Ice Climbers Infinite Chaingrab in Brawl+

Almas · Mar 30, 2009

Okay, there's been a lot of dispute about this topic, but it's certainly an issue that must be resolved. The Ice Climbers as they are have a metagame focused largely around performing their chaingrab (or the positional advantage related to the enemy trying to avoid it). However, it is also undoubtedly powerful - given a suitable starting situation (and sufficient skill, to stretch the string of sibilance), the ICs can take a stock.

The difficulty in escaping such a chaingrab (one is forced to rely on an instant grab-break or out of game techniques) means that it is considered by many to be overpowered. The converse is that the difficulty of initiating the grab balances out the extreme power it holds.

The case has been argued to death, so we thought we would see what y'all think through a vote. Obviously, we aren't going to base our entire decision on the results of a poll, but it'd be interesting to see if there's a landslide opinion in one direction. With any luck, this will also give us a chance to see some interesting discussions as to how you would change things.

What I do NOT want to see in this thread is the same rehashed arguments, especially if there are personal attacks involved. Both sides of the discussion certainly have merit, and I think both have also stated their points many times before, usually oblivious to each other's arguments (like any good forum debate should be). Instead, I'd be interested to hear how you would change things, especially with the middle ground option. We have a lot of power over how each character plays now. I would like to point out that AFAIK, we will never be able to make the DThrow techable, as that is part of the animation (your character doesn't actually bounce off the floor).

I'd also like to assure y'all that regardless of the decision made, we're going to ensure that the ICs (along with all other characters) are completely tournament viable, no matter how this individual problem is resolved. Removing the infinite chaingrab would result in buffs to the character to ensure that they still have a strong game - and that they also still have a very powerful set of throws.

Barge · Mar 30, 2009

I do not know much about Brawl+ or what people are trying to do with it.
But could I have more information on the differences between ice climbers chain grabs in brawl and in brawl+?

Shadic · Mar 30, 2009

If we can balance the Ice Climbers to the other characters without the chain grab, why should we keep it? It's tedious, and doesn't allow for any real chance for escape.

Almas · Mar 30, 2009

In Brawl+, the same chaingrabs are available, but they are generally harder to initiate, due to increased shieldstun, hitstun and a couple other factors (for example, most characters have an improved approach game).

However, if you aren't a Brawl+ player I would request that you think twice about replying to the poll - we are seeking the opinion of the people who play the game. Not that I want to seem harsh, but it seems counterproductive to gather the opinions of people who are unaware of the circumstances.

EDIT: Leaf: was the title of the thread and poll not enough? >.<

leafgreen386 · Mar 30, 2009

Almas, perhaps you should note we are specifically talking about the infinite. Removing the infinite does not mean that they will lose any and all of their chain throws, and in fact, those other chain throws are precisely what we would be trying to preserve in the event that we did remove the infinite.

Barge · Mar 30, 2009

Almas said:
In Brawl+, the same chaingrabs are available, but they are generally harder to initiate, due to increased shieldstun, hitstun and a couple other factors (for example, most characters have an improved approach game).

However, if you aren't a Brawl+ player I would request that you think twice about replying to the poll - we are seeking the opinion of the people who play the game. Not that I want to seem harsh, but it seems counterproductive to gather the opinions of people who are unaware of the circumstances.

Yeah, I understand. Which is why I'm not going to vote, I was just curious, is all.

illinialex24 · Mar 30, 2009

You should keep the chain grab.

jokey665 · Mar 30, 2009

As much as I despise the ICs and their chaingrab, I couldn't bring myself to vote to remove it. I voted wait for tournament results, because I'm not sure we should be making that decision yet. I think the best course of action is to remove the chaingrab and to buff them in other ways, but again I think we should wait.

lain, search your name and find this thread, because I know you will.

Finns7 · Mar 30, 2009

INFINITE should be gone...........idc for legit grab combos and things, We have the tools to give them a new metagame.

JOE! · Mar 30, 2009

yeah, remove all infinates, theyre not fun to be in....boring to do, and boring to watch

as for the chains, if it's what we're talking about, keep them, but make them easier to escape as to not over centralize the IC gameplay (omg we needz to CB to win)

TLMSheikant · Mar 30, 2009

Keep the CG definetely.

1048576 · Mar 30, 2009

I think that we should just give Nana's upthrow insane knockback (death at zero). That way you gain the competitive aspect of an infinite without the (Imma grab a soda-lemme know when your done poking me) aspect of the chaingrabs. You also preserve the uniqueness of the character.

ToxiCrow · Mar 30, 2009

i think the CG's should be kept in. i mean, the grab game is what makes the IC's great!

