User:Toomai/SSB4 tweaks

Just various (non-bugfix) tweaks I think should be in the fourth SSB game. In general, this only covers changes to existing things, so no new characters and such.

This may or may not be in addition to this.

Bolded entries are confirmed to have made it in. Italics are less than confirmed but have evidence in their favour. Crossed-out ones are confirmed to be not in.

Main ideas

General

• Don't allow the game to be played with only a Wiimote, and fix all the mechanics that were broken because of it.
• Remove Brawl's ability to act during hitstun.
• In the same way that invincible/intangible characters flash white, have characters with knockback resistance flash some colour.
• Add a sound effect that plays when you get meteor smashed, timed so that it runs for the length of the meteor cancel delay (i.e. once it stops you can cancel).
• Allow trips to be teched, and doing so puts you right into a run if the stick is sideways.
• Don't treat trip getups differently than floor ones; there is no reason for them to have weaker damage and minimal intangibility.
• Allow characters to jump while lying down, maybe with slightly reduced height.
• Fix how attacks can never not rebound in Brawl.
• If Brawl's reverse edge grabbing remains, add "grab the edge from behind" animations.
• Reimplement the "ow!" vocals on taking a big hit, and maybe have some different ones for things like flame or electric attacks.
• Bring back L-cancelling, but with a difference: each character has a unique reduction factor instead of a universal 0.5x. So maybe Mario has a 0.5x, but Pikachu has a 0.4x and Ganondorf has a 0.7x. (Maybe each attack can have its own L-cancel factor, but that seems like overkill.) The idea is to try and re-proportionalize how much each character gets out of the technique.
• Weight-based throws should stop being weight-based once the opponent is released.
• Make all grab-based sacrificial KOs favour the user.
• Normalize all grab release animation lengths.
• Give all characters that can eat items a hitbox upon eating an explosive, not just Wario.
• Make it so that once player A throws player B, A cannot regrab B for 10-20 frames (not sure what the best value is).
• Either remove the PT-exclusive Flame-Grass-Water triangle or apply all other Pokémon type interactions to all characters. (Arm/Leg would be Fighting, Body/Spin would be Normal, Kirby's Stone would be Rock, DK's Hand Slap would be Ground, etc.)
  • If type effectiveness remains, Flower attacks should act as grass for its purposes.
• Have freeze frames be based on the attacker's timeframe, not the local timeframe of the object on either side. (e.g. kneeing/zapkicking/thunderstomping someone under the Timer will have both characters resume animation at the same time)
• Hitboxes produced by something attached to a character (Pikmin, Gooey Bombs, etc) should be able to damage the hurtbox they're on even if it's intangible (but not invincible or shield-covered).
• Don't make magic or PK attacks electric if they don't need to be.
• Return crouch cancelling to its knockback-reducing form, but don't reduce damage and disable downwards trajectory DI until the stick's position no longer has a downwards component. Also give it some sort of sound or flash so you can tell when it happens.
• Return reflector breaks to causing shield stun.
• In general, timing-based reflectors should have a slightly higher break capacity than hold-in-place reflectors. In a reflection volley, reward the player who must time multiple reflects instead of just holding the button down.
• Reflectors should extend a projectile's lifetime, say by cutting the "how long have you existed" timer in half. Makes reflections at longer range more viable. Only applies to projectiles that simply die after time's up, as opposed to those that change state or explode on a timer.
• Have no cloned Final Smashes, even in name.
• Allow tethers to grab occupied edges, but retracting them simply relocates the user to the edge, sends them tumbling, and counts as an edge grab for their grabs-before-landing limit. Would not apply to Belay as it needs a character to grab the edge correctly for tether usage.
• Instead of disabling tethers from attaching if used more than 3 times without landing, force the character to immediately retract and use their edge roll.
• Don't arbitrarily exclude specific characters from having edge attacks that don't do +1 shield damage. If you're going to have a pattern then at least make it sensible to break it.
• It's usually okay for characters' alternate colours to be subtle or minor, but not when in team battles. Make sure that characters' non-default red, blue, and green colours are obvious and distinctive.
• All characters should have a unique victory music. Listing some ideas:
  • Luigi: New Super Mario Bros. stage completion
  • Dr. Mario: Part of Dr. Mario theme
  • Peach: Part of Peach's Castle theme
  • Bowser: Mario series game over music with "Bowser instruments"
  • Diddy: DKCR stage completion, or first-place finish from Diddy Kong Racing
  • Alternate Links: Item get music, part from corresponding game's main theme
  • Zelda, Sheik, Ganondorf: Part of respective themes
  • ZSS: "Samus is here" theme
  • Dedede: Part of Dedede's theme
  • Falco: Dunno, but I'm sure there's something
  • Wolf: Part of Star Wolf theme
  • Pokémon: Could be trainer battle victory music from various generations or something.
  • Ness can use the SSB64/Melee music, Lucas can use something from Mother 3.
  • I'm sure Roy and Ike have relevant themes they can use.

