Talking points from Pound 4

[Veril]

At Pound 4 I took the opportunity to talk to many of the ranked vBrawl players, melee players who drifted over between matches, as well as the B+ players who've been active competitively.

There were some pretty common questions and complaints. We saw Lee Martin wrecking s*** with Lucario, a lot of Jigglypuffs, big name vBrawl players making an appearance, and for the most part the atmosphere was really positive.

1. Change Fatigue!

One thing really stood out to me: There are a lot of vBrawl and Melee players who enjoy playing B+, but every single one was turned off by the same thing: inconsistency in the game. Every time I told one of these players (Lain, Ksizzle, Lee Martin, Snakee, Shadow, etc) that I was taking a much more conservative approach to changes, the whole tone of the discussion changed. We have to respect this. This is a hack for competition. If the most competitively experienced and skilled players are all telling me the same thing, consider that they (and I) have a point. Who wants to practice a character to the extent that they have for vBrawl when they aren't even secure in that choice?

Some changes will inevitably have to be made. And many preexisting changes are being evaluated. The approach I'll be taking is geared towards making the smallest changes possible to achieve a desired goal, and that goal in turn represents a far more narrow focus with changes. Removing truly broken elements (loop infinites for example), unintended effects of changes (like Jiggs up-throw, Zelda's neutral B), and certain glitches (like Yoshi's DJC float).

All changes that are intended solely to help or harm a specific character without having a clear imperative are off the table. We've already massively altered the game coming into 6.0, and it is time to chill out.

I think everyone needs to understand that Veril is very set on his ways, and one of his desires is to truly get Brawl+ accepted on a more universal level. This is very much the sole reason why [most balance] changes will not be accepted, and that is that.

He has already touched on the topic of inconsistency (at least towards how often changes occur) and how it affects higher-leveled players from committing seriously to Brawl Plus. Leaf, you and I both know that anymore changes would cause a backlash considering how the WBR stands on changes now, especially with the tons of official and casual commentary from both Cape and Veril regarding what being "Near Gold" means.

Also as 'new' leader of the Brawl Plus project, he needs to set up a good foundation for himself and where he stands. Whatever changes that go into Brawl+ all ultimately go back to his decision, and therefore he needs to be able to justify all changes as well as sincerely support them himself; similar to how everyone blames all of Brawl's shortcomings on Sakurai. He doesn't have the same level of recognition as Cape does, although we are seeing first-hand that this "issue" will be short-lived.

2. Lee Martin is scary good with Lucario+

I hope he comes to more B+ tourneys. He could really push the Lucario+ metagame forward. This is good for all of us. Nothing about Lucario would justify nerfing him at this point...

Of course, if someone does find a truly "broken" tactic (by my strict criteria for this), than that's a different story. Like an infinite (including 50%+ inescapable CGs, "see glitch and infinite reporting thread")... but that's true of EVERY character and we've already taken great pains to remove these so finding one's we've missed is gonna be pretty tough.

EDIT: oh snap, inescapable up-throw CG that has a damage output over 50%... god **** it. fml


3. Jigglypuff killed your family!

Her up-throw's KO power is a mistake that resulted from changes we made recently. That was intended to remove the up-throw to upair to rest combo. If the voting group supports me on this, I will simply reduce the advantage window on the up-throw to the point that this combo just barely fails and remove all knockback changes to the move.


4. Side-event status:

We've got to be a lot more aggressive about keeping setups for B+ at these tournaments. I saw one setup in our area, and one in the melee area being used for vBrawl friendlies when we were hurting so bad for tvs. The melee tournament obviously was a huge deal (OMG), but we have to be more assertive as a group about keeping setups and that vBrawl s*** made me furious!

 

[ZacTASTIC]

I've always thought that Lucario+ was really good, but i never saw any discussion about him outside of his character board (which isn't a bad thing, it's just people ***** so much in the wrong places, I thought we'd have seen it by now).

I agree with your idea with Jigglypuffs Up Throw (as do my friends I play B+ with lol). I love how beast she is, but her up throw is a little TOO beast.

