Brawl Minus 4.0b is here!

[Gold_TSG]

Also, for silly stuff, flying War-

*Gets flame choked by Gold_TSG*

You knew I sensed a disturbance.

I'm gonna have to agree with both sides here, as that was what I was aiming for before I left the BR. I was trying to help balance things out across the cast in a way where there was nothing abusive to an extreme, while still keeping the charm of why I chose to play Minus over other mods.

An example of this thought process of mine is: when I tried to find a way to fix up the easy damage racking of Mario's double fireball, I had suggested that it instead be made into a larger fireball dealing roughly the damage the two combined dealt, that way it couldn't be abused for approaching, while being easier to hit with. Another was with Jiggs, in that I wanted to see if Sing could be tweaked a bit to have varying sizes for each tic, the third being large and unblockable. Both of these ideas were strongly considered, but they were ultimately denied without even testing them.

I had many ideas to help try and balance/fix problem chars and improve on others, but there was no real clear vision on what they wanted. This is part of the frustration as to why I quit, since I wanted Minus to be the best it can be in both a fun, yet competitive way. By bringing balance to the game, you make it less likely for there to be anything abusable that may push people away over cases of frustration, and also allows better ways to experiment with new ideas without simply throwing in whatever and then worrying about it later.

People flock to PM and Smash 4 because there are constant balance patches to make sure nothing is super broken. To my knowledge, any character can be competitive in PM, as it is mostly based on player skill and execution around the mechanics of the mod (albeit still more abusable by certain chars more than others). While the same cannot be said in full truth for Smash 4, they have been improving it little by little, and the recent patch has helped players try to be more aggressive than defensive due to the change in shield mechanics, as well as the further buffs/nerfs where necessary (goodbye kill combos, Luigi). Both PM as a mod and Smash 4 as an official game have something for everyone, and they can be played casually and competitively. Minus can do the same, but it needs synergy between the two before it can become what it needs to be.

 

[Pin Clock]

Another was with Jiggs, in that I wanted to see if Sing could be tweaked a bit to have varying sizes for each tic, the third being large and unblockable. Both of these ideas were strongly considered, but they were ultimately denied without even testing them.

Going to intervene here, the Jiggs Sing idea was not denied as much as it was forgotten with all of the other work piling up. I'll bring it up to the BR again and see if we can still give it a go.

 

[Mariosonicman1]

gosh its really hard to read these huge wall of texts. its so strange to be reading about people try to turn a game with fun and silly broken characters into balanced and advanced play characters like PM... i just wanted to play the game where everyone was super powerful in their unique way and it was a blast to play with friends. i really hope this doesn't just turn into a pure competitive game just because we want this games name out there. i really don't want it to go up agents PM for what its not.

 

[Mawootad]

Minus will never stop being about crazy fighters with ridiculous movesets, but once Minus is at the point where everyone is fun to play at a basic level with no really huge issues (eg 3.Q oh god Pichu is so bad why) patches naturally do become much more focused on higher level competitive play. The slews of minor tweaks are all about that; if you're just picking up the game a couple of extra or fewer percentages here and there, moves that kill 5-10% sooner or later, those mean nothing. At a high level though things like that add up, the strong and the weak get slightly closer together and now you can play whichever fighters you like best and have good fun games where player skill and not the raw power differences between the two fighters' movesets is the difference. Basically put, the game already is at a pretty excellent spot for having all fighters being fun with crazy awesome stuff to do, so when we tune and polish our primary goal is on competitive play because casual play is fantastic and the sacrifices made to casual play are absolutely dwarfed by how much the gains to high-level play expand the amount of time you can put into Minus before the game devolves into 3-4 characters who can actually do anything.

 

[Momurderer]

I originally chose Minus because of the fun, crazy characters, and the lack of a steep learning curve for higher level play (necessary wavedashing, L cancelling, DDing, and all that jazz.) And it still is what it was when I first picked it up. The reasons other people aren't picking it up I think aren't about the accessibility of the mod but the fact that it isn't Melee enough for the hardercore Nintendo audience and the more casual audience just won't go through the steps to actually acquire and load the mod. My cousins roommates all play and love Minus to death but only on his Wii. He has yet to convince more than one person to go out on their own and load up the mod. So I think it's more of trying to find an audience on a somewhat dead console in a world where we consume entertainment instead of cherish it.