Single-player

• Bring back individual, itemless Break the Targets stages.
• In adventure mode, have underwater segments. While underwater, knockback is halved, everything animates at 0.7x speed, Smashers have infinite first jumps, flame hitboxes either turn into normal hitboxes (if direct) or don't exist (if indirect). Only Blue Pikmin can be plucked from underwater floors. Depending on design, certain characters can stay underwater for longer before requiring air and taking constant damage.
• Make the numbers of sticker effects less arbitrary.
• Have a menu where you can investigate captured enemy trophies to learn their resistances and weaknesses, and maybe some of their attacks.
• Don't split the storyline of any singleplayer modes.
• A storyline in which a new enemy/faction is the primary antagonist is okay. But link them with more series-sourced bad guys than just a few Smashers and one Smasher's army.
• Have Giga Bowser return as a boss somewhere.

Luigi

• Apply "green flame" effect to Fireball (definitely), Green Missile (probably), and Fire Jump Punch (possibly). Identical to flame effect, just green.
• Give lots of freeze frames (and no SDI) to the Fire Jump Punch, like the Knee Smash. Luigi can then say "I'm-a" during the hit and "Luigi!" while everything flies upwards.
• Down taunt impact should have a totally unique sound effect as opposed to a weak impact or a ping.

Peach

• Put double jump somewhere between Melee and Brawl heights.
• Allow Peach Bomber to activate on shields. The hitbox has high shield damage for a reason.
• Give a "whoops" animation for when Peach tries to pull a Vegetable in the air (like when Olimar tries to pluck from the air).
• Entrance should be parasoling in, not teleporting in.

Bowser

• Attacks to Bowser's shell clang as if outprioritized (unless they cannot clang), followed by Bowser chuckling during the freeze frames.
• Reinstate the Koopa Klaw, but use the Flying Slam if a jump is input during the grab.
• The OUT OF THE FLAMES entrance is cool and all, but it'd be more in-character to show up in the Klown Kar, or even just suddenly drop in from above.

Yoshi

• Give Yoshi a voice clip or unique hit sound for when he flutters through an attack.
• Ensure shield properly covers everything.
• Fix Egg Roll. Give it reasonable hitboxes; give Yoshi some sort of protection while rolling.
• Unbreak Egg Throw; re-allow a continuous spectrum of control as opposed to a limited set of options.
• Let Yoshi eat items.
• Let Yoshi grab the edge with his tongue.
• Add purple, orange, white, black, brown, and grey colours.
• Have eggs match Yoshi's colour. They matched Peach's parasol and R.O.B.'s gyros, they have no excuse.

DK

• Get rid of the coverage hurtbox covering the blank space in front of DK's chest.
• Let DK use Hand Slap in the air. Hitbox would be small but damage would be about the same.

Diddy

• Deal minor self-damage (~3%) if Peanut Popgun overloads. Maybe also have a weak hitbox.
• Do one of the following:
  • Let Diddy pull as many bananas as he wants, but only if he doesn't own any of the ones that currently exist.
  • Do not let any character pick up bananas that Diddy produces; once created they must stay where they land. There would need to be some sort of indication of this (darker colour or something).

Links

• Give different special moves to whatever alternate Link forms there are. Grappling Hook, Deku Leaf, Gust Jar, Fire Rod, whatever.

Samus

• Up smash and forward air need very low SDI multipliers, and maybe some actual knockback on the last hit.
• Charging a Charge Shot attracts items within a certain range based on their weight and friction.
• Holding up or down while firing a Charge Shot shoots diagonally (45 degrees) and alters knockback angle correspondingly (angled up is vertical knockback, angled down is semi-spike).
• Super Missile should be a KO move.

