I wish Smash fans would care more about how the game plays and less about the characters in the game

[Lenidem]

I keep saying that the easiest way to freshen up the gameplay for casual and competitive alike is to introduce a proper super move system (alongside keeping Final Smash exclusive to Smash Balls). It would give a lot of the older characters some new toys to play with alongside consolidating a lot of the gimmicks of other characters.

Yeah, maybe. But that is still harder to visualise and far less appealing than "one of my favorite characters being playable in Smash". Again, it could be great and make the game better by itself, but it is more of a floating, nebulous notion to most players.

 

[volbound1700]

Then they should make the multiplayer meat of the game better designed then. That's not an exclusively competitive concept.

What is wrong with the MP part? The only argument that I have seen is that the MP is not as fast as Melee. I get you want to change move sets but the move sets are all really well done right now. Perhaps the clones could use more moves but outside of that, most the move sets are very fleshed out.

I think surpassing Ultimate is going to be a massive challenge as it is pretty flawless on the MP side IMO. That is why my posts focus on Single Player which is pretty boring at the moment.

Online play could be better as well.

 

[MasterCheef]

What is wrong with the MP part? The only argument that I have seen is that the MP is not as fast as Melee. I get you want to change move sets but the move sets are all really well done right now. Perhaps the clones could use more moves but outside of that, most the move sets are very fleshed out.

I think surpassing Ultimate is going to be a massive challenge as it is pretty flawless on the MP side IMO. That is why my posts focus on Single Player which is pretty boring at the moment.

Online play could be better as well.

Fundamentally the biggest challenge is the specials are terrible & boring.

 

[Quillion]

What is wrong with the MP part? The only argument that I have seen is that the MP is not as fast as Melee. I get you want to change move sets but the move sets are all really well done right now. Perhaps the clones could use more moves but outside of that, most the move sets are very fleshed out.

Thing is, I don't want movesets to be changed on the animation side (though there are a few I'd like to see).

I want movesets changed on the functional side. As it stands now, movesets are very unsynergistic and there's a relative lack of methods to capitalize on setups. You often end up using the most reliable 10% of a whole moveset.

There's no need for the game to be as fast as Melee; just a reason for moveset functions to be better designed. Actually, a universal jump cancel for up-tilts and upward-launching d-tilts would be a good start.

 

[volbound1700]

Thing is, I don't want movesets to be changed on the animation side (though there are a few I'd like to see).

I want movesets changed on the functional side. As it stands now, movesets are very unsynergistic and there's a relative lack of methods to capitalize on setups. You often end up using the most reliable 10% of a whole moveset.

There's no need for the game to be as fast as Melee; just a reason for moveset functions to be better designed. Actually, a universal jump cancel for up-tilts and upward-launching d-tilts would be a good start.

Thanks. In all confession, some of this was a little over my head (although I think I know what you mean). To help explain it better, could you pick a specific character and explain the moves/scenario as an example?

 

[Quillion]

Thanks. In all confession, some of this was a little over my head (although I think I know what you mean). To help explain it better, could you pick a specific character and explain the moves/scenario as an example?

Sure. What I have in mind is if you land an up-tilt with Mario, you can cancel it early with a jump so you have more follow-up options. If you don't land it, you can't cancel with a jump.

That said, this might need to accompany n-airs being semi-universally revamped into aerial jabs.

 

[TheZizz]

I gotta say that ultimate gets points just for finally removing forced neutral getup. How that ish persisted for two installments is beyond me.

 

[Quillion]

Speaking of getup, maybe Smash should sacrifice all the on-command i-frame dodges for doing the tradfighter thing of making getup invincible.

Yeah, I know floor wakeups already have i-frames, but maybe just get rid of the jab lock/reset thing.

 

[Quillion]

SERIOUSLY, why do Smash fans only care about the most shallow stuff about the series?

 

[Lenidem]

SERIOUSLY, why do Smash fans only care about the most shallow stuff about the series?

Dude, if Smash fans are so empty minded, what are you doing on this website?

 

[Quillion]

Dude, if Smash fans are so empty minded, what are you doing on this website?

If you're really wondering, with so much crap going in my life right now, I really just want to make people mad like I am.

 

[Lenidem]

If you're really wondering, with so much crap going in my life right now, I really just want to make people mad like I am.

At least that's an honest answer.

And for what it's worth, I'm sorry for you (really).

 

[salaboB]

On one hand, I'd like more out-of-shield variety.

On the other, doing any move out of shield will just make shields overpowering.

I think it would be more reasonable to make throws more "standard" with forward and back throws being keepaway oriented while up and down throws are combo oriented. Then layer throws with a super mechanic so we have "super throws", which can kill but consume meter.