 

[Valravn]

I think it's easier to be decent at Minus than most smash games, and people are comfortable enough with that that there isn't a real push to go further. It doesn't hurt that there aren't tournaments, by and large. You can easily become the best player in your local area, and then you have to resort to online play to go further. (Looking forward to the Dolphin release!)

Minus Fox is probably the most technical character in any smash game. Nobody wants to or should put in the effort to master him, because a decent Fox is usually good enough. A skilled enough Fox could dumpster any other character in this game, but the effort probably wouldn't be worth it.

 

[Thor]

Going to intervene here, the Jiggs Sing idea was not denied as much as it was forgotten with all of the other work piling up. I'll bring it up to the BR again and see if we can still give it a go.

No offense, but I'd bet a lot of sweet ideas were just lost to time... or is this an exception to the rule? If this is just how things go sometimes, has anyone considered just constructing what I'll call a master list of ideas, then just going through them one at a time whenever there's spare time? Any new ideas could be tacked onto the bottom, and it would avoid stuff like this being lost, while also ensuring all cool ideas are [eventually] looked at. You could even divide the list up and ask people to look at a small section and offer their opinions on an idea, although that might cause some people who dislike something that would be overall good to not let it in...

I think it's easier to be decent at Minus than most smash games, and people are comfortable enough with that that there isn't a real push to go further. It doesn't hurt that there aren't tournaments, by and large. You can easily become the best player in your local area, and then you have to resort to online play to go further. (Looking forward to the Dolphin release!)

Minus Fox is probably the most technical character in any smash game. Nobody wants to or should put in the effort to master him, because a decent Fox is usually good enough. A skilled enough Fox could dumpster any other character in this game, but the effort probably wouldn't be worth it.

Minus has a lower skill floor, because it's easier to find a broken thing or two, abuse it, learn to abuse it better, etc.

Minus Fox wouldn't dumpster anyone in this game any harder than 3.Q Sonic because he can't change directions as fast. Sure, he can warp in on you, but that's telegraphed and he doesn't have the best range on his stuff, and unlike Sonic, he can't run back out just as fast. Part of why I dislike Boost so much is that it's instant and can instantly reverse directions - Fox can do neither except with a normal dash dance, which is less effective than a DD supplemented with Boost.

I think Falco might still beat him with his old reflector [Fox's approach with side+b is linear enough to where old reflector was great for stuffing it, although now Fox can bait it and punish much more easily with his side+b... though everyone can bait it and punish if they don't try a straight-line approach, which Fox is definitely capable of if he isn't relying on side+B], and it's not bad with the newer one either [Falco might still win because slow lasers are amazing]. Anyone with a good nair can stuff or trade Fox's side+b approaches, and from there, while you have someone with formidable speed and a good DD, he's still got flaws - not great range, fragile, low [relatively speaking] KO power outside of uair/usmash, poor edgeguarding outside of shine which can't gimp everyone [Falco may be gimpable now, but you literally can't gimp Snake with it, and I think DK is nigh-impossible to shine spike to death]. He also has an extraordinarily linear recovery without high vertical mobility or disjoint [if Falco gets him below the ledge on a walled stage, he is oh so dead, same for Ganondorf and others].

Also a skilled Roy can beat any Fox : P

Characters Fox definitely doesn't dumpster [from a surface glance, as of 3.Q] - Falco, Wolf, Sheik, Pikachu, Snake, Marth [shield breaker shenanigans and his nair help him against Fox], Meta Knight, Toon Link (??? unsure here). These are all off the top of my head and there is likely more.

Spoiler

Melee Fox might be more technical but that's beside the point [there's some stuff about dashing, although I can't figure out if multishines are actually possible in Minus or not, and if it works like I think, multishining with Minus Fox might be the most technical feat in Smash, although it wouldn't make Minus Fox more technical than some of his Melee stuff I don't think].

 

[Pin Clock]

No offense, but I'd bet a lot of sweet ideas were just lost to time... or is this an exception to the rule? If this is just how things go sometimes, has anyone considered just constructing what I'll call a master list of ideas

We do have our to-do lists, and idea discussions, and lists for other things, rest assured. Even with this we get focused on the work itself that some things ultimately wind up getting forgotten.

 

[justadood]

has anyone considered just constructing what I'll call a master list of ideas, then just going through them one at a time whenever there's spare time?

