Tales of Brawl - Innerscope has released Lloyd 2.0!

[Royal_Blade]

If this ever gets finished (and it will), having an optional PSA for Lloyd with an OL feature would be pretty simple to implement.

And a combo feature should also be present.

Plus, it would kind of diminish one of Cless's unique aspects if anyone ever decided to bring him into Brawl.

That's funny, I was going to make him in the future now that I can animate. (And kinda know PSA.)

And I'll make those minor changes and finish the run/dash after Demonic Circle. And I won't be doing anything after Demonic Circle until wednesday afternoon due to school stuff.

 

[GP&B]

And a combo feature should also be present.

Oh, you mean being able to cancel at the end of one attack into another? That wouldn't be a bad idea either (for canon/broken Lloyd that is).

That's funny, I was going to make him in the future now that I can animate. (And kinda know PSA.)

And I'll make those minor changes and finish the run/dash after Demonic Circle. And I won't be doing anything after Demonic Circle until wednesday afternoon due to school stuff.

Heh, that'd be pretty cool to see sometime in the future.
Alright, sounds like a good deal. I never got around to working yesterday and a job application process (and interview in which I have a job now, woot) occupied most of today. However, I will be working on some PSA today.

 

[Royal_Blade]

GD, I'm not sure if you noticed that i edited my the post before my last one.

 

[GP&B]

I think I quoted your most recent edit. What did I miss?

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

Actually, I retract my previous statement; the ToS2 rising slash would be a great Utilt, and Tempest really ought to go on upB, with Omega and Psi as arte changes, (press B during startup for Omega, A for Psi).

Speaking of, that should be Lloyd's main gimmick: Arte extensions. Press A to change into the next skill up in the Strike tree, or B to change into the next skill up in the Technical tree. So for Dtilt, you'd have to press B once during startup to extend to Sword Rain Alpha, or press it twice to extend to Sword Rain Beta. Or you could just press A once to extend to Sonic Sword Rain. Make sure to have Lloyd pause with that little "tech learned"/"unison attack" glint on his exsphere whenever he uses an extension. (Partially to prevent brokenness by adding extra startup. Smashing an enemy right off the bat with Twin Tiger Blade or Hunting Beast would be kinda broken, after all.)

 

[GP&B]

Actually, I retract my previous statement; the ToS2 rising slash would be a great Utilt, and Tempest really ought to go on upB, with Omega and Psi as arte changes, (press B during startup for Omega, A for Psi).

Speaking of, that should be Lloyd's main gimmick: Arte extensions. Press A to change into the next skill up in the Strike tree, or B to change into the next skill up in the Technical tree. So for Dtilt, you'd have to press B once during startup to extend to Sword Rain Alpha, or press it twice to extend to Sword Rain Beta. Or you could just press A once to extend to Sonic Sword Rain. Make sure to have Lloyd pause with that little "tech learned"/"unison attack" glint on his exsphere whenever he uses an extension. (Partially to prevent brokenness by adding extra startup. Smashing an enemy right off the bat with Twin Tiger Blade or Hunting Beast would be kinda broken, after all.)

Seeing as how some moves in the preliminary moveset have that kind of idea (extending out of jab into Sword Rain), that'd be kind of neat. The problem is voice clips in which I don't know how many spare and lengthy enough clips we have left to make use of. That and, again, I'm mostly interested in refining what's currently in place before applying a considerable mechanic like that especially without the animations.

Also, looking over other characters' jabs again, they reference a subroutine in a function that standardtoaster told me was Concurrent Infinite Loop which checks the subroutine every frame for a number of frames. How that applies here is that you put a button requirement in the subroutine you're referencing and when you hit the button during the check, it'll confirm the next action (in this case, the next jab move).

To conclude, connecting the first and second jab is nearly perfect. Now there's just a small issue of being able to cancel the first few frames of it with anything and that also means nearly skipping the first jab attack. It's definitely good progress though and feels much better.

