Would you balance the game if you could?

[Stratocaster]

This is just for fun theory-smashing, don't take it too serious

So say in theory, we could modify and distribute a ssbm 1.3 edition to be basically the same but more balanced. Would you want something like that or is the game just 'perfect' as is? Maybe you like your disadvantageous matchups?

Would you do any nerfs or make all the characters stronger?
Feel free to brainstorm and list ideas just for fun.

For me I'd like mostly buffs but maybe a few small nerfs w/ another buff to make up for it.
Mostly Sheiks dthrow, make it like PAL so she can't chaingrab almost everyone, which makes the low tiers automatically better so we can buff them all less. Than to make up for it give Sheik a more powerful vertical kill move (buff usmash or uair) to give her a better matchup vs puff.

Than aim for everyone below high to become a high tier (still not as good as fox and the gang), just barely improve ganon, but revamp kirby's moveset extensively

your thoughts?

 

[Geist]

I definitely would.
I mean, there's always going to be tiers, and there's always going to be counters and bad matchups for so-and-so, but it would make the game more complete if every character was accessible and viable to win nationally.
But I'm also of the opinion that tiers have less and less relevance at higher levels of play. I'd change the obvious stuff, add a few general tweaks and leave it as it is for the most part.

 

[EPsilon933]

I would move the center of Jigglypuff's bair farthest hitbox closer to the center of her leg so that it isn't disjointed and I would remove her hitbox on frames 11 and 12, which is when she pulls her leg back and the hitbox is still here.

Then Jigglypuff wouldn't be a boring character and people would stfu about complaining about her.

 

[ShadyMilkman]

Fix the stupid variability on Pichu's moves, for one thing. I guess it was Sakurai trying to make Pichu more unique from Pikachu, but that's just killing Pichu's potential.

Just one thought for the moment.

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

Pichu lacks a useless move but i'll say the move I nnearly never use is dair and pichu's dair is a fair amount better than pikachu's(minus self-damage).

Really I would give pichu like 2 more frames of hitstun for ALL of his moves or make it so pichu doesn't do that flip for d-throw because his d-throw is a perfect copy of sheik's but with a lagy flip that stops it from being a combo sexy move/chain throw.

but 2 more frames of hit stun pichu could pillar people pretty hard, combo with dair with more than a jab, bair could be used for sheild pressure and nair to sheild would get you more grabs, nair combos=easier and I fail at them so I need all the help I can get.

jolt wold be even better. also better edge gaurd f-tilt would do more damage to their recoveries.

2 more frames of hit stun is ALL I want. mad good sheild pressure, more combos, and pillaring. and pikachu won't get ANY of this stuff with 2 more frames of hit stun he won't be able to pillar, sheild like nair grab, and junk.

 

[ryuu seika]

Hell no! Why balance it when you could give Kirby back his N64 brokenness?

 

[Blade689]

I can see where your coming from the topic, but the options of a fighting game will never be balanced. There will always be a move that is broken, because one attack must define the environment. Be it something like Fox's lasers for a damage spam, or Marth's attack range, one aspect must define a strategy which leads to the tempo/pace of a game. Although this is just my warning to the question, and my philosophies are much different.

I wish there was a way to balance the game. Or the idea that I wanted was tweaks to damage or stun by changing character colors. Bumble Bee Ness could have a faster PK thunder, or a longer one maybe....... idk, I wish there was a way to change the dimensions of your character, or to customize the power to your attacks. It would lead to fore thought on what moves the opponent relies on, or bluffs and counter strategies become more hidden. More complexity..... but idk if thats a good thing.

Again, my beliefs and my dreams are conflicted, but I think the issue is that the character is restricted to one style at top tier play because its influences by one defined set of moves. If you can change that, then the game will progress.

In conclusion, I am talking about weighting characters (and their moves) differently, then you can take away the versions that either break a character further........... or have stand alone attacks by the new boost of power. I really do believe that 2-3% or a little more/less push to 1 or 2 moves could radically change any fighting game, so I opt for different versions of characters instead of scrapping and starting over or picking on one specific move/character.