And we definitely need to see more Brawl+ tourneys, and the way to do that is to get recognized at big events like Pound 4 and such. I've been to about 4 Brawl tourneys but have yet to even hear about a Brawl+ tournament in my area. I could have missed them, I'm not a big name in Smash or anything.

And YESZ! for the exposure of Pound 4! I'm glad to see people like Snakee, Lain, and Lee Martin picking this up, even for a little bit.

I'm liking the direction you're taking Brawl+ in, Veril. I'm behind you 100%

 

[[TSON]]

I actually like the killing uthrow. I could do without it but it'd be nice if it was just coped with (nerf it so it doesn't kill super early, but don't remove the killing aspect).

 

[Veril]

The problem with the killing up-throw is that with it she can KO out of a throw off the top and off the sides. You can't DI the up-throw on reaction so you are forced to DI on prediction against the up-throw if you're at high enough % where it would KO (this f***s light floaty characters playing against Jiggs). The problem is that if you're DIing to survive the up-throw, Jiggs can also KO you with her b/f throw, and its not feasible to switch DI (especially if they f-throw).

So yeah, you can't really deal with Jiggs killing throws by DIing on prediction and its impossible to DI the up-throw on reaction.

 

[Deleted member]

So what's wrong with upthrow -> rest?

 

[Veril]

So what's wrong with upthrow -> rest?

Up-throw to up-air to rest is actually the problem combo.

First off, keep in mind that old changes which are already made don't need to fit my strict criteria by virtue of already being in that game. Up-throw to rest is something that Glick, myself, VaNz (I think) and pretty much every Falcon player ever decided rest combos out of throws were overpowered and had no place in a finished set.

Now that we have a nearly finished set changes are a lot harder to make, that said... here's the reasoning.

1. Jiggs grab is extremely easy to land. It has several setups and her pivot grab range is absolutely insane.
2. Its a true combo that nearly always kills from 0.
3. It works up to almost any % on Falcon and over a wide % range on other FFers.
4. You can't DI up-throw on reaction.

Normally its fairly hard to set up an up-air. This is one of the most important things that keeps rest from being flat out broken. Having a guaranteed setup from a grab is... "shudder"

 

[JCaesar]

So what's wrong with upthrow -> rest?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVkGiER2_cc

 

[goodoldganon]

What do we think of Ike's F-air? I agree with everything you mentioned in this thread and I hate to come in and ask for a change but I'm just so unsure on this move. On one hand I think it's almost a mainable move in certain matchups. It's huge wall of range, priority, ok ko potential, and overall ****.

But on the other hand it's Ike. He is a great character but far from overpowered. It's also his bread and butter. D3 had other moves that were getting outshined by b-air but they were still great moves. I'm not sure Ike has that luxury and I'm sure we don't want to major change another character.

Thoughts?

 

[DanGR]

For me it comes down to this:

"Who wants to practice a character to the extent that they have for vBrawl when they aren't even secure in that choice?"

 

[Veril]

For me it comes down to this:

"Who wants to practice a character to the extent that they have for vBrawl when they aren't even secure in that choice?"

I'd say that's what I mean, but really, since you just quoted something I wrote... that's exactly what I mean ;p


@GoG: Yeah, Ike's fair is mad good, but its got enough startup lag that its not stupid good. Ike isn't a dominant character and I know that at least NY's best Ike+ (Silven) doesn't want any changes at all, nor has anyone come up to me personally and complained about Ike being super ****... despite having a number of opportunities to do so. Driving down Silven, Glick, Blackanese and Allied, no complaints... @ Pound 4, hearing a whole litany of complaints about all sorts of stuff; nothing about Ike.

 

[goodoldganon]

I agree. My roommates make me post things cause they think I have some sort of God like power. *rolls eyes* Anyway I'll tell em what I've been telling them.

MAN UP!

 

[DanGR]

I'd say that's what I mean, but really, since you just quoted something I wrote... that's exactly what I mean ;p

Well, to be more specific...

I meant this sort of attitude towards the game:

I hope he comes to more B+ tourneys. He could really push the Lucario+ metagame forward. This is good for all of us. Nothing about Lucario would justify nerfing him at this point.

