Try out this 25% bigger Pichu with a HurtBox that covers its ears.

[Bent 00]

Proposal to Increase Pichu's Size and NeckN HurtBox Height (v2)

Note: The two images of Pichu on the bottom-left corner are not to scale with the Pikachu next to them.
All other character sizes are to scale with other characters in the same setting.

Pichu's Taller NeckN HurtBox

As you can tell by the orange sparks, which are indicators of Glancing Blows...
If Falco's Lasers touch Pichu's ears any lower that they do in this picture, Pichu will be hit by them.

Want to try out the new, bigger Pichu? Download this file: https://www.mediafire.com/?fpvule9elkd92e2

Open up your SD card, then go to Minusery > Fighter > Pichu. You'll see a file labeled "FitPichu.pac". This is the default 4.0BC Pichu. Rename that file. Something like "(4.0BC Default) FitPichu.pac" will do. Leave the original file there, or store it somewhere safe. Now get the .pac I linked above, put it in the same folder, and rename it to "FitPichu.pac". All done! You'll need to switch the files back if you want to play online with others who have default 4.0BC Pichu.

The purpose of this Pichu build is mainly to gather feedback regarding the increased size and the taller NeckN HurtBox.
Electroball (held Neutral Special) does not currently work, but this can be fixed later.

I tried to make Pichu about the same size it is in Melee, which just happens to be around how big it currently is in the Results Screen. I'm guessing that the Minus Devs made Pichu's in-game size with its canon size in mind. In the Pokemon games, Pichu is ~75% of Pikachu's height. In Smash, however, I think it is a much better idea to match Melee Pichu's size, relative to Pikachu's.

In addition to being 25% bigger all over, Pichu's ears basically have a HurtBox now, via a taller NeckN HurtBox. It can't dodge certain projectiles (like Falco's Lasers or Samus' Super Missiles) by ducking and crawling anymore. Unfortunately, I don't know a way around this (with my limited modding skillset), without making Pichu's NeckN HurtBox significantly shorter. I don't want to do that, because I tested various sizes and HurtBox heights for 4+ days, and reducing either Pichu's size or NeckN HurtBox height (enough for it to dodge those projectiles by ducking and crawling) would make several fighters' moves have a hard time hitting Pichu again -- and fixing those problems is the whole point of this. It's not worth the trade-off, in my opinion.

Hopefully the Brawl Minus Developers will eventually find an animator who will re-rig Pichu properly. But until then, the goal of this project is to make Pichu more balanced and less annoying to play against because of it being so small and hard to hit. Thanks for any constructive feedback!

Moderators: If making Pichu bigger is not something you're willing to do, feel free to move this to the Custom Mods sub-forum.
I'm sure there are plenty of Minus fans who want Pichu to be bigger and easier to hit, even if they have to resort to unofficial mods.

UPDATE 1: Fixed Pichu's Squats. See the ninth post below...

 

[Bent 00]

List of other fighters' attacks that hit this new, bigger Pichu properly, but did not hit default 4.0BC Pichu reliably (or at all, in some cases):

Captain Falcon's Jab Combo
Ganondorf's Jab, Warlock Punch, and Wizard's Foot
Marth's Up Tilt
R.O.B.'s un-angled Robo Beam
Samus' Jab, all sizes of Charge Beam, and Super Missile
Waluigi's Forward Tilt
Zero Suit Samus' Jab Combo, all points of Grab, and uncharged Paralyzer

Attacks that still do not work against Pichu very well, even now that it is bigger:

Bowser's Up Smash
Diddy Kong's Up Smash

This list is currently a WIP, feel free to help me update it and point out anything that needs correcting.

 

[Pin Clock]

Could you demonstrate a ducking Pichu being hit by Falco lasers? I want to know if it looks unnatural

 

[player_03]

I think this is a bit much, to be honest. Pichu's crouch should be similar to Mr. Game and Watch's. Maybe a bit worse, but not this much worse.

