Super Smash Bros Better (A Sm4sh Patch)

[Scarlet Jile]

Hello! This is Super Smash Bros. Better, a rebalance project for Smash (WiiU) in collaboration with hundreds of members of the character communities, dozens of character Discords and a handful of top level players. Here's a blurb from the project document:

This project was designed to reduce the severity of poor matchup spreads for the less viable portion of the cast without allowing power creep at the top. Along the way, opportunities for increasing the fun factor presented themselves and were taken without compromising the feel of the characters or the game as a whole. Nerfs were distributed as lightly as possible while still attempting to address unnecessary or frustrating mechanics. As a result, the patch does not purport to achieve perfect balance--for that to happen, top tiers would need to get worse--but their matchups against previously low tier characters will have become dramatically less lopsided, and there are absolutely no bad characters in the game.


If this sounds like something you might be interested in trying it out or reading the changes, please follow this link to see the document with all the changes, as well as download links.

We also have a Discord, which you can use to ask questions, find matches or talk about modding.

Update: This project has fully launched, and at the time of writing, we are up to version 1.7.1!

 

[Shun_one]

I am going to play around with this. What would one need to get an unpacked version so that I might preserve my minor audio/cosmetic mods?

 

[SJMistery]

Please tell me that if you can, you will include a patch that does this for the 3DS version:

taunts are activated with Select+direction of the D-pad or Circle Pad
the D-pad can be used to walk, and to input tilts and specials without having to rely on that damn Circle Pad.

(I know this is not technically for balance, but the fact that a slitghly worn down Circle Pad or a little lag can block half of the attack comands and make combos impossible to do, rendering many fighters that rely on them in a disadvantage, and especially making the perfect-input-based Ryu almost unusable, I am pretty sure everybody would love that)

If you do, I will gladly help on everything I can, promise!


Decreasing the satartup of Greninja's forward aerial to let him combo it more reliably, and restoring the running Shadow Sneak and the down-air to SS, or a little tweak to Substitute (the doll/log stunning attackers to solve how easy os to block with infinite jabs) would also be awesome but that's another question and possibly unbalanced.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

I am going to play around with this. What would one need to get an unpacked version so that I might preserve my minor audio/cosmetic mods?

Once it leaves this phase of testing, I plan to upload an unpacked version alongside the full release. I expect about a week, after it's sat for long enough that I'm confident about its stability.

S SJMistery That's a little bit out of my jurisdiction, I'm afraid. I do plan to look more into what can be done with the substitute once our parsing is a little more complete.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Hello, I've taken a look at some of these changes & I like what I see.
Though I would like to make a couple suggestions for changes.

Do you have Discord? Could I would love chat about some of these changes verbally.

Scarlet Jile Edit: I have link to some buffs that could help for Dr. Mario:
https://smashboards.com/threads/wha...o-make-him-viable.411960/page-3#post-21505721

 

[MrGameguycolor]

I'm guessing your not willing to take suggests?

 

[Scarlet Jile]

I'm always receptive to good ideas, but most of these changes are in collaboration with entire character communities, or else high level character representation. So one person's ideas, while never dismissed outright, may not make it in unless they can produce some evidence of consensus.

 

[dansal]

Design by committee sounds like a pretty bad idea. The fact that you gave Lucina sweetspots when her character design was intended NOT to have those doesn't really give me any confidence that this project is practicing good game design.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

Design by committee sounds like a pretty bad idea. The fact that you gave Lucina sweetspots when her character design was intended NOT to have those doesn't really give me any confidence that this project is practicing good game design.

The "intention" behind her design was to be a simpler, less demanding Marth clone. That's not "practicing good game design," so that argument doesn't hold a lot of water in the rebalancing discussion.

That said, it was a controversial change and it doesn't surprise me that someone would take offense to it, even if it's virtually indistinguishable from her vanilla iteration.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

I'm always receptive to good ideas, but most of these changes are in collaboration with entire character communities, or else high level character representation. So one person's ideas, while never dismissed outright, may not make it in unless they can produce some evidence of consensus.

