Brawl Minus 3.5 has arrived!

[Gold_TSG]

It's like nobody understands that, in order to properly break everyone again, everyone must be brought to equal ground, instead of taking one or two broken characters and changing up 34 other characters to get up to their level...

 

[The Concept]

I wouldn't go as far to say that nobody understands it.
I also noticed that there isn't a level Minus option for the CPU anymore. They were kind of fun. Sometimes.

 

[?0123456789?]

It's like nobody understands that, in order to properly break everyone again, everyone must be brought to equal ground, instead of taking one or two broken characters and changing up 34 other characters to get up to their level...

Nobody said it was going to be easy. I think the "break until balanced" saying is something real we can realistically strive for with this mod. Honestly every time I see a character change list with nothing but a list of nerfs it makes me shake my head, especially when some of those things were around from the beginning and it wasn't until X person started winning with the character that everyone cried nerf.

 

[Gold_TSG]

Some do, but it feels like so many don't. These changes are necessary so there is a level ground to build up from. When you have the choice of changing 34 chars to be as broken as 2 characters, or changing 2 characters to even out with 34, the choice is pretty obvious, as this is t exactly easy work. I've been trying to learn PSA, and it's really not that easy, especially to someone with almost no coding experience.

EDIT: it's more than just the winning. It's a skilled player showing what a character is fully capable of that may not have been initially intended. Look at vBrawl MK. Do you think he was intended to be so broken? If Nintendo had the ability to patch and balance brawl, they likely would have, like so many other games do with things they never intended to function in such a broken way.

 

[?0123456789?]

I wouldn't go as far to say that nobody understands it.
I also noticed that there isn't a level Minus option for the CPU anymore. They were kind of fun. Sometimes.

I noticed this too but I feel as though the general CPU difficulty has improved since the last update or I could be wrong.

 

[Gold_TSG]

The AI seems to vary per match, and depending on who you fight.

 

[Bent 00]

I noticed this too but I feel as though the general CPU difficulty has improved since the last update or I could be wrong.

I wonder how work on the CPU AI is progressing... I mainly want to see them use D.I. and recover properly. It would be great if they would actually use their unique Minus abilities, too. Come on, Ganondorf, shoot a Gandouken once in a while. Falcon, charge up your PAWNCH. Zelda, use your ranged hitboxes better.

 

[NEWB]

Now I'm torn between Mario kart 8 tomorrow or this! You guys always surprise with your accomplishments. Even the the very few times expectations were not met, you guys come back and make 2 times worse into ten times better! This is an amazing update all around!

 

[The Concept]

Somebody, play as Pit and do the taunt equivalent of pressing 2 on a wiimote+nunchuk. It's glorious lol

 

[Bent 00]

I also noticed that there isn't a level Minus option for the CPU anymore. They were kind of fun. Sometimes.

I don't think there was much (if any) difference between level 9 and level 16 (or "-") CPUs.

I believe that thought was debunked by KingClubber somewhere on Smashboards, IIRC. Speaking of him, is the dev team still asking him to help? Last time I talked to him (months ago), he said you haven't asked him to do much. I hope that improving the CPU AI isn't too far down on the to-do list...

 

[?0123456789?]

Some do, but it feels like so many don't. These changes are necessary so there is a level ground to build up from. When you have the choice of changing 34 chars to be as broken as 2 characters, or changing 2 characters to even out with 34, the choice is pretty obvious, as this is t exactly easy work. I've been trying to learn PSA, and it's really not that easy, especially to someone with almost no coding experience.

EDIT: it's more than just the winning. It's a skilled player showing what a character is fully capable of that may not have been initially intended. Look at vBrawl MK. Do you think he was intended to be so broken? If Nintendo had the ability to patch and balance brawl, they likely would have, like so many other games do with things they never intended to function in such a broken way.

As for the programming stuff, I certainly respect all the hard work that is put into these updates and the mod itself. As a student in CS myself, I understand the complexity behind a project like this and cringe just thinking of trying to do something this ambitious in my spare time, as much as I want to, but knowing that I can't.

The argument for "discovering a character's true potential", which I think sums up your point in question, has two sides to it. Let, for the sake of example, Mario be the secret best character in Brawl, although Nintendo balances it to what they think the best of their ability is, but Mario, if played perfectly and utilizing certain combinations never thought of before, was actually the best character. If no one played Mario at this ability level, no one would discover he was actually the best character, and it would go on and be assumed that whoever was consistently winning tournaments or whatever was truly the best character. But we know that Mario is actually the best character, and people don't question but what they see. Now, the parallel to this in Minus is that we know certain characters perform consistently well, but to what degree is often determined by the individual, who illuminates the rest of us. Who's to say the next broken character wasn't in front of us the whole time but we were too blind to see it, and we just won't know until that person comes forward, regardless of the character's "intended capability"?