 

[Pin Clock]

Yeah if it weren't for Pichu's crouch being nerfed that hard and ElectroBall somehow not working this would have been an awesome official fix. Not that those two can't get touched up, but seeing things that should hit him hit be good but destroying the value of his crouch hurts him too much

 

[Bent 00]

Yeah if it weren't for Pichu's crouch being nerfed that hard and ElectroBall somehow not working this would have been an awesome official fix. Not that those two can't get touched up, but seeing things that should hit him hit be good but destroying the value of his crouch hurts him too much

I'm pretty sure Electroball can be fixed. It's just that editing Pichu's HurtBoxes via BrawlBox throws off the Offsets or something. Same deal with editing an item -- that messes up SuperScopeShot / Gandouken's GFX and hitboxes. I went ahead and put this up for people to try with the missing Electroball just to get feedback on the new size.

As for Pichu not being able to dodge those attacks by crouching and crawling, that bugs me a lot too. After finally deciding on the changes I thought were the most balanced overall, I went back and started chipping down the size of the NeckN HurtBox bit by bit, to see how much I would have to subtract to get Pichu's crouch and crawling working properly again... Sadly, it quickly became apparent that I would have to sacrifice most of the benefits to game balance the bigger size granted, if I wanted to give Pichu a short-enough crouch and crawl to dodge attacks like Falco's Blaster and Samus' Super Missile once again. I decided it wasn't worth it.

However, I'm guessing there's a way to shrink HurtBoxes on a per-move basis. I just don't know how to do it yet. If we can just figure that out, we can shorten Pichu's NeckN HurtBox while it is Crouching and Crawling, so it can dodge the attacks it should be able to, while retaining a balanced size during all of its other actions.

To be clear, everyone's happy with the new size and the taller NeckN HurtBox, it's just Crouching / Crawling and the missing Electroball that needs to be fixed, right?

There may be missing GFX on other moves, too (F-Smash?), but I believe they would be fixed in the same way Electroball would: Hex-editing HurtBoxes without messing up the Offsets.

 

[Thor]

Call me silly, but hear me out...

You've proposed a 25% size increase... I don't know how much this would change things (like I have a guess in my head but not certain), but is it possible to quickly adjust values to check a 15% size increase? That's more than halfway between 4.0BC and your proposed changes, but will still leave Pichu definitely smaller than Pikachu.

Also, I think if Pichu was somehow only 5% bigger than now while crouching [or even same size?], that would be okay, because crouching is a very deliberate action. I don't mind Pichu deliberately ducking my attacks [he is meant to be small], I'm just not a particularly big fan of my attacks being totally unable to hit a grounded Pichu. I suspect this change would be done not by making Pichu visibly shrink, but by deliberately shrinking his hurtboxes every time he's in a crouching/crawling animation. Another way to achieve this may simply be to grant ear intangibility when Pichu is ducking [but again, I don't know how hard or easy this stuff is to implement/test, so that suggestion may be absurd to a coding person on here].

I will say this - Pichu being unable to duck lasers when Pikachu can is ridiculous, and I firmly believe that should *not* make it into the final Minus build. Crouching is supposed to be an additional defensive option for small characters [they are generally quite light, which compensates at least somewhat], and removing that from Pichu, when one of his "gimmicks" [maybe the wrong word but whatever] is clearly being small, suggests to me that if Pichu's crouch is "broken", that's okay.

Yes, that means he'll still be obnoxious to characters like Falcon who have problems hitting short things when they hold down, but if done correctly, Pichu will still be reasonably vulnerable to anti-ground moves [or whatever we call something intended to stop a grounded opponent, as opposed to things like Falco utilt which are anti-airs], and you'll be able to still use various aerials on him... but they will require much more precision, which is rather the point (but it hopefully won't be quite like now where some moves are rendered basically useless).

 

[Bent 00]

You've proposed a 25% size increase... I don't know how much this would change things (like I have a guess in my head but not certain), but is it possible to quickly adjust values to check a 15% size increase? That's more than halfway between 4.0BC and your proposed changes, but will still leave Pichu definitely smaller than Pikachu.

Unfortunately, I don't know a way around this (with my limited modding skillset), without making Pichu's NeckN HurtBox significantly shorter. I don't want to do that, because I tested various sizes and HurtBox heights for 4+ days, and reducing either Pichu's size or NeckN HurtBox height (enough for it to dodge those projectiles by ducking and crawling) would make several fighters' moves have a hard time hitting Pichu again -- and fixing those problems is the whole point of this. It's not worth the trade-off, in my opinion.

With the test build posted above, Pichu's in-game size is .698 (up from .558) in BrawlBox, and its NeckN HurtBox changes are as follows:

Offset Y: 1 -> 2
Offset Z: 0.4 -> 0.8
Stretch Y: 1.5 -> 4.5
Stretch Z: 0.4 -> 0
Radius: 4.7 -> 5.2

Over 4+ days, I tested more than 15 different versions with varying size and NeckN HurtBox adjustments.

With Pichu's size, I started testing with 15% bigger, and found that many attacks still missed standing Pichu, so I upped its size to 20% bigger, tested again, and got the same result. Even at 25% bigger, several attacks that should not miss standing Pichu still miss, but I did not think it would look right for Pichu to look any bigger than 1.25x its 4.0BC in-game size. My goal here was to make Minus Pichu about the same size as Melee Pichu, and these tweaks do that job nicely. Any bigger would probably be too much, though!

I left Pichu's size at 1.25x and started making its NeckN HurtBox taller. I looked at how Pikachu's NeckN HurtBox extends past the top of its head, and decided that Pichu should have a similar NeckN HurtBox that basically covers its ears. As I did with Pichu's size, I started with small increases and kept adding height until I got the results I wanted: The numerous attacks that hit all other standing fighters now hit standing Pichu as well.

Once I had that result, I went back and did my best to adjust the changed values (mainly Stretch Y and Radius) to within .1 of of the value where some of those attacks that used to miss would start missing or not linking properly again. A few attacks, like the Up Smashes of Bowser and Diddy Kong, still don't work well against Pichu, but I figure that it would be better to improve the range of those attacks' HitBoxes rather than make Pichu or its NeckN HurtBox any bigger than I already have.

If the values I posted above are reduced even a little, certain attacks will start missing Pichu again, or stop linking well against it, and the very minor decrease in size or height will not help Pichu in any significant way IMO. You would have to shrink it a lot for Pichu to be small enough to dodge projectiles like Falcon's lasers or Samus' Super Missile again. I think making Pichu's Crouch and Crawl dodge projectiles like those two is not as valuable to game balance than the benefits that its size and height increases grant.

That said, I still think there's some way to make Pichu's NeckN HurtBox short enough to dodge the attacks other fighter's Crouches and Crawls can dodge, without shrinking Pichu's size or height during all of its other actions. I just need to figure out how to do it. Does anyone know how?

 

[Bent 00]

Took me all night, but I think I fixed Pichu's Squats / Crouches / Crawls. It should be able to dodge the appropriate attacks properly now.

Pichu can dodge Samus' Super Missiles and Falco's lasers, for sure. Can't duck Wolf's lasers, but nobody can AFAIK.

To try it out, use this FitPichuMotionEtc.pac file. Rename the default one and keep it -- do not delete it! This is still a test build.

Use the above file with the FitPichu.pac from the first post.

Pichu's Electroball still does not work, and some GFX may be missing.

The FitMotionEtc file edit only makes Pichu's Squats shorter. To fix Electroball (and possible missing GFX), the FitPichu.pac changes to Pichu's Size and its NeckN HurtBox need to be made via a Hex Editor, instead of via BrawlBox. At least, I think that's what needs to be done... I used BrawlBox to figure out the appropriate edits because it was easier to change values on the fly and see immediate results.

Anyone good at Hex Editing want to help? I've never done it before, but I'll see what I can do if no one else will. It'll take me a while, though.

Anyone who tests out the new, Bigger Pichu (with fixed Squats):
Let me know if there are any attacks that still do not connect or link against Pichu, that should.

If anyone wants to see exactly what was changed (specific numbers) in FitPichuMotionEtc, I can post that later. This should suffice for now...

--------------------------
INDEX OF EDITS:
Squat: NeckN, HipN
SquatB: NeckN, HipN
SquatF: NeckN, HipN
SquatRv: NeckN, HipN
SquatWait: NeckN, HipN
SquatWaitItem: NeckN, HipN
--------------------------

UPDATE: Got the Hex Editing done, so now Electro Ball works again. Will post new version soon.
I figure I may as well see how hard it is to fix a couple of bugs while I'm at it. Namely...

1.) Tapped Footstool works normally, but Held Footstool causes Pichu to drop through its opponent.

2.) Held F-Air sends foes backward, and gives Pichu backward & downward momentum.
Odd, considering its description here reads "Hold A during Pichu's fAir to fly forward!"

#1 is surely a bug (that I don't know how to fix yet). Not 100% certain about Held F-Air, but it sure feels weird to me.

 

[Bent 00]

OK, I suppose I'm finished with the base version of FitPichu.pac. Download HERE.

Use that with the FitPichuMotionEtc.pac file from Post #9, and you'll have...

Bent's Bigger Pichu v2.0, featuring:
- 25% Bigger Overall Size,
- Taller NeckN HurtBox that essentially gives Pichu's ears a HurtBox,
- ~20% shorter Squats that can duck and crawl under the appropriate attacks,
- Functional Electro Ball, and no other major glitches that I know of.

FitPichu.pac includes the 25% increase to Overall Size, and the taller NeckN Hurtbox.
FitPichuMotionEtc.pac includes the animation adjustments that shrink Pichu's Squats.

Spoiler: This image still applies.

Complete Changelog

Pichu still drops through Footstooled opponents with Held Footstool, while Tapped Footstool works normally.
Held F-Air still gives Pichu backward and downward momentum, and knocks foes behind Pichu.
The above two things are weird "features" IMO, and I may look into changing them later...

Pre-existing bugs I did not fix:
Mimsy tells me that "If you hold Down or Up during Pichu's F-Smash, the animation disappears."
Various Pichu model issues, like the bottom of its torso clipping through the ground, and floating feet.

I also plan to tweak Pichu's Up Taunt to make it have Super Armor for the duration of its "charging" animation.
But maybe some of you wouldn't like that, so for now... Enjoy the "Pichu Size & HurtBox Fixes ONLY" Edition!

 

[Pin Clock]

Pichu still drops through Footstooled opponents with Held Footstool, while Tapped Footstool works normally.
Held F-Air still gives Pichu backward and downward momentum, and knocks foes behind Pichu.
The above two things are weird "features" IMO, and I may look into changing them later...

They aren't "features" though, that is how they were intended to function from the start.

 

[player_03]

Held F-Air still gives Pichu backward and downward momentum, and knocks foes behind Pichu.

This one was even in Pichu's intro video. Way too late to change it.

 

[Bent 00]

This one was even in Pichu's intro video. Way too late to change it.

I want to say that Held F-Air would be better if it was just like a better version of Tapped F-Air, because:

- All four of Pichu's other Aerial Attacks are that way (Held is simply a stronger form of Tapped, but self-damages). Correct me if I'm wrong...
- IMO, backward and downward momentum on Pichu, and knocking foes behind Pichu just doesn't make sense visually. It feels wrong.

Held Footstool dropping through Footstooled foes bugs me more than Held F-Air does. It makes zero sense that only Pichu can do that.

Waits for someone to say, "This is Minus, where lots of things don't make sense!"

At some point, I'll make my own version of Held F-Air, and make Held Footstool work like every other Footstool. Leaving them alone for now.

Anyway, how about we shift discussion over to "Feedback on Pichu's new Size"?

 

[player_03]

Anyway, how about we shift discussion over to "Feedback on Pichu's new Size"?

I'll try to remember to test it out tomorrow.

 

[Mariosonicman1]

personally i hope pichu stays the same size she is right now, but if the size increase can fix many of the characters problem with attacking pichu then i hope its a size change for the better.

 

[Neville]

personally i hope pichu stays the same size she is right now, but if the size increase can fix many of the characters problem with attacking pichu then i hope its a size change for the better.

Pichu is exactly the same size, he just has hurtboxes on his ears.

Also Bent 00 how did you make Pichu's squat shorter?

 

[player_03]

Pichu is exactly the same size, he just has hurtboxes on his ears.

Not true. As Bent's original post said, Pichu is now 25% bigger.

Also Bent 00 how did you make Pichu's squat shorter?

