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Balance Patch

LLDL

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95% of the melee community play on gamecubes (Not wii) that don't have mod chips. This patch would only be available to a small portion of this generation and would only get popular like 4 to 5 years from now when high end computers run melee and online play is popular. Waste of time until then imo.
 

Magus420

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Some stuff:

-Shieldstun is universal. You can't give a move more shieldstun. You can give it more shield damage so that it reduces the health of their shield more, but it does not change advantage on block. Shieldstun is directly based on hitbox damage. Increasing hitbox damage will both increase shieldstun and shield damage, though you'd only reasonably be able to increase it enough to maybe get 1-2 more stun on block before the move starts having too high damage output on hit than it should. For 3x stun it'd need to do more than 3x the hitbox damage, so for Roy's d-tilt to have 3x shieldstun it'd need to do more damage than a warlock punch.

-Hitstun is universal. You can't give a character less hitstun, or an attack more hitstun. Roy has the same amount of hitstun as every other character in the game. He's just a semi-FFer so he gets comboed more easily with that stun. To actually give him less hitstun you'd need to reduce the hitstun of all characters in the game by changing the global hitstun constant from 0.4 to something lower. To make him less comboable (but still the same amount of hitstun) you'd need to make him floaty.

-While I know of quite a few commands that can do certain things I only know how to replace existing commands present on the move's subaction. To add new invincibility/JCability/etc to a move, I would need to recycle existing cmds to do it which generally isn't possible without changing other aspects of the move (changing timings, losing gfx/sfx), or if they were very inefficient when programming the move that there's enough space in the subaction to accomplish the same things as previously but with fewer cmds. To truly add new cmds to a subaction you'd need to know how to relocate the data and adjust the pointers in the file for it like what PSA does in brawl.
 

Fernandez

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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.
Imo the only thing that should be nerfed is Sheiks Downtrow, it should be like it is in pal.
 

Ripple

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hey magus, can you upload a short video of the effects of adding lets say 7 frames of invincibility to the start up of falcon's up-b?

I understand that there could be some effects that are lost but if it's nothing noticible then it could still work out.

thanks in advance

also, does PSA not work with melee?

also


For 3x stun it'd need to do more than 3x the hitbox damage, so for Roy's d-tilt to have 3x shieldstun it'd need to do more damage than a warlock punch.

****. totally doing this
 

ss118

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****. totally doing this
This isn't melee minus. ><"

One cool idea for Roy was for all of the tips of his moves to do more shield damage than the average move. This gives him a very interesting style in this patch, especially when you consider that if he ever breaks a shield he has a **** neutral B to punish them with. =3

For people who ask "what's the point of this," it actually helps the Roy user when he transcends back to melee. He'll be much more adpet at using the tip of Roy's sword in general, especially on the opponent's shield. This helps their overall spacing game and stops them from being grabbed as easily.

Of course there's the CC problem to address as well. Maybe even more grab range to help combat it? lol

Anyway, I've been thinking about stages for a while, and I've concluded that before we can go fixing them, we need to set up a definition as to what a good competitive stage is. Let's take a look at the six undisputed "competitive" stages.

Final Destination
Dreamland 64
Battlefield
Pokemon Stadium
Fountain of Dreams
Yoshi's Island

Let's take a look at some characteristics.

Symmetry - These stages try to avoid giving an advantage to being on one side of the map compared to the other side.

Lack of External Factors - These stages try to keep the fight between characters. While you can take advantage of certain aspects of the stage, you don't usually want the stage to literally "fight" against you, even if it goes by a pattern and is predictable.

Exeptions include Randall and Shy Guys on Yoshi's Island, the rising and lowering of platforms on Fountain of Dreams, Whispy on Dreamland, and stage changes on Pokemon Stadium.

Notice the bias against randall, whispy, PS transformations, and FoD in general. XD

Platform(s) and a single stage - Most of these stages have platforms, and all of them have a single "stage" that is lower than the platforms and cannot be passed through like platforms, from top or bottom. The only exception is Final Destination, which has no platforms.

