Balance Patch

[ss118]

Yeah, so melee is perfect. It has a nice balance of high tier characters with the perfect blend of lol-worthy physics. There is no need to truly hack how the game is played- at least for the sake of competitiveness.

Some characters are just too terrible in this game to be used at the highest level of play, due to the lack of depth(or other shortcomings) that they bring to the table.

This is where we come in. I propose that we create a small "balance patch" for the characters of SSBM. I understand that there is Project: M in the works for brawl, but the issue? It is taking forever, and even if they get it close to melee, it will never be melee. Of course, this isn't melee either, but at least this is closer. =3

Not to mention this takes a LOT less work, as all we really need to do is work on tweaking individual characters. Another aspect we could tweak is stages; having pokemon stadium stay the same the entire match, randall-less Yoshi's Story, and we could even edit usually bannable stages to be either counterpicks or neutrals.

The only thing that could potentially be done with physics-wise is Phantom Hits. Melee is just awesome like it; it holds the perfect "battlefield"(lol puns) to host the most potentially competitive fighter of all time.

I guess the first step to all of this would be to have it as an accepted idea by the community. So here I present it, hopefully into somewhat open arms.

 

[Pi]

I am against this idea entirely.

First of all, who are we to entrust balancing the game we've gotten use to for 10+ years? We can't even decide on who to trust to make a damn tier list, or a matchup chart, or even get everyone to agree on a single matchup.

And what are you hoping to accomplish by releasing a 'balance' patch? That this be the new tourney standard, in a perfect world?

Our community is already pretty fragile
We don't need to have some people wanting everyone to use/try this new balanced melee, and then the rest of the people saying there's no point it won't be tourney standard

Just leave the game as is, it's bad enough we have pal, ntcs, & versions 1 & 2, there's already been conflicts there.

No offense, I just see nothing good coming from this as far as advancing the game/community.

 

[Geist]

Wait, you said melee was perfect and then next paragraph you described how it wasn't. I'm not sure if that was ironic on purpose or what.

I agree with most of what kniht superwavedash 3 said.
It's kind of too little too late, you know?

 

[ss118]

I am against this idea entirely.

You can have your opinion. It can't be wrong. =3

First of all, who are we to entrust balancing the game we've gotten use to for 10+ years? We can't even decide on who to trust to make a damn tier list, or a matchup chart, or even get everyone to agree on a single matchup.

We can entrust anyone who wants to participate. Kind of like how the match-up chart works and how the tier list works, everyone can put in input. But in return, by putting up weak arguments they open themselves to being easily refuted.

And what are you hoping to accomplish by releasing a 'balance' patch? That this be the new tourney standard, in a perfect world?

Do I have to accomplish something? Maybe I just want Kirby to compete against Fox in some strange hacked mod version of melee.

Our community is already pretty fragile

I don't think so. As you yourself said, we've had 10+ years of a playerbase, and until an official nintendo-released melee 2.0(whether it be SSB4 or whatever) gets released, I don't see us dieing very soon.

We don't need to have some people wanting everyone to use/try this new balanced melee, and then the rest of the people saying there's no point it won't be tourney standard

The people who thinks there is no point can just butt out, then. We aren't going to force you to play this. No one can force someone to play Balanced Brawl over vBrawl.

Just leave the game as is, it's bad enough we have pal, ntcs, & versions 1 & 2, there's already been conflicts there.

You act like most of this really splits the community. There are four splits; SSB, SSBM, SSBB, and modded SSBB. Brawl can afford to divide because of having such a big community, true. Still, I don't see the problem with letting people who WANT to do this, do this. Big tourneys will still use regular SSBM, like how big tourneys use regular SSBB, despite the fact that some mods are arguably better.

No offense, I just see nothing good coming from this as far as advancing the game/community.