This is how:

Basically, Pichu squishes like Jigglypuff, Kirby, and G&W.

At this point, it's becoming clear that the cure is worse than the disease. I'm going to try making a 25% bigger Pichu without any additional edits, and even if that causes a couple more attacks to miss, it'll still be better than this.

 

[player_03]

Bent, can you please post what you think is wrong with 25% bigger Pichu? Because as far as I can tell, it's almost exactly what we want.


Fox's lasers only sometimes hit Pichu as it runs, which means they still serve their purpose of forcing Pichu to approach, just not quite as well.

Pit's arrows miss by default, but he can just angle them down.

Marth's Shield Breaker misses, but only if Pichu is right next to Marth. I assume this is intended.

Marth's utilt misses if Pichu is right next to Marth, which isn't ideal, but at least Marth can jab instead.

ZSS's grab misses, but only if Pichu is a very specific distance away. If Pichu is up close and applying shield pressure, ZSS can grab it.

It isn't shown in the video, but Electro Ball still works.

 

[Bent 00]

Thanks for the Feedback. That video is helpful. I'll post a response here late tonight.

EDIT: I thought the above video was made using both of the files I provided. It was kinda misleading of player_03 to label it as "25% bigger Pichu", but not mention that it was made using a 25% bigger Pichu other than the one I made, which (I assume) does not include the taller NeckN HurtBox or the ~20% shorter Squats.

 

[Bent 00]

Everyone is using BOTH the FitPichu.pac AND the FitPichuMotionEtc.pac I posted, right?

FitPichu.pac includes the 25% increase to Overall Size, and the taller NeckN Hurtbox.
FitPichuMotionEtc.pac includes the animation adjustments that shrink Pichu's Squats.

Anyhow, I tried to replicate player_o3's results...

Bent, can you please post what you think is wrong with 25% bigger Pichu? Because as far as I can tell, it's almost exactly what we want.

I'm currently pretty satisfied with the results I got from the 25% Size increase, the taller NeckN HurtBox, and the ~20% shorter Squats.

There are still a few attacks that miss in certain situations or do not link well, but I think that if we want to fix those, it would be better to slightly Buff those moves rather than make Pichu any bigger or taller than I already have.

Fox's lasers only sometimes hit Pichu as it runs, which means they still serve their purpose of forcing Pichu to approach, just not quite as well.

In my brief testing, ALL of Fox's lasers hit Pichu as it ran towards or away from Fox. Only 1 laser would occasionally miss, if it passed over Pichu during its running turnaround animation.

Pit's arrows miss by default, but he can just angle them down.

In my brief testing, ALL of Pit's un-tilted Arrows hit standing Pichu. Some of them would miss Running or Walking Pichu. None of them could hit Crouching or Crawling Pichu.

Marth's Shield Breaker misses, but only if Pichu is right next to Marth. I assume this is intended.

In my brief testing, Shield Breaker would only miss if Pichu was very close to Marth, as you said. It's the same deal with Wizard's Foot. As I said above: "If we want to fix those, it would be better to slightly Buff those moves rather than make Pichu any bigger or taller than I already have."

Marth's utilt misses if Pichu is right next to Marth, which isn't ideal, but at least Marth can jab instead.

In my brief testing, I could only get Marth's Up-Tilt to miss standing Pichu if Pichu was standing as close as possible to Marth, literally clipping through Marth's model.

ZSS's grab misses, but only if Pichu is a very specific distance away. If Pichu is up close and applying shield pressure, ZSS can grab it.

In my brief testing, I couldn't get Z.S.S.'s stationary Grab to miss. I could only get running Grab to miss consistently, and only at a specific distance away from Pichu. I suspect this is something about Z.S.S.'s Grab that should be fixed.

At this point, it's becoming clear that the cure is worse than the disease. I'm going to try making a 25% bigger Pichu without any additional edits, and even if that causes a couple more attacks to miss, it'll still be better than this.

What's so bad about it? If you just try changing Pichu's in-game size (.558 4.0BC Default) you'll basically just be repeating what I did. I already tried 15% and 20% bigger. Even 25% bigger (without the taller NeckN HurtBox) wasn't enough to get good results IMO.