It would make the pika hats have a point, and jiggy's work-out head band mean something. Shouldn't daisy be different then peach, etc. Maybe the Wario version of Mario is heavy and a smaller Up B range, but he has stronger fire ballz. the little things you see on characters don't having meaning in the current version of melee, and that would be the first thing I'd change.

 

[Blade689]

I can see where your coming from the topic, but the options of a fighting game will never be balanced. There will always be a move that is broken, because one attack must define the environment. Be it something like Fox's lasers for a damage spam, or Marth's attack range, one aspect must define a strategy which leads to the tempo/pace of a game. Although this is just my warning to the question, and my philosophies are much different.

I wish there was a way to balance the game. Or the idea that I wanted was tweaks to damage or stun by changing character colors. Bumble Bee Ness could have a faster PK thunder, or a longer one maybe....... idk, I wish there was a way to change the dimensions of your character, or to customize the power to your attacks. It would lead to fore thought on what moves the opponent relies on, or bluffs and counter strategies become more hidden. More complexity..... but idk if thats a good thing.

Again, my beliefs and my dreams are conflicted, but I think the issue is that the character is restricted to one style at top tier play because its influences by one defined set of moves. If you can change that, then the game will progress.

In conclusion, I am talking about weighting characters (and their moves) differently, then you can take away the versions that either break a character further........... or have stand alone attacks by the new boost of power. I really do believe that 2-3% or a little more/less push to 1 or 2 moves could radically change any fighting game, so I opt for different versions of characters instead of scrapping and starting over or picking on one specific move/character.

It would make the pika hats have a point, and jiggy's work-out head band mean something. Shouldn't daisy be different then peach, etc. Maybe the Wario version of Mario is heavy and a smaller Up B range, but he has stronger fire ballz. the little things you see on characters don't having meaning in the current version of melee, and that would be the first thing I'd change.

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

fun fact I carefully choose my color as pichu. I pick red to avoid being grabbed ninja pichu, goggles for better air game, backpack to be heavier and nude to avoi more attacks(not grabs unlike the ninja) because no one wants to touch a nudist.

But really it does seem to have effects on my matches like red is amazing vs gannon.

also I demand peach to be able to get a turpin that heals them but has a normal face so if they end up getting hit they are healed. Because compare her randomness to G&ws that's ******** only like 6 and 9 are any good as G&W and he easily gets hurt from them and peach can pull out a sword and 2 ****ch faces in one match on me that's f***ing ********.

 

[Stratocaster]

I can see where your coming from the topic, but the options of a fighting game will never be balanced. There will always be a move that is broken, because one attack must define the environment.

I was really just talking about more balanced. Not every matchup is 50:50, but no matchup is 75:25. Most are between 50:50 and 65:35.

Also I don't think any move is broken in ssbm. Some are really good, but lasers, swords, and jigg bairs are all beatable.

The customizable characters is a cool idea though.

 

[Vts]

i would and first thing i would do is make nana a lvl 6-7 cpu

screw that lvl 3 crap :D.

would buff the crap out of low tiers and leave top tier alone really.

mid tier would fix some stuff like luigi's terrible upb and mario's tornado so u can up-b right out of the last part.

 

[KirbyKaze]

I think I would give Jigglypuff Falco's Shine instead of Sing and Falco's Dair instead of her Dair. I would also give her the option to have Falco's fallspeed by pressing the Taunt button mid-air and make her neurtral B the laser when she's switched to Falco's fall speed via taunt, but otherwise it would be Bowser's Flame Breath only revamped so that it has the 64 land cancel mechanic so she could SH Fire Breath AC grab and approach with Flame Breath because Jigglypuff learns Flamethrower in Pokemon with TM so it makes sense.

I would make her U-throw less DIable and severely reduced knockback so she could combo better off of it all the time. I would also make her Uair come out 4 frames faster with 2 frames less of L-cancel lag for better combos and make her double jumps optionally higher by hitting the Taunt button to the side while in midair. And I would give her Nair Marth's D-tilt's IASA so you could Nair combo and change its knockback to more launch-oriented. And I would make her Bair come out faster.

I would also make Rest recover stocks if you hit it enough to compensate for the weakness of it sometimes killing you.