AHEM! *points frantically to ideas page in signature*

you have no idea how aggravating this is to hear x_x i put HOURS and HOURS of work into SO many ideas here, and begged you guys to share yours too, but instead, this page got buried under at the bottom of the barrel, and then the dev team inserted individual character forums and buried it deeper..

all because my page has ideas for new characters too, you guys assumed that's all it was and wouldn't even look at the ideas for existing characters other people and I have posted :/ there are a lot of unique and cool ideas too, and NO ONE CARES

even though there's already a page dedicated to all "new ideas for characters", i'm %99.999 certain that you guys are gonna read thor's message and make a new page anyway

 

[Bent 00]

dood, the link in your sig gives me a 404 Error message.

Also, having the devs dismiss your suggestions is just something you're going to have to get used to.

The vast majority of Brawl Minus is developed internally, without consulting any of us non-devs. The devs do not implement outsiders' suggestions often at all, unless they're just really good ideas, easy to work in, as well as totally logical and balanced.

That's just the way it is... Keep your suggestions small and extremely reasonable if you want them to have any chance of consideration at all.

That's how it seems to me, anyway.

 

[Valravn]

Minus Fox wouldn't dumpster anyone in this game any harder than 3.Q Sonic because he can't change directions as fast. Sure, he can warp in on you, but that's telegraphed and he doesn't have the best range on his stuff, and unlike Sonic, he can't run back out just as fast. Part of why I dislike Boost so much is that it's instant and can instantly reverse directions - Fox can do neither except with a normal dash dance, which is less effective than a DD supplemented with Boost.

Melee Fox might be more technical but that's beside the point [there's some stuff about dashing, although I can't figure out if multishines are actually possible in Minus or not, and if it works like I think, multishining with Minus Fox might be the most technical feat in Smash, although it wouldn't make Minus Fox more technical than some of his Melee stuff I don't think

Thor, I think you missed my point. Fox isn't going to dumpster any character if the two players are both moderately skilled. The problem would only arise if someone actually mastered all of the weird tech we've found.

Fox can move nearly as quickly as Sonic on the ground, and faster in the air. He can change directions during any approach with wavedashes. He can waveland out of every aerial without risk of getting stuck in long landing lag. He can laser right next to you and jab you halfway through his animation if you get up in his grill.

He can't shine someone's shield until it breaks, technically. Start jab dash attack, cancel into reflector, do a standard double shine, then either start doing it again (because hey, no endlag) or dash dance on top of them and start again as soon as they get up. If they use a getup attack, shield grab and do whatever you want. If you're a machine, you can also shine -> dash start-> frame perfect dash attack -> instantly cancel into shine and hit most characters again before their shieldstun ends.

Illusion is far stronger than Boost ever was. You can use it to fly under an entire stage with a reflector hitbox out, project a grab box across an entire stage relatively quickly, or cancel it into anything you like just as fast as Boost. Imagine if Boost had a hitbox, but could also grab people. Of course, grab boxes have priority over most (maybe all?) hitboxes, so you need to have more disjoint to deal with illusion grabs than to deal with Boost.

So you take Melee Fox, remove the need to L-cancel, and then give him all the new Brawl techs. Reverse aerial rush, DACUS, and wavebouncing (AKA b-sticking) come to mind. Then you take everything Fox can do with Shine in Melee, and let him do that with Dash Attack and Illusion. Then you give him the option to cancel his lasers into any a-move, including grabs. It isn't that any one option is overwhelmingly powerful, but a ridiculously good, possibly robotic Minus Fox player would be able to outplay anyone in almost any situation by using his multitude of options.

And that's fine! That character is crazy fun to watch.

EDIT: Yeah that link's a 404.

 

[Neville]

Fox CANNOT break shields with shine.

 

[Valravn]

Yep, that's what I meant. (Had a 'can' instead of a 'can't') He can't technically break it with just shine, but he can lock someone in shield stun and wear it down with whatever else while they're unable to safely escape.

To clarify: this is not remotely easy, and I don't know anyone who can physically do it reliably.

 

[justadood]

dood, the link in your sig gives me a 404 Error message.