EDIT: Aaand fixed that issue. The second jab autolinks to the third which I'll fix tomorrow; easy to do. Otherwise, it feels really nice now. Just got to get the frame timings into a good position so you can't do it too early and it doesn't occur way too late.

 

[Royal_Blade]

Right, there's also Kokuu Souhazan/Chaos Blade. And the Jikuu Souhazan/Chaos Distortion Blade is the other combination arte. But that's enough about Cress.

Edit: Here's my attempt at the slam for Demonic Circle:
http://imageshack.us/m/156/5918/lloyddci.png

I've also recreated the Guard pose and the GuardOn/ GuardOff animations. (They're nothing special.)
And I made the alternate CSP pose. (Temporarily as AppealSL/ AppealSR)

I'm guessing you didn't see it. I was just showing some progress that i've made. But check out the DC frame, I want to know what you think.

Edit: How many frames did you want for the Charge of Demonic Circle? You never answered.

Edit2: Ugh... I tried making the run again (awaiting for a response to frame/charge DC). And I messed it up again! So I don't want to make it. (So i don't have to screw it up again)
If anyone else wants to make it, you can use these transformations:

"Larm"
Translation X: 1.1246
Translation Y: 0
Translation Z: 0.121441
Rotation X: -114.334
Rotation Y: -65.232
Rotation Z: -304.334
Scale X: 1
Scale Y: 1
Scale z: 1

"Lforearmroll"
Translation X: 1.59344
Translation Y: 0
Translation Z: 0.020288
Rotation X: 40.802
Rotation Y: 0.218
Rotation Z: -0.134
Scale X: 1
Scale Y: 1
Scale z: 1

"Lforearm"
Translation X: 2.47
Translation Y: 0
Translation Z: 0.019575
Rotation X: -17.106
Rotation Y: -40.516
Rotation Z: -28.69
Scale X: 1
Scale Y: 1
Scale z: 1

"Lhand"
Translation X: 0.411223
Translation Y: -0.021545
Translation Z: -0.012304
Rotation X: 10.806
Rotation Y: 36.379
Rotation Z: -5.386
Scale X: 1
Scale Y: 1
Scale z: 1

These will produce a general ToS1 run. You can modify it after if you feel to do so.
(And everything in parenthesis, is the name of the bones)

 

[GP&B]

I'm guessing you didn't see it. I was just showing some progress that i've made. But check out the DC frame, I want to know what you think.

Pretty nice. I do believe that Lloyd's right hand sword (Vorpal Sword in this case) will be perpendicular with the ground. However, the bone has a weird issue where making it perfectly straight will actually tilt it downwards so you have to compensate a little bit. I could give you the right hand wrist value that nails that since I did it with Sword Rain and Sonic Thrust.

Edit: How many frames did you want for the Charge of Demonic Circle? You never answered.

I'd figure the same for how long any charge smash animation can last. Unless you mean startup frames before the attack.

Edit2: Ugh... I tried making the run again (awaiting for a response to frame/charge DC). And I messed it up again! So I don't want to make it. (So i don't have to screw it up again)
If anyone else wants to make it, you can use these transformations:

Bah, sorry to hear about your poor luck with it. I'll go ahead and take those values and give it a shot myself since it isn't too hard to do.

 

[Royal_Blade]

For charges, the ones I checked had 61 frames for all 3 Smashes. (Link and Sonic) But your Sonic Thrust has 64. Do you want 64 or 61 frames? (I'll make it 64 for now and i can change it after.)

And no, the vorpal sword is not exactly parallel (not perpendicular, I'm doing vectors in math, so I know) to the ground.

See for yourself. It's actually slightly off. (Angled a bit lower)

And using my example above, I should modify the frame I have it a bit. His knee isn't touching the ground and this arm isn't angled back enough. I could also adjust his back which could position the flamberge better.

 

[GP&B]

For charges, the ones I checked had 61 frames for all 3 Smashes. (Link and Sonic) But your Sonic Thrust has 64. Do you want 64 or 61 frames? (I'll make it 64 for now and i can change it after.)

