Roster Prediction Discussion Thread

[Swamp Sensei]

I heard Gardevoir was once planned to be an Assist Trophy as seen in some early fight scene, though it was mostly to promote the Assist Trophies themselves.

Got proof?

 

[God Robert's Cousin]

We're getting less newcomers than Brawl, so my guestimation is:

August: Veteran
September: Veteran
October: Newcomer
November: Veteran
December: Veteran
January: Veteran
February: Newcomer
March: Veteran
April: Veteran
May: Veteran
June: Newcomer
July: Veteran
August: Veteran
September: Veteran
October: Newcomer

I completely doubt that we'd have a starting roster any larger than 28 characters, meaning that we'd have 15 more characters revealed at max. Considering that we'd likely have a hidden newcomer or two, that would mean we wouldn't have a lot more newcomers revealed. Therefore, the remaining newcomers, about 4 maybe, would have to be spread out throughout the months. We'd probably get 3 to 4 months in between newcomer reveals.

So based on my pseudo-math, we'll likely get another Veteran reveal in August, and maybe a Newcomer in September. I'm not getting my hopes up for August giving us anything extravagant.

 

[SchAlternate]

What if it's one character every two weeks, starting with Olimar? I mean, not that I don't think it's absolutely impossible that there WILL be one update per month, just saying.

 

[N3ON]

What if it's one character every two weeks, starting with Olimar? I mean, not that I don't think it's absolutely impossible that there WILL be one update per month, just saying.

We'd likely run out of characters long before release, which would result in another notorious character drought, and would the decrease of hype, which Sakurai and Nintendo know.

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

We're getting less newcomers than Brawl, so my guestimation is:

August: Veteran
September: Veteran
October: Newcomer
November: Veteran
December: Veteran
January: Veteran
February: Newcomer
March: Veteran
April: Veteran
May: Veteran
June: Newcomer
July: Veteran
August: Veteran
September: Veteran
October: Newcomer

I completely doubt that we'd have a starting roster any larger than 28 characters, meaning that we'd have 15 more characters revealed at max. Considering that we'd likely have a hidden newcomer or two, that would mean we wouldn't have a lot more newcomers revealed. Therefore, the remaining newcomers, about 4 maybe, would have to be spread out throughout the months. We'd probably get 3 to 4 months in between newcomer reveals.

So based on my pseudo-math, we'll likely get another Veteran reveal in August, and maybe a Newcomer in September. I'm not getting my hopes up for August giving us anything extravagant.

This is also assuming we don't get the game before even August next year. I think your thought process makes sense, but I wouldn't be totally against getting like 2 a month every once in awhile. If it were a definitive Holiday release then I would agree with you anyway.

 

[SchAlternate]

We'd likely run out of characters long before release, which would result in another notorious character drought, and would the decrease of hype, which Sakurai and Nintendo know.

Who knows, they might even start updating stages, items and whatnot like in the Smash Dojo in between character updates. Although that's pretty far-fetched, considering what Sakurai said.

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

Let's see. Say we have a roster of 50 characters. There are 52 (correct me if i'm wrong) weeks in a year, and we already have 13 characters.

Overall there are 39 veterans from Brawl, and we have 10 of them confirmed already. That would leave 29 vets to go.

We already have 3 newcomers, however if we are to get anywhere from 10 to 15 (we'll play it safe with 10), then we have 7 left.

If Smash 4 gets released in say...May 2014, that leaves us with what, 46 weeks? It is incredibly unlikely to get a character update every week, so it may not be too crazy to expect character updates somewhat frequently. I haven't seen the quote where Sakurai states he isn't giving as many character updates, but if that is the case, then so be it. He may only reveal around 30 characters. That's still 17 more character updates in possible 46 weeks. That isn't TOO bad. That is close to a new character every 2 1/2 to 3 weeks.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

So... who do you guys think will be the next newcomer announced?

I'm thinking maybe Little Mac or Palutena.

 

[TheLastJinjo]

Let's see. say we have a roster of 50 characters. There are 52 (correct me if i'm wrong) weeks in a year, and we already have 13 characters.

Overall there are 39 veterans from Brawl, and we have 10 of them confirmed already. That would leave 29 vets to go.

We already have 3 newcomers, however if we are to get anywhere from 10 to 15 (we'll play it safe with 10), then we have 7 left.

If Smash 4 gets released in say...May 2014, that leaves us with what, 46 weeks? It is incredibly unlikely to get a character update every week, so it may not be too crazy to not expect character updates somewhat frequently. I haven't seen the quote where Sakurai states he isn't giving as many character updates, but if that is the case, then so be it. He may only reveal around 30 characters. That's still 17 more character updates in possible 46 weeks. That isn't TOO bad. That is close to a new character every three weeks.

I guess I understand now, but it sucks.

So... who do you guys think will be the next newcomer announced?

I'm thinking maybe Little Mac or Palutena.

Some reason I feel like Takamaru would be next, I don't know why though..... either that or Mii

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

So... who do you guys think will be the next newcomer announced?

I'm thinking maybe Little Mac or Palutena.

I'm starting to think Palutena. No matter how you slice it, most of the newcomers are going to be characters we want, hence why i'm excited to see the information come in.

i wish we could just get Ridley and get it over with. Or K.Rool for that matter.

 

[TheLastJinjo]

Yeah, we'll most likely get Ridley or Palutena next. I say Ridley because he's the most requested character of all time.

 

[jaytalks]

So... who do you guys think will be the next newcomer announced?

I'm thinking maybe Little Mac or Palutena.

All the newcomers so far are from new series, so I think we will get a newcomer from an established series, so Palutena seems like a reasonable choice.

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

Yeah, we'll most likely get Ridley or Palutena next. I say Ridley because he's the most requested character of all time.

I don't know that he's THAT requested as surely Sonic beats him here. But Ridley would definitely bring a **** ton of hype to the game.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Yeah, we'll most likely get Ridley or Palutena next. I say Ridley because he's the most requested character of all time.

Mewtwo is more requested actually.

 

[jaytalks]

I would save big hype announcement characters for next year's E3, as I'm expecting the game in late 2014. So if I were Sakurai, I would hold back on characters like Little Mac and Ridley until E3.

 

[Scoliosis Jones]

I would save big hype announcement characters for next year's E3, as I'm expecting the game in late 2014. So if I were Sakurai, I would hold back on characters like Little Mac and Ridley until E3.

Idk I think Little Mac is pretty much expected, and imo wouldn't draw a whole lot of hype based on that assumption. The characters that will draw the most hype in my honest opinion are:

Ridley
K.Rool
Mewtwo
Sonic/Snake
Palutena

Idk who else is left that will create a huge amount of hype. Other newcomers like Shulk will be exciting, but not **** your pants exciting.

 

[God Robert's Cousin]

I'm starting to think Palutena. No matter how you slice it, most of the newcomers are going to be characters we want, hence why i'm excited to see the information come in.

i wish we could just get Ridley and get it over with. Or K.Rool for that matter.

As requested as Ridley is, you gotta admit, he definitely seems like unlockable character material. He's like the Wolf of Star Fox or the Ganondorf of Zelda... Not needed to make an entry in the series feel complete, but always make the most of their involvement with the story. Both are unlockable in that neither are absolutely vital antagonists on a game-to-game basis. Ridley fits that description perfectly. The fact that he's so cinematic and so-close-yet-so-far unplayable moments within the Smash Bros. series just brings together the whole package. That's what makes him such a perfect unlockable character to me, in my opinion.

I'd still love the idea of playable Ridley from the start, of course.

 

[N3ON]

Yeah, pretty much no character will ever be able to match the demand for Sonic... hell, last time we even saw how many people wanted Ridley compared to how many wanted Sonic...

Who knows, they might even start updating stages, items and whatnot like in the Smash Dojo in between character updates. Although that's pretty far-fetched, considering what Sakurai said.

We'd have to stick pretty closely to GRC's schedule to keep the hype spread out by incrementally revealing characters, sure during some months we might get two instead of one, but we'd probably have to compensate by not getting one at all another month. It's totally possible we get more substantial updates on things other than characters eventually, I agree, but the character regularity will probably have to be about one a month to keep the momentum going, any more frequently than that and we likely wouldn't have enough to keep it going without dipping into the hidden characters (other than 3rd parties) which I doubt Sakurai would do.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Idk I think Little Mac is pretty much expected, and imo wouldn't draw a whole lot of hype based on that assumption. The characters that will draw the most hype in my honest opinion are:

Ridley
K.Rool
Mewtwo
Sonic/Snake
Palutena

Idk who else is left that will create a huge amount of hype. Other newcomers like Shulk will be exciting, but not **** your pants exciting.

Roy or a Mario character might get that amount of hype but I'm not sure.

 

[SchAlternate]

Yeah, pretty much no character will ever be able to match the demand for Sonic... hell, last time we even saw how many people wanted Ridley compared to how many wanted Sonic...

October 10, 2007: The day the Internet exploded with euphoria.

 

[jaytalks]

Idk I think Little Mac is pretty much expected, and imo wouldn't draw a whole lot of hype based on that assumption. The characters that will draw the most hype in my honest opinion are:

Ridley
K.Rool
Mewtwo
Sonic/Snake
Palutena

Idk who else is left that will create a huge amount of hype. Other newcomers like Shulk will be exciting, but not **** your pants exciting.

I think Little Mac's notoriety in gaming could be huge at an event like E3. And the hype would be from outside of the Smash community. He's expected in the Smash community, but not as much outside of it. I would try to replicate something like Mega Man. Mega Man's appearance at E3 has people who weren't planning own buying Smash 4 talking about the game. I think Little Mac could do the same, as his importance to retro gaming would make the hype huge from that segment of the gaming population.

 

[Starbound]

Nintendo Directs are held around every two months, so we may get some new characters come August.

 

[TheCreator]

Characters that would create enough hype, or catch people's attention enough to be shown at next years E3 is a good topic.
I think....

Ridley
K. Rool
Sonic
Mewtwo
Pacman
and possibly little mac.

But I think Mac will be announced sooner.

 

[SchAlternate]

One thing I do hope is that the process of unlocking a character will actually offer you a challenge this time, kinda like in Melee. I mean, sure, there'll be the piss easy "Clear Classic mode" character (usually Jiggs), but almost everyone else might require something more challenging, which almost never happened in Brawl. I mean, Christ, to unlock Ness all you had to do was either play 5 matches or deflect 10 projectiles!

 

[Swamp Sensei]

One thing I do hope is that the process of unlocking a character will actually offer you a challenge this time, kinda like in Melee. I mean, sure, there'll be the piss easy "Clear Classic mode" character (usually Jiggs), but almost everyone else might require something more challenging, which almost never happened in Brawl. I mean, Christ, to unlock Ness all you had to do was either play 5 matches or deflect 10 projectiles!

With the removal of SSE, there should be more difficult ways to unlock characters.

 

[SchAlternate]

With the removal of SSE, there should be more difficult ways to unlock characters.

Y'know, the only character that did presented a challenge were Jiggs, Toon Link and Wolf, but only because you had to beat SSE first.

 

[3Bismyname]

One thing I do hope is that the process of unlocking a character will actually offer you a challenge this time, kinda like in Melee. I mean, sure, there'll be the piss easy "Clear Classic mode" character (usually Jiggs), but almost everyone else might require something more challenging, which almost never happened in Brawl. I mean, Christ, to unlock Ness all you had to do was either play 5 matches or deflect 10 projectiles!

turn on you Wii U. WARNING!!!! CHALLENGER APPROACHING!!!!!

 

[FalKoopa]

Tbh, I'm expecting the challenges for unlocking characters to be only slightly more difficult than Brawl.

Maybe Brawl's unlocking criteria were kept easy to appeal to the casual audience...

 

[N3ON]

I'd be happy if the only hidden characters that were actually easy to get were Jigglypuff, Luigi, and like... Falco or somebody, with the rest being an actual effort to get, or at least not being ridiculously simple to unlock. It would feel a lot more rewarding and like an actual accomplishment as opposed to just being able to run through all the Adventure levels on Very Easy and unlock like 90% of the characters.

In this scenario Captain Falcon, Ness, and Marth have also been moved to starter characters. Just cause.

 

[SchAlternate]

turn on you Wii U. WARNING!!!! CHALLENGER APPROACHING!!!!!

Press start. WARNING!!!! CHALLENGER APPROACHING!!!!

I'd be happy if the only hidden characters that were actually easy to get were Jigglypuff, Luigi, and like... Falco or somebody, with the rest being an actual effort to get, or at least not being ridiculously simple to unlock. It would feel a lot more rewarding and like an actual accomplishment as opposed to just being able to run through all the Adventure levels on Very Easy and unlock like 90% of the characters.

In this scenario Captain Falcon, Ness, and Marth have also been moved to starter characters. Just cause.

Honestly, I've unlocked all the characters I could before even tackling Adventure Mode.

 

[IsmaR]

Every time I think of the unlocking criteria complaints, I think of Yahtzee *****ing about how the game ships with only half the content available.

That said I reeeeeeeeeeeeally didn't like the SSE unlocking almost everyone.

 

[Starbound]

I miss when it took more than 10 hours to unlock all the characters...

 

[N3ON]

Most games ship with only the first level available, and you actually have to play it to experience the rest of the content. If Smash ships with only half the content available from the start... that's still a hell of a lot more than most games. I prefer unlocking characters... but I can see why from a multiplayer perspective some would find it a nuisance. But the solution... to just play the game... isn't too much of a hardship.

 

[God Robert's Cousin]

Personally, I've had multiple experiences where I wish there wouldn't be a ton of hidden characters from the start. After-school events, moving between Wii/Wii U systems, wholly unprepared open-gaming nights... Experiences that have each made me think "Man, I wish I didn't have to invest all this time just to unlock ____. I want to play as ____ tonight while I actually have people to play with."

That said, I'm perfectly fine with unlocking characters, it's fun to do on my own time, really, but it becomes painful when unlocking characters is time-consuming rather than just difficult. If I have to beat Classic Mode on hard without continuing or beat a character's Target Test fast enough, that's fine, but I hate having to go through 20 hours of versus matches just to have a character available, or beat every Event Match in Melee just to have Final Destination. Even more to this is that characters aren't intentionally stronger than one-another, so it's been rather inconvenient having to prove my devotion to a save file just to unlock a different way to play rather than unlocking an actual benefit to myself as the player. I would get a different satisfaction from playing over time if I unlocked the Stage Builder, for example, than if I unlocked a new character that could have just as easily been playable from the start.

Again though, I'm going by what I dealt with in personal experience. By no means am I saying that unlocking should be casualized more than it should. All it is is that in hindsight, I wish unlocking characters was potentially faster yet more difficult rather than simpler yet more time consuming.

 

[MRTsmash]

first time actually posting here (besides doing the meet and greet post), so I apologize if I'm posting on the wrong thread. I figured since this is a roster prediction discussion, I could suggest a couple of characters that I think would be good additions. Although, I'm guessing some people may have already mentioned these two names, but I'll just mention them anyway.

I was hoping that if Sakurai could continue adding third-party characters, like Solid Snake, Sonic, and Mega Man, for example, why not bring in two more characters that got its start from the NES days: Ryu Hayabusa (Ninja Gaiden) and Simon Belmont (Castlevania).

now, I totally don't expect these two to be added because of the fact that they are third-party characters and having 5 third-party characters (assuming that Snake and Sonic are back) might be a little too much for a Nintendo game, but I can just imagine both of these characters having some good fighting moves, with Ryu using his sword and Simon using his whip.

it's just a thought. reminder, this is my first actual post, so I'm sorry if I posted in the wrong thread. if there is a character suggestion thread, I will remind myself to post there the next time.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

first time actually posting here (besides doing the meet and greet post), so I apologize if I'm posting on the wrong thread. I figured since this is a roster prediction discussion, I could suggest a couple of characters that I think would be good additions. Although, I'm guessing some people may have already mentioned these two names, but I'll just mention them anyway.

I was hoping that if Sakurai could continue adding third-party characters, like Solid Snake, Sonic, and Mega Man, for example, why not bring in two more characters that got its start from the NES days: Ryu Hayabusa (Ninja Gaiden) and Simon Belmont (Castlevania).

now, I totally don't expect these two to be added because of the fact that they are third-party characters and having 5 third-party characters (assuming that Snake and Sonic are back) might be a little too much for a Nintendo game, but I can just imagine both of these characters having some good fighting moves, with Ryu using his sword and Simon using his whip.

it's just a thought. reminder, this is my first actual post, so I'm sorry if I posted in the wrong thread. if there is a character suggestion thread, I will remind myself to post there the next time.

Welcome to the boards! And don't worry, you got the right place. :D

Simon and Ryu would be pretty cool, but as you said, they aren't too likely. If we got another 3rd party (assuming Snake and Sonic are back) it would probably be Pac-Man. Which is kinda disappointing actually.

 

[papagenos]

I'm assuming we'll see mewtwo next to hype the new pokemon games and then little mac as the first newcomer reveal since his stage is already taunting us. I also believe both of these characters are shoe-ins so although their reveals will be very cool I don't think they'll blow people away... basically they are good for hyping the game NOW early on when it just keeps us rabid fans happy while not really putting the majority of the publics eyes onto sm4sh, which sakurai will want to hold off on happening until closer to the release. Mewtwo however might help get pokemon fans on board with sm4sh if he is revealed with new form around the time of the new pokemon games.

Some other random veteran might happen before or in between those 2... Ridley, if he's in, will probably be saved for E3 though realistically he's not heavily requested in Japan and although he'll be greatly praised by us smash fans, he's not particularly exciting in the way megaman or even revealing sonic as a veteran or something will hype the game being the type of character that gets fans who otherwise might not be looking at sm4sh to start checking the game out.

 

[MRTsmash]

Welcome to the boards! And don't worry, you got the right place. :D

Simon and Ryu would be pretty cool, but as you said, they aren't too likely. If we got another 3rd party (assuming Snake and Sonic are back) it would probably be Pac-Man. Which is kinda disappointing actually.

Thanks!

yea, that stinks. I also tend to forget that Ryu is part of the Dead or Alive series, but I wouldn't think that would have had an effect anyway, considering that Mega Man is part of the Marvel vs. Capcom series.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Thanks!

yea, that stinks. I also tend to forget that Ryu is part of the Dead or Alive series, but I wouldn't think that would have an effect anyway, considering that Mega Man is part of the Marvel vs. Capcom series.

Nope. Previous fighting game appearances don't matter.

Snake got into Dream Fighters and Sonic had a couple fighting games of his own.

And your welcome.

 

[Bajef8]

Mewtwo makes the most sense to me as the next reveal. It would get a lot of hype going, plus the Pokemon event happening around the time of a character update.

I like the process of having to do a certain thing to unlock characters, especially when it's a bit difficult as well. The only one I dislike a lot is Mewtwo in Melee...seriously a buzzkill just to try and get him. And you can't even get Battlefield, Final Destination, or Dreamland til you get him and G&W out of the way.

Just a thought, but I think it'd be awesome to have a little cinematic clip introduce a character instead of just going Challenger Approaching!!! with a silhouette. Like you do Mega Man's criteria and then, for example, his little reveal on top of the cliff happens and then it ends with a freeze frame of the character and says the classic, Challenger Approaching!!