Yeah that link's a 404.

fixed the broken link xP must've messed it up when i edited the signature to those colors.. also:

The vast majority of Brawl Minus is developed internally, without consulting any of us non-devs. The devs do not implement outsiders' suggestions often at all, unless they're just really good ideas, easy to work in, as well as totally logical and balanced.

i don't like that this is the way things usually go i have ideas that i wish people would at least vocally agree to, but no one does.. i don't know if this is because all of my ideas are that bad, or if it's just because no one who does like it wants to say anything, but it's extremely discouraging either way to post ideas with little (when like three people cared a long time ago) to no support.. and the fact that you guys don't even acknowledge anything on the list of ideas as something that sounds like a foot in the right direction, or as something that gives you better ideas, or as something that you have a good reason could work/would not work is even more crushing.. you guys, i pour hours of work into finding ideas that sound fun, easy to balance, and shouldn't be too hard to make happen (given what i've been lead to believe is possible), and no one seems to have anything to say about it.. it sucks to go ignored like this when i'm trying so hard to contribute the only way i know how

 

[Valravn]

I'll check it out.

 

[Gold_TSG]

It's got nothing to do with whether they are good or bad ideas. To my understanding, the dev team simply has a plan set for what they want out of this mod, and to deviate from it requires more time and effort, something they already have so little of. While I can understand it's frustrating when they don't acknowledge your ideas, it would be more irritating if they told you they were good ideas, gave you expectations of those ideas getting in (even if they don't say anything about that), and then the ideas don't get in, leading to disappointment.

You also need to consider that everyone involved in the BR has a role to perform within their limited free time to spare for whatever they have to do, so regardless if an idea is good or not is also up to whether or not someone wants to spend the time implementing it. People have a tendency to make a lot of commotion over what they think should go into Minus (not even gonna name names), but they aren't the ones working on it. They aren't giving up their free time between work or school to stare at a computer screen and working on coding, making sure it works, then booting it up in the game, spending hours doing everything imaginable with it to see if it's bugged/balanced, go back and recode it if it's broken or rebalance it, and then potentially have someone complain about it because they don't like it/agree with it.

Nobody likes being told what they do is wrong, or hearing that people don't like it. All this work they do has emotion poured in as well, and some people just don't get that. That's my two cents on this situation here.

 

[Mawootad]

fixed the broken link xP must've messed it up when i edited the signature to those colors.. also:

i don't like that this is the way things usually go i have ideas that i wish people would at least vocally agree to, but no one does.. i don't know if this is because all of my ideas are that bad, or if it's just because no one who does like it wants to say anything, but it's extremely discouraging either way to post ideas with little (when like three people cared a long time ago) to no support.. and the fact that you guys don't even acknowledge anything on the list of ideas as something that sounds like a foot in the right direction, or as something that gives you better ideas, or as something that you have a good reason could work/would not work is even more crushing.. you guys, i pour hours of work into finding ideas that sound fun, easy to balance, and shouldn't be too hard to make happen (given what i've been lead to believe is possible), and no one seems to have anything to say about it.. it sucks to go ignored like this when i'm trying so hard to contribute the only way i know how

To put it bluntly, ideas for new fighters aren't really useful. While sharing ideas is always something we appreciate, we have extreme limitations on who we can add for new fighters and what we can do with them. If we don't have the base sounds, animations, and a model for a new fighter we simply cannot add them, and if their animations and coding don't support an idea that idea simply wont be implemented ever. When you come up with ideas for new fighters, you basically immediately put yourself in the position of something that will never be practical. If you want to put your creativity to good use, you're best off looking at existing fighters, analyzing what's good, what's not, and suggesting ways that someone who already exists could be even better.

 

[Bent 00]

dood, I just skimmed through the topic linked in your signature. None of those characters have any chance of getting in.

Minus is ending with version 4.o. I doubt the devs would add in even one new character this late in the game, because it would most likely need to be adjusted via balance patches -- which won't happen because Minus will be over and done with.

I'm guessing what the devs want to focus on now are the final balance patch and polishing up all of the existing content.

How many years have the current dev team been working on Minus now? I imagine that they just want to be done with it at this point.

Of course, I can't speak for the devs -- I could be entirely wrong here. But I get the feeling that this is the case.

 

[Thor]

There's a LOT of stuff that I'm gonna say to Valravn about his comparisons between Fox and Sonic...

Spoiler

Thor, I think you missed my point. Fox isn't going to dumpster any character if the two players are both moderately skilled. The problem would only arise if someone actually mastered all of the weird tech we've found.

Yeah, I'm saying you're wrong on that point.

Fox can move nearly as quickly as Sonic on the ground, and faster in the air.