64 will be fine. I don't think it matters as I believe the game itself defaults to forcing you release the charged smash at a certain point anyways.

And no, the vorpal sword is not exactly parallel (not perpendicular, I'm doing vectors in math, so I know) to the ground.

See for yourself. It's actually slightly off. (Angled a bit lower)

And using my example above, I should modify the frame I have it a bit. His knee isn't touching the ground and this arm isn't angled back enough. I could also adjust his back which could position the flamberge better.

So it seems. Alright, thanks for pointing out the specifics then and keep up the good work.

Also, I made a very simple adjustment to DownWaitU. He was originally faceplanted when the animation calls for the character to be facing up. So it was a simple matter of rotating the Y and Z axis and moving his ATrans bone (same thing as TransN) to the center. Now his getup animation and backplanted animation match.

 

[Royal_Blade]

Well, I checked with metaknight, he has also 61 frames for smashes. So it seems that 61 is the designated smash charge.

So I don't think they're set off. It is an animation. It goes through start-up frames > charge frames > smash frames. If the a button is released during charge, go to smash.

That's my interpretation of it.
Like how all landing frames are 31 frames. (except special ones like Link's/Toon Link's DAir which have 61 frames.) Smash Attack Charges are all 61.

 

[GP&B]

That would make sense, especially since the amount of time a landing animation lasts is determined by an attribute value anyways. Then yeah, 61 frames it is.

 

[Royal_Blade]

That would make sense, especially since the amount of time a landing animation lasts is determined by an attribute value anyways. Then yeah, 61 frames it is.

Ok then. Consider it done.
Oh, Sonic Thrust's Charge is one frame repeated 64 times. Do you want me to animate that charge? I can then change it to 61 frames as well.

Also, fixed up the Demonic Circle slam frame.
http://imageshack.us/m/848/3264/lloyddc2.png
I think that it's pretty close to the original.

 

[GP&B]

Ok then. Consider it done.
Oh, Sonic Thrust's Charge is one frame repeated 64 times. Do you want me to animate that charge? I can then change it to 61 frames as well.

Also, fixed up the Demonic Circle slam frame.
http://imageshack.us/m/848/3264/lloyddc2.png
I think that it's pretty close to the original.

Yeah, I'd be fine with you animating any of the smash charges.

That is indeed pretty accurate. How's the animation as a whole going? Obviously, you can easily just copy over the Demon Fang animation and then go from there until you reach the slam pose you have.

 

[Royal_Blade]

Yeah, I'd be fine with you animating any of the smash charges.

That is indeed pretty accurate. How's the animation as a whole going? Obviously, you can easily just copy over the Demon Fang animation and then go from there until you reach the slam pose you have.

Actually, I started straight from your current DSmash (which is Demon Fang.) And I placed this frame somewhere between the ending of Demon Fang and the current ending frame (which I think is 39.) I plan on adding frames before and after to get the right position. I'm gonna take screen caps before i animate. For exact measures.

 

[ryuu seika]

I'm pretty sure Dsmash isn't Demon Fang...

 

[Royal_Blade]

At the moment (in the beta), the DSmash is the first bit of Demonic Circle, which IS Demon Fang.

Speaking of the beta, Demonic Circle's charge was 2 frames, which is why it couldn't charge. Which also emphasizes my interpretation of how smashes work. (Just putting it out there)

 

[GP&B]

Yeah, the current animation in place is the Demon Fang movement. There's just nothing done on it right now.

 

[Royal_Blade]

Yay, I finished Demonic Circle! It still needs tweaking but its overall good.

I'll upload all my animations. Which include:
-AppealLw (CSP)
-AppealSL/AppealSR (CSP Alt)
-AttackLw4Start/AttackLw4Hold/AttackLw4 Demonic Circle w/ charge
-EscapeN (Needs some work. It has the general look.)
-Guard/GuardOn/GuardOff

AttackAirB will be done after wednesday.

I'll edit this post with the files.

And GD, could you send me your Sonic Thrust animation?

