Thoughts on ability to change stances?

[Haxeye]

This has come up before but I've been wondering what the general opinion is on adding the ability to change stances? Would people welcome this more traditional fighting mechanic in addition to smashes less traditional gameplay?

Should it be implemented for all characters or only for some characters?

Personally I think stance changes could add depth or atleast more variety to a lot of characters movesets. Take Mario for example, his current down b could be made a lot deeper by making it into a stance change in which he not only can blast opponents with water as a side b but also utilize hover mode as an up b?

Ganondorf is a character who could benefit from a stance change as it would allow for him to gain use of a sword while not losing his hard hitting brawler fighting style which would remain as his other fighting stance.

Stance changes wouldn't necessarily have to be weaponed based either but could even include transformations such as Sheik and zero suit samus as well as swap outs like Pokemon trainer.

Thoughts?

 

[Mypantisgone]

Agreed!
It's been dicussed that Samus should have a morph ball stance.

 

[Big-Cat]

I don't see how it's unSmash (I hate this argument so much). Lots of nonfighting games use it. Heck, we can argue that Samus' morph ball mode is one of the earliest examples of this.

Anyway, I welcome it, but it should be done where it makes sense to do so.

 

[Frostwraith]

hmm... not a bad idea... hasn't Sakurai said something about character customization? this could be something...

perhaps Ike could switch between sword and axe, like he does in Fire Emblem. could make the same character more versatile.

 

[Tollhouse]

Character customization screams broken gameplay. I hope smash doesn't go in that direction.

 

[n88]

I don't see how it's unSmash (I hate this argument so much). Lots of nonfighting games use it. Heck, we can argue that Samus' morph ball mode is one of the earliest examples of this.

Anyway, I welcome it, but it should be done where it makes sense to do so.

The idea of stances is unsmash in that it would complicate controls. Part of what makes Smash so successful is the unique intuitiveness of play. Controls are simple and streamlined, and there's really no need to clutter things up with additional sub-movesets. Obviously I'm not against all-out transformations and Samus's morph ball (in its current incarnation), but I oppose any mechanic that would feel incongruous with Smash's normal control scheme.

 

[Big-Cat]

You see? Now that's how you explain something might be unSmash. I don't agree with your opinion, but you do present your argument well.

 

[Zzuxon]

Maybe for 1 character, but not the whole cast.

 

[Bowserlick]

For one character as a special, stance changing can be an interesting and flavorful mechanic. Some people believed that Pit and Zamus might have had this feature before Brawl came out, because both have weapons that can transform into two different forms with different purposes.

 

[DakotaBonez]

I thought it would be cool if they had at least one character have a stance change. be it pulling out a weapon or switching to heavy or quicker hits. Maybe if they incorporated a character like Ryu?

 

[Big-Cat]

Except Ryu, if we're talking about Street Fighter, has never used a stance move. Street Fighter didn't get one until Gen in the Alpha series. If you want to be looking for stances, look up Virtua Fighter and Tekken.

 

[lordvaati]

stances have essentially made baby steps in the series in the forms of Zelda and Pokemon Trainer, so a full step into it isn't as complicated as you guys may think. Pit and Samus would probably be the 2 best chaacters to use these, as Pit could switch beteen Arms/Clubs/Bow/Claws/etc. and Samus could have Maru Mari.

 

[DakotaBonez]

Pit fo sho needs a stance change.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

If so, it should be implemented in a fashion similar to Magoichi Saica in Sengoku Basara. All of her special moves involved a different type of gun, which in turn would change all of her "normal" attacks to different moves related to the gun of choice.

tl;dr--I like the idea of making B moves "change stances," which would change the A moves, but it's important for the B moves to still have specific attacks within the stance change. It could even be limited by having to land the B move on a hitbox/opponent/whatever in order to change. In the Brawl environment, that could make certain stages interesting counterpicks (Smashville balloon, Yoshi's Island Shy Guys, Castle Siege statues).

 

[stan423321]

I say, why not do something like Ganon pulling out a sword for even more damage and the fact attacking a sword doesn't work, but removing the faster attacks or something.

In the specific case of Morph Ball, I would rather extend it as a complex move, something along the lines of Egg Roll without momentum, but with jumps, bombs and possibly changed physics. Go design a full moveset for "balled" Samus, I say. Unless all moves make her standing back, which I simply don't like.

 

[Adrian G]

Its a good idea. Earlier i posted a thread about simultaneous press moves (A+B) and someone mentioned that instead this would be a good way to activate the final smash, leaving your B attack functional. I just realized the great possibilities of A+B. In OP's case, A+B could serve as the means to change stance (move set). Of course there are many existing characters who already have this feature in one way or another like you mentioned (Zelda/Sheik). it would only be fair that such characters not get yet ANOTHER stance. But rather that their transformation move (down B) be replaced by an actual attack, and have A+B be the standard stance changing/transformation move for every character. But perhaps not every character has enough potential for this many moves. Some have GREAT potential (Kirby, Ganon, Ness, Lucas) but for others (Olimar, Yoshi) i just don't see it. maybe only the characters that benefit from it should have this, especially Ganondorf.