Boost. You're trivially correct in that he can side+b places, but that's linear and has massive startup. Fox may have faster motion if you isolate some frames, but if Fox and Sonic have an air race, Sonic wins every time. And Sonic [prior to nerfs] was more mobile. Sonic is more agile and mobile in the air, even if his peak velocity is lower than the most cherry-picked part of Fox's movement.

He can change directions during any approach with wavedashes. He can waveland out of every aerial without risk of getting stuck in long landing lag. He can laser right next to you and jab you halfway through his animation if you get up in his grill.

He can't waveland out of aerials unless he is already in interruptibility frames, and then he can just land like anyone else. And his aerials would autocancel then anyway [if they don't, that sounds like a design oversight].

As for wavedashing to change direcitons, it's once again MUCH slower than Boost, with both jumpsquat frames on startup and landing lag on the wavedash [10 frames]. You read a wavedash back? EZ punish. You read a Boost back? You get one projectile as a punish, and depending on the character, not even that, since Sonic might be able to just jump then Boost back at you and punish.

He can't shine someone's shield until it breaks, technically. Start jab dash attack, cancel into reflector, do a standard double shine, then either start doing it again (because hey, no endlag) or dash dance on top of them and start again as soon as they get up. If they use a getup attack, shield grab and do whatever you want. If you're a machine, you can also shine -> dash start-> frame perfect dash attack -> instantly cancel into shine and hit most characters again before their shieldstun ends.

That "if you're a machine" thing is straight-up factually inaccurate - shine has a jump cancel, but no dash cancel, and enough endlag to where you can't do the dash start before shieldstun ends, even if you waveland out of shine [that has jumpsquat frames + 10 frames of landing lag = 13 frames minimum].

Shine doesn't have endlag IF you jump out, but it DEFINITELY has endlag. If you can provide video evidence otherwise [or have a dev give full frame data on the move that shows it has some bizarre cancels], go ahead, but I've definitely seen LB get "stuck" in shine, and gotten "stuck" myself more than once.

Illusion is far stronger than Boost ever was. You can use it to fly under an entire stage with a reflector hitbox out, project a grab box across an entire stage relatively quickly, or cancel it into anything you like just as fast as Boost. Imagine if Boost had a hitbox, but could also grab people. Of course, grab boxes have priority over most (maybe all?) hitboxes, so you need to have more disjoint to deal with illusion grabs than to deal with Boost.

Wrong on so many different levels. I'll suspend disbelief on the sliding reflector [literally never pulled it off no matter how I tried], and the grab box doesn't stretch NEARLY that far [it's only two frames], so you still have to be precise, but you're still wrong about the rest. Boost has SIGNIFICANTLY faster startup [frame 1 you go fast from what I could tell/was told, as Sonic has to go fast quickly], but it also is interruptible at any time whatsoever [treated as normal motion].

Fox Illusion, meanwhile, cannot cancel into itself [Boost could pre-patch] which is HUGE because he must jump to quickly change directions and thus may only change direction once per airtime [reflector has endlag and everything else is even laggier]. Furthermore, Fox doesn't start moving until approximately frame 20 in Melee/Smash 4/etc., and the startup has not been altered according to any of the changelogs [hitbox starts frame 21 in Smash 4, 22 in Melee], so Fox actually stalls in place for a third of second before moving [that's what I discussed above]. Furthermore, no matter how I tried, I was unable to interrupt the startup itself of Fox side+B with anything until motion was actually supposed to occur, so unlike Boost I could not Boost -> instant anything, I had to wait for him to start side+b motion to go anywhere. This means I am vulnerable for a third of a second on every Illusion, while I'm vulnerable for a heck of a lot less when boosting [since you could jump airdodge immediately, or just release B and airdodge in the air] if one makes a mistake while boosting... and I think you can also do Boost -> shield, which doesn't work with illusion (although illusion to airdodge does I think, but again, takes a third of a second to get going before the airdodge can come out)].

And because of this 1/3 second of startup, if Fox feels he is too close, he can run away or wavedash back, but if a Falcon is overshooting for this and Fox has only 18 frames, he will get hit by the nair [or have to shield]... but there is no way ANYONE, even Falcon, could overshoot Sonic to intercept Boost if Sonic has 18 frames to Boost away.