Basically "Oh, if someone advances Lucario's game very far we'll just nerf him." Likewise, I guess you guys will buff the underused characters.

If I can show that say... Lucas is a beast there's a chance you'll simply nerf him.

 

[Veril]

"Oh, if someone advances Lucario's game very far we'll just nerf him." Likewise, I guess you guys will buff the underused characters.

If I can show that say... Lucas is a beast there's a chance you'll simply nerf him.

That's a pretty gross misinterpretation of what I said.

It takes a lot more than showing a character is "beast" for me to be willing to alter their balance. There's a big difference between being good and having a perfect walling technique like DDD's old bair or Samus's bomb-fair loop death combo. There's no coding related error with Lucario either (like there is with Jiggs and Sonic), so I have no justification for changing him.

Of course, if someone does find a truly "broken" tactic (by my strict criteria for this), than that's a different story. Like an infinite... but that's true of EVERY character and we've already taken great pains to remove these so finding one's we've missed is gonna be pretty tough.


I'm pretty sure that several characters are going to emerge as being waaay better than people credited them for. Say if Lain actually picked up the ICs in B+ and adjusted to the changes (like shield-canceled initial dashes, which he didn't know about before we spoke). Good players are gonna come along and **** face with their characters. I'm looking forward to it.

No need to be afraid of the change process.

 

[GameSystem]

Veril, could you look at Jcaez vs Lain bracket match? Rob nair is like all JC used. Lain couldn't really get around it. Think of Rob nair as Ike's fair with it's startup and ko power and range etc, but rob nair has no end lag and he can do pretty much everything out of it.

 

[JCaesar]

I used nair (followed by jab) to approach because it's safe when spaced well (exactly like Ike's fair and many other moves in this game) and Nana tends to get hit by everything. If nair wasn't as safe as it is, I would've camped more. Luckily ROB is not pigeon-holed into a camping strategy by this game.

ROB's nair is far from unique in being safe when spaced well, and it has weaknesses. It has slow startup and starts in the back, so any quick move will hit him from the front. Pretty much any projectile can hit him out of it also. ICs just happen to have an extreme weakness to moves like this due to Nana's stupidity. ROB is a really bad matchup for them for multiple reasons and this is just one of them. Ike's fair -> jab ***** ICs just as hard.

 

[GameSystem]

I guess that makes sense then.

 

[HoN3Y64]

Give everyone 0-deaths

 

[Veril]

Give everyone 0-deaths

You chose a terrible thread to troll.

ROB's nair is far from unique in being safe when spaced well, and it has weaknesses. It has slow startup and starts in the back, so any quick move will hit him from the front. Pretty much any projectile can hit him out of it also.

Thanks JC, I was hoping you'd show up for that question...

 

[Allied]

Well, to be more specific...

I meant this sort of attitude towards the game:

Basically "Oh, if someone advances Lucario's game very far we'll just nerf him." Likewise, I guess you guys will buff the underused characters.

If I can show that say... Lucas is a beast there's a chance you'll simply nerf him.

i really can't wait to see what a brawl+ tier list has in store theres obviously been alot of changes, nerfs, buffs for the good but in all honestly i can't see the tier list changing too much XD

 

[Veril]

i really can't wait to see what a brawl+ tier list has in store theres obviously been alot of changes, nerfs, buffs for the good but in all honestly i can't see the tier list changing too much XD

Oh snap! I was wondering when you'd wind up down here. <3

There's no way the tier list is gonna closely resemble the vBrawl one. Look at Jiggs and Ness or "other low to mid tier character that now is ****". It'll definitely be a good deal harder to make. Maybe before June we'll have enough tournament results to really look into making one. Idk. Its not a priority for me; getting a gold set prepared is.

 

[MK26]

i really can't wait to see what a brawl+ tier list has in store theres obviously been alot of changes, nerfs, buffs for the good but in all honestly i can't see the tier list changing too much XD

Captain Falcon

[/discussion]

 

[GameSystem]

Someone should make a character ranking list for B+ like Ankoku did for vbrawl.