OK then. Technically none of the brawl mods "advance the game/ community" at all, but hacking brawl in this manner is still popular. Why? Because people consider some of the hacks more fun. If you don't, that's fine. I love melee too, but I understand if a person likes having more overall viable stages and characters to play on/ with.

Edit: Blowtoes- technically I said melee was perfect, then the next line I said that some characters in melee aren't perfect. I can see where that would create confusion, though. Also, it is a bit too late I admit, but some people may find this interesting enough to work with.

 

[Pi]

I'm entirely aware that everything I stated was speculation and opinion

and of course I can't stop you or anyone from trying to 'balance' the game
it's your call

but you've admitted yourself both that it will not advance the game/community, and also divide it, which I don't like.

 

[ss118]

The division isn't like the Brawl one, though. Very likely, if this went anywhere, the tournament-viable characters from Fox to Sheik to even characters like Ganondorf wouldn't be touched, where as everyone else from Link to Kirby to Game and Watch would be. I'm sorry that we've so terribly divided the community.

Maybe a better game and watch that wasn't so damned one-dimensional of a character would force marth players to learn how to space aerials even better than they currently do. By pushing characters up to Fox's level, maybe we can force Fox players to abuse attributes not commonly abused, such as his ability to..... well, I don't know! The possibility isn't high, but it is there.

There would be a small division for players that play extremely low tiers. OK, fair enough. I don't see Fox players getting worse by all of a sudden playing against a better version of pichu.

If anything, this helps fox players to **** them when they go back to normal melee. "lol, thank god Pichu isn't that good now!" Reminds me from playing Brawl- SNake, and then versing vBrawl Snake; thank ****ing god his up smash is only one shot and not three!

 

[Tichinde925]

Pokemon Stadium doesnt change anymore.

Greens Greens is awesome.

Lots of usuable stages now.

We dont need a balance patch.

 

[Phoenix~Lament]

We don't need it, I don't want it. It'll only divide the community. Don't mess with what's not badly broken..

 

[TheDekuNut]

the best thing we ever need to do with melee hacks is balance stages making them more competitive and playable for fun. Milun's Green Greens is awesome sauce. It would be cool to turn a few negligible characters into beasts like speed up recovery time for all of bowser's moves or have pika's and pichu's u-air actually deal damage, give doc pills that cancel like lasers. I really want to make luigi's taunt deal like 50 damage for luls. This sort of thing is entirely for fun and was never meant to be treated the way brawl minus is. Hacks can be really fun. And Mallow is a much higher tier than Kirby just because its mallow. Ss118 everything you said is perfectly fine. i know you didn't want to make this thing a new standard as if replacing melee all together, but calling it a patch as if the game was at anything less than perfect was just incorrect wording. Go easy on the guy people i don't want to discourage anyone from joining any facet of the community especially recreational hacking. Also it because of where we are now it's best to make suggestions on textures and not the engine.

 

[L-a-t-e-r-a-l-u-s]

I think that the game itself is fine, however, I feel that going through this process will provide us with valuable information from the learning experience of the whole thing... Perhaps breakthroughs in hacking. I say, go for it. I'm probably not going to use it, but go for it.

 

[hotdogturtle]

You can't balance some characters and not others. Buffing low tiers will affect the matchups of high tiers, and then you have have to tweak them too. And then you'd be changing the whole game, which people don't want.

 

[Oracle]

This issue has come up many times before. I, for one, think it would be awesome if we could make a balance patch that made all of the low tiers completely viable. That being said, it's simply too impractical to make into a serious game. That would require a dedicated team of high level players to come up with nerfs and buffs, and even then to make a good game we would have to work for a long *** time.