Could you define what you mean by high level character representation & evidence of consensus as a valid reason to implement suggested changes?

 

[Scarlet Jile]

Could you define what you mean by high level character representation & evidence of consensus as a valid reason to implement suggested changes?

What this means, basically, is that if I don't know the character (like Dr. Mario) or the player (like yourself), I need some evidence that there is a general agreement with your proposed changes before I implement them.

Looking at them cold like I am now, and based on the talks I had with the Doc Discord, I feel these changes would overtune him a little too much. One thing I was explicitly warned against, for example, was an increase in air speed.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

Looking at them cold like I am now, and based on the talks I had with the Doc Discord, I feel these changes would overtune him a little too much. One thing I was explicitly warned against, for example, was an increase in air speed.

How exactly & what's the issue with increased air speed?

 

[FLXC]

Scarlet Jile, I was looking through the changes and most of them seem quite reasonable. There are design decisions I'm not a huge fan of, but overall I think the changes are positive and this project is moving in a good direction, barring some minor quibbles here and there, that I thought I'd offer feedback on.

1.) I'm not a huge fan of top tiers getting buffed (mostly because I don't think it's quite necessary when everyone else is getting buffed so thoroughly), but it's something I can live with.

2.) I don't think there's anything objectively wrong with Lucina getting a sweetspot, but I don't necessarily like that idea as much as some other alternatives, such as decloning her to be faster & lighter ala Young Link. Marth, Roy, and Ike all have some sort of tipper / hilter going on for some of their moves, so Lucy lacking that attribute entirely was core to her design, from my perspective. Not a bad take on it, just not my personal favorite.

3.) The largest issue I have is that some of the clones have moves that hit on different frames or have different hitboxes than the equivalent move for the original character. The main offenders being Pit / Dark Pit's dash attack hitting on different frames (6-8 vs 6-9), and Dr. Mario's FTilt being slightly larger.

These changes are extremely minimal, but I think it would make going back and forth between the original / clone frustrating, in terms of muscle memory. Dr. Mario's FTilt, for example, looks exactly the same as Mario's FTilt. It having an arbitrarily larger hitbox is unclear. Nothing communicates that to the player, visually.

4.) The Sonic weight + BAir nerf seems somewhat heavy to me. I don't think getting a reworked UTilt is adequate compensation for what is probably your most severe top-tier nerf. Maybe change the weight nerf from like -9 to -4? Sonic's most problematic tool is probably how safely he can spam spin-dash, so extremely light nerfs to this seem more appropriate to me.


Otherwise, I really appreciate the design intent of this mod. Whenever an unpacked version comes out I'm definitely going to grab it and tinker around with it. Keep up the good work.

 

[MrGameguycolor]

4.) The Sonic weight + BAir nerf seems extreme. I don't think getting a reworked UTilt is adequate compensation for what is probably your most severe top-tier nerf. Maybe change the weight nerf from like -9 to -4?

I agree, while the weight nerf is understandable, it feels he's getting the glass cannon treatment when it really doesn't fit his design.

 

[FLXC]

MrGameguycolor To be clear, I think Sonic is a hair too heavy in vanilla, and a weight nerf is a good change. I just think it was a little bit too much.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

F FLXC Thanks for checking it out. The only obstacle with releasing an unpacked mod is that trying to repack it yourself with the nightly builds will cause DDD to break. For whatever reason, he just stopped working around version 0.06.

 

[FLXC]

I'm confused, is there something you're doing to prevent him from breaking more recent builds? The version you have for testing is 0.1.1.

Either way, I'd appreciate whatever unpacked version you could provide whenever your development gets more stable. I'd like to be able to play around with the changes and add some balanced stage mods and music/textures.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

No, sorry, I'm speaking in terms of packing the files into a mod with Sm4shExplorer, not issues with the mod itself. For some reason, Sm4shCommand & Sm4shExplorer stopped working with DDD files somewhere along the way, so you have to build the files in earlier, stable releases.

 

[FLXC]

Ah, I see. That makes sense.