 

[Allied]

Oh snap! I was wondering when you'd wind up down here. <3

There's no way the tier list is gonna closely resemble the vBrawl one. Look at Jiggs and Ness or "other low to mid tier character that now is ****". It'll definitely be a good deal harder to make. Maybe before June we'll have enough tournament results to really look into making one. Idk. Its not a priority for me; getting a gold set prepared is.

Not exactly what i meant but your right there will be some minor changes but once again its been proven in tournament most of the characters stay on top

I didn't really see ness nor would i fear one the only reason i guess ness was on top which you told me he was just flat out retardly broken
its the same thing i even saw with yoshi and ganon and most of the vbrawl matchups i learned the HARD way in tournament even with all the combos and new tricks

Captain Falcon

[/discussion]

Well before i say this (Inb4 Angry Captain Falcon Brawl+ Mains)

Hes definitally better i would even say mid tier potential
but thats it

Completely offensive character that relies on his approaches and mindgames and speed to outwit the character with relatively great bread and butter combos

b4 you guys say (Oh allied you dont know how to play CF bla bla bla) i main him in melee ;]

Heres how i really picture brawl+ its almost like street fighter 4 tier list vitality

In every fighting game theres always going to be High Tier and Low tier characters theres no questioning that, but what i really love about street fighter 4 was that definitally every character has something to bring to the table and especialyl from playing competitively every matchup can be dangerous

And thats kinda how i want brawl+ to be i just feel like you guys are forgetting that with some of this wierd sh*t you put in (come on have you seen the changes you put into puff compared to changes to kirby Like WTF)

But also you have to remember unless you do some EXTREME character design changes no matter how many minor changes you do alot of the character matchups (at least for me) remain close to the same

like when i did a match against Lee martin's Lucario vs my Kirby

The matchup i already master from zucco, however the one thing that definitally caught me by surprise which even gained lee martin the win was the Up B use it definitally created just constant pressuring and if you guys played lucario in Vbrawl you already would know lucario's pressure game was already good but now Offstage and Onstage hes almost a super saiyan with his transcend priority and the new speed hes gained with his Double Up B Rush and virtually no airless lag, Not to mention his Stalling with Dair in the air to definitally Mix some stuff up

Meanwhile theres some characters like kirby that still remain unchanged i feel

I mean i've learned from like the 2 times i've played the patch that kirby can

Tech chase heavies off his f-throw
Still kinda kill at 150-160% off his up-throw

Upair depending on character can hit twice for combo.. LOL
Nair still sucks priority isn't worth the risk and kirby can't afford tradeing hits with it (inb4data showing its good)

Then again thats just a small portion of what i witness and now i feel like i'm rambling so i'm going to stop typing


You are all beautiful
Inb4 I have biased views on kirby because i main him thats just all noticed i've only been playing for like 2 days XDD

 

[Glick]

That's a lot of text allied lol

Well yeah. obv I support veril with w/e.
i like that someone is finally taking the initiative with keeping the game steady so we can finally get a gold released.

 

[Allied]

glick ur beautiful :D

 

[Veril]

That wall of text makes me proud. "single tear"

totally belongs in 6.0 discussion. You should go there and crap out more walls of text. Seriously. You know I read all of the stuff posted there ;p

or keep posting here. w/e you are speaking based largely on pound 4 so it works...


Counterpoint on Lucario: I know he's awesome, but he's also really f***ing cool in that he can be so much more aggressive. You can't deny it, and he's really not broken... just Lee Martin. Definitely gonna see a lot more Lucario's lol

 

[MK26]

imo kirbys completely solid without having anything ********
hes got good throws (f/d for combos, u for killing (was buffed a bit) , and b for lolcombos)
his smashes are still legit, tilts are good, jab is ok, aerials are **** as ever (cept nair but nair was made ridiculous at one point and i was like :D and people were like bawww so it got removed)
kirby just flows really really well with the physics changes so he didnt need to have any important char-specific changes

lee just managed to figure out how to use/abuse the new freedom granted by the up-b, and i applaud him...are we sure we removed the 2x speed on that thing o_0

 

[Prawn]

I'm not a top pro in any respect but I do have something to add about ICs in brawl+.