 

[Gold_TSG]

It's not just how well a character can play, but how accessible they are. Rob is actually not that hard to pick up and be good with, as I learned him ptetty well in less than a week, just to see if I could be as good as the top guy here with him. It really didn't take much to figure him out. It's no different from MK in brawl. He's easy to pick up and hard to master, but most people don't even need to master him to be a thorn in anyone's side.

I'm not trying to stir up an argument here. I'm just saying, I feel these changes were necessary to make these characters less of a no-brained threat, and more rewarding to those who can already use them well.

 

[Bent 00]

Speaking of top-tier characters, anyone else think that Olimar has a LOT of potential now? Those Pikmin are brutal.

 

[?0123456789?]

It's not just how well a character can play, but how accessible they are. Rob is actually not that hard to pick up and be good with, as I learned him ptetty well in less than a week, just to see if I could be as good as the top guy here with him. It really didn't take much to figure him out. It's no different from MK in brawl. He's easy to pick up and hard to master, but most people don't even need to master him to be a thorn in anyone's side.

I'm not trying to stir up an argument here. I'm just saying, I feel these changes were necessary to make these characters less of a no-brained threat, and more rewarding to those who can already use them well.

No need to worry about stirring up an argument, I consider this more of a debate, the "intellectual argument", lol. I see your points loud and clear, however, I feel as though the good players will still be better with their characters than those of bad players, but your case now seems to indicate to me that your intention was to facilitate a larger skill gap for these characters, punishing bad players for using herpderp techniques repetitively thereby reducing the total skill involved.

 

[Gold_TSG]

Pretty much. I deem a character fun to play as and against based on several things, the biggest being how easy it is to combo and disrupt vs how much counterplay there is. A character like rob, prior to this, had techniques from several characters meshed into one. He had a reflector, he has great mobility in his side b, he has a lot of power, over half his attacks are near/if not instant and disrupt easily, his combo game is ridiculous, his grab game is very strong, his laser is global and guarantees a kill on anyone offstage, he can half-to-full charge his fsmash to spam his laser, he has two gyros that are omnipotent to all things but shields (absorb all projectiles without disappearing, hit hard, linger, eat through/cancel nearly every attack in the game, can snipe and guard a ledge), had 4 jumps combined with the best recovery in the game, juggles like it's his job, disrupts extremely well with his bair, and the best wall of pain in the game bar none.

What character needs access to all of that to be considered fair and balanced?

 

[?0123456789?]

Well I can name quite a few characters that could use some of that ...

Again, I'm not disputing that ROB is a good character, or even that he's one of the best characters, I'm just trying to level the playing field coming from the opposite side of things, to bring everyone else up to par first and see how close we get. That's not to say there is no room for nerfs, but update after update of nothing but nerfs seems to me a bit excessive, although some of you find it to be a necessity.

 

[Gold_TSG]

Well I can name quite a few characters that could use some of that ...

Again, I'm not disputing that ROB is a good character, or even that he's one of the best characters, I'm just trying to level the playing field coming from the opposite side of things, to bring everyone else up to par first and see how close we get. That's not to say there is no room for nerfs, but update after update of nothing but nerfs seems to me a bit excessive, although some of you find it to be a necessity.

I say it's necessary cause once the broken ones are brought down, they can be built back up alongside everyone else, which makes things just easier to work with overall.

 

[Thor]

My input:

I feel like ROB keeps getting nerfed every update. I never found him to be anymore broken than some of the other characters and things you guys let slide. Pretty soon he'll just be vBrawl ROB if you keep it up. I think he was fine a few updates ago, but if you insist otherwise, a least throw in a few buffs here and there from time to time.

Ivysaur was nerfed way too much. Almost all of his previously good attacks now suck and he's way weaker as a result. I think some of the nerfs should have been toned down a bit. Also, I flat out disagree that Ivysaur's powder attacks shouldn't have a flower element represented. After all, Ivysaur is part POISON type Pokemon and even has a POISONPOWDER attack in the games. You have the paralysis and sleep elements accounted for (STUN SPORE and SLEEP POWDER) so it was perfect that the flower effect was there representing poison. Fix this please.