Making shield its own button wouldn't automatically allow any move out-of-shield, the point is that if you're in the wrong animation and hit the current grab shortcut then only half of it (Shield or attack) can be "valid" and you'll do something unexpected when what you wanted was a grab. If you couldn't grab, you'd want nothing.

 

[Jotari]

I would trade all potential new comers and even accept cuts to the cast if the next game just brought back Custom Specials in a fully realized way.

 

[A_Kae]

I would trade all potential new comers and even accept cuts to the cast if the next game just brought back Custom Specials in a fully realized way.

YES

I would vaporize like a third of the cast if the rest got good alternate specials

There was so much potential to them in S4 and it was probably the biggest disappointment going in to ultimate to have them cut, instead of fixed and expanded. I think just 2 moves per slot would be better/more manageable if they were to come back. Easier to design and balance against each other when it's just an a/b choice instead of a/b/c.

 

[Jotari]

YES

I would vaporize like a third of the cast if the rest got good alternate specials

There was so much potential to them in S4 and it was probably the biggest disappointment going in to ultimate to have them cut, instead of fixed and expanded. I think just 2 moves per slot would be better/more manageable if they were to come back. Easier to design and balance against each other when it's just an a/b choice instead of a/b/c.

Yes, I fully agree. Two is good. It's easy to come up with a second special for each slot for most of the cast (and I have), but trying to come up with a full 12 is excessive for characters like the Ice Climbers who barely do anything in their singular game. Another option would be to go more free form entirely and have an inequal number of specials per character. Dissidia and a lot of Dragon Ball fighting games tend to do stuff like that with their special moves. Characters have a certain number of attacks that you can assign to any special slot and some characters have more than others as befits their character or playstyle. This might be the only way to go with them having introduced characters like Terry or Kazuya which have unique specials or just too many moves (or kind of no specials in Min Min's case where the special button mostly just serves as her normal attacks on her other arm). The arguments I've heard against this is that some attacks are designed as side specials or down specials etc, and that is true, but it's not universally true. There are attacks that deviate from what their typical attack type usually is. Like Peach's neutral being a counter or Ness and the Belmonts having virtually the same attack (PK Fire/Holy Water) mapped to different buttons. I think attacks could still be designed as a neutral special or a side special and but still be freely assignable to a list. And, hey, if I want to assign a recovery to my down special, why not let the player have that choice (some characters like Meta Knight already do that, in fact!).

 

[A_Kae]

Yes, I fully agree. Two is good. It's easy to come up with a second special for each slot for most of the cast (and I have), but trying to come up with a full 12 is excessive for characters like the Ice Climbers who barely do anything in their singular game. Another option would be to go more free form entirely and have an inequal number of specials per character. Dissidia and a lot of Dragon Ball fighting games tend to do stuff like that with their special moves. Characters have a certain number of attacks that you can assign to any special slot and some characters have more than others as befits their character or playstyle. This might be the only way to go with them having introduced characters like Terry or Kazuya which have unique specials or just too many moves (or kind of no specials in Min Min's case where the special button mostly just serves as her normal attacks on her other arm). The arguments I've heard against this is that some attacks are designed as side specials or down specials etc, and that is true, but it's not universally true. There are attacks that deviate from what their typical attack type usually is. Like Peach's neutral being a counter or Ness and the Belmonts having virtually the same attack (PK Fire/Holy Water) mapped to different buttons. I think attacks could still be designed as a neutral special or a side special and but still be freely assignable to a list. And, hey, if I want to assign a recovery to my down special, why not let the player have that choice (some characters like Meta Knight already do that, in fact!).

Slots seems like a really interesting idea. Like you mentioned in your custom special thread, (which also is really really great btw) up-b is hard move to make a good choice between (too many in smash4 were just less distance for more power or more distance with no hitbox) and if it was slots instead you could have just one “recovery special” and not have that issue. But with how central recovery is to smash I think there’s also room to have the choice between different recoveries, too. Dolphin Slash vs Crescent Slash was a well made choice in s4 imo. Maybe a hybrid system where some moves could be a choice between 2 and others are pick from a full list? That way you could preserve interesting move based choices while still having lots of customization.

I think regardless of the system some characters would have to have fewer moves or forced to pick a certain move to maintain their basic functionality. Like Cloud always having to use limit charge. Although I saw in your spreadsheet that you had him with a choice of limit break down specials, so I guess that works too. But there’s a bunch of chars with moves too deeply built in to offer a choice, I think, and it’s ok if they lost out a little.

A bit of an aside, but since you can do upb directly out of shield, would you be able to now do any special out of shield, so long as it’s in the up slot? Or maybe instead, the oos property would be moved to specific moves instead of the input.

Anyways, custom specials are something I like to think about, so those were fun to go over!