Different codesets keep the vBrawl chaingrab, the codesets that don't its possible to find very long desync grab/fair spike/whatever combos, etc.

Regardless if you take the CG out or not in the final version, if another "infinite" or long combo is discovered with ICs you should thoroughly investigate it before taking it out.

The nature of ice climbers is going to allow for these kinds of things and I think you need to accept that ICs as a character(Nana, short grab range etc) doesn't make them broken.

idk rant

 

[lain]

I lost to JCaesar cause I wasn't thinking about the fact that everyone's aerials have lass leg. I kept trying to punish him like Brawl and it wasn't working.

 

[Veril]

Regardless if you take the CG out or not in the final version, if another "infinite" or long combo is discovered with ICs you should thoroughly investigate it before taking it out.

A lot of changes to the ICs have already been put into place. I didn't necessarily agree with all of them, but they certainly limit the CGs to a great extent. If the ICs grab game were to be altered further I would be easing restrictions rather than adding new ones. Even that I'd be loath to do at this point. Regardless...

There shouldn't be any more true infinites with the ICs, though getting grabbed by them is still incredibly bad. With all of the throw changes, nana's grab removed, the infinite removal, and various buffs to the rest of their game, the ICs have been f***ed with enough and its time to leave them alone.

The only issue I can see arising with the ICs is if the changes are glitchy (like, sonic's up-smash glitchy). That could be said about anything though.

I lost to JCaesar cause I wasn't thinking about the fact that everyone's aerials have lass leg. I kept trying to punish him like Brawl and it wasn't working.

Hey you! Glad you stopped by :D

 

[Sails]

I would just like to point out before everyone switches to Lucario and gets nerfed to the ground because of the results of this tourny that I've been maining him for a very long time now in B+ and he has always been scary. Why it took so long for this to finally permeate peoples heads I do not know Good stuff though, glad to see there was some sick representation and some good ideas for the future as a result.

Edit: I'd like to add something about Ryoko and the ladies of the cast being overbuffed by him and comment on the new direction/people of the project, but I just can't put it in a way that won't sound douchbaggy once I get my point across. So in short, things are looking good! If we can get more interpretation from tournament players, then we really should.

 

[Rion]

Edit: I'd like to add something about Ryoko and the ladies of the cast being overbuffed by him

the ladies of the cast being overbuffed by him

ladies of the cast being overbuffed

ladies overbuffed

Zeldas who placed in Pound 4 Brawl+ Singles: 1
49th - Bandit

Sheiks who placed in Pound 4 Brawl+ Singles: 2
13th - Vanz (Also used Jiggs, Peach)
33th - D1

ZZS who placed in Pound 4 Brawl+ Singles: 0!

Peaches who placed in Pound 4 Brawl+ Singles: 4
5th - Slikvik (Also used Wario, G&W)
13th - Vanz (Also used Jiggs, Sheik)
17th - White Peach
33th - Aya (Also used Marth)

I don't see anything very overbuffed about these stats.

Hopefully you were just kidding. Or trolling. I don't know these days.

 

[Sails]

Zeldas who placed in Pound 4 Brawl+ Singles: 1
49th - Bandit

Sheiks who placed in Pound 4 Brawl+ Singles: 2
13th - Vanz (Also used Jiggs, Peach)
33th - D1

ZZS who placed in Pound 4 Brawl+ Singles: 0!

Peaches who placed in Pound 4 Brawl+ Singles: 4
5th - Slikvik (Also used Wario, G&W)
13th - Vanz (Also used Jiggs, Sheik)
17th - White Peach
33th - Aya (Also used Marth)

I don't see anything very overbuffed about these stats.

Hopefully you were just kidding. Or trolling. I don't know these days.

It wasn't in direct comparison to the tournament results, but more of Veril mentioning Zelda's neutral B. If you've ever played Ryoko or a good lady player though, you'll instantly find that they make them unapproachable and **** near impossible to counter unless mirrored.