Some people are actually really biased against FD for this reason as well.

Other aspects of potentially competitive stages

Asymmetry - While an asymmetrical stage may provide more reward for being in a certain area on a stage, does this necessarily make it uncompetitive? I personally feel that it only truly degenerates gameplay if it makes matches exceptionally campy.

A good example would be a lava-less Brinstar - has no symmetry in the slightest. Two platforms that aren't on level, and even the third platform is slightly to the left. Don't even get me talking about the stage itself. However, the small stage itself discourages camping, as well as the uneven ground and the two hurtboxes that absorb projectiles on the side. You can also have a strategic advantage by breaking the middle. This may potentially reduce the match to campfests... but the amount of characters that truly get messed up by this is minimal.

Compare this to Corneria, where the asymmetry makes it a big camping stage since the fin and gun areas provide enough cover so that you only have to continuously guard against one option, while the size of the stage makes such options fairly predictable. They also promote "cave of life" strategies, that will be discussed later. =3

Passable Stages - Some stages can be passed through from bottom to top, but not from top to bottom. So basically a semi-platform. Stages that utilize a semi-platform instead of an actual stage do not have walls to ride up against, making edguarding easier, teching impossible off-stage, and sweetspotting from below harder. In return, your opponent also has to cover more options since you can recover through the stage. It isn't uncompetitive, per se, but something to look into. Stages that utilize this include Brinstar, Kongo Jungle 64, Mute City, and Rainbow Cruise.

Walls - Anything that Fox can infinitely shine you on. Usually this is bad because it gives Fox players more of an advantage, and really promote cave of life strategies. Surprisingly, Corneria's walls don't allow infinite shining, but boost fox in other manners, such as his second taunt. <3 Usually considered uncompetitive because it gives an advantage to certain characters, but I think if we use the "corneria angle" for walls we should be fine. Walls can be found on certain parts of Rainbow Cruise, Pokefloats, Pokemon Stadium transformations(fire and rock), Onett, Hyrule, Brinstar Depths, Fourside, and Princess Peaches Castle.

Cave of Life - An area of the stage in which you rely on your main defense the ability to bounce off the stage or tech it. Not sure if it is uncompetitive, since it technically is a type of "skill," but that's for us to discuss and determine. Popular stages for this include Hyrule, Princess Peaches Castle, Rock + Fire Transformations for Pokemon Stadium, Corneria, and certain parts of Pokefloats.

More to come, tired of typing this up.
 

Nintendude

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Isn't the best way to make Roy good to make him a lot heavier (weight, not falling speed) and then actually make him stronger than Marth (especially in the aerial department)? Right now Marth is faster, stronger, and heavier than Roy, which from a balance perspective doesn't really make any sense.
 

nuro

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Isn't the best way to make Roy good to make him a lot heavier (weight, not falling speed) and then actually make him stronger than Marth (especially in the aerial department)? Right now Marth is faster, stronger, and heavier than Roy, which from a balance perspective doesn't really make any sense.
Weight - measures how far characters get knocked HORIZONTALLY, or left and right. This list was tested from the Mushroom Kingdom 2 weight scale.

--- 117 --- (1) Bowser
--- 114 --- (2) DK
--- 110 --- (3) Samus
--- 109 --- (4) Ganondorf
--- 108 --- (5) Yoshi
--- 104 --- (6-7) Captain Falcon / Link
--- 100 --- (8-10) Dr. Mario / Luigi / Mario
--- 94 --- (11) Ness
--- 90 --- (12-14) Peach / Sheik / Zelda
--- 88 --- (15) Ice Climbers
--- 87 --- (16) Marth
--- 85 --- (17-19) Mewtwo / Roy / Young Link
--- 80 --- (20-21) Falco / Pikachu
--- 75 --- (22) Fox
--- 70 --- (23) Kirby
--- 60 --- (24-25) Jigglypuff / Mr. Game & Watch
--- 55 --- (26) Pichu
 

ss118

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Well since more people are talking about characters, I guess we could start discussing them. Truth be told it doesn't really matter lol.