So you take Melee Fox, remove the need to L-cancel, and then give him all the new Brawl techs. Reverse aerial rush, DACUS, and wavebouncing (AKA b-sticking) come to mind. Then you take everything Fox can do with Shine in Melee, and let him do that with Dash Attack and Illusion. Then you give him the option to cancel his lasers into any a-move, including grabs. It isn't that any one option is overwhelmingly powerful, but a ridiculously good, possibly robotic Minus Fox player would be able to outplay anyone in almost any situation by using his multitude of options.

Not really. Once we've accounted for how you vastly oversell Illusion, Fox is fast, but can be out-maneuvered... his bair being RAR-able is not NEARLY as good as Melee bair,and there are definite answers, while his DACUS is at best very slightly better than running usmash [and likely worse since his run is faster in Minus]. Wavebouncing lasers looks cool but it adds safety and little else [shine kills momentum so wavebouncing it does little].

Lasers can cancel into grabs? That's dumb. They can cancel into whatever A move, sure, but they shouldn't get grabs... although if you just aim for his head he has to usmash or he gets hit so... yeah not the safest option to use lots of lasers. A good one, but it's not foolproof.

If you can corner Fox [tricky, but if he's not very careful it will happen], Fox is in a tight spot - Illusion is easily intercepted [trades are basically always favorable except if he cancels with nair, and even then most characters gladly trade with that] and you can then shut down his DD by his lack of space and do some serious hurt. Part of why Sonic is so crazy good [in my opinion] is that he can spring -> boost literally anywhere on the stage as he's landing with Boost, and nearly the entire cast can't physically cover that, but Fox has slower vertical mobility [his jumps aren't so instant unlike spring] and Illusion startup means Fox doesn't really have that option the way Sonic does.

TL;DR If Fox Illusion worked as you claimed it did, I would have been pushing HARD for nerfs on it. But it doesn't, which is why I don't. It also means that Fox can actually be cornered [like everyone not 3.Q Sonic] if you played purely defensive DD game, but Sonic spring boost should be able to theoretically avoid that, especially given his ability to also just boost directly through you [which Fox can't safely do].

As a result, Fox is far easier to actually hit, and has much less ability to instantly punish something from afar, meaning he isn't nearly as good as you're trying to assert. Still a great character, no questions asked, but he can't fundamentally break how the game is played, unlike pre-nerf Sonic.

 

[justadood]

To put it bluntly, ideas for new fighters aren't really useful. While sharing ideas is always something we appreciate, we have extreme limitations on who we can add for new fighters and what we can do with them. If we don't have the base sounds, animations, and a model for a new fighter we simply cannot add them, and if their animations and coding don't support an idea that idea simply wont be implemented ever. When you come up with ideas for new fighters, you basically immediately put yourself in the position of something that will never be practical. If you want to put your creativity to good use, you're best off looking at existing fighters, analyzing what's good, what's not, and suggesting ways that someone who already exists could be even better.

ok, maybe i didn't make it visible enough in the section you were quoting, and maybe it's not visible enough in the page, but i do have a few ideas for existing characters there too x_x there's the ideas for DK and DdK to have a few DK64 moves (near the top of the list), ideas for ganon to use a moveset with a sword mode and a magic mode (which is extremely far too radical to be used at this point, even though it's been there forever), and i had ideas for the starfox critters i never ended up getting to write down... the rest of the ideas there have been there for several months, with some being available for a year or more now, and although i wasn't as surprised that no devs commented on the ideas, i was more disappointed that no fellow fans wanted to support paper mario or the OoT link moveset idea (i believe aether wrote that moveset idea for young link).. i mean if more members who were fans at least said something to the effect of "this moveset sounds cool", the team would have at least taken a better look at it and found a way to try to make some of it work..

 

[Bent 00]

dood, I think most of us didn't comment much on your new character ideas because we knew they most likely would not be added to Minus.

IIRC, Pin has said that the devs read every single post and consider every suggestion (if only briefly). They just don't have time to comment on them all, and it must get old shooting down fans' numerous ideas. Remember that it is a lot harder to implement such new things than it is to think them up. I'm sure the devs would be happy to have included more characters if they just weren't so much work.

Like you, I used to think of Brawl Minus as a community project (what gave me that idea...) -- but in fact, Minus (under current leadership) is more like an art collaboration by a select few artists (the devs). Onlookers (non-dev fans) can suggest minor alterations or point out mistakes, but we can't change the devs' vision or add in elements to their work that they don't want to be included... especially now that their project is nearly complete, lacking only the finishing touches and that final coat of polish.

If you want to share your ideas, fine -- but don't be upset if only a few people (or no one!) comment(s) on them. Being a small, active community, you can usually assume that we see your posts; if we don't comment, please don't take it personally. We may just have nothing to say.

 

[Valravn]

There's a LOT of stuff that I'm gonna say to Valravn about his comparisons between Fox and Sonic...

And again, you're missing my point. I mentioned at several points that it would require TAS-level inputs to do many of the things I was talking about. Please try to read what I'm writing without putting words in my mouth. If something doesn't make sense, I'll clarify.

Fox isn't faster than Sonic in the air by just spamming side B. Of course. He is almost as fast with a good shine glide. Not faster, and not by spamming illusion.

Wrong on so many different levels. I'll suspend disbelief on the sliding reflector [literally never pulled it off no matter how I tried]

Alright. A shine glide is literally just illusion into reflector. You hit side B, and then you hold down B. If you don't already, I highly recommend using it against any Toon Link or Charizard. They simply can't use stage hazards against you. (They remain on the field and will hurt your opponent if touched.)


As for the 'two frame grab hitbox duration', I think you misunderstand how one should usually grab out of illusion. You don't break off the slide partway through or space for a grab, you hold a trigger button as you use side B. Here's an example.


Slide, do some damage, get free grab. I don't believe you can meaningfully SDI out of it with any character.

Your post implies that I think Fox is overpowered or in any way stronger than he should be. I don't. He's fine. I'm not going to go into the machinations of Fox's moves with you. Maybe they secretly changed since we messed around with TAS in 3.Q. If you don't think you can wavedash out of shine and start a dash attack in the first few frames, you're welcome to that, because it will literally never be applicable in a match. No human will ever be able to hold the stick vertically on one frame and then at a shallow downward angle on the next. My point was merely to show that Fox is capable of extremely technical things in this game, not to waffle about it. That's why I tried to make it so abundantly clear that I was referring to the upper bounds of the character. Not what the average Fox player can pull off at the drop of a hat.

TL;DR If Fox Illusion worked as you claimed it did, I would have been pushing HARD for nerfs on it.

You do strike me as that sort of player.

I've been meaning to upload this match to better explain why I think Sonic vs. Falcon is a very even or Falcon-favored matchup. I won't go into it fully now, but here's some stuff:

I have a tendency to leave a spring at the ledge to force my opponent into doing an aerial or otherwise going around the spring, lest they be meteor smashed by the bouncing spring. It worked a bit in this match, but it didn't work every time. But it does kill Falcon every time he messed up and ran into it. Should it be nerfed? I really don't think so. He could avoid it every time if he were more careful.

You might also notice that I got zero Dair kills in this match. That's pretty standard. Daft is pretty aware of that option, and takes care not to blindly jump offstage when I'm not in hitstun or already far below him. 'Good' options are often balanced by the other person knowing that they're good options. If it were safer for me to go for the Dair, maybe I'd try it anyway. I think it's in a good spot with this level of gravity. It's a bit stronger than a shine spike, though less risky, and weaker than Ganon's up-B, though riskier. (Weaker in the sense that you can just get out of the way with an airdodge; both are lethal if landed.)

Almost every time I am seriously hit in this match above 40%, I die within seconds. Do I think Falcon's attacks should impart lower knockback, or that Sonic should be a much heavier character? No. That's just how the game is, and sometimes I just want to sit down and figure it out and try to excel at the game instead of trying to mold it to fit my needs. It's a lot more fun that way.

I'll probably expand more on the match analysis in another thread tomorrow.

 

[Bent 00]

 

[Neville]

landing lag on the wavedash [10 frames].

Because there is no penalty from landing from an airdodge in this game, Fox only has (checks PSA) 3 frames of landing lag normally, meaning he has only three frames of lag off a wavedash. This is why rolls/spot dodges are sometimes buffered from a wavedash. Doesn't ake away from your argument, since I think wavedash is better to combo out of shine with (although waveshines are dead because of the hit stun decrease) rather than a movement option.

 

[Valravn]

Waveshines aren't dead, my roommate can still do them, but they don't work all the time. Not really sure why. I don't think I've been waveshined at all this version, but my brother certainly has. He tends to play bigger characters (Ganon, the flopping Falcon in that gfy, Bowser, etc) so it might have something to do with character weight? He might also try to crouch cancel the shine more than I do.