The closest we can come, in my opinion, is to fix flaws of the mid/low tiers, see how that goes, and go from there. maybe after a long time we could get something beautiful

 

[TheDekuNut]

Truely the best way to actually execute such a thing as changing the mechanics for one character would be to copy them, adding a new character altogether. the would be pichu and then there would be uber pichu. Someday maybe one of the big guys might figure out how to increase the size of the game or moving stuff like the 14:02 song iso allowing for such a thing

 

[Ryzol_]

I've thought about stuff like this. My goal would be to bring everyone to around Marth to CF level and remove stuff that isn't fun like sheik's chaingrabs. That means Fox, Falco, and maybe Jigglypuff need minor nerfs, while many characters need buffs.

Characters that need larger shields - G&W, pichu, pikachu, bowser, donkey kong. Maybe others.

• Sheik - Have her downthrow drop them lower, but she recovers faster. She can still tech chase, but she can't chaingrab.
• Fox - Make his sh higher. He'd still play very similar, but he wouldn't be able to put out as much pressure.
• Falco - Give other characters better ways to get around lasers. Like for CF, I'd make CF's dash attack go lower so he can get around high lasers. CF can already get around low lasers with nairs. This still leaves lasers good, just not as dominate.

• ICs - Make Nana less ********.
• Yoshi - Let him jump out of shield.
• Bowser - 6 frame jump. Probably needs other stuff.
• G&W - Let him l-cancel every aerial. Maybe make him heavier.

I don't know what to do with the other characters. The really bad ones basically need complete reworkings.

 

[TL?]

I'd try out a patch like this. Unlike a lot of people here, I haven't declared super smash bros melee to be the one and only game I'll ever play. Anyways, I'd recommend that if you go through with this, you should try to leave the top tiers alone, and try to balance the weaker characters with as few changes as possible. Also, you shouldn't expect something like this to replace or compete with melee.

Also, I noticed your OP started with "melee is perfect" and then you go onto describe your solution to one of melee's imperfections. Don't let the melee purists get to you, if you can pull this off then go for it. With that out of the way, do you actually know how to go about making a patch like this?

 

[Oracle]

A higher shorthop would drastically change fox's game. That is a good example of the exact kind of stuff we need to avoid. To balance fox, we probably just need to make the shine a little easier to recover from; so it's still a great tool for gimping, just not as amazing.

 

[Pi]

fox doesn't need to be changed at all

(nothing needs to be changed)

but if you were going to go forth with this project
just buff bad characters

though if we made foxes shine more dependant on how -you- di

like, if he shines you on the ground, and you are holding away, you slide so far he cannot follow it up

or if he shines you in the air, and you are holding like / that direction (up), you will go closer to horizontal rather than get **** on by it's angle

but again, nothing needs to be changed, seriously...nothing good comes from fixing something that isn't broke

 

[Ripple]

buff. not nerf.

that is a philosophy you should go by. everyone loves the high tiers the way they are. change the lower tiers if you're going to change anything.

anyone above marth does not need changing.

peach could use a faster run speed. then she'd be in God tier also.

falcon needs a shorter aerial down-b and possibly invincible start up for his up-b. less cool down on missed side-b

climbers need a better recovery.

samus needs a stronger f-smash, less cool down on d-tilt. heavier too, she wears armor for god's sake.

ganon needs just a little more aerial mobility . invincible start up on up-b

Doc needs more recovery and a stronger b-throw or perhaps just a lower angle.

mario needs the same stuff as doc.

pikachu needs stronger thunder. (possibly hits higher). a d-throw that leads to something guaranteed. so like 10% more knockback.

luigi- recovery, aerial mobility.

DK- bigger grab range. faster grab. lower cool down on all tilts. stronger fair. (seriously, for how hard this move looks like it should hit, it does absolutely ****).

link- too many problems with the high tiers really. can't really buffed enough to compete with sheik, falco, fox, falcon, because if he was he would wreck **** on everyone else.

zelda needs a faster grab. and more weight.

mewtwo needs a lot of weight. faster jab. less cool down on shadow ball. tail needs to not have a hurt box.

Roy- add 3x as much shield stun to his moves. this is the only buff I can think of giving him that doesn't turn him into a marth. better recovery

y. link - add shield stun to his projectiles so the opponent gets trapped longer.