Anyway, I do think we need to discuss how we are going to change characters. I think having three different categories for characters would be good.

1. Characters that won't be changed - these are top tier characters that are "balanced," per se. Dominate tournaments. I think Fox, Falco, Marth, Sheik, and Jigglypuff definitely fit in this category.

2. Characters that may be tuned, but play the same - these are higher characters that have no to small issues in competitive play. Place well in tournaments, and even fits for characters that only need minimal issues addressed. Includes [Dr.] Mario, Samus, Pikachu, and even Mewtwo(Taj =P).

3. Characters that need to be significantly boosted and potentially revamped - yeah these are for not really tournament viable characters. Includes Kirby, Pichu, Bowser, and many others.

Basically it turns into "top-tier," "tournament-viable," and "crappy." lol

I think a really cool thing to do would be to revamp certain characters with specific mentalities to determine how certain attributes of characters unfold in the melee metagame.

For example, I suggest we revamp Pichu into a completely offensive juggernaut with no defensive capabilities. Make him lighter, die to moves about 20% earlier than he currently does. Maybe even go as extreme as 50$ weight reduction; in return, give him amazing offensive prowess with better approaching options and mixups. it would teach us how much defensive capabilities account for in terms of character viability in melee, and if great offensive characteristics would be enough to help balance these weaknesses.
 

Eternal Yoshi

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Uhhh. Can we just start by properly scaling Kongo Jungle 64?

It's like 1.5 times the size it should be relative to the characters.

It should be about 2/3s of the size it is in Melee.
 

Shadic

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As soon as you learn how to do it. :p

Editing move properties is much easier.. Although I'd really like to be able to cut frames from animations. Giving Link the same minor speedup he has in P:M in Melee itself would be awesome.
 

TheDekuNut

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i think you'll find that very minute changes in attacks will make a character's viablility much different. if anything the best way to do this without pissing off low tier mains and the best way period is to just add a few percent points to a number of attacks and reduce cool down lag. anything more and this WILL turn into melee- IMO
 

Shadic

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Except making moves do more damage also causes knockback to increase greatly. So you'd have to compensate that.

And most of the Workshop BRoomers are well aware of how changing minor things can change a character.. Especially P:M members.
 

Ripple

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Except making moves do more damage also causes knockback to increase greatly. So you'd have to compensate that.

And most of the Workshop BRoomers are well aware of how changing minor things can change a character.. Especially P:M members.
increase damage while toning down base knock back.

that way it is safer on block while remaining relatively the same strength
 

Theftz22

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Only a ridiculously traditional ****** could object to making more stages playable as the competitive standard.

Also, nerf sheik and the low tiers become so much more viable.
 

phish-it

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I'd really love too see the results if people took the effort to do this. Melee's game play is flawless, no need to change anything there, the main set back is that some characters are significantly worse than others. Who wouldn't want to see the entire cast be viable for tournament play? (obviously not a replacement to melee).
 

Brookman

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I agree with phish-it, some characters are underpowered and then some are ridiculously underpowered. I've always felt that characters should not be toned down, but other characters should be buffed.


For example, BOWSER. Bowser's jumping speed should be improved and maybe his aerial landing lag should be diminished. I think that alone would suffice to make bowser a much more viable character.


One thing I'd love to see is reduced lag on PK fire. **** would be NUTS. better down smash for ness though up smash can stay (for obvious reasons)

I'd love to see an official patch by nintendo with input from top players in our community (one can only dream)
 

ss118

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I'm so glad that people are finally getting into this idea! <3

I'm going to start working on this, but I want opinions on one detail.

Should this be "balanced melee," where gameplay is identical going between versions. Or can this be almost "melee-," where you have the usual cast of Fox Falco etc the same, but then some characters revamped to fare better versus higher tiers.

The best example I can come up with is that I have two different versions of Pichu I'm working on; one is melee pichu with a slightly tuned moveset that allows for a pichu player from normal melee to instantly transfer to this version, the other is still similar to Pichu but has some stuff like disjointed hitbox on bair, set KB on d-tilt, much more power on moves in general, and is actually lighter.

