Vectoring: The replacement to Directional Influence in Smash 4

[Bladeviper]

2 Questions:

1. So do I always want to hold directly against the knockback trajectory to survive kill moves?

2. Can we categorize this as just a different type of DI (after all, the direction you hold is still influencing your trajectory). Am I allowed to call this VI instead? lol.

1. yes it seems that way
2. id just call it what the game does since its what everyone will know it by

 

[StarLight42]

So umm, is this regarded as a bad or good thing by the competitive smash community?

 

[InfinityCollision]

Using vectoring down-right, reducing distance and also adding a slight downwards angle to travelled trajectory. How does the down vector effect distance, though? Does it also reduce distance??

You still travel the same distance horizontally as if you'd vectored right + you now move down slightly as well.

Think of your movement after a hit as a combination of purely vertical and purely horizontal knockback (ignore gravity for a moment). Vector inputs are the same thing, a combination of horizontal and vertical inputs.

If you vector opposite your horizontal trajectory, you will move less horizontally. In the opposite direction, you move further. If you had no prior horizontal trajectory, you have now added a small horizontal component to your movement. The same is true for vertical trajectories/inputs, and for the combinations thereof.

 

[Untouch]

I think people are overreacting.
It's going to make people last longer, but it seems to be only hurting combos at higher percentages, something we already knew was hard. 20% is only really a lot at higher percentages, something we already knew wasn't killing people unless they go offstage.

I'd like to see more of it to see what it does though, one video at mid percentage at a very small damage difference isn't much.

 

[InfinityCollision]

So umm, is this regarded as a bad or good thing by the competitive smash community?

In a vacuum it'd just be different, you could design the game around either option and be fine. In the context of Sm4sh as we presently understand it, this looks to be bad.

 

[Strong Badam]

2 Questions:

1. So do I always want to hold directly against the knockback trajectory to survive kill moves?

Since falling speed is a factor, Vectoring up&into the stage is likely optimal against horizontal moves. Otherwise, it'd just be into the stage.

2. Can we categorize this as just a different type of DI (after all, the direction you hold is still influencing your trajectory). Am I allowed to call this VI instead? lol.

The problem with calling it DI, and saying it influences your trajectory, is that you can Vector parallel to the initial trajectory. "DIing" an upwards-sending move down doesn't change your trajectory. The best way to describe the mechanic without confusion is to, as I have, explain that it allows you to add an additional vector to your flight path, that doesn't necessarily alter trajectory.

What about multihit moves like jab combos? Should I just hold towards the angle it's already sending me?

Depends on your position. If you're grounded, you can hold down, land, and shield, similar to Melee Crouch Canceling (but not the same). If you're near the edge of their hitboxes horizontally, holding away can get you out.

 

[Untouch]

If it's based on vectors, I don't think escaping from jabs will be too easy as they have very small knockback.

 

[Krynxe]

I guess speed is a huge factor in this. Much like with DI, if you can predict where or how your opponent can vector, they still are in hitstun, and you may be able to follow up

Partially. You can literally add distance with the same amount of hitstun though. That means that, unlike DI, you have an option that is practically always the 'right' option rather than it being a mixup. This is because if you vector away from your opponent during a combo, they have to literally spend more frames to catch up to you because you received more knockback than expected with the same hitstun, giving you that many more frames to escape.

2 Questions:

1. So do I always want to hold directly against the knockback trajectory to survive kill moves?

2. Can we categorize this as just a different type of DI (after all, the direction you hold is still influencing your trajectory). Am I allowed to call this VI instead? lol.

edit:

three questions actually:

What about multihit moves like jab combos? Should I just hold towards the angle it's already sending me?

1. If you were sent perfectly horizontally, you would probably want to hold up and towards the stage. The x-component will be the same as if you held just towards the stage, allowing for survivability, but you also gain a bit of vertical knockback which can make recovering easier. Same general logic as DI, but adapted to a new mechanic.
2. If you are sent straight up vertically, you can reduce your knockback without changing your direction whatsoever. You are vectoring to survive, but you are literally not influencing your direction whatsoever. This is why DI is an incorrect term.
3. We're not entirely sure about moving mid-hitstun/freezeframes if that's what you mean. (SDI is presumed to depend on a similar mechanic, but it's still not 100%)

So umm, is this regarded as a bad or good thing by the competitive smash community?

It's sort of neutral. It's change, so we'll have to adjust regardless. Some people will prefer it, others will not. Just like every mechanical change in smash 4.

 

[FlynnCL]

That is exactly what it does. You're able to arbitrarily go further from an attack without suffering any more hitstun, making it require more frames for an opponent to reach you. Already tight combos are now just not possible at all.

I'm definitely not happy with this. What's the downside of just suffering more knockback when it comes to low-mid percent juggles? All those extremely frame-tight combos I've seen in the game can just be negated by the opponent holding up, and that's rubbing me the wrong way.

Direction Influence still gave a respectable amount of control to the victim, and allowed you to escape a lot of things provided your opponent doesn't read your inputs. I don't see why this new mechanic was necessary, and I certainly hope it doesn't turn the game into a poke-fest like Brawl.