Glyph's ROB is REALLY frustrating to play against, even as Falco, who has all the tools to camp and zone him - the lag buffs are to make ROB more punishable (it almost felt like he could just long-range fair your shield and then start dtilting on landing, which is silly) and bair KO'd WAY too early in my opinion given how ridiculously hard it is to DI (way harder to DI than the knee in my opinion - I still can't seem to get it to launch me at a 45 degree angle or more vertical than horizontal).

Also the jump thing isn't even a nerf to me, only my opponents, because I only thought he ever had 3 jumps.

I feel like I have to play Falco or Lucario to even have a chance, or else learn Dedede or Sheik - but I get the feeling old ROB was close to unbeatable (strong counter, maybe even hard counter) for some of the worse characters in the game (Sonic, Game and Watch, Pichu).

 

[power950]

you guys are nerfing too many characters why did you take out samus's aerial forward a why does ike need to fight forever before getting ns mode countering is a common thing for me when using ike and 90% of the time i counter in the air so i miss my finishing blow in ns mode before at least you could chose to counter and keep ns mode or chose to finish its not easy to fully charge your b you have to do it after a ko youve earned or your opponent has to let you do it so its not that cheap why can ganondorf punch through shields sometimes you get caught right at the time where you can only shield and can't roll and before at least you had a chance for a third player to wake you up before ganondorf got back to finish you whether ganondorf died or rolled out hes punching at his own risk theres so many more unecissary nerfs your focusing too much on balancing rather than the crazy fun i use to enjoy minus its not really even minus anymore your not adding anything good just nerfing everyone i had to go to older releases and copy moves back from there only thing i like is using brawl ex clone engine to expand the roster and charizards neutral b thats all i can say

 

[NEWB]

I discount most of what you said power, simply because it's hard to read any of that.

Onky two characters got nerfed in this update. The rest are all balance tweaks.

Your fan base is also outdated. I say good riddance to you sir, for your input is damaging to the true image of minus. This is what minus has been striving to be, and the devs are bringing out the potential of what this mod can become.

Most of those changes should be self explanatory. I can't help you if you can't see that, and I can't help that you have likely not been reading the ongoing discussions for these characters. Don't ask us why we changed things. Ask yourself, and then comeback and tell us why we are wrong. At least provide some constructive criticism or your thanks for there hard work.

 

[Thor]

Samus's current fair (and original I guess, like ala vBrawl) are fine/good - her screw attack fair was pretty terrible in my opinion - low range, long duration and seemed to be a fair bit of endlag - was only good for recovering, and even then I preferred not to use it when I could.

Ike's old Eruption storage and Counter->Eruption ending it made Ike 1-dimensional, which they want to avoid.

 

[The Concept]

Newb...you had a point. But you lost it by insulting him.

 

[NEWB]

?

No..... The point is still there. I was right to say what I did because it is true. A community filled with people like that are useless and damaging to brawl minus.

 

[Other Aether]

-snip-

Errr... If dealing 75% damage is drastically harder for you than fully charging Eruption, I can't tell if you play at an extremely low level or if you play against extremely low level players. The only way to actually fully charge eruption was to get a star KO, or sometimes hit the foe just barely too far out to recover (so they fall a ways before dying). Try anything like that and anyone from Sonic to Bowser will be on you in an instant (discounting stages like Corneria). Now, most lives your opponent will survive at least to 75%, even when you're a powerhouse like Ike. This means you're practically guaranteed NS mode during your opponent's life. As for the nerf to it's power, it was way too overpowered considering how near-effortless it was to hit with (especially on close-range characters).

You claim that all nerfs are bad (I agree with you. Balancing, however, is good). You also claim that all you like in 3.3+ is BrawlEx and Charizard's new Neutral-B. I have to say, I agree a little there, too. However, 3.3 and 3.5 brought a lot of buffs. If you hate nerfs and want all characters stronger, wouldn't you like the buffs? I'm using the 1.01 MAX version of all characters who have been nerfed and the 3.3/3.5 versions of everyone who got buffed (except ROB, who I'm using the 3.5 release for... I don't like ROB, one bit). Just do that, and you'll have your 'ideal' minus. Just download each release, grab all the FitCharacter.pac's from each version you want, and combine them all into the fighter folder.

 

[Glyph]

I can elaborate further later, but really ROB and Ivy didn't -need- any nerfs at all. People just don't really know how to play against them at a high level yet. If ROB were really as inherently broken as a character as people have made him out to be, high level players like Kien or Gold would be able to outperform my lesser characters solely on ROB's ability. Sadly, he's probably only going to see MORE nerfs because these changes aren't going to cost me any games so people are gunna be upset again.

Ivy I don't mind seeing nerfed, but 11 nerfs does start to seem overkill. I'm a team player though so when people want nerfs I mostly roll with it.