Revven · Mar 30, 2009

Keep the CGs, wait for tourney results to decide on removing the infinite.

ToxiCrow · Mar 30, 2009

i love falco400.
anyway, i noticed more characters hav chaingrabs in Brawl+ then in vBrawl ( but this topic isnt about that)

the IC's range is really short and the CG's arent as easy as they look

Melomaniacal · Mar 30, 2009

There is nothing broken about ICs infinites. This has been argued many times, and I really don't feel like saying everything that has already been said a hundred times before.

Unless I absolutely have to.

Plum · Mar 30, 2009

At first I was for removing them and buffing them in other places simply because the idea of buffing them in other areas and making their matches... well... exciting to watch for a change...

But I thought about it with a more logical mind.

I always thought Brawl + was never supposed to make radical changes in metagames of characters. When you look at every other character in the game, they all have aspects that may have been removed or certain things become more prevalent but they always can be played similarly enough that anybody can come and play Brawl +. I just don't see how you can just remove what a characters metagame happens to be based off of. Even as is, the grabs exist in vBrawl because they agree it would be silly to destroy a character's metagame. I just don't see the logic in removing something that even vBrawl keeps. Especially when they are even harder to perform and keep them going, and it is also harder for the IC's to even land a grab now.

Saying don't get grabbed doesn't work when playing DDD, Charizard, Olimar or the like, but with the IC's it becomes a perfectly viable strategy.

Even though they can be changed to be viable, the key word in that sentence is change. Why would an IC main ever play Brawl + when everything they have practiced to perfect and utilize is gone and useless? Removing them would just be bad for the image of Brawl +. Think about it, the general fighting community mocks the Smash series for being ban happy. B+ doesn't need to be worse than vBrawl.

KarateF22 · Mar 30, 2009

Precisely. We should build on what characters already have, not take them away and replace them.

Deleted member · Mar 30, 2009

Almas said:
In Brawl+, the same chaingrabs are available... *snip*

Remember footstool cgs?

illinialex24 · Mar 30, 2009

They are meant to have the CGs. It should be in.

Swordplay · Mar 30, 2009

I not only want to see tournament results.

I also want to to see see how B+ TO's will deal with the issue as is.

I heavily argued option 4 in the other thread so I beat you know what my vote is!

storm92 · Mar 30, 2009

Tournament results are needed.

Shell · Mar 30, 2009

Here's an analogy for my opinion:

Imagine Captain Falcon's Knee was a one hit KO. Now imagine that he didn't have any of his set-ups for it (dair on grounded opponent, d-throw, u-throw, raptor boost, dash attack, u-smash, u-air, nair, another knee), but instead could only go directly for the knee. The move's a OHKO, but it's predicable, and has little range.

Sure, the payoff's huge, but landing it is arduous and repetitive without his myriad of set-ups. This OHKO Falcon may be effective, but looking at his current game, I think we can all agree that a less powerful (but still really strong) knee is a great trade-off for a million different ways to set it up and actually know you'll get a chance to use it consistently.

This is my view of the IC. Sure, their infinite grabs are devastating when they land, and give the opponent no chance to fight it, but they lack consistent / diverse set-ups. If you make the chain grabs slightly less powerful (escapable) but give them a myriad of set-ups and mid-grab options you'll have a deeper metagame for the IC, one that's less predictable.

And I argue for this not because I'm afraid of the IC and getting wrecked by infinites, but because I truly believe this would make them an even scarier character than they are now and I want to see them become as deep a character as possible.

Swordplay · Mar 30, 2009

SHeLL said:
Here's an analogy for my opinion:

Imagine Captain Falcon's Knee was a one hit KO. Now imagine that he didn't have any of his set-ups for it (dair on grounded opponent, d-throw, u-throw, raptor boost, dash attack, u-smash, u-air, nair, another knee), but instead could only go directly for the knee. The move's a OHKO, but it's predicable, and has little range.

Sure, the payoff's huge, but landing it is arduous and repetitive without his myriad of set-ups. This OHKO Falcon may be effective, but looking at his current game, I think we can all agree that a less powerful (but still really strong) knee is a great trade-off for a million different ways to set it up and actually know you'll get a chance to use it consistently.

This is my view of the IC. Sure, they're infinite grabs are devastating when they land, and give the opponent no chance to fight it, but they lack consistent / diverse set-ups. If you make the chain grabs slightly less powerful (escapable) but give them a myriad of set-ups and mid-grab options you'll have a deeper metagame for the IC, one that's less predictable.

And I argue for this not because I'm afraid of the IC and getting wrecked by infinites, but because I truly believe this would make them an even scarier character than they are now and I want to see them become as deep a character as possible.