Well, whenever it's available, I'll be looking forward to digging through it.

 

[FLXC]

Scarlet Jile Just a heads up, the version you provided hangs on the splash screen for me. Perhaps there's an issue in the 0.1.1 version provided?

 

[Scarlet Jile]

Hm, I don't think there can be an issue with 1.1. It's had a bunch of downloads from Gamebanana, and there's been a lot of playtesting in the local scene here.

Did you merge it into a preexisting mod folder on your SD card?

Also, just to be clear, this mod is for the NA version of the game.

 

[FLXC]

Ah, I'm actually just having a bunch of issues with my SD card now. I think my card might be on the fritz. I'm going to purchase a new card and try that in a day or two.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

Hi folks, version 0.1.2 is live with the latest changes and tweaks. The link in the OP will have all the details.

 

[SJMistery]

Could you provide us detailed intructions to use it on 3ds as well as to remove it in case I feel like playing Roll LAGlory?

 

[Scarlet Jile]

Sorry man, this is WiiU only. 3DS modding is a whole different procedure that I'm less familiar with.

 

[SJMistery]

Oh, damnit. Well, let's not loose hope...

 

[Daeyrat]

4 suggestions to ganon:

1. faster recovery on hit to upb. he can be punished with death when he hits the enemy near the stage (offstage)
2. less di for dthrow
3. upthrow dmg +2%
4. brawl airspeed

 

[Scarlet Jile]

Hi everyone, I forgot to mention here that I've uploaded an unpacked version of the full launch, as well as a new packed version with a couple of nice new legal stages (like Pokemon Stadium) included.

https://mega.nz/#F!KcwjUZTC!ZdCNPH6WIgRycJoNjzTXew
https://mega.nz/#F!KcwjUZTC!ZdCNPH6WIgRycJoNjzTXew
Hope you enjoy.

 

[SJMistery]

Wait, you mean you can include new stages on the 3DS? Because as I know Pokemon Stadium is already on WiiU

 

[Scarlet Jile]

No... there is no 3DS version of this mod.

Pokemon Stadium is a frozen map now, along with Skyloft, MarioU and Windy Hills. There are a few other viable maps included in the pack as well. Definitely useful for replacing Duck Hunt and Lylat with a whole new cast of competitive options.

 

[SJMistery]

WHY? Lylat and DH are good counterpick stages...

 

[Scarlet Jile]

First of all, they're terrible stages. Secondly, I meant replace in the meta, not in the stage select screen, lol. If you love those stages for whatever reason, they haven't gone anywhere.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

Hey, we're up to version 1.2! I've got a packed and unpacked version uploaded with the latest changes.

A lot of cool things happening with the project, and we've cleared the major balance hurdles thanks to a LOT of healthy conversation with a lot of different character communities.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

We're up to version 1.4, and we have a Discord! I keep forgetting to post updates on Smashboards.

 

[YourAverageLink]

Can I suggest some changes?
-remove the rage nerf, it didn't need to be nerfed, plus it needs to help heavies.
-give Charizard the same flamethrower buff Bowser got. This is the real fire type we are talking about
-reduce the angle you can DI Charizard's down and up throws
do these and I'll be happy

 

[young grasshopper]

I love the idea of a mod designed and formatted like a patch (well, a patch produced by developers who tailor specifically to competitive play where balance is most needed, unlike many patches put out by Sakurai). Anyways, I thought of a suggestion that's a bit more overhauling than most simple balancing, but I think it makes a lot of sense: change the way that Lucario's aura scales. Aura is meant to reward survival, so what if aura built up like a meter each time Lucario properly powershields, dodges, or counters an attack? I think this would encourage survival without being counter-intuitive to basic fighting game concepts

 

[Scarlet Jile]

Hey folks, 1.7.1. went live recently with a lot of hitbox adjustments thanks to Ruben's improvements to Smash Forge. The community is continuing to expand, and the Discord is a great place to stop by for comments, questions or matchmaking.

Here are a few samples of the refined hitboxes: