Is Pichu too small? Check this pic and vote!

Is Pichu too small? Should it be made bigger in 4.0f?

  • Yes. Pichu should be bigger in 4.0f. (how much bigger?)

    Votes: 12 57.1%
  • No. Pichu is the perfect size as-is.

    Votes: 9 42.9%

  • Total voters
    21

Pin Clock

Project Leader
Minus Backroom
[GIANT IMAGES]
Doesn't that look better?
Pichu including his ears being taller than Pikachu does not look better at all, no.
 

Gold_TSG

Can't stop The Dorf Train.
Melee is far from the pinnacle, and is still debated to this day whether or not it's the best or worst to happen to Smash Bros. That is also a very poor argument to use here, since this is still Brawl. If Melee was so perfect, why did Sakurai change so much over the years? Please, don't use that as an argument point, cause it has zero relevance to the topic at hand.
 

Thor

Well-Known Member
Flatten Pichu's ears and Bent's model might work ok.

Melee has some of the sketchiest game design ever, and it's also one of the most poorly balanced fighting games in existence. Melee top tiers have asymmetrical advantages over 70+% of the cast, and certain Melee top tier vs bottom tier MUs are absurdly lopsided.

It doesn't help that being good at hitting left and right quickly as Marth lets you invalidate about 2/3 of the cast. You could be good at the game, or you could just dash-dance harder, at least that's how one extremely good Melee player I know [who now plays mostly SF] put it.
 

Bent 00

Longtime Limit Breaker
Uh, guys, don't get carried away -- I was referring to how well Melee did their character sizes, and nothing else. All that other stuff you mentioned about Melee isn't relevant here. Melee did plenty of things wrong, but you can't deny how well they sized the cast.

Anyhow, Thor said what I was going to say before I could finish my picture. Take a look at this:

olVEKjJ.png


Pin Clock: Bend Pichu's ears back a bit -- just like they were in Melee -- and it's a little bit shorter than Pikachu. Again, just like it was in Melee.

Pichu's ears don't really matter, since they don't have a hurtbox AFAIK... It's Pichu's hurtboxes being too small that is the problem here.

Pichu is way too powerful (and unpredictable) to be so small.
 
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Gold_TSG

Can't stop The Dorf Train.
It still looks awful, cause Pichu's head is almost the size of Pikachu's body when resized like that. It worked in Melee cause it was designed properly amongst the rest of the fat cast. As I said before, this Pichu is built off of Pikachu as far as I am aware, and thus doesn't follow that same rule. Brawl Pikachu hit the gym and slimmed down, so giving Pichu some Miracle Grow will make him look awful by comparison.

And don't forget that Pichu hurts himself while attacking, so at least 1/4 to 1/3 the damage he takes in a long fight is done by himself, bringing him closer to death faster than anyone else.
 

Bent 00

Longtime Limit Breaker
It still looks awful, cause Pichu's head is almost the size of Pikachu's body when resized like that. It worked in Melee cause it was designed properly amongst the rest of the fat cast. As I said before, this Pichu is built off of Pikachu as far as I am aware, and thus doesn't follow that same rule. Brawl Pikachu hit the gym and slimmed down, so giving Pichu some Miracle Grow will make him look awful by comparison.
I prefer proper function over good-looking form, and Pichu looks bad either way. Might as well balance it correctly, then.

And don't forget that Pichu hurts himself while attacking, so at least 1/4 to 1/3 the damage he takes in a long fight is done by himself, bringing him closer to death faster than anyone else.
I thought that was toned down a bunch? Pichu's new "tap/hold" system gave it the option to use weaker attacks that don't damage it, IIRC.
 
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Turk Injaydii

Brawl Zeus Bandwagon-Rider
I think the Pichu Bent did looks great...i also think its awesome that he's willing to make these pics to easily show his suggestions and better support his opinion. The size increase would definitely help game balance. Pichu's moveset is arguably the most diverse in the game. If this game had a fully developed meta, wouldn't surprise me at all to see Pichu be the highest tier character. Good damage output, great kill power, fast, attacks with lots of range vertically and horizontally, spacing options, great recovery, and extremely hard to hit due to its absurdly small size.

And, idk why we have to keep saying this, but how weird you think the model looks is irrelevant to this discussion...since its an opinion about aesthetics and not a counter to what Bent is suggesting (that Pichu looks great to me though, looks like he does in Pokemon with the football shaped head). At any rate, weirdness should not be what you comment on; especially considering it could be edited to maintain a similar size with a less "weird" head shape. The general size of the model should be the focus. And I agree that a model similar to Bent's suggestion is a justifiable decision for game balance.
 

Neville

GG M8s
Minus Backroom
I think the Pichu Bent did looks great...i also think its awesome that he's willing to make these pics to easily show his suggestions and better support his opinion. The size increase would definitely help game balance. Pichu's moveset is arguably the most diverse in the game. If this game had a fully developed meta, wouldn't surprise me at all to see Pichu be the highest tier character. Good damage output, great kill power, fast, attacks with lots of range vertically and horizontally, spacing options, great recovery, and extremely hard to hit due to its absurdly small size.

And, idk why we have to keep saying this, but how weird you think the model looks is irrelevant to this discussion...since its an opinion about aesthetics and not a counter to what Bent is suggesting (that Pichu looks great to me though, looks like he does in Pokemon with the football shaped head). At any rate, weirdness should not be what you comment on; especially considering it could be edited to maintain a similar size with a less "weird" head shape. The general size of the model should be the focus. And I agree that a model similar to Bent's suggestion is a justifiable decision for game balance.
My previous argument is supposed to be about game balance. Pichu is small, and is therefore hard to hit right? He's supposed to be that way. Pichus is supposed to be hard to hit because he damages himself and is in the top 5 lightest characters in the game. You are supposed to be ables to kill Pichu very early, especially due to the fact that higher gravity = greater knockback and Pichu has rather high gravity. You are supposed to work for the hits you get on Pichu because several characters can kill him absurdly early. If he was bigger the risk/ reward factor of going for a hit would be heavily skewed towards reward.
 

Pin Clock

Project Leader
Minus Backroom
Uh, guys, don't get carried away -- I was referring to how well Melee did their character sizes, and nothing else. All that other stuff you mentioned about Melee isn't relevant here. Melee did plenty of things wrong, but you can't deny how well they sized the cast.

I'm not going to call you out on moving the goalposts but...
Pin Clock: Bend Pichu's ears back a bit -- just like they were in Melee -- and it's a little bit shorter than Pikachu. Again, just like it was in Melee.

Pichu's ears don't really matter, since they don't have a hurtbox AFAIK... It's Pichu's hurtboxes being too small that is the problem here.
Presentation matters a ton. If we catered to game balance and absolutely nothing else, Brawl Minus would not be the game players know and love today.

Also, I will repeat that we do not have anyone to do animations. That includes bending his ears for every single animation.
 

Thor

Well-Known Member
Assuming Bent's idea is good, that is a problem then.

What would a 3% size increase do? Is there a way for Bent to show that?
 

Mariosonicman1

Well-Known Member
thank you for that gold.

personally i think pichus size is fine as is. nearly a ton of moves could hit pichu at ground level already. to make pichu any bigger would look wierd and pichu would just get weaker all togeather as a result. if i was making the game id make pichu even smaller, but thats just me. and i wouldn't trust myself to mod a game. thats just my opinion on this matter.
 

Bent 00

Longtime Limit Breaker
I don't do much 3D Animation, but from a primarily 2D Experience

Yes. It also requires ungodly amounts of patience. Almost insulted that's even a question.
I knew 2D sprite animation was tedious... I thought working with 3D models might be easier, since you don't have to animate pixel-by-pixel.

I've never animated anything myself, so forgive my ignorance on the subject.

Anyway... I went browsing on Brawl Vault, looking for Pichu stuff. Found some interesting work:

https://infinitesmashteam.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/1648/#more-1648

http://forums.kc-mm.com/Gallery/BrawlView.php?Number=27834

http://forums.kc-mm.com/Gallery/BrawlView.php?Number=27864

Can we make Minus Pichu look that good?
 
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Mariosonicman1

Well-Known Member
I knew 2D sprite animation was tedious... I thought working with 3D models might be easier, since you don't have to animate pixel-by-pixel.

I've never animated anything myself, so forgive my ignorance on the subject.

Anyway... I went browsing on Brawl Vault, looking for Pichu stuff. Found some interesting work:

https://infinitesmashteam.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/1648/#more-1648

http://forums.kc-mm.com/Gallery/BrawlView.php?Number=27834

http://forums.kc-mm.com/Gallery/BrawlView.php?Number=27864

Can we make Minus Pichu look that good?
what i find funny is while you bring that up. the pichu in the pictures looks to be EVEN SMALLER then the pichu we have for brawl minus. at least when compared to the pikachu standing on its toes with pichu.

i do agree tho that pichus look is good.
 

Bent 00

Longtime Limit Breaker
what i find funny is while you bring that up. the pichu in the pictures looks to be EVEN SMALLER then the pichu we have for brawl minus. at least when compared to the pikachu standing on its toes with pichu.

i do agree tho that pichus look is good.
I find it funny (but also annoying) when people jump to conclusions. You know what they say about assuming...

I was only talking about the visual appearance/style of Infinite Smash Team's Pichu (AKA "look"). Saying something "looks that good" does not necessarily say anything about the size of said thing. I can say something looks great but still think it is too big or too small.

Note to Self: Use more concrete words so people will stop twisting my posts into things I don't mean.

Honestly, we need a new pichu model entirely, but that's just me.
That would be the ideal solution, new skeleton and all... But if you don't have an animator on the Team, what can you do?

Work with what you have, I suppose.
 

Turk Injaydii

Brawl Zeus Bandwagon-Rider
I knew 2D sprite animation was tedious... I thought working with 3D models might be easier, since you don't have to animate pixel-by-pixel.

I've never animated anything myself, so forgive my ignorance on the subject.

Anyway... I went browsing on Brawl Vault, looking for Pichu stuff. Found some interesting work:

https://infinitesmashteam.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/1648/#more-1648

http://forums.kc-mm.com/Gallery/BrawlView.php?Number=27834

http://forums.kc-mm.com/Gallery/BrawlView.php?Number=27864

Can we make Minus Pichu look that good?


Dat Pichu is SEXY! Real talk: Get that in Minus.
 

Mario3785

Enjoyer of Ironic Memes
Because Melee is considered by many to be a pinnacle of game design? The Melee devs did an excellent job on character sizes. Using their work as a reference point just makes good sense from a design standpoint. Refusing to use such solid foundations (in this instance, at least) is like deciding to build a house on sand instead of on concrete, or deciding to sculpt a statue out of silly putty instead of a more solid material. Nobody complained about Pichu's size in Melee (AFAIK), and we've seen more than a few complaints about its size in Minus... The obvious thing to do here is to look at the game that did things right, and use their work as a reference to improve your own.

Here's my suggestion for Pichu's size in 4.0f.
(image)

Doesn't that look better?

I dunno, dude. I think Pichu is a good size already. He's the second lightest character in Minus, and the smallest. Minus needed a glass cannon aside from Jigglypuff, and I think Pichu's size gives a good balance of short range, but being hard to hit.
 

Bent 00

Longtime Limit Breaker
I dunno, dude. I think Pichu is a good size already. He's the second lightest character in Minus, and the smallest. Minus needed a glass cannon aside from Jigglypuff, and I think Pichu's size gives a good balance of short range, but being hard to hit.
I might agree with you if Pichu was not so strong, versatile, and unpredictable. That amount of power in such a tiny body just isn't balanced.
 

Mario3785

Enjoyer of Ironic Memes
I might agree with you if Pichu was not so strong, versatile, and unpredictable. That amount of power in such a tiny body just isn't balanced.
Ok, I'm just gonna say this now. I don't play Minus competitively. I literally can't. I can't figure out for the life of me how netplay works, and I don't even have a controller, which means I'd have to play it on a keyboard. So this is a Minus CASUAL's thoughts.

I don't think changing his size will fix anything. Nerfs in terms of speed or power would be more helpful in making him less...annoying, I guess.
 

snidbert63

Certified n00b
If Pichu really needs a nerf, then give it self-damage again.

LOL JK just buff everyone else.
 
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