ZSS

• If ZSS starts a match, don't produce Power Suit Pieces. Entrance should be something like using whip to lower self from ship.
• Implement the cut mechanic of stealing held (non-heavy) items from opponents when the Plasma Whip sweetspot hits.

Kirby

• Pick a dash attack and stick with it.
• Reinstate vertical-spinning midair Hammer, but with less ending lag so Kirby can follow it up.
• Stone Kirby should be immune to wind and other non-flinch knockback.
• Give Samus Kirby the Arm Cannon when charging and firing.

MK

• Don't make all of MK's sword attacks transcendent. Maybe leave most of them, but have a few that aren't.
• Make Mach Tornado a bit smaller to match Tornado Kirby's relative size better.

Dedede

• Cause down throw to always knock the opponent down. Alternatively, give it an angle in the 70 or 150 range, or non-fixed knockback.
• Increase the distance opponents are sucked/spit; do something to differentiate the move from Kirby's.

Wolf

• Wolf's 60-frame restriction on meteor cancelling is ludicrous and unjustified. Bring him in line with the average.

Jigglypuff

• Fix Rest; give it the power it had before and retain the vertical angle. The Flower is pointless. For extra fun, have a Light effect (invoking the new Fairy type).

Pokémon Trainer

• Have a proper entrance. Showing up on the folding bike while tossing Pokéball seems good; since he doesn't need to fight, he can afford to pack up the bike during the first few seconds of the match.

Captain Falcon

• When the Knee hits, say something funny. Something new. (Failing that, "HYESZ" is okay.)

Ice Climbers

• Have some way of approximating how much damage the trailer has (e.g. exhausted standing animation once above 100%).

Marth

• Make the Falchion's sword trail very bright at the tip.
• Give an indication of the charge levels of Shield Breaker (like how Giant Punch and Eruption have whooshing noises). The animation looping alone is too minor to notice.

Ike

• Don't have Quick Draw cause helplessness. Alternatively, have it cause helplessness if it misses and a meteor smash if it hits, like Raptor Boost.

G&W

• Don't give Judge 9 a smaller hitbox than the other numbers.
• Reduce Oil Panic's multiplier from 2.8x to ~2.0x and remove the upper and lower limits.

Olimar

• Neutral attack needs to be the three-punch combo from Pikmin 2, not some random headbutt.
• Bring clang behaviour of aerials in line with everyone else. (Might be a bug but listing it anyway.)
• Rolls should look and sound like the Dodge Whistle from Pikmin 3 (with Pikmin also rolling).
• Slightly weaken Blue Pikmin attacks.
• Change Blue health from 14 to 12.
• Don't make Red Pikmin drown faster than the others; there's no justification for it.
• Pikmin should drown slower in general; as-is an Olimar hit into the water has no chance at rescuing any of them, which has little origin basis.
• Give Whites an actual Poison effect instead of just using Darkness. They would of course be immune to hitboxes with the effect should anything else have it.
• Allow Pikmin to be eaten like items when not part of the line or attached to something. Whites would cause about 12% damage and should probably play a short animation (like the explosive one, but shorter and non-damaging to others).
• If Rock Pikmin are in, and they cause direct damage when thrown, then have Purples latch onto enemies.
• Increase the line size to 7 or 8 to accomodate new Pikmin types.
• If terrain-based pluck speed is kept, make it more noticable.
• Make all Pikmin immune to Flower attacks (not Grass ones).

R.O.B.

• Make the supercharged Robo Beam move at the same speed as a regular one.
• Make Arm Rotor faster and a more reliable reflector. Also have R.O.B. spin both arms, not just one.