Edit: http://www.mediafire.com/?2q71uprox5gltub
Here they are. Hope they look well in-game.

Edit2: Uh.. the animations may need some cleaning. I'm not completely sure on the whole keyframe business...

 

[Plaid02]

Surprise! I'm back or something. Unfortunately, I have a LOT of schoolwork to do for about the next month, but then I should have drastically increased availability.

I've been looking through the past couple of pages trying to figure out what's been going on, but I figure it'd be easier just to ask: What's been done? What are you guys working on? What would you like me to do? Zephron said that Rising Falcon was fixed, which is nice. It was really irritating.

Anyway, if somebody could make a more organized list of Lloyd's moves and stuff with progress on them and all, that would be nice. Also, I would appreciate being given the most recent files.

 

[GP&B]

Yay, I finished Demonic Circle! It still needs tweaking but its overall good.

I'll upload all my animations. Which include:
-AppealLw (CSP)
-AppealSL/AppealSR (CSP Alt)
-AttackLw4Start/AttackLw4Hold/AttackLw4 Demonic Circle w/ charge
-EscapeN (Needs some work. It has the general look.)
-Guard/GuardOn/GuardOff

AttackAirB will be done after wednesday.

I'll edit this post with the files.

And GD, could you send me your Sonic Thrust animation?

Edit: http://www.mediafire.com/?2q71uprox5gltub
Here they are. Hope they look well in-game.

Edit2: Uh.. the animations may need some cleaning. I'm not completely sure on the whole keyframe business...

Very nice work. I'll check it out in a moment and I'll send you my adjusted Sonic Thrust animation.

Surprise! I'm back or something. Unfortunately, I have a LOT of schoolwork to do for about the next month, but then I should have drastically increased availability.

I've been looking through the past couple of pages trying to figure out what's been going on, but I figure it'd be easier just to ask: What's been done? What are you guys working on? What would you like me to do? Zephron said that Rising Falcon was fixed, which is nice. It was really irritating.

Anyway, if somebody could make a more organized list of Lloyd's moves and stuff with progress on them and all, that would be nice. Also, I would appreciate being given the most recent files.

Hey! Long time no see. You might have missed what I previously had the title as. I was originally working on some GFX additions to a number of moves to spruce them up. Then I started getting into the coding as I tested out Lloyd and I really wanted to revamp Rising Falcon. It's not entirely fixed though, but I can tell you I'm pretty freakin' close.

That's also not a bad idea. I'll get the current moveset out and link it into the OP once I type in what all has been done. I'll give you the most recent files once I remove the freeze that Sonic Thrust is incurring (made an adjustment to a graphic effect function that the game strangely does not like) and get Demonic Circle going.

We've also had some moveset discussion and of course Tempest came into play again which I know is going to bother the absolute hell out of you. Don't worry though. Until the preliminary moveset is done, I am making absolutely no changes except for grabs and maybe aerials since they're both very tentative (except for canon aerial slash).

 

[Plaid02]

Yeah, I noticed the Tempest discussion when I went back through and read a few more pages after I posted.

Because I do this sort of thing, I'm going to reiterate and defend my position. Tempest is, as I think I said earlier, not my absolute favorite choice of Utilt. However, it certainly does make sense; Lloyd moves up and down quickly, spins, like Tempest, and it's quite similar to Olimar's Utilt. However, I don't like how much range and spammability we had on it in the previous beta. Also, it's certainly not supposed to be much of a juggling move. While it certainly could feasibly be followed up by an aerial, it's not meant to be a sure shot.

Actually, the more I think about it, the less and less sense it makes in the context of Lloyd's character in Brawl. All of his tilts are already very good at shutting down approach, which he's supposed to do, but Tempest makes aerial approach virtually impossible since it takes so little time to start up and has such high priority because of the range and coverage. Plus, Tiger Blade isn't bad for that in the first place.

