Announcing Brawl Minus 4.0!

[Pin Clock]

Are we going to get any updates to this? Anything to keep the hype train rolling?

Sure, why not.

Meta Knight is just about done. We've changed a few things. I'll write up a more detailed version of this later, but Meta Knight's jab is reverted to vBrawl and improved to function like Sm4sh, with a limited time on the jab and a hitbox at the end of the attack sending foes away. It should now function as a move that can repel foes without being annoying or giving Meta Knight a free escape.
Meta Knight's fSmash charge animation has been reverted to vBrawl, but the attack is the same as before. It actually looks like he's performing a speedy and powerful strike now! The heal on his pummel has been removed, as it had no reason to be there when it was coded in, and later on it made uThrow easier to survive, but as compensation, its damage has been increased from 2%-3%.
Also, the dAir we've been testing in this build, which was a weak meteor, was discovered to be exploitable to carry foes to death. If it was explained before, this move will be reworked to not be a free kill against the cast in a way that's no different than MAX Beta Falco and Zelda's nAirs. More details in the future!

Sonic's Boost is now going to be 3.Q with a short cooldown (about half a second) to prevent Boost Dancing. In addition to this, Sonic will be a little lighter than before. This should make the Boost oriented Sonic much less annoying to go against without taking away too much of what makes him fun to play in the first place, like we found while testing the Sonic we had planned earlier.
In addition to this, Sonic's pummel will have its damage slightly reduced so it's not one of if not the most powerful pummel in the game.

Lucario will be receiving a slight rework in his aura mechanics. x3 at 300% is good on paper, but in execution, we're to believe it's what broke Lucario for so many versions. This Lucario rework is still in its early stages, so I'll explain more later. Don't worry, ULTRA TAUNT isn't going anywhere.

Wario's bike exploding will no longer hurt himself. However, he can now only use his bike once per air time, so don't think about stalling with powerful explosions!

Also a bunch of pummels have been adjusted in general.

and I hope you like Ice because I've got an ice surprise for you: Literally Frozen Pokemon Stadium 2 will be returning to Minus 4.0! Now there's a place outside of Summit for you to slip, slide, smash, and die on! A great stage for messing around and having fun!

 

[Valravn]

Ooh, I like these changes. Is the half second Boost cooldown begun at the beginning of it, or after the release of the B button? I'm pumped for the new Meta Knight, I've always found him to be fun but just a little off of what I expect him to do. The weird jab, weird forward smash. But I'd give him another whirl for sure!

 

[Mariosonicman1]

well these are really great updates.

 

[A person]

does sonic being lighter mean his upb goes farther like in light special smash?

 

[Gold_TSG]

He's referring to his weight class. It means he can be KO'd at earlier %s.

 

[A person]

Yeah I know, I'm just asking because the launch of spring jump is weight dependent. Like Jiggs bounces higher than samus.

 

[Valravn]

If Brawl physics are like Melee's, that's more related to Jigglypuff's slower falling speed than her low weight.

 

[RetroStation]

So, question about 4.0: Will Falcon's (ground) DownB jump cancels remain?

 

[Pin Clock]

So, question about 4.0: Will Falcon's (ground) DownB jump cancels remain?

Only on hit.

 

[RetroStation]

Only on hit.

That's fair. Also, what about air sideB's height restriction? DownB > JC > SideB has him sliding across the ground if the JC and SideB are done in a very small window.

 

[Thor]

Has the bug that sometimes causes Battlefield to freeze been figured out??? That one is really annoying and it's on an important stage [whereas if New Pork City was freezing, that'd be annoying, but it's not exactly a staple stage].

 

[Mawootad]

I don't think so, although I've never encountered that bug so I wouldn't be sure. It sounds like it has something to do with the my music freeze, so I'd suggest just running the fix and seeing if that stops it from happening

 

[Mariosonicman1]

what i wonder will be fixed is entering the home run contest with two gannons. it freezes every time i enter that place with two players
i just want to warlock punch the bag twice and see it fly ;3;

 

[Pin Clock]

If you can, experiment with a team of Ganon and Jiggs. I beloeve her shield break actually sends sandbag a lot further!

 

[Thor]

I don't think so, although I've never encountered that bug so I wouldn't be sure. It sounds like it has something to do with the my music freeze, so I'd suggest just running the fix and seeing if that stops it from happening

It happens to me very rarely, but it does occur enough on either side of a Wi-Fi battle that we usually both agree to not go to Battlefield.

ALSO, in some corner of the screen on the stage select screen, could you include the inputs for causing alt stages to occur? If that's not too hard to program, it'd be much easier for all Brawl Minus players to just look at that than to have to come to this website every time to remember how to access different versions of stage.

 

[Mawootad]

It happens to me very rarely, but it does occur enough on either side of a Wi-Fi battle that we usually both agree to not go to Battlefield.

ALSO, in some corner of the screen on the stage select screen, could you include the inputs for causing alt stages to occur? If that's not too hard to program, it'd be much easier for all Brawl Minus players to just look at that than to have to come to this website every time to remember how to access different versions of stage.

Ah, was hoping that it wouldn't be a totally random glitch. Also, how does it crash (loud/silent, sss/ingame, directly selecting battlefield or random, etc)?

As for alt stage icons that's a good idea and we could possibly do that quite easily.

 

[Thor]

Ah, was hoping that it wouldn't be a totally random glitch. Also, how does it crash (loud/silent, sss/ingame, directly selecting battlefield or random, etc)?

As for alt stage icons that's a good idea and we could possibly do that quite easily.

It does the super loud buzzing noise on the Wii and you have to hard shutdown if your end freezes. If you haven't heard it before I could try to describe it, but in three words, it's "very very annoying".

