Why is damage delt in percentages?!

[Norm]

Not being limited by a set amount of health allows skilled players to last longer, or kill their opponents quicker, which is a lot better imo.

Ya this is pretty much it here having percentages instead of a set ammount of health makes the match last longer and if your good you'll be able to last much longer and come on why would you want something so standered as getting ko'd at 100% it's much better in my opinion that you need to be smashed from the stage to get KO's.

 

[Spellman]

Good lord, you don't get it. He's not complaining that it's percentages as opposed to "health bars", he's simply asking why damage is gauged in percentages as opposed to just a plain number. Stop being so pretentious.

Seriously, I was thinking the same thing. I didn't even know it was possible to take this thread the wrong way.

 

[DMAJohnson]

Good lord, you don't get it. He's not complaining that it's percentages as opposed to "health bars", he's simply asking why damage is gauged in percentages as opposed to just a plain number. Stop being so pretentious.

Quoted because no one else seems to get it.

 

[Noypi_GjD]

HP bars don't necessarily make sense either. When your HP is low, and you get kicked in the foot, your character so happens to get knocked out... wtf?

 

[Icy_Eagle]

wow ... so many idiots in this community

The quoted text above IS the correct answer. The % is a representation of how far you will get knocked back in relation to a normal attack.

If bowser gets smashed by mario, he will fly 10 feet. If hes at 100%, he will fly back 20 feet.

This is OBVIOUSLY not the correct algorithm, but the percentage is used in the math when figuring out how far they will fly.

go on training mode in melee, use zelda fsmash on say, bowser at 0%, then do the same thing at 100% The distance is clearly more than doubled. As for the other point, I agree,

so many idiots in this community lately... [sarcasm]

 

[RedMage8BT]

go on training mode in melee, use zelda fsmash on say, bowser at 0%, then do the same thing at 100% The distance is clearly more than doubled. As for the other point, I agree,

I suppose it's the power that's doubled... and not the actual knockback... I suppose hitstun would be longer as well, and speed, which would increase distance.

 

[EToaster]

Yeah, I think it's probably not the actual knockback that's doubled at 100%, but the initial force applied by the attack.

 

[Kr3w]

Try stamina mode.

 

[Pokémon Trainer]

My guess is that the percent symbol (%) is used to tell what the number means while keeping it a mystery at the same time.
For example, if a player sees HP (Hit Points) before or after a number above 0 (Zero), they would know that the character has a limit on how long they can survive. If the player sees a percent symbol after a number that says Zero percent that increases per hit, it shows that the character has no limits to his abilities. This may also hint that the object of the game is to knock the opponent off the stage. If there is no symbol at all, the player will not know what it means.

Let's use three Pikachus for this example.
Pikachu A: 20HP remaining
Pikachu B: 20% damage
Pikachu C: 20

If all three Pikachus were hit by Mario's Forward Smash dealing 21 points/percent damage...
Pikachu A would have no HP left thus unable to continue battling.
Pikachu B would be at 41% damage and still be able to fight, providing that Pikachu B was not knocked out of the field.
Pikachu C would be unchanged because the number is a constant. No data is presented.

If Pikachu A had 0HP while knocked off the stage, he would not be able to recover.
If Pikachu B had been knocked off the stage at any percentage, decreasing possibility the higher the percentage is, can recover with no problem if he is close enough.
It is unknown what Pikachu C will do in this situation.

My point simply is that the percent symbol is to show that there is no limit on the character that is fighting.

Then again, this is Super Smash Bros... Maybe not even Sakurai has the correct anwser to this question...

 

[PopeOfChiliTown]

How's this:

It represents the increase in the knockback a character receives upon being hit.

As in, when you are at 50%, you fly 1.5 times further than you would at 0%.

100% = 2 times further
150% = 2.5 times further

etc.

That's how I always viewed it.

 

[Zyfe]

Yeah, I think it's probably not the actual knockback that's doubled at 100%, but the initial force applied by the attack.

This is probably more correct.

The power the attack exerts is most likely doubled at 100%, tripled at 200%, etc.

There are a million other factors in the smash games that effect actual knockback.

 

[otter]

Good lord, you don't get it. He's not complaining that it's percentages as opposed to "health bars", he's simply asking why damage is gauged in percentages as opposed to just a plain number. Stop being so pretentious.

I made a post in the first page to clarify this

Oh well, you guys answered my question pretty well. Even the ones who were too good for this thread yet wouldn't leave.

 

[OnyxVulpine]

*not reading the rest of the thread*

I always thought it was how much more percentage you were sent back.

EX: At 0% you get hit by a F-Smash and fly back say.. 10 ft.. At 100% You fly back uh.. 20ft.

-Onyx

 

[Darkslash]

Sakurai said that the Higher the percentage the Farther you go back. Which means its how much force your character can take before "giving up" and flying into the great beyond

 

[Cosine]

Its Quite simple once you,ve reached 100%, its time for you to die, if youve managed to reach 300 % you lasted 3 times longer then you should have, or you got stuck between spikes and a block on a created stage.

 

[pyrotek7x7]

It is possible to go over 100%.

You know the saying, try 110%?


When you go over 100%, that's exceptional. You're trying very hard to stay on. You're trying over 100%.

 

[Royboy]

every game represented in brawl/melee/64 has its own life meter. And for adapt every character they must use a universal life meter.

 

[WeltallZero]

Aside from the people that take this thread as an attack on Smash's system, I think it's also kind of funny that about five different people have suggested the "at 100% you get double the knockback than at 0%" theory, with different wording, and each time as if they were the first to post it. The fact that it's so obviously wrong makes it slightly funnier.

I think the people that say that 100% is the average percentage to be KO'ed, at least in 64, are onto something. As stated, this is no longer the case because survivability has been increasing since then. I also think that the reason damage percentages haven't been normalized (i.e. so that in Brawl, you're still KO'd at 100% on average) because that would compromise damage granularity. In other words, the minimum damage you can sustain from anything is 1% (since, if you noticed, damage dealt by an attack is always an integer number, there's no hidden decimals), and since there are a much wider variety of attacks now, Brawl needs a finer granularity than 64.

 

[GaryCXJk]

People, at 0% you WILL NEVER GET A KNOCKBACK. You haven't been hit yet. The knockback could just get calculated AFTER you have sustained damage. Therefore, at 0% there will be no damage until after you've got hit. Then, the knockback doesn't get calculated at 0%, but at the percentage you were on after the attack hit.

 

[Ichida]

Just like in anime, no matter how much damage you take, there's always the chance to recover. Most of the time.

 

[GaryCXJk]

Just like in anime, no matter how much damage you take, there's always the chance to recover. Most of the time.

YOU MUST RECOVER.

 

[Firesoul1]

Its basically innovation over tradition.

 

[Gilgamesh]

Sakurai makes further fun of us in today's update.