Project SSBM (v2.00) - Fresh take on 'balance mod' with principles to keep vanilla knowledge intact.

[Nayolfa]

No one has provided a "balance" mod without changing weight, air speed, character playstyles, or even completely changing move-sets.

All of these things listed are very important to the vanilla game knowledge, and I believe it's the reason SD Remix, or other mods have never taken off. PM/P+ gets the benefit of being it's own game with it's own mechanics/character designs. Melee is a game we've learned for 19+ years, so mods of the game don't get the luxury to be it's "own thing." Their audience is a hardcore crowd that's STILL labbing matchup's and tech usage out to this date.

This mod is to add Quality of Life changes, and mainly polish Characters up with principles that keep the character's playstyle as vanilla as possible, and the move data being as similar as possible.
The concern of the mod is fixing a few weaknesses (not all of them like PM does) of the 19 underused characters in the game just enough where you would feel confident picking them up as much as Captain Falcon or Peach. An underdog, but a competent one in the right hands.
I want to give players who love the character designs of the entire vanilla roster a version where you can play them. For fun, or for competition!

This is my first draft. So if you aren't a fan of patch culture like me, you might want to wait until I get the second draft finished! I'm planning to finalize the direction of changing characters by (v2.01). And finalize the mod with bug fixes, quality of life, stage additions in a distant (v2.02) version.
(note: v2.00 has very slight top tier nerfs. v2.01, and v2.02 will have separate versions without any nerfs at all. But they will not be the main build.)


Discord to download the mod with instructions, discuss characters, find games, read patch notes, and share feedback here.
Patch Notes of the current build. A lot of my bias. But I've made sure to consult a few character specialists for some characters I'm unsure of.

small note: It's very hard to make a mod without going overboard. I made a mod similar to this last year and it was a train-wreak of "What if the character could do this?" Giving absurd hitboxes, air movement to feel better, different angles, making everything spike. I don't have beef with other modpacks, but the lack of restraint is the main motivation to why I sat down for two months to make this first build. Please enjoy and help playtest if it sounds up your alley!

 

[LudwigTweets]

I genuinely can't wait for 2.01, let alone 2.02 to come out! That's obviously months away but it'll be great to see the development of the mod over the next year! Do you plan to write a "directors cut" over the changelog at some point?

 

[Nayolfa]

I genuinely can't wait for 2.01, let alone 2.02 to come out! That's obviously months away but it'll be great to see the development of the mod over the next year! Do you plan to write a "directors cut" over the changelog at some point?

lmao. I'll be saving the patch notes and the full builds of (v2.00). Since my bias shines through in a decent few areas; I guess it would be considered the directors cut VS how the community would influence (v2.01). Maybe I'll rename it to Directors Cut in the future.

 

[Nayolfa]

I'll be working on V2.01 within a month. Which is the hardest part. Going to have to talk to a lot of character specialists about what I've done, and see how I can better change characters.

Aside from that, more polish and hopefully being able to finish all my goals with the mod.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Overall I like the look of this, but spike cancelling seems like the opposite extreme to making everything spike... not sure how I feel about it

 

[BrassMonkey]

Spike canceling seems like a weird choice. We already have meteors and spiking someone off the stage is really fun and sick.

I like the doc/mario changes. Instead of making mario's fair a spike, could you make a sweet/sour spot to spike? Kinda like captain falcon's nipple stomp.
Some sort of buff for up-b canceling would be nice too. Maybe less landing lag when you cancel the up-b or more hitstun/better angles for combos.
Or even giving mario an up-b cancel! I'm not 100% confident but last time I was messing with mario's up-b in HSDraw, I was able to give him an up-b cancel by removing some sort of landing subaction (doc's up-b doesn't have this subaction which I think enables him to up-b cancel.)

Edit
Maybe spike canceling could work if it's as difficult as ledge dashing. That way you can still have a chance to escape that pesky falco dair without it becoming some sort of new meta.

Also nurfing characters makes players who main them not want to play because yah know.... yah nurfed them and why would they play the 'fan' version of the game where their character is nurfed when they can play the 'official tournament' version where their character isn't nurfed.

 

[Rain0]

Is there a download link that doesn't require Discord?

 

[guessU's]

Is there a download link that doesn't require Discord?

That's absolutely disgusting of you, OP. I really hope you add an alternate download link outside of Discord.

 

[Nayolfa]

Overall I like the look of this, but spike cancelling seems like the opposite extreme to making everything spike... not sure how I feel about it

Spike canceling seems like a weird choice. We already have meteors and spiking someone off the stage is really fun and sick.

I like the doc/mario changes. Instead of making mario's fair a spike, could you make a sweet/sour spot to spike? Kinda like captain falcon's nipple stomp.
Some sort of buff for up-b canceling would be nice too. Maybe less landing lag when you cancel the up-b or more hitstun/better angles for combos.
Or even giving mario an up-b cancel! I'm not 100% confident but last time I was messing with mario's up-b in HSDraw, I was able to give him an up-b cancel by removing some sort of landing subaction (doc's up-b doesn't have this subaction which I think enables him to up-b cancel.)

Edit
Maybe spike canceling could work if it's as difficult as ledge dashing. That way you can still have a chance to escape that pesky falco dair without it becoming some sort of new meta.

Also nurfing characters makes players who main them not want to play because yah know.... yah nurfed them and why would they play the 'fan' version of the game where their character is nurfed when they can play the 'official tournament' version where their character isn't nurfed.

More and more I play mod with my friends. More I realize why Rivals of Aether gave up on their changes to melee in Rivals 2. You just get annoyed by jank in melee and think "there has to be a better way!" And your initial ideas to change the game mechanics... arn't good. Spike canceling is interesting since it's literally a 1 frame window to jump out of. But it feels more random to hit than a skill to have.

I had a gut feeling, and that's why there has always been two builds, one with weird changes and nerfs called "experimental", and one without any of my bias. Having the experimental build is mainly so I can test nerfing top tiers, which I'd always keep separate even if I end up liking it. (Which I really don't)

I do think Mario and VERY few other characters would benefit from Spike angles though, there's a reason Falco and Marth are top tier. Guarenteeing kills off bottom is hella important when a lot of stages have different side/top blast zones. The intention of this mod is to strengthen up how characters play in vanilla. And playing my mod a lot, I can legit play characters in Vanilla I never thought I could or would want to. Making this mod just reinforced my love for how amazing nearly every character's toolset is!

---

I'm working on final 2.00 build soon after a long break. I'll make another thread when I have the build done. Main change is I'm going to actually attempt changing Ice Climbers, Samus, and Pichu. My current mod just does weird stuff with them. Buff some weakness's that are too much (Kirby, Ness, Bowser mainly). And nerf characters I gave too much (Mewtwo, Link, Luigi)

I don't really want to work on a heavy mod of Melee (what I called 2.01) until the game is decompiled like Mario/Zelda 64. There's a lot of quality of life to change about mechanics and mainly characters I want to do. That would be better to program into the game, instead of hack into it.

Is there a download link that doesn't require Discord?

And I'll have the new build hosted on google drive completely. <3

 

[Nayolfa]

Working on newest version finally. Roy and a few other character overhauls. Working with someone to get ASM done to complete 2.00 finally..
I'll keep this posted with progress

Server invite: https://discord.gg/ydUrAjVkKq

 

[Rain0]

Working on newest version finally. Roy and a few other character overhauls. Working with someone to get ASM done to complete 2.00 finally..
I'll keep this posted with progress

Server invite: https://discord.gg/ydUrAjVkKq

:O