TLDR: should we just "buff" characters or is it OK to "revamp" certain characters?
 

Brookman

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I would prefer current high tiers remain as pristine as possible. My desired outcome would be having all characters on the same level as fox/falco sheik/marth peach/falcon/puff are now.

I don't want to see character nerfs unless absolutely necessary. Rather than nerf sheiks grab just give the low tiers a CG on her and maybe buff their grab range. Not that I want the game to turn into nothing but CGs .. . . . I just don't see a reason for nerfing sheiks grab.


first thing I would fix: Allow yoshi to jump out of his shield.
 

thesage

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Make Ness's f-throw go at a lower angle.

Make d-smash a kill move. Make it faster as well. Increase the hitbox so it can be used to edgeguard like in 64.

Increase the hitbox sizes on running attack and increase their duration.

Make recovery go farther.

Make b-throw go at a lower angle.

Make it so he can tech pkt2 when he bounces into the stage (lol would be amazing)

Make dair faster.

Increase grab range.

Not saying all of these should be implemented, just that these could be things done to Ness and he'd still feel "Nessy".
 

Gowa

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the addition of the "darkness" element on ganondorf's fair is always an improvement
 

Ripple

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maybe just improve some stages I guess so more playable ones can be offered but I dont think characters should be touched
that defeats the whole purpose of a balance patch. >_>

kirby vs. fox on ANY map will not be different. kirby will get *****. you also can't change a map so it'll be suited for JUST kirby.

you have to change characters. otherwise "balance" in the sense of what people want will not happen at all
 

Gowa

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that defeats the whole purpose of a balance patch. >_>

kirby vs. fox on ANY map will not be different. kirby will get *****. you also can't change a map so it'll be suited for JUST kirby.

you have to change characters. otherwise "balance" in the sense of what people want will not happen at all
i'm not sure if making banned stages neutral or CP is "balancing" but fixing banned stages like termina bay would be ideal (somehow blocking characters from going underneath the stage and perhaps making the turtle static) or brinstar making the stage unbreakable and keeping the lava down etc.
 

Dragoon Fighter

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For Kirby here are some things that can increase his ability.

Give him aerial movement equal equal to or greater than purin's.
Give him his Nair from SSB64 to replace his current one.
Make it where there is little start lag or ending lag with his inhale.
Turn his meteor smashes into spikes.
Make his F throw and B throw hard to break out of.
Make U-tilts hit box slightly bigger (not to much though).
Make Ground Hammer Come out just a little faster.
Also make his weight equal to his PAL counter part (I mean melee PAL).
 

Nintendude

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imo the easiest way to fix Kirby is make him close to his ssb64 counterpart (so really ridiculous priority, fast up-tilt, really powerful smashes, bair, and dair). His Dair does like 30% if you hit with all of it in ssb64.
 

phish-it

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Kirb needs more priority on alot of attacks, a less linear recovery and less start up lag on some (f smash up smash hammer) bigger sweet spot hit box on the ground hammer too.
 

Brookman

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To balance characters that have chain throws. Which ever throw is the chain throw becomes fox/falco's down throw. BALANCED.
 

Tichinde925

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Why not just start with the PAL version as the base?

Isnt there some way we can play the PAL version on NTSC systems? If we ever go to Europe to play, we would be ready.
 

Rykard

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Why not just start with the PAL version as the base?

Isnt there some way we can play the PAL version on NTSC systems? If we ever go to Europe to play, we would be ready.
i think someone posted in the hacks thread before that if you just replace the dat files in the NTSC version with the PAL ones, the changes in the PAL version are present
 

Magus420

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The .dats between every version of the game are interchangeable afaik. There's no reason to use the PAL iso as the base.

Not only that, but I'm pretty sure any positive changes in PAL can easily be replicated in 1.0 without full swapping the .dat if need be, but the same is not true the other way around. Attributes and hitbox/throw knockback stats can easily be altered which would be most/all good things from a PAL version of a character worth using, but good luck trying to recreate flame canceling (this is not in his .dat; it was removed as a result of something else in the game being changed), extender grapple, rapid multihitting 1 dmg attacks like Zelda's smashes aren't a joke to DI out of by being ASDIable, etc.