If the other person's end freezes, it just does nothing. Sometimes it backs you out, most of the time when it happens to someone I'm playing with we both just reset.

It may be tied to corrupted music, I am running vanilla 3.Q right now so it could be that.

 

[Pin Clock]

It does the super loud buzzing noise on the Wii and you have to hard shutdown if your end freezes. If you haven't heard it before I could try to describe it, but in three words, it's "very very annoying".

I can safely say I've heard this sound more than anyone else on the forums due to constantly testing Minus since 2.x.6.

And it's in my nightmares.

 

[RetroStation]

I think any sort of mirror crashes Minus in Home Run Contest (on Dolphin, so I can imagine it does the same on Wii).

Ganon duo - Crash
Puff duo - Crash

 

[Mawootad]

Two player home run contest doesn't work at all in 3.Q, but that will (probably) be fixed in 4.0.

 

[NEWB]

Yay! Minus aint dead!

 

[Bent 00]

So, question about 4.0: Will Falcon's (ground) DownB jump cancels remain?

Only on hit.

What was the argument against leaving the Cancel as-is?

Look at what Lucario can do with Extremespeed. IIRC, it's also set to receive a Nerf in 4.0, but Falcon Kick will be hit much harder in comparison. Lucario will still be able to Up-B twice if started from the ground, and it can combo that into any of its aerials even if it doesn't hit anything; it's a very safe and flexible move. On the other hand, Falcon Kick will leave the Captain wide open for punishment if he misses, plus he'll lose a lot of ground-to-air flexibility. Grounded Falcon Kick -> Cancel into an aerial is one of the most fun chases Falcon can do, especially leading into a Flying Knee or Punch offstage. On-stage, Cancelling it into Up Smash or short-hopped D-Air is extremely useful.

If Lucario gets to keep his amazing Up-B combos without needing to land a hit first, then you shouldn't force an on-hit limit on the Falcon Kick Cancel either. It would be a highly unnecessary Nerf as far as I'm concerned.

IMO, Falcon is pretty much perfect in 3.Q. He certainly doesn't need any Nerfs to his mobility. The Captain struggles enough against Zoners as-is.

Some things I'd like to see addressed are...

A.) The Side Taunt Cancel being moved from frame 99 to 90, and
B.) Should Falcon's horizontal momentum halt (or just be reduced) at the end of aerial Raptor Boost?

Spoiler: Explanation with crude diagrams

Currently, aerial Raptor Boost momentum is like...

->->->-\
..............\
................\

I'm thinking Falcon's recovery may benefit if it was more like...

->->->-\
.............|
.............|

Because the way it is now, Falcon occasionally gets carried too far under the stage when he's trying to recover horizontally with Raptor Boost, like this:
................_____
->->->-\...\_
..............\..|\.\__
................\|..\......
..................|\./.....
.................V........

Raptor Boost Trajectory
Falcon Dive Trajectory

With less momentum, it could work better, like this:

...............¢_____
->->->-\...\_
.............|.../..\__
.............|./...........
.............||.............

Raptor Boost Trajectory
Falcon Dive Trajectory
Ledge Snap -> Ledge Grab

Anyone else think it's worth experimenting with? IIRC, Smash 4's aerial Raptor Boost trajectory is very similar to what I'm proposing (except it puts Falcon into Special Fall).

Alternately, this minor problem could be fixed by simply allowing aerial Raptor Boost to be interrupted earlier.

EDIT: Reworded B above, and almost forgot to mention a couple of lingering issues...

C.) Falcon Punch could link into the final hit better.
D.) By the time Falcon can do Jab > Jab > Grab without triggering Rapid Jab, the foe can interrupt or escape.

Was moving the Rapid Jab to Z really the best idea? I used to Jab > Jab > Grab (Z) a lot, but now that usually ends up in a Rapid Jab, when I would have preferred a grab. Perhaps the Rapid Jab window could be pushed back a few frames? Personally, I rarely triggered Rapid Jab by accident back when it wasn't confined to Z.

 

[Gold_TSG]

I'm gonna have to agree with Bent on this one. For all the issues we've had with Lucario, what purpose is there to make Falcon Kick's cancel on-hit only while Killucario can still chase you to the top of the screen for quick, early KOs?

 

[Thor]

I'm gonna have to agree with Bent on this one. For all the issues we've had with Lucario, what purpose is there to make Falcon Kick's cancel on-hit only while Killucario can still chase you to the top of the screen for quick, early KOs?

Kien was complaining about it being too safe on whiff [as was another player who was a Falcon main actually]. I disagreed with them [or maybe I was neutral on the subject] but I wasn't making many arguments in favor of it.

If it's REALLY a problem in the dev's minds [and I hadn't considered it from the perspective of another character's primary chase tool], I'd think simply moving hitboxes on the move back slightly on startup and mid-move, but compensating with making the linking function so that the move still connects properly, would be a better design choice, to make it easier to beat out when you are attempting to punish a Falcon Kick [the way the original hitbox on Boost was placed behind Sonic in order to allow people to always at least trade with it, except a less extreme hitbox placement here].

 

[Gold_TSG]

If it's really so bad, why not retool the kick for another purpose? Maybe have it pop people up for aerial follow ups instead of the cancel? The hitstun is obviously high enough to allow it.

Or maybe borrow the idea from Balanced Brawl and turn it into a special combo tool? Like, aerial FK can cancel into grounded FK, which could cancel into up/side/neutral B (and not into itself on the ground obviously)? One of my old fav combos from BBrawl was AFK into GFK, which popped them up and allowed a follow with Up B.