G&W- weight. shield. less cool down on everything.

yoshi- better grab. jump OOS.

pichu- invincible for 1 frame every 5 frames. lol

bowser- faster jump. less cool down on everything. recovery. more weight. 2x as much shield stun on everything.

ness- recovery. IDK what else.

kirby- heavier. stronger smashers. working throws.

 

[Ryzol_]

A higher shorthop would drastically change fox's game. That is a good example of the exact kind of stuff we need to avoid. To balance fox, we probably just need to make the shine a little easier to recover from; so it's still a great tool for gimping, just not as amazing.

I wasn't thinking samus sh, but maybe 10 - 15% higher. The only real difference I can think of is that it reduces fox's shield pressure, make shdl easier and make sh nair a little more vulnerable. How would that drastically change fox's gameplay?

I liked the idea of making DIing shine more signifcant. Could maybe do that with the chain throws too. It's sort of bs that sheik has a chainthrow on almost everyone.

Zelda also needs a real dair.

Roy - Even with high shield stun people can still cc all day. Solution Peach's downsmash (joke).

 

[lwouis]

1. Remove Jiggs rest and give it to Luigi's (his taunt)
2. ???
3. PROFIT

 

[DtJ Jungle]

Do we know how to change character stats/alter moves and the like?

 

[Ripple]

things like being heavier, less cool down, and jump speed are things you can replace by just changing a value in the game. aerial mobility I imagine would be the same but would not be surprised if wasn't. same with adding invincibility.

 

[Steelia]

...If I may, I think it would be nice to have a "balance" patch, just to see how it'd work. Granted, I love my Mewtwo, and even if he were sped up and beefed and made one of the better characters due to balance... I still wouldn't switch. I love that thrill of learning his character, and it makes winning matches that much more entertaining and fruitful. Wish I could say the same about luck-based Brawl, it's only infuriating then.

But yeah, if someone WANTS to put forth their free time to fine-tune characters... Go ahead. I'd love to see an amped Mewtwo. I wouldn't switch to that "Balanced" patch (unless everyone suddenly does, lol), but that doesn't mean I'd be curious to see how far balancing could go.

 

[Dart!]

*does ceremonial dance*
By God do i decree

Magus...i summon thee!

 

[Ripple]

guys relax. it'd just be for fun. nothing serious

 

[nuro]

I'm not sure if I want to do balance change hacks for SSBM.

Since Sakurai confirmed that this is going to be the last SSBM game geared toward hardcore players I think we should take matters into our own hands.

SSBM is played for FUN. People don't play this game because of the money involved. Thats why I don't see the problem with hacking the game if it becomes more fun in the process.

Any hacks that don't add to the FUN of the game for the whole smash community shouldn't be added.

 

[TheGoat]

buff. not nerf.

Ripple has the idea. There isn't any character who is ridiculously broken or above the others, and nerfing them is going to frustrate all the top players who have been perfecting their character skills for years. It's just the weaker characters that need buffs. I.E.

captain falcon is good enough. just make gentlemen easier to perform consistently
ganon needs a remake on his nair and uptilt
bowser needs a complete remake
and pretty much all mid/low tier characters could use some sort of buff
Now actually doing this....I don't see it being feasible unless thousands of copies were distributed to people all over. It's going to divide the melee community and it's just not going to work. Still though, it's a nice idea.

 

[exarch]

Roy needs less stun time. Give him the stun time of Luigi and Jiggs, or Peach's stun time. His biggest problem is he gets **** comboed by EVERYONE. The shield stun thing sounds very interesting, though I think 3x would make Dtilt an instant shield break. If it was adjustable (to make greater) without making him ridiculous I'd love it... I love ****** shields.

 

[Yo$himan]

Pokemon Stadium doesnt change anymore.

Greens Greens is awesome.

Lots of usuable stages now.

We dont need a balance patch.