 

[Kosaki]

Nice Find SB. I don't like the sound of this. It's a specially weird change considering DI was a part of the series for quite a while now. I was wondering why some Marths/Lucinas were managing to follow up after dthrow while others couldn't at the same percent.

Very questionable change, imo.

I believe Sakurai just wanted this to be more intuitive, and in fact, it is.

 

[Tristan_win]

Trajectory DI does not exist as a separate mechanic to vectoring in Smash 4. As the topic title says, this is a replacement.

To the above: I was vectoring vs Denti's sheik before I left. While he would be able to combo D-Throw -> Uair for a good while against others (who were trying to DI left/right like in other games), I would just hold up and get out by ~40 with Greninja. Not able to do extensive testing because I no longer have access to the game but I don't really appreciate the accusations you've made here, particularly after the 15+ hours of work I put into the investigation and explanation of this mechanic for this thread.

I'm sorry but this is very shocking news and it's going to take me sometime to fully accept. I am glad you have done some testing with Sheik so I guess I'm force to shuffling my overly positive outlook of smash4 and Sheik now, something I was hoping I wouldn't have to do for sometime.

Once again I apologize.

 

[Vulcan]

Nice finds. Seems to enforce the 'down DI' thing that was initially discovered, but the ability to also push yourself away from combos will certainly make characters that are being seen as strong like Bowser, who just rely on big hits instead of combos, pulling ahead of the crowd. I am sure more things will be discovered as time goes on, but great start.

I believe Sakurai just wanted this to be more intuitive, and in fact, it is.

Thats what I was thinking. Logically, if you get knocked away, you want to hold towards the stage. This new mechanic promotes that. Same with if you're being combo'd, hold away and you might get away easier.

 

[<π]

First of all I love you Strong Bad.

I personally think it's a bad thing, but that's not the point of this thread. I'm just here to explain the mechanic.

Out of curiosity. Why don't you like it? I'm indifferent to it right now, but I bet it will take time to get used to.

 

[RascalTheCharizard]

Just a hypothetical here to test my pitiful understanding:

"DI mixups":
Let's say for a moment that I have grabbed my opponent as Sheik near the edge of the stage at around 100%. I could Dthrow -> Uair for the kill, or Fthrow -> Bouncing Fish for the kill. If my opponent holds diagonally, will they will be safe from both combos since as of my understanding, holding diagonally give the effect of both a horizontal direction and a vertical direction?

If both combos can be escapable through the same "vector" input, I think this is gonna suck for DI mixups.

 

[Cactusblah]

Ugh, maybe it can be patched out, along with the ZSS infinite.

 

[Xyro77]

This discovery is literally game changing. Seriously, good work.

 

[bajisci]

Good write up. Pretty whatever change, you held out in melee to not get comboed, close enough to this.

 

[InfinityCollision]

Just a hypothetical here to test my pitiful understanding:

"DI mixups":
Let's say for a moment that I have grabbed my opponent as Sheik near the edge of the stage at around 100%. I could Dthrow -> Uair for the kill, or Fthrow -> Bouncing Fish for the kill. If my opponent holds diagonally, will they will be safe from both combos since as of my understanding, holding diagonally give the effect of both a horizontal direction and a vertical direction?

If both combos can be escapable through the same "vector" input, I think this is gonna suck for DI mixups.

Yep. Since it works on a square rather than a circle there's actually no reason not to do this if you anticipate attacks that launch with angles less than 90 degrees apart from each other.

 

[Bladeviper]

Just a hypothetical here to test my pitiful understanding:

"DI mixups":
Let's say for a moment that I have grabbed my opponent as Sheik near the edge of the stage at around 100%. I could Dthrow -> Uair for the kill, or Fthrow -> Bouncing Fish for the kill. If my opponent holds diagonally, will they will be safe from both combos since as of my understanding, holding diagonally give the effect of both a horizontal direction and a vertical direction?

If both combos can be escapable through the same "vector" input, I think this is gonna suck for DI mixups.

it might not be that strong of an influence since its only saving people for about 5% on kills and you would just need to try and read to ti figure out which combo to do

 

[Kosaki]

I'm definitely not happy with this. What's the downside of just suffering more knockback when it comes to low-mid percent juggles? All those extremely frame-tight combos I've seen in the game can just be negated by the opponent holding up, and that's rubbing me the wrong way.

Direction Influence still gave a respectable amount of control to the victim, and allowed you to escape a lot of things provided your opponent doesn't read your inputs. I don't see why this new mechanic was necessary, and I certainly hope it doesn't turn the game into a poke-fest like Brawl.

It won't. Because there's a lot of combo strings in this game, and airdodges are way less spammable and more punishable than in Brawl. When the opponent is sent in the air, you clearly have the momentum over him in Smash 4 (because hitstun, can't counter attack or get away quickly), and your job then is to cover the more options you can and it's waaaaaaaay easier than in Brawl.