However, I'm not liking the alternatives much either. The way I see it, the alternatives mostly consist of a good juggle move (like the Utilts I normally play with, e.g. Toon Link, Luigi, Kirby), which really does not fit what we want for Lloyd. He is, unless I'm mistaken, not supposed to be a huge aerial comboer. The other alternative I see is a pretty much useless Utilt, which is kinda dumb.

It's a bit of a no-win scenario. I think the best option is the juggle one; as much as I hate things that are non-canon when canon options like Tempest are available and Lloyd is not really supposed to juggle much, Tempest is pretty much broken beyond repair, and many other characters who are not focused on aerial comboing have Utilts like that, such as Bowser.

Thoughts?

Oh, I nearly forgot. I adamantly oppose the idea of putting Tempest on nair still. As there is no jump, it would look nothing like Tempest and would not even have the feel of Tempest slightly, like I think it did on the Utilt. Broken though it was, the Utilt certainly FELT quite like Tempest; it was very canon.

 

[GP&B]

I understand although you at least now know why we thought it strange in the first place. If I had to suggest an alternative that wasn't a juggling UTilt, Doctor Mario's UTilt had a more diagonal knockback trajectory than Mario's so it was good for leading into and then throwing your opponent away from you. The move doesn't have high KBG but its BKB is usually good enough to ensure that kind of pushback even in early %'s. With fastfallers, it gets them onto ground for Lloyd's superior ground game to work on. With floatier characters, it will remove the pressure off of Lloyd, making Demon Fang a good zoning option to make the ground dangerous, which then makes his grounding aerials viable.

Just a suggestion.

Sonic Thrust slightly updated

 

[Plaid02]

That could work... I'm not sure. I'm also not entirely sure that we should abandon Tempest, either.

If we do decide to make it hit up and off to the side, what animation is it going to be? There's nothing canon for this, and the other characters with swords don't really have the right kind of swipe except for maybe Marth, which isn't quite what we want either.

 

[GP&B]

There isn't really a choice animation for this, but if the idea was taken into more consideration we could look into it more.

 

[Zephron]

Can't we just have the last hit of tempest move the enemy far enough away so that you can't juggle? It's a multi-hit move so naturally it's going to hit more than once, but if we can make it have low priority and slightly less range, then Tempest is still a nice option.

Then since they got hit far-ish away then you can follow up with something, or the opponent can react since they are farther away, thus giving both sides a chance.

 

[GP&B]

That'd be fine. Currently, it's way too good at racking up damage because it doesn't send the opponent anywhere.

 

[Royal_Blade]

Also, why isn't there any ending lag from landing Tempest? Give it some more ending lag (not too much) to make it not so spammable. And like what Zephron said, give the last hit more noticeable knockback. Like the hit from the Ray Gun. It has noticeable horizontal knockback (although it's spammable, Tempest doesn't move forward so it won't be as bad.)

And can you change the knockback on a Smash attack that isn't fully charged and one that is? Like Sonic Thrust (uncharged) has okay knockback, but Sonic Thrust (fully charged) has good knock back?
But the knockback on the uncharged smash (in this case Sonic Thrust) remains throughout unless it is fully charged.

@GD: Thanks.

 

[GP&B]

Also, why isn't there any ending lag from landing Tempest? Give it some more ending lag (not too much) to make it not so spammable. And like what Zephron said, give the last hit more noticeable knockback. Like the hit from the Ray Gun. It has noticeable horizontal knockback (although it's spammable, Tempest doesn't move forward so it won't be as bad.)

I'll work on doing that then to balance it a bit more.

And can you change the knockback on a Smash attack that isn't fully charged and one that is? Like Sonic Thrust (uncharged) has okay knockback, but Sonic Thrust (fully charged) has good knock back?
But the knockback on the uncharged smash (in this case Sonic Thrust) remains throughout unless it is fully charged.

@GD: Thanks.

I could but I don't currently understand how it works. I'll look into it though and I imagine it shouldn't be hard to figure out.