I 95% agree. (would have choose a better analogy but who cares)

However, How remains a HUGE question

For the future this would be nice but tournament results will give us a better idea of How and where IC stands which is why I insist we wait for them.

Anth0ny · Mar 30, 2009

I say keep them for now, and wait for tournament results to make a final decision on whether they should stay in the long run or not.

Finns7 · Mar 30, 2009

I dont see how tournament results should be needed, to me they dont look right just like shieks ftilt lock imo. It looks broken and unfished. Why cant brawl+ fix bad programming.

IC's arnt the best chars in the game with the infinite, why dont we buff other things and lose it. Give them more options then just the inifinite. In a tournament the IC player wont go for those other CG combos they will only go for the infinite. We can give them so much more then just 1 option which is always the best option

Roxas215 · Mar 30, 2009

When u think about ice climbers the 1st thing u think about is chaingrab. That is what they are known for and that is why people pick them up. To remove their chaingrab is like removing diddy's banana's or peach's turnips. It's not like dedede's chaingrab as ic's chaingrab requires skills and different timing depending on the char. I never played with ic's in my life but i know that removing their chaingrab is removing the sole purpose of people playing with the ic's.

But i do have a question. Is the current codeset near final? Im guessing it has to be if we are now looking towards tournament results.

GHNeko · Mar 30, 2009

Ill wait for results.
Though, we should go ahead and buff ICs in other places regardless, and see how they fair.

Finns7 · Mar 30, 2009

Ask a PPPPPPro Vbrawl IC main how hard the infinite is NOW to them it doesnt matter how long it takes to learn which isnt that long anyway

, my lil bro got the basics down in a week.

Why dont we LOSE the grab to grab to grab and keep the other things like grab to move that puts you into another grab...im not a ic main but I think I played a dude that grabbed me and spiked me into another grab or something idk, but I kno they got mad setups which can be improved upon via buffs. Grab to grab to grab homogenizes IC's metagame in tourny play, you shouldnt need results to see that, when the infinite is ALWAYS the better option

leafgreen386 · Mar 30, 2009

SHeLL said:
Here's an analogy for my opinion:

Imagine Captain Falcon's Knee was a one hit KO. Now imagine that he didn't have any of his set-ups for it (dair on grounded opponent, d-throw, u-throw, raptor boost, dash attack, u-smash, u-air, nair, another knee), but instead could only go directly for the knee. The move's a OHKO, but it's predicable, and has little range.

Sure, the payoff's huge, but landing it is arduous and repetitive without his myriad of set-ups. This OHKO Falcon may be effective, but looking at his current game, I think we can all agree that a less powerful (but still really strong) knee is a great trade-off for a million different ways to set it up and actually know you'll get a chance to use it consistently.

This is my view of the IC. Sure, they're infinite grabs are devastating when they land, and give the opponent no chance to fight it, but they lack consistent / diverse set-ups. If you make the chain grabs slightly less powerful (escapable) but give them a myriad of set-ups and mid-grab options you'll have a deeper metagame for the IC, one that's less predictable.

And I argue for this not because I'm afraid of the IC and getting wrecked by infinites, but because I truly believe this would make them an even scarier character than they are now and I want to see them become as deep a character as possible.

I just want to say that this is an absolutely amazing post. Really great analogy.

I want the ICs to **** with grabs, but not with alt throws. As giza has stated in the other thread, it's poor game design, even if the actual competitive value of the technique is not broken. We should be taking this from a game design perspective as well as a balance perspective. We can have ICs be a strong character regardless of which route we take, but why take the easy route instead of trying to give them a deep, diverse metagame, that doesn't rely on one single technique which is rooted in poor game design to begin with?

This is one of my first posts I've made on this issue, and will probably be one of my last until we get to the final stages of this decision. This is a debate that has gone in circles from when it started, so this is one topic which I'd like to avoid getting into a protracted argument over. Well, at least for now. I know that a protracted debate will be necessary and is unavoidable for when we make the final decision. And I'll still be keeping an eye on this topic, of course.

When u think about ice climbers the 1st thing u think about is chaingrab. That is what they are known for and that is why people pick them up. To remove their chaingrab is like removing diddy's banana's or peach's turnips. It's not like dedede's chaingrab as ic's chaingrab requires skills and different timing depending on the char. I never played with ic's in my life but i know that removing their chaingrab is removing the sole purpose of people playing with the ic's.

You should note that the ICs have other chaingrabs that aren't infinites, such as the popo throw to nana spike to regrab. ICs in melee were great even without wobbling, because they had a multitude of other chaingrabs. If we just removed the infinite, people would still play ICs for the chaingrabs and desyncing.

DanGR · Mar 30, 2009

I don't know much about Brawl+, so I'm not going to vote, but I know for a fact that if it's still difficult to grab people with the Ice Climbers, it would be a huge mistake to take the grab infinite out of the game. If they do end up taking it out, they might as well take out every other chaingrab and make it so there are no 0-death combos.

Also, what does the "v" in "vBrawl" stand for? Thanks in advance.

Finns7 · Mar 30, 2009

Thats what Im saying, we can also give them MORE setups if not sufficient

Why dont we just develoup a beta IC and see how it fairs without grab to grab to grab to grab type infinite. Just for testing purposes nothing final. Waiting for tournament results also just pushes the problem further down the line and will only cause more problems.

Dark Sonic · Mar 30, 2009

^^v stands for "vanilla"

Also...there are no other 0-death guaranteed combos in brawl+ so....mission accomplished?

And what if we still allow them to do the grab->footstool->iceblock reset infinite? That thing is sooo much harder to perform, it's also character specific and doesn't work on sloped stages (even extremely minor slopes like Yoshi's Island). Then to solve the "infinite" part we could give Iceblock scaled knockback instead of fixed knockback (very, very small scaling, so that it's still useful for resets at most percentages)?

leafgreen386 · Mar 30, 2009

DanGR said:
I don't know much about Brawl+, so I'm not going to vote, but I know for a fact that if it's still difficult to grab people with the Ice Climbers, it would be a huge mistake to take the grab infinite out of the game. If they do end up taking it out, they might as well take out every other chaingrab and make it so there are no 0-death combos.

Also, what does the "v" in "vBrawl" stand for? Thanks in advance.

vbrawl = "vanilla brawl," where "vanilla" is a term usually used to refer to the original game where it has been modded.

And as a matter of fact, we actually are removing all other guaranteed chaingrabs. Ones that are not guaranteed are fair game, however. ICs are a special case, though, since their entire game revolves around their grabs. That's why this debate is so important.

Finns7 · Mar 30, 2009

0 to death combos in brawl+ are from bad DI, no terrible DI, also V stands for vanilla. You HAVE the option to DI in combos, IC's grab to grab to grab to grab you dont. We can give the IC's BETTER OPTIONS then the 1 best option they have that doesnt look legit.

cman · Mar 30, 2009

It seems to me that many people in the thread don't have a clear idea of what they just voted on. Something like "Keeps the chaingrabs!" doesn't inspire confidence.

Swordplay · Mar 30, 2009

Finns7 said:
Thats what Im saying, we can also give them MORE setups if not sufficient

Why dont we just develoup a beta IC and see how it fairs without grab to grab to grab to grab type infinite. Just for testing purposes nothing final. Waiting for tournament results also just pushes the problem further down the line and will only cause more problems.

You could but keep that sort of thing in the IRC for permanent testing until we have a better understanding of things with Tournament results.

Finns7 · Mar 30, 2009

Ya I kno, dont make it final in the codesets but add ons if you want to test.

What will tournament results do? I really wanna know, because right now we should be able to know that Brawl+ shouldnt have a tactic revolving around bad design and programming, We didnt have to look at tourny results for shieks ftilt, the fitlt wasnt winning shiek tournys (infinite isnt really either) but it just looks bad for brawl+ imo. We can give them so much more setups and **** combos revolving around grabs and teamwork.

Rudra · Mar 30, 2009

Imo, we should keep their chains, but make it more easier to escape (so that either thet HAVE to finish it earlier or have their chain completely reset) or harder to accomplish. I'd rather them be buffed in other aspects such as KB on moves, Freezing lasting longer, desynchs being better, ect than to have a chain that means /stock for the victim, even if its hard to land. Imo, the risk of failing to grab an opponent is less than the reward of actually cathing them with it. (though this is matchup dependant on various levels)

As for tournament results, I'm not too sure about waiting on them. With the majority of the cast being buffed so much by the global and individual changes being made, I doubt they'd place any better than they did in VBrawl. If anything, it'd probably be worse thanks to the increased difficulty in grabbing and their metagame having little else but attempting to land it (Hence the need for buffs in other aspects).

Volt7x · Mar 30, 2009

Maybe there should be a way to escape the chain grab somehow.
Also, to remove it, just disable Nana's grabs.

Ice Climbers Infinite Chaingrab in Brawl+

How should the Ice Climbers Infinite Chaingrab be handled in Brawl+?

Remove the chaingrab entirely

Weaken the grab without removing it - perhaps by making it escapable or harder to initiate

Keep the chaingrab in the game

Wait for now, and bring this issue up again once tournament results become available

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