What would you change about Spirits?

[Koopaul]

I'll admit I'm not impressed with Spirits. I feel like there's a lot of potential for them but they didn't do it quite right. Well, in my opinion at least. Maybe you feel the same way? What are some things you were disappointed about with Spirits and Spirit Mode? What are some of the things you would change?

Here are my grievances with Spirits and Spirit mode and what I'd do to change them.

1. Better Spirit battles
I was highly disappointed in a lot of the battles. It was neat concept to fight the different characters in spirit, but rarely does it actually feel that way and rarely does it leave much of an impact on you. There are a lot of battles that seem to barely have anything to do with the character you are supposed to be fighting the spirit of. Then there are a ton that are exactly the same as others (Fight this character on lava, fight this character in a fog). I realize why this is the case. There are just too many Spirits to make them all interesting and faithful. So I think it actually be better if there were less Spirit battles. This way the developers have more time to craft each one better. I think there should be, at the most, 300 battles. The rest of the Spirits can be rewards or purchasable.

2. Spirits come with a write up
Spirits are there to replace trophies. But they lack the best feature of the trophy, a description of the character or object as well as their game of origin. I would have loved to seen that return. It's an awful lot. There are over 1,200 Spirits. Writing a brief description would be a pain. But as I looked at my Spirit collection I asked myself "Do we need this many?" Some of them are just characters wearing different costumes or at a different age. Some of them are just different Mario Kart vehicles! So I think some of the more redundant Spirits could be cut to lighten the load of having to write a description for all of them.

3. Organizing Spirit classes better
I was quite surprised to find certain Spirit as 4 stars while others were less. Why is Demise (the source of all evil in Hyrule) only 3 stars? I would make sure that final bosses were always 4 stars. And major characters for a series should at least have 3.

4. Organize Spirit Categories better
Why is Goomba a Primary Spirit and Ashley a Support? There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason for why they chose certain Spirits to be a Primaries or Support. I would have it so that all major characters and bosses were Primary Spirits. Things like minor characters, enemies, and object should be support Spirits.

5. Spirits don't make you as strong
In order to make Spirit battles and battles with your friends using Spirits more engaging, Spirits can't be too powerful. They should give you a bit of a boost as well as some attributes. Sometimes I feel like I'm powering though Spirit after Spirit because I have something that is just super strong. I don't even have to think at times. Just become Giant Super Armor Little Mac and pow!

Anyway, those are my feelings on Spirits. How do you feel about them? What would you change?

 

[Perkilator]

Make the Legend ones at least fair.

 

[YoshiandToad]

You've hit on a lot of my grievances already Koopaul, in particular points 2-4, so here's a very minor thing I'd like:

When using a spirit there doesn't seem to be any graphical notability to them being used aside from the small icon by your percentage. When using a Final Smash or upon winning the match I'd like to see the Spirit floating next to your fighter/flying around them like you see them doing in World of Light's opening.

Absolutely aesthetical yes, but a small tweak like that can make a big difference in making Spirits feel a little more involved in the match.

 

[THE SLOTH]

I highly agree with points 2, 3, and 5. 1 and 4 I'm neutral on/don't have much to add.

My personal gripe is I think there could there could be more/better skills available for spirits. I remember the last time I was scrolling through my gallery of spirits from 100%ing WoL and the various times I stopped by the Spirit Board when I had absolutely nothing to do, I ordered them by ability and found myself thinking... "wait, is this really it?"

A lot of the abilities given to spirits are either middle of the road, highly situational (special boost to only one of your four specials, Giant/Metal/Assist killers, etc.) or just feel like keys to specific locks, i.e. the Poison immunity skill for the spirit with the poison floor and nothing else, the Strong Wind immunity skill for the spirit with dangerous winds and nothing else, etc. And then on the flipside you get skills that are always useful no matter the challenge, maybe too useful. You got your Giant/Metal Giant spirits, Autoheal spirits, Weapon Attack and Move Speed up spirits, Armor Knight, etc.

Some more creative abilities that aren't exactly busted or useless would've been fun. Like, Tiny Headstart, start the match shrunk but have a boost to your speed and attack, but a debuff to your defense to turn your character into a temporary glass cannon. Combo Machine, get endlag on your attacks cut off if they land, but get more endlag if you whiff (essentially turbo mode with a punishment for missing). I'm sure somebody else could come up with even better examples than I could.

For something more minor, it bothers me that no spirits are allowed to use the default color scheme of a character. I know why, but for some cases which I can't remember at the moment (because there are a lot of spirits to remember), it's clear the devs couldn't use a character's deafult color so they use a different one that mostly matches the character's default colors. Just a small annoyance that probably nobody else has.