If anyone has problems with this Bigger Pichu, tell me about them. I'm pretty happy with it, personally.

 

[player_03]

Everyone is using BOTH the FitPichu.pac AND the FitPichuMotionEtc.pac I posted, right?

In my still image, I was using both.

In my video, I was using my version of FitPichu.pac and 4.0BC's version of FitPichuMotionEtc.pac. My version increases Pichu's size by 25% and leaves everything else alone.

 

[Bent 00]

I'll see if I can type up a list of everything that is still wrong with 25% bigger Pichu (with no other changes), that is fixed by making its NeckN HurtBox taller and making its Squats ~20% shorter. This will take some time.

player_03, what do you like better about "25% Bigger ONLY" Pichu, compared to the Pichu I have provided? Are you using Size .698?

 

[player_03]

player_03, what do you like better about "25% bigger ONLY" Pichu, compared to the Pichu I have provided?

Visuals, mostly.

In your version, Pichu's hurtboxes don't match its model. There are times when it looks like it should be able to easily run under an attack, but it gets hit anyway. You can see this in my first video - Pit's arrows absolutely look like they should miss, but they don't.

I didn't mention it at the time because the squats were a bigger problem. Speaking of which, the new squat animation is jarring to look at. Pichu isn't supposed to squish like that.

Are you using Size .698?

I don't really know what I'm doing with this sort of editing, so I copied the three bytes from your file.

 

[Bent 00]

I'll see if I can type up a list of everything that is still wrong with 25% bigger Pichu (with no other changes), that is fixed by making its NeckN HurtBox taller and making its Squats ~20% shorter. This will take some time.

Well, that was a pain to do. I went through the entire cast looking for differences. Here they are...

Spoiler: Picture

Text File

There are a few moves that still do not work properly against Pichu, even after the 25% size increase and the taller NeckN HurtBox. I suggest that we Buff the hitboxes of those moves just enough to make them work properly, rather than make Pichu any bigger or taller.

In particular, I would look at...

Bowser's Up Smash (only late, weak hitbox can hit)
Diddy Kong's Up Smash (does not link well)
Mario's Jab 2 (knocks Pichu out of Jab 3's range)
Roy's Double Edge Dance (seems to have poor hitboxes all around)
Roy's Up Tilt (poor hitboxes, sword tip can clip through Pichu with no effect)
Snake's Jab 2 (misses, causing Pichu to drop out of Snake's Jab combo)
Zero Suit Samus' Jab 2 (doesn't auto-link properly)
Zero Suit Samus' Dash Grab (the middle of the whip can clip through Pichu without grabbing it)
Zero Suit Samus' Up Smash (doesn't link well)

 

[player_03]

Most up airs and many up smashes aren't meant for attacking grounded enemies in the first place. Same with the long-range attacks that miss at point blank: that really isn't what they're meant for. Luigi has better approach options than uair, and Ganondorf has far better close-range options than Wizard's Foot. I appreciate the effort you put in to making it, but most of that list isn't worth worrying about.

However, there's really no substitute for a jab. Jabs are important for when you need to get your opponent away ASAP, and every frame matters against a fast character like Pichu.

Slipping out of jab combos is bad enough (Pichu can shield the remaining hits and then grab), but dodging Samus's Jab 1 is terrible. Samus's tilts take 7 frames rather than 3, and Screw Attack leaves her totally open.

Though with all that said, Pichu only occasionally dodges Samus's jab, just as it only sometimes slips out of the other characters' jab combos. "Sometimes" may be worse than "always," but not by as much as you might think. If the jab combo never connected, then the opponent's only option would be to cancel it and try to follow up with something else. Pichu could then plan for that. But since the combo sometimes connects, the Pichu player has to react in real time, which is a lot harder.

It's true, an easier-to-hit Pichu would be nice. However, it's absolutely not worth visibly squishing Pichu. This is supposed to be the final version of Minus, and that means it should look as good as possible.

Do you think there's something in between, where jabs will more reliably hit Pichu, without squishing it more than 5-10%? If not, well, the 25% bigger Pichu fixes the vast majority of problems with 4.0BC Pichu, and a few characters will just have to settle for jab mixups.