I would also make her jump 2 frames faster.

 

[Pink Reaper]

I can see where your coming from the topic, but the options of a fighting game will never be balanced. There will always be a move that is broken, because one attack must define the environment. Be it something like Fox's lasers for a damage spam, or Marth's attack range, one aspect must define a strategy which leads to the tempo/pace of a game. Although this is just my warning to the question, and my philosophies are much different.

I wish there was a way to balance the game. Or the idea that I wanted was tweaks to damage or stun by changing character colors. Bumble Bee Ness could have a faster PK thunder, or a longer one maybe....... idk, I wish there was a way to change the dimensions of your character, or to customize the power to your attacks. It would lead to fore thought on what moves the opponent relies on, or bluffs and counter strategies become more hidden. More complexity..... but idk if thats a good thing.

Again, my beliefs and my dreams are conflicted, but I think the issue is that the character is restricted to one style at top tier play because its influences by one defined set of moves. If you can change that, then the game will progress.

In conclusion, I am talking about weighting characters (and their moves) differently, then you can take away the versions that either break a character further........... or have stand alone attacks by the new boost of power. I really do believe that 2-3% or a little more/less push to 1 or 2 moves could radically change any fighting game, so I opt for different versions of characters instead of scrapping and starting over or picking on one specific move/character.

It would make the pika hats have a point, and jiggy's work-out head band mean something. Shouldn't daisy be different then peach, etc. Maybe the Wario version of Mario is heavy and a smaller Up B range, but he has stronger fire ballz. the little things you see on characters don't having meaning in the current version of melee, and that would be the first thing I'd change.

+1

I like this new kid

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

You know what puff would do with falco's shine right? all she could do is take FFers to Ys and shine them to heaven anyone esle she couldn't really combo that well.

 

[X1-12]

No, I'd reverse the unbalanced-ness, make Kirby, Pichu, Bowser etc top tier, then see how many fox/falco/marth/jiggs/sheik players stick to thier character

 

[Stratocaster]

My friend at school once told me Jiggs was so bad he couldn't beat his grandma with her (true story) so Jiggs must be bad

KirbyKaze I almost thought you were serious until you said 'make her Bair come out faster'. Thats just silly! It'd be way too broken if you did that. All the other stuff is good though. Jiggly is below garbage tier as is but I think with those buffs she might be able to be mid tier material...

Oh make it so she can dash while using flamethrower and aim it with the c-stick, and it doesn't run out, and also make it cancel with a jump like shine. Then make utilt come out faster and have more range, and it has set knockback up and towards jigglypuff. Then jiggs could jump and use some kind of good attack (I don't know does she have any attacks with good knockback? maybe we'll give her one)

Oh lets make it so she can jump out of down b like fox, then she'd be kinda good, too bad all rest does is put her to sleep (maybe make rest recover 20% per second)

1 terrible character saved from mediocrity! Thanks KirbyKaze!

Spoiler

ok I think I made myself tired of this joke already thats kinda sad

 

[Mew2King]

rest shouldn't kill until 50 not 20

 

[TheManaLord]

Balancing competitive fighting games is not good.

 

[INSANE CARZY GUY]

yeah but some small changes would make huge dufferents that we'd all like like give G&W L-cancels, bowser faster tilts, m2 side-B works like the cape by refletinh things,pichu 2 more frames of hit stun on all his attacks, kirby has range for upair. ness trades PK flash for anything.

 

[Dragoon Fighter]

There in my opinion there is a simple way to make things balanced. Increase the hit stun back to n64 levels (I absolutely think that has the best hit stun setting.) That would be step one or final step depending on if your lazy or not. Now If I do modify the characters it would be buffing all the low tiers but not to much I do not wish the tier list to completely flip though that would be fun to watch. But it is melee's hit stun and lack of spikes that annoys me the most. I would get rid of meteor smashes (replace them with spikes) and add the n64 hit stun and in my opinion the ultimate fighter game. Also I would De-clone-ify Ganon, because that just annoys me the other clones do not bug me one bit because they make scene, but Ganon? really? *Sigh*.