 

[Gyrom8]

I agree with number 2 - no accompanying text is my main issues with spirits. Without them, they're images with little to no context, which is a particular problem for spirits with more obscure origins, e.g. Japan-only titles or NES era games. It's a particular shame as trophies were a good way to learn more about a series and potentially get you interested in it, but there's barely anything to go off of with spirits.

 

[Xelrog]

The main thing I care about is that the rock-paper-scissors mechanic absolutely destroys using them in multiplayer. Me and my friends used custom builds for fun in Smash 4 all the time. We haven't used spirits since launch. We have to all agree to use neutral, or the same type of build so that one of us doesn't have an overwhelming advantage, and that's not cool. The mechanic is fine for singleplayer but it needed to be disabled for multi.

If I'm getting a bit loftier, I wish they didn't have stat boosts and ranks, or that rank just reflected rarity and not power. I could be the biggest fan in the world of a one-star character spirit, but I can't rep my boy against a five-star without a stark disadvantage. It should be about how you build your character, not what you've unlocked. If spirits were more like custom builds in the Smash 4 I'd have loved a method of transporting spirit characters, bringing them over to a friend's house. That's something that was missing from even Smash 4. Even now we don't really have transportable Mii fighters.

 

[Koopaul]

That's a good point about Spirit strength. If you happen to have a favorite character represented as a Spirit but it's really weak, then there's a good chance you won't use it. I'd say balancing is in order.

A 1 Star Spirit is weak in power but has 3 open slots for Support Spirits
2 Star is stronger but has 2 slots.
3 Star is even stronger but only has 1 slot.
And 4 Star is the strongest but doesn't have any open slots.

I don't know if that will balance things more. But in theory it should.

As for the rock-paper-scissors thing. Yeah they should have disabled type advantages in multiplayer. Probably an oversight and a last minute addition.

 

[Wario Wario Wario]

buff Muddy Mole to an ace class Spirit
add Jinbe, Grandpa Hint, Kangaroon, Sundes and Funton as advanced, advanced, novice, novice and novice Spirits respectively (chose these because other than Muddy they're the only MM characters to have non-group artwork.)

 

[lucasla]

I just think that most Spirit battles are just super fast and irrelevant, adding nothing to the experience, and having a filler feeling. I would remove most of that, and keep fights that can last longer and are more fun.

 

[MBRedboy31]

Not really relating specifically to Sprits but more to implementation of these concepts in future games, I’d like to be able to play with characters’ stats directly from the character select without having to go through things like either Equipment or Spirits. Furthermore, these should try to be relatively balanced (raising one stat lowers others,) unlike Equipment and Spirits which both result in a net positive of stats. It’s still just for fun and won’t be truly balanced, but it’d still be fun having a quick and intuitive way to try out characters with their stats significantly altered as to change their archetypes.

 

[Xelrog]

Not really relating specifically to Sprits but more to implementation of these concepts in future games, I’d like to be able to play with characters’ stats directly from the character select without having to go through things like either Equipment or Spirits. Furthermore, these should try to be relatively balanced (raising one stat lowers others,) unlike Equipment and Spirits which both result in a net positive of stats. It’s still just for fun and won’t be truly balanced, but it’d still be fun having a quick and intuitive way to try out characters with their stats significantly altered as to change their archetypes.

I remember having a ridiculous amount of fun with a max speed Bowser. Seeing him fly around the stage was priceless. Given that the stats system was more or less intended to work in the way you're describing, I wouldn't mind it being simplified, but the extra traits were most of the fun for me. Adding better throws, or a crit chance to attacks, or what have you.

 

[Blackwolf666]

Not including them in the first place.

 

[MBRedboy31]

I remember having a ridiculous amount of fun with a max speed Bowser. Seeing him fly around the stage was priceless. Given that the stats system was more or less intended to work in the way you're describing, I wouldn't mind it being simplified, but the extra traits were most of the fun for me. Adding better throws, or a crit chance to attacks, or what have you.

They could also have “Perks” available, which should also be selectable from the character select from a list. Maybe they’d have to slightly lower your other stats for compensation, though.

So, my main points are 1. Stat changes and effects should be selectable from the CSS without the arbitrary restriction of needing collectibles associated with them, so that we can experiment with them freely without exiting the Smash menu, and 2. They should be relatively balanced so that an unmodified character isn’t guaranteed to be at a disadvantage compared to one with altered stats + perks (they likely will be, but it won’t be as extreme.)