Edit: Seriously every time Ryoko discussed his next biggest change to Zelda it boiled down to "How can I make her even less punishable?". Everything he did was way over the top, even trying his **** hardest to make transformation instant and the popping-in unpunishable (Oh wait...).

 

[Rion]

It wasn't in direct comparison to the tournament results, but more of Veril mentioning Zelda's neutral B. If you've ever played Ryoko or a good lady player though, you'll instantly find that they make them unapproachable and **** near impossible to counter unless mirrored.

In note of Zelda's Neutral B... I mean come on. If the move isn't reflecting projectiles like it's -supposed- to, I'm pretty sure that's something meriting a fix. It's not like it's getting buffed or anything...

I feel like you're making a lot of assumptions about Ryoko and the ladies matchups, and it's a little disheartening. Have you ever seen something like Zelda VS Game & Watch, for example? That's a pretty good counter right there if you ask me (I can't comment much about the other ladies though). I'm sure there's plenty more.

If these characters were so overbuffed, I think we would have definitely noticed by now. But none of them are seriously over the top. Most of them are just "good" right now, no?

Edit: Seriously every time Ryoko discussed his next biggest change to Zelda it boiled down to "How can I make her even less punishable?". Everything he did was way over the top, even trying his **** hardest to make transformation instant and the popping-in unpunishable (Oh wait...).

What exactly was way over the top?

Transform in Brawl+ has a huge start up to compensate for it's close to unpunishable afterlag. Even then, you can still punish it if you predict it properly! I don't really know what you want from this one...

Farore's Wind speed up right now isn't really broken. People on wifi punish me out of this with total ease even with the noticeable speed up because those people actually understand how it works and can punish it accordingly.

I think you need to just learn the match up a little more throughly. Zelda may be incredibly defensive, but she has some pretty noticeable weaknesses that can be capitalized on pretty easily once you understand her matchup.

 

[~tgm_Zeej]

Transform was changed to eliminate the loading time as a variable, if I recall correctly.

And honestly, that doesn't even qualify as a buff.

 

[Veril]

It wasn't in direct comparison to the tournament results, but more of Veril mentioning Zelda's neutral B. If you've ever played Ryoko or a good lady player though

Zelda's neutral b is supposed to reflect. It sometimes will fail to do so as a side-effect of modifications to the move. That is sloppy and unacceptable. I'm going to make sure the move behaves as intended. Zelda isn't anywhere near broke, and I HAVE played VaNz, Ryoko, and Bandit (in 4.0, 5.0, and 6.0 respectively). Ryoko did a lot of good work fixing up the princesses, but saying he broke anyone is a huge stretch and kinda unfair. Besides, no new changes are gonna happen with Zelda (unless something huge comes up) other than the neutral-b fix.


Also assuming Lucario is getting nerfed tells me either you haven't been paying attention or think I'm a liar... as I've said, in no uncertain terms, that I have no intention of doing so.

 

[Pierce7d]

Well, I know I'm not touching Plus because you changed the base way Marth operates. No Marth player in the world is going to pick up plus now. The moment I realized I couldn't safely zone with Fair, or even execute a double Fair at all is when I stopped playing.

I give it a chance once every couple months, but every time it disappoints.

 

[RPGsFTW]

Brawl+ Marth is the only Marth I've ever liked, Roy is awesome, and he isn't an *******. I appreciate him, and his aerial Side-B -> Fastfalled aerials. I have to think now when I'm him.

 

[Veril]

I can't escape the Marths. They are legion. The SHDF change has been discussed to death.

 

[The Cape]

The moment I realized I couldn't safely effortlessly zone with Fair

Fixed your statement for you.

Fact of the matter is, Marth has good advantage on hit AND on block when he Shffls the fair but not when he does two in the air. Data is floating around all over the place and I really think at this point we just need to make a thread with all that data compiled and link all the Marth mains to it. The fact that fair zones so stupid well by itself was reason enough to fix it, but I cant expect Marth mains to understand that as their character has been really good since his creation and there are rarely any good ones ever.