Also, PAL has a lot of mystery changes in their .dats that have yet to be identified.
 

Kyu Puff

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Is it possible to make l-canceling automatic?

ICs don't really need any buffs, but they would be more enjoyable to play if...

- N-air/d-air/d-tilt had some kind of buff, like increased damage or decreased lag. N-air and d-air have some use as-is, but for moves with almost no range, they should be more rewarding when you manage to land them.

- Nana could pivot/dash dance with you. This would be awesome, but I don't know if it's actually possible. Also, it would be nice if her "box" were bigger. You can only control Nana over a certain distance, and when she passes this distance she comes stupidly running back to you.

- Ice blocks didn't pop you up, so you could land-cancel them like other projectiles. I'm pretty sure this is possible--ice blocks pop you up the first time you use them in the air, but not any subsequent times, so if you could find the flag that controls this, maybe you could manipulate it.
 

#HBC | Mac

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buff. not nerf.

that is a philosophy you should go by.
agreed, leave top high tiers the same. Tiny buffs to mid tiers. Try not to change too much how characters are played.

make ness's grab range as long as marths. Make his upB a little faster and turn a bit tighter. Allow him to cancel upb with shield but only allow one upb on stage at once. Less lag at the end of his pkt2. Give his pk pulse much less lag, and make it so he doesn't go in to free fall after. Extend the range on pk fire. Give dsmash and upsmash more knockback. Give nair more horizontal range.

allow m2's confusion to reflect.

Make link and ylinks grapple in the air actually act as a aerial grab

make dk's downsmash have a hitbox on the entire platform he's on. (obviously not as strong as the normal hitbox.)
 

Magus420

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I have no idea where the specials are even coded. Only the specials' subactions are known which has hitbox data(not there if it's an article though)/GFX/SFX and nothing else really.



BTW, these are the commands currently identified. Anything that doesn't fall under one of these is currently not possible:
Synch Timer
Asynch Timer
Set Loop
Execute Loop
Goto?
GFX Effect?
Offensive Collision
Terminate Collisions
Sound Effect?
Bit Variable Set?
Allow Interrupt
Generate Article
Body Collision
Bone Collision
Prop Visibility?
Throw Collision
Self-Damage
Use Item?
Flash Overlay Effect



Timings and loops for other commands, GFX, SFX, hitboxes & their KB stats, throw KB stats, IASA, invincibility, and self-damage. That's about it.
 

nuro

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I have no idea where the specials are even coded. Only the specials' subactions are known which has hitbox data(not there if it's an article though)/GFX/SFX and nothing else really.



BTW, these are the commands currently identified. Anything that doesn't fall under one of these is currently not possible:
Synch Timer
Asynch Timer
Set Loop
Execute Loop
Goto?
GFX Effect?
Offensive Collision
Terminate Collisions
Sound Effect?
Bit Variable Set?
Allow Interrupt
Generate Article
Body Collision
Bone Collision
Prop Visibility?
Throw Collision
Self-Damage
Use Item?
Flash Overlay Effect



Timings and loops for other commands, GFX, SFX, hitboxes & their KB stats, throw KB stats, IASA, invincibility, and self-damage. That's about it.
Magus can you make a tutorial or some example of you changing a variable?
 

Brookman

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Give Game and watch sheiks sheild and grab range then give him fox's aerial mobility and make him as heavy as captain falcon. make his up smash as fast as fox's and make his down be come out in one frame and push people along the ground. Finally, make his jump 3 frames. All his aerials need lcancel.

New top tier.
 

GenoGar

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IMO Balanced Brawl isn't very fun because it had too many gimmicks for the low tiers that changed their entire gameplay.

If you want to balance melee, you're going to have to be very conservative about it if you want to be taken seriously.

Some ideas I see on this thread are completely ridiculous things that I would find in Brawl Minus.
 
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