jab.

Agreed. I don't mind quick jabs being a bit faster for smaller and faster characters versus bigger and slower characters. However, like in boxing, or any form of fighting, quick jabs are minimally different in speed if done by a 200+ pound guy (say Mike Tyson) versus a guy under 150 pounds (Manny Pacquiao). In boxing, Muhammad Ali, a "big guy," relied heavily on his quick jab. Without a quick effective jab, boxers lose their most important offense weapon. The jab leads to so many combos, and opens the door to the opponent being vulnerable to other moves, including some huge (knock out) punches.

I'm not saying smash bros has to be "realistic," but nearly never every heavy and slow character in Brawl had no quick, easy, and/or weak offense like that. Plus smash bros works offensively like boxing quite a bit (in this sense). Bowser could really use any offense he can get. Meta Knight doesn't need that edge over him. He's already faster, more elusive, has more combos, recoveries easier, flies, moves faster, has more quick moves, has more moves with real good priority, and overall way more offense.

Simply put, Smash Bros. needs to give the slow guys more offense. Just look at what happened with Ganondorf. Once he lost his deceptive speed, his few quick moves, and his recovery length he had in Melee, he became garbage. The same is true to a certain extent for Captain Falcon and Link.

 

[grizby2]

im pretty new to frame data.

someone tell me... how long does 1 frame last exactly?

 

[Wobbly Headed Bob]

im pretty new to frame data.

someone tell me... how long does 1 frame last exactly?

Games usually run at 60 frames per second. Therefore a frame lasts 1/60 of a second.

 

[Luco]

Yea a frame in a game can vary but as noiscythe pointed out, as the norm is 60 frames per second it makes frame data a lot easier to think about, you can usually just be like "Oh that's 30 frames... half a second *imagine it* yep that sounds about right." and move on.

 

[grizby2]

oh okay, thanks :}

60 frames a second huh? ..SCV has the same frame rate. makes it more familiar to me.

 

[Luco]

Alright, how about we chronicle that for now? Jabs hit on frame 3/4 for most chars?

 

[Big-Cat]

oh okay, thanks :}

60 frames a second huh? ..SCV has the same frame rate. makes it more familiar to me.

60 FPS is pretty much the standard for fighting games. Now, the length of animation of the moves will vary as I've mentioned with examples already. A jab will be at least 3-4 frames in a 2D fighter due to its old school nature (I think) while 3D fighters have 10-11 frames mostly because they're closer to the martial arts they're based off which means they more than likely use motion capturing. I honestly don't think a real life jab could come out in 3-4 frames. I most definitely have never achieved that.

 

[Luco]

60 FPS is pretty much the standard for fighting games. Now, the length of animation of the moves will vary as I've mentioned with examples already. A jab will be at least 3-4 frames in a 2D fighter due to its old school nature (I think) while 3D fighters have 10-11 frames mostly because they're closer to the martial arts they're based off which means they more than likely use motion capturing. I honestly don't think a real life jab could come out in 3-4 frames. I most definitely have never achieved that.

Through my experience with martial arts, I do recall a strike that is known to be faster than a snake striking. I can't actually remember what it is though. A cotton palm? Punch? Elbow or Knee? I can't remember...