Who fixed stadium or where can I get the files for it?

 

[BEES]

Make Roy's counter jump-cancelable, but only if it lands.

 

[Ripple]

I don't understand how this is going to divide the community. it's a hack. it for fun. only a certain number of people can do it anyway and it'll never be the standard.

it's just like a side event if you want to have some fun. just like Brawl -/+/balanced/project M.
its for fun.

and I don't understand people saying this isn't feasible without thousands of copies of melee. don't you just need a wii? can't you keep changing the hacks? or are they not rewritable?

 

[ss118]

you can use a rewritable disk, but even then you have to re-burn it each time you change something.

I'm glad people are at least realizing that this is just for fun and not an attempt at replacing melee; I was getting a bit worried. lol

Now we don't need a standardized process, but we need some idea with how we are going to do things. I like how people are already throwing a bunch of ideas to the tablem but I think making a big cluster**** out of this will just doom the whole project.

Not to mention I think we'll get a better understanding of how a "metagame" is developed if we manipulate the variables one at a time.

So we should decide whether we want to work on characters or stages first. We should also think about what stages we should "save," and which are too doomed to be saved(hyrule). If we decided to work on characters, we'd need to decide what characters we would work on first; the low tiers that would require the most work, or fine-tune the higher ones to match the Fox Falco Sheik Marth Jiggs crowd. We would also need to debate at what point is a character good enough that they don't need to be fixed, otherwise known as "setting the bar."

Another issue with developing characters is should we be allowed to remake them in a manner so that they play completely different, or should we attempt to keep them as close to their regular melee counterparts with boosts here and there to make them viable?

All of these questions are important before we start making actual changes.

 

[Eternal Yoshi]

Having a CHARACTER balance patch might cause issues.

I think we should first try balancing stages by fixing the banned ones and making them CP worthy.
I think that's more feasible than characters at this point.

 

[ss118]

CPs are overrated and are a flawed concept in themselves.

We should fix stages to make them neutrals. =3

Also, what is wrong with having a character balance patch? As long as we don't lower the potential of the game by nerfing the top tiers and only increase it by giving boosts to lower tiers, we should be fine. I do not understand what huge issue there is with it.

 

[Ripple]

you can use a rewritable disk, but even then you have to re-burn it each time you change something.

better than buying a whole bunch of CDs.

I'm glad people are at least realizing that this is just for fun and not an attempt at replacing melee; I was getting a bit worried. lol

IDK how people thought we'd takeover. lol.

Now we don't need a standardized process, but we need some idea with how we are going to do things. I like how people are already throwing a bunch of ideas to the table but I think making a big cluster**** out of this will just doom the whole project.

we should just start at the top and work our way down. buffing peach should be easy enough to get our moral up..

So we should decide whether we want to work on characters or stages first. We should also think about what stages we should "save," and which are too doomed to be saved(hyrule). If we decided to work on characters, we'd need to decide what characters we would work on first; the low tiers that would require the most work, or fine-tune the higher ones to match the Fox Falco Sheik Marth Jiggs crowd. We would also need to debate at what point is a character good enough that they don't need to be fixed, otherwise known as "setting the bar."

probably characters first.

Another issue with developing characters is should we be allowed to remake them in a manner so that they play completely different, or should we attempt to keep them as close to their regular melee counterparts with boosts here and there to make them viable?

we should keep them as close as possible. I don't think we should change moves unless absolutely necessary. coughbowsercough

 

[Eternal Yoshi]

Opening up character formats and such is likely going to open a pandora's box which will cause issues down the line.

That's why I feel that we should do stages instead.

For instance, I was wondering that if we removed the 15 minute video, would we have enough room for another stage?

Like one to go over the Akaenia(Marth's world) slot?