 

[Plaid02]

The thing about changing Tempest's knockback is that it won't change the biggest problem: It utterly destroys any attempt at an aerial approach. For the range to be small enough to be balanced, the hitbox would go about a third of the way up lloyd's sword, which would definitely lead to the sword going straight through someone and not hitting.

... Although, that still sounds better than our other options, really, especially since it would require much less work.

 

[GP&B]

Well, if I really want a better way to aesthetically nerf his range, I could adjust the animation so he pulls his swords in a bit more.

 

[Eternal Yoshi]

You should probably give Tempest more startup and after lag(Frame Speed Modifier) to prevent juggles rather than messing with it's range.

Another thing that could help is changing the angle of the attack hitboxes.

 

[Royal_Blade]

Yeah, some more start up frames would be nice as well.

And is Tempest being kept as UTilt for now?

Also, I'm almost done start-up frames for Sonic Thrust (It needed some) then the charge (which shouldn't be hard to do) and then ending frames after the thrust.
So you might have to adjust the PSA for my changes to Side Smash.

Btw, how's Demonic Circle looking?

 

[Plaid02]

@GD: Yeah, I think having him pull in the swords would be nice. I think that's probably the best solution.

@EternalYoshi: Nerfing the startup and cooldown certainly need to happen, but if the range isn't nerfed changing startup and cooldown will either not do much of anything or make it entirely useless.

@Royal_Blade: Those frames on Sonic Thrust were definitely needed; the transition after the thrust looked so awkward. I can adjust the PSA as soon as I get all of the updated files. Changing the timing is not actually difficult.

Also, I noticed some discussion of Rising Falcon a few pages back, and I'm going to agree with what I thought was the consensus, just for clarification: After falling a substantial distance, Lloyd becomes able to cancel Rising Falcon with a jump, but he does not regain his second jump. Also, we're clear that if he's already airborne, he only does the dive part of the move, correct?

 

[GP&B]

@GD: Yeah, I think having him pull in the swords would be nice. I think that's probably the best solution.

@EternalYoshi: Nerfing the startup and cooldown certainly need to happen, but if the range isn't nerfed changing startup and cooldown will either not do much of anything or make it entirely useless.

@Royal_Blade: Those frames on Sonic Thrust were definitely needed; the transition after the thrust looked so awkward. I can adjust the PSA as soon as I get all of the updated files. Changing the timing is not actually difficult.

Also, I noticed some discussion of Rising Falcon a few pages back, and I'm going to agree with what I thought was the consensus, just for clarification: After falling a substantial distance, Lloyd becomes able to cancel Rising Falcon with a jump, but he does not regain his second jump. Also, we're clear that if he's already airborne, he only does the dive part of the move, correct?

Alright, I'll get into balancing Tempest and adjusting its animation then.
I currently have not done anything with Demonic Circle. I'll get on it tomorrow along with Tempeset.

I'm planning to shorten the duration of the aerial rise before the dive by at least half for the aerial version. Most Tales characters with Rising Phoenix tend to have this behavior.

 

[Royal_Blade]

Alright, I'll get into balancing Tempest and adjusting its animation then.
I currently have not done anything with Demonic Circle. I'll get on it tomorrow along with Tempeset.

I'm planning to shorten the duration of the aerial rise before the dive by at least half for the aerial version. Most Tales characters with Rising Phoenix tend to have this behavior.

The aerial version for any character who has moves like Rising Falcon/ Rising Phoenix/ Havoc Strike/ or Crush Earth even, skip their initial jump if the arte is performed in the air.
There still should be a transition to the dive, but not a half jump.

 

[GP&B]

That's the general idea. Stahn, for example, moves up and back a little bit before diving if in the air.

 

[ryuu seika]

I think most characters have some backward motion during the startup of Rising Falcon/Phoenix anyway. That's kind of beside the point though.

I would say that we should definitely go for the jumpless approach with startup for the aerial version.

 

[GP&B]

There has to be some startup though. Otherwise, it's way too powerful of an aerial approach.

 

[ryuu seika]

Definitely. It would likely be to powerful out of a short hop too if it lacked the startup.