 

[Charlesz]

I would make pikachu have another good killing move and pichu not hurt himself. ALso fox's upsmash is too weak imo

 

[Merkuri]

Yeah I'd change a whole lot of ****. One being Fox's wave shine, so we could have half the stages be legal again.

 

[EPsilon933]

Yeah I'd change a whole lot of ****. One being Fox's wave shine, so we could have half the stages be legal again.

There are gayer stuff there. That's not the only reason.

 

[C_Ferris32]

I'd make the changes to Sheik that Stratocaster suggested. As far as buffing the lower tiers, I'd give Mewtwo a jab similar to Ganon's, as that would probably help him out a ton. I'd make Bowser slightly faster and reduce the lag on his aerials. I'd make Zelda's side b move have a larger hitbox and knockback, give her a better wavedash, and make her nair like Marth's. I'd buff Pikachu's fair and make the height of his thunder infinite. I'd also make Mario's dsmash as powerful as Doc's.

I'll come back if I can think of anything else.

 

[Keblerelf]

I think I would give Jigglypuff Falco's Shine instead of Sing and Falco's Dair instead of her Dair. I would also give her the option to have Falco's fallspeed by pressing the Taunt button mid-air and make her neurtral B the laser when she's switched to Falco's fall speed via taunt, but otherwise it would be Bowser's Flame Breath only revamped so that it has the 64 land cancel mechanic so she could SH Fire Breath AC grab and approach with Flame Breath because Jigglypuff learns Flamethrower in Pokemon with TM so it makes sense.

I would make her U-throw less DIable and severely reduced knockback so she could combo better off of it all the time. I would also make her Uair come out 4 frames faster with 2 frames less of L-cancel lag for better combos and make her double jumps optionally higher by hitting the Taunt button to the side while in midair. And I would give her Nair Marth's D-tilt's IASA so you could Nair combo and change its knockback to more launch-oriented. And I would make her Bair come out faster.

I would also make Rest recover stocks if you hit it enough to compensate for the weakness of it sometimes killing you.

I would also make her jump 2 frames faster.

Agreed.

I would also make her run faster than fox.

Not as fast as falcon though. That's too fast.

 

[EPsilon933]

I'd make the changes Zelda. Uair hits sooner and has a hitbox that matches size of the giant explosion, forward B explosion hits sooner with a bigger hitbox and has good vertical knock back, grab hits on frame 5 and has a decent hitbox, up-b has a hitbox on the other end and she can grab ledges backwards with it and she can DI immediatly out of up B and she has no landing lag from it and she can attack out of up B, and she has a decent dair like Falco's. Her wavedash is just fine.

Fixed. That's how I would fix Zelda. Make everything that sucks into something that's awesome.

 

[mastermoo420]

Zelda's balanced enough. You have to press Down+B and most of her problems are fixed looool nah just playing go Epsi

 

[KirbyKaze]

Agreed.

I would also make her run faster than fox.

Not as fast as falcon though. That's too fast.

I'm thinking her traction is too high. Maybe a nice middle ground like Mario's so her wavedash is longer thus enabling better Shine combos.

In all seriousness I think I would change a lot of the low tiers in small ways.

 

[Joe_Sumo]

Peach f-tilt needs to allow a better view up her dress. give marth bigger boobs too

 

[KirbyKaze]

Pichu needs to not be in the game so we could have a cool character like Metaknight :]

 

[Fly_Amanita]

I would nerf Pichu so that he is indisputably worse than Kirby and Ness.

 

[inditled]

switch kirby and jigglys bair and horizontal airspeed just to see what would happen >.>

 

[AXE 09]

Peach f-tilt needs to allow a better view up her dress. give marth bigger boobs too

Omg this made my day

 

[Jonas]

No, I'd reverse the unbalanced-ness, make Kirby, Pichu, Bowser etc top tier, then see how many fox/falco/marth/jiggs/sheik players stick to thier character

I'd switch to Bowser right away

 

[Blade689]

Sry for double posting btw....... i don't know how to delete the copy........ like Pink Reaper said, Im kind of a new guy (I've played the n64 version for years, just recently got into melee..... a little too fast, and Im still coping with all the new options but melee has an indescribable kick to their attacks).

@ Pink Reaper: thx, I might be new, but I know that a backroom member means there is weight to your words. So the +1 made me proud.

@ INSANE CARZY GUY: props for explaining your pika outfit personas, and that you stick to those guide lines like a code beyond the game means we have the same idea. I like it when a person gets into the mind of their character, and creates a fighting style that has his personality bleeding though. Its what draws me to smash brothers, the idea that I'm playing my friend, not against a C.falc or Kirby.

@ Stratocaster (idk how to quote things correctly on forums).....

"I was really just talking about more balanced. Not every matchup is 50:50, but no matchup is 75:25. Most are between 50:50 and 65:35.

Also I don't think any move is broken in ssbm. Some are really good, but lasers, swords, and jigg bairs are all beatable."

Characters must be different from each other, not only in style, but in moves too. We are given a range of characters so complexity can develop. But, the more separation of the field, the more opportunity for a counter to exist, and for a complete character counter to exist. The fact that extreme differences in weight alone makes characters more susceptible to various attacks, suggesting unconquerable weakness to move sets over time.

I'm not saying that 1 or 2 moves in melee are broken to the point where the game has no counter measures, but if everything can be countered........ why attack? Its because certain moves create a tempo for the game, which defines who must play cat and who must play mouse. And at the end of the day, the top tier characters are the cats.

When talking about balancing the game, it requires subtile differences. For example, a fire ball from Mario that does 1% more could mean 20-30% difference by the last life. If you go as far as changing how an attack works (priority/attack range/speed), you would have to let master players spend months with that slight change to the environment before you even can tell how the alteration changes the game.

However.......... if you situationally changed the weight (or power) of your character at the beginning of a match (the plausible trade off of speed for weight... or attack for priority, some sort of legitimate trade in stats)...... you would force different combos/moves to be played on this new character type. Which would give many different potential match-ups, and counter match-ups between 2 characters. Even small change ups in jumping hight would cause different match-ups/senarios to occur, and potentially give people the even ground that your seeking. Maybe not 50-50, but swinging the odds back closer to 40-60 with the full cast of characters. Probably the higher tier characters would receive less changes between version, while the low tier would find many new options and angles to play. I doubt Tournaments would ever make it legal, but local matches would become a lot more balanced I think.

Think about it, 6 versions of your favorite character, each built from the same body, but with enough toolbox to cover weakness of your flawed match-ups (given time, and skill, and dealing with the differences as well).

 

[Zodiac]

I would buff all the low tiers and make them viable. thats about it honestly. if we nerfed high tiers they wouldn't be fun to play anymore. For instance. pichu could some more grab range and not hurt himself during attacks. M2 could be a tad faster with smashes and stronger with a lot of his moves. And make young link heavier so he doesnt die as easy, that alone would make me use young link more.

 

[C_Ferris32]

I thought of more =D

I'd make Yoshi's midair jump act like an up b, so he would regain it if he was hit after using it. I'd give DK's nair a lot more range to make it a useful approach move. I'd make Link's arrows more powerful and with more initial uncharged range. I'd make the length of Roy's up b longer, decrease the lag on all his moves, and increase the power, range, and priority on all his moves. So pretty much exactly the same as Marth, but not sexually confused. I wouldn't nerf the top/high tiers, because that would just make the game less fun. Plus, I main Falco and second Fox lol.

Also, Falcon Punch should come out on the first frame. Fo shizzle.

 

[llamapaste]

Captain Falcon says Yes!

 

[Eternal Yoshi]

rest shouldn't kill until 50 not 20

You mean like Smash 64?

I would give the low and bottom tiers buffs on some of their attacks, like decreasing the charge time Mewtwo's Shadow ball and increase the range and power of Mewtwo's smashes so that they stand a better chance and to remove Sheik's NTSC Dthrow.

Oh, and making G&W and DK's shields bigger.

The color thing sounds funny.

The blue Yoshi would have more damaging eggs egg lays, the red one would have slightly faster smashes, and the yellow one can throw eggs and egg roll faster. LOL

 

[1048576]

Make all the hits on Yoshi's bair into knees.

Give M2's moves ridiculous range, like half of FD.