 

[BEES]

If we decided to work on characters, we'd need to decide what characters we would work on first; the low tiers that would require the most work, or fine-tune the higher ones to match the Fox Falco Sheik Marth Jiggs crowd. We would also need to debate at what point is a character good enough that they don't need to be fixed, otherwise known as "setting the bar."

Fox/Falco/Marth/Shiek/Jiggs - no changes
Falcon/Peach/ICs - very slight changes
Doc/Ganon/Samus - more noticeable changes
DK/Mario/Luigi/Pikachu/Roy/Link/Zelda/YL - a serious buff of some kind
Pichu/Kirby/Yoshi/G&W/Bowser - serious fundamental buffs that alter the character's strengths significantly

 

[Deleted member]

His biggest problem is he gets **** comboed by EVERYONE.

Actually, that can be played around quite a bit. Roy has a top tier dash dance and extended hitboxes that ruin the clean hits necessary for extensive combos to work on him (ignoring chaingrabs here). Moreover, his weakness lies from excellent use of crouch canceling. Roy has no "fast" moves that negate CC and often punishes him for attacking a well-ranged grounded character, so anything like doc's dsmash becomes a real problem.

you're not going to rebalance this game any better unless you increase some of the low tiers, and even then I'm not sure it would really balance it so much as give the game more reward for gimmicks (what often works in the lower tiers).

just give every character top tier qualities: long dash length, mario's crouch weight, aerials that cancel into unpunishable variable follow-ups or buffers, disjointed hitboxes with IASA frames, mario's crouch weight, and an inescapable throw into a kill move in the 70%-110% damage range.

 

[ss118]

So I guess I'll start by making suggestions for the four counterpicks we already have; Pokemon Stadium, Brinstar, Kongo Jungle 64, and Rainbow Cruise.

Pokemon Stadium has a fairly simple solution. Just no transformation.

Brinstar becomes a pretty neutral stage if we can learn how to remove the lava. Sure the layout is odd, but nothing you can not prepare for(I know you can prepare for lava).

Kongo Jungle 64 is a hard one to fix. I would suggest we start by taking the two high platforms off of the sides and see if they campiness of the stage still plays out with only the moving platforms in the center.

Rainbow Cruise... is a problematic one to fix. Nothing about it can really be deemed "broken" enough to be fixed. Maybe make the stage changes overall slower, like making the stage go at .75x its usual pace? Still would never consider it a neutral by any means.

I guess before we work on characters, it would be a good idea to work on the game that surrounds the characters. Since the physics are intact, stages are the next thing.

 

[GodFed]

I like this idea. I think it would be interesting to change various aspects of the balance, whether through characters or stages. Though I am leaning toward changing characters more so than stages. I'll just haphazardly highlight a few points in this post about what I think.

People who don't want to change Melee shouldn't use a modified version. I understand that making changes to the game balance, especially to characters, will create unanticipated consequences, but I would rather try and see what happens rather than just use my imagination. Clearly, changing one character will affect the matchups against every other character, but that's just part of the balance.

It's already been said, but don't nerf anything. Buff low tiers, but don't nerf the high tiers. Anyone who uses this would probably like the good aspects of the high tiers, and they would be used to those good aspects. Taking those good aspects away would probably result in negative feedback.

To change character balance, we can modify movement speed, jump height, hitbox location, attack damage/knockback/angle/element effects, weight, lag time on moves, etc. As far as I know, most of these are entirely possible. Check these out.
http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=10758607&postcount=1870
http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=10760927&postcount=1876

For stages, try to make all of them neutral, yeah. That sounds like a great idea. My initial idea for stages like Hyrule (aka too doomed to be saved) is to just completely remake them into something else. I also like Eternal Yoshi's idea to use the unused Akeneia stage file for an actual stage, though I'm not sure how it could be selected in game without AR.

The process should be pretty well defined. Pick a stage and a character to discuss, and open the discussion for a few weeks. Use the discussed suggestions to modify the particular stage/character that's on the agenda until you decide that it's good enough. Then move on to another stage/character.