 

[Tetheta]

This actually makes a lot of sense. When I didn't know what DI really was this is how I tried to DI, by moving the control stick in the opposite direction of the move's knockback.
Now as a semi-competitive player though, it sounds like even less combos will connect which is rather disappointing to me =/

 

[Epickirby547]

I guess I'll have to see how people utilize this to make a final judgement on whether or not to get into the competitive scene for the game.

 

[Strong Badam]

It won't. Because there's a lot of combo strings in this game, and airdodges are way less spammable and more punishable than in Brawl. When the opponent is sent in the air, you clearly have the momentum over him in Smash 4 (because hitstun, can't counter attack or get away quickly), and your job then is to cover the more options you can and it's waaaaaaaay easier than in Brawl.

Many of the combo strings we've been seeing are not possible with correct use of vectoring by the opponents. The remainder of your post is true, however

 

[DMG]

ADAM! I KNOW WHAT TO CALL THIS MECHANIC/TECHNIQUE!

VI

Vector
Influence

Bahahahaha (k pay me monies for being totally legit)

 

[PillsBuryDopeBoy]

The game has only been out for four days and we learn of a new mechanic that might ruin sm4sh's meta. Ugh.

 

[RascalTheCharizard]

Yep. Since it works on a square rather than a circle there's actually no reason not to do this if you anticipate attacks that launch with angles less than 90 degrees apart from each other.

Well that's a buzzkill. This game actually lost a little bit of depth and mindgames.

it might not be that strong of an influence since its only saving people for about 5% on kills and you would just need to try and read to ti figure out which combo to do

My question wasn't about whether or not they'd kill but rather, hypothetically, whether or not it'd be able to break both combos at once making it unnecessary to read what your opponent is about to do.

 

[stingers]

eyyy good work buddy

this is unique I like it! basically smash 4 = even stronger defense mm lets go smashers TO 2 STOCK!

 

[Bladeviper]

Well that's a buzzkill. This game actually lost a little bit of depth and mindgames.

My question wasn't about whether or not they'd kill but rather, hypothetically, whether or not it'd be able to break both combos at once making it unnecessary to read what your opponent is about to do.

no i was saying it might not be enough to break both since the influence only seems strong enough to save for a small amount of percent,

 

[[TSON]]

**** i failed calculus, i'm ****ed

 

[KurashiDragon]

So Basically:

Hey 17 year old me, you remember how, when you were 13, your best friend told you if you hold down on the control stick when flying up you wont go as far?

17 Me: Yea

Do you also remember telling him when brawl, he was wrong.

17 Me: Yea

Well guess who just got a foot in their ass? :D

17 Me: me?

YOU!!

On topic:

This will be interesting though. I suspect there there will probably be a lot of footsies in the game now. You'll probably need even better response time to make pro in this game to be able to respond to an opponent's VI. (I would like for it to be called Vector Influence. It sounds like DI but at the same time, it's different enough for people to know what you're talking about.) It also will likely slow the game down by a fair bit. 3 lives 8 minutes just became less valuable imo.

 

[ToadsterOven]

The game has only been out for four days and learn of a new mechanic that might ruin sm4sh's meta. Ugh.

It WON'T. People just need to adapt to how 4's meta works and come up with ways to punish those who vector too much as well as get good at off stage gameplay and all should be good

 

[Mythra]

707 guests, come in and join us in this game-defining disscusion!
I hope Smash DI stays untouched, we need something to escape from jabs, Smart Bombs and other multi-hit stuff

 

[Kadano]

Thanks for describing this new technique so well, @ Strong Badam . I really like the name vectoring for it; I also prefer it over the suggested alternative “knockback influence” as knockback is influenced by other things as well.

I view this change as mostly neutral, although I’m more inclined towards negative as ±20% and thus a total range of 40% variation in knockback is, in my opinion, way too much. Half of that would be enough to break long and easy chainthrows and would not make some of the throws completely useless.

All in all, I think this technique will add to rewarding defense more than offense. Which, well, might be noble in real life, but in my opinion is mostly boring in Smash.

 

[Bladeviper]

The game has only been out for four days and learn of a new mechanic that might ruin sm4sh's meta. Ugh.

but like you said its only been out four days, its gonna take a lot longer to figure out the meta for this game then that

 

[Espy Rose]

So if I understand this proper, hold in the direction of a move's trajectory at low percents to avoid early combos. Hold in the direction(s) opposite of a move's trajectory at late percents to survive. Super generalized and not taking into consideration character fall speed here. Is that it?

Cool. I dig it.

 

[Kosaki]

IMO, "Hitstun shuffling" sounds nice too.

 

[Espy Rose]

That's just a mouthful. Vectoring is an excellent name.
DMG's name is the best though. VI too good.

 

[AyeYoDeji]

interesting.

 

[buzz-roll]

Playing cross-smash with melee/pm/brawl and sm4sh means having different optimal defensive inputs (something you input instinctively) is going to really mess with me.

 

[Bladeviper]

707 guests, come in and join us in this game-defining disscusion!
I hope Smash DI stays untouched, we need something to escape from jabs, Smart Bombs and other multi-hit stuff

its already been confirmed to be nerfed right? i mean jabs and multihits are already harder to get out off, i think with this it just means we can hold the jab combos for too long