Items

• Don't have any explosive items blow up while held unless they've already been thrown, and there should be a reasonably obvious visual indication of this.
• Bring back the Cloaking Device, though possibly as something else. (Vanish Block? Repel Gel? White Crystal?)
• Bring back the Parasol.
• Either revert the Ray Gun to its triangular-shaped form or turn it into the Zapper.
• Don't remove placed Motion-Sensor Bombs or Pitfalls, or at least make them last much longer.
• Cause characters to keep on swinging the Hammer while they're being sent flying or tumbling.
• Make it a bit more obvious exactly when the Golden Hammer is ready for pickup after its entrance.
• Cause Blast Boxes to instantly detonate if hit by either Flame attacks or Explosive attacks.
• Have a way to visually approximate how much health a durable item has (splintered Crates, leaking Smash Balls, etc).
• Party Balls should roll like Barrels if they appear on a slope (not when thrown, they activate then).
• Make large items impassable (therefore stand-on-able), and have them disable edges they're sitting on.
• Allow characters to set down large items by pressing shield (or maybe have that replace the neutral throw option). Would create interesting shenanigans when combined with the above edge disabling.
• Allow Gooey Bombs on the stage to attach themselves to people should they pass by.
• Give Smoke Balls a random colour pattern instead of the same one every time (or at least have 3 or 4 different patterns).
• Reimplement Melee's ability to have more than 3 Pokémon loaded at once, and also apply it to Assist Trophies.

Unusual/implausible/impractical ideas

• Characters standing close to edges (but not close enough to teeter) should be forced to shift their stance so they don't appear to be standing on air. (DKCR did this, kinda hard to put into words.)
• Have a short window of time upon running off an edge where a ground jump can be used, allowing the character to kick off the edge diagonally.
• Apply the 1.2x smash charge interruption knockback bonus to other moves that can charge (Charge Shot, Giant Punch, etc).
• Add enough animations so there are no situations where characters suddenly face the other way (e.g. f-smashing in the direction they're not facing).
• Make Yoshi's double jump resistance percentage-based instead of knockback-based so that, instead of taking no knockback until a certain power (and then taking all of it), he takes knockback as if his damage were 100 less than it is (i.e. will be completely immune to knockback at below 100%, take minimal knockback at 115%, not take strong knockback until the 180%s or so).
• Let Yoshi use his double jump if he's hit out of it, decreasing in distance and resistance by half each time, instead of the Egg Throw boost.
• Let Yoshi extend his rolls. Holding the stick sideways during his forward and back rolls lets him keep on rolling as long as he wants, intangible the whole time, and he can change direction at any time as well. There probably needs to be a time limit of ten seconds or something, after which Yoshi just tumbles out of shield and lays down.
• Let Samus hold down the special button during Bomb so she can roll around the stage in Morph Ball form. Pressing the attack button while rolling continues to drop bombs using the same general rules as the Metroid series (max 3 at once with slight delay before replenish).
• Keep Meta Knight exactly the same, but make his f-smash slower and make it his only KO move below 200%.
• Instead of Nana acting on delayed controller input, have her act on whatever Popo's doing. This would remove the fun of independent action while shooting or Hammering but also remove the possibility of desynch and chaingrab (more than a fair trade in my opinion).
• Make the downslash of Aether unblockable (purely flavour-based change).
• Have Pikmin do something other than becoming invisible while Olimar's on the edge or on a ladder.
• Have Blue Pikmin deal Pikmin/Water damage.

Revolutionary concepts

• Back-smashes. Back-tilts would be hard to implement (you'd turn around too fast), but back-smashes would be used by smash-turning and attacking. Could simply be a slower and stronger f-smash, but being a different attack altogether would be more interesting.
• Minor knockback bonus (~1.1x) for attacking from behind. Combined with back-smashes and Bowser's shell mechanics above, this would create interesting dynamics.
• Allow characters to use their neutral special while on the edge. Examples:
  • Projectiles would be fired just above ground level onto the stage. (Fireball, Bow, PK Flash, Fire Breath)
  • Windup-and-release or charge-and-release moves would be charged while hanging, while the release would propel the user onto the stage. (Giant Punch, Falcon Punch, Rollout, Shield Breaker)
  • Ungrounded, movement-based attacks would act as if they were used in the air. (Mach Tornado, Homing Attack...that's it isn't it?)
• If two characters' grabs intersect, they both grab each other. Whoever presses an attack button or a towards direction first puts the other in a proper grab; whoever presses a shield button or an away direction first gets free and leaves the opponent to trip. If the characters tie or too much time passes they are both grab released.

Ideas that are interesting but I'm not sure if I actually want

• Let aerials clang just like ground attacks can. The rebound animation would end significantly faster than when on the ground.
• Put a curve in the smash charge equation, so that going from half charge to full charge is more rewarding than going from no charge to half charge. One fully-charged smash would have more extra power than two half-charged smashes (the max would still be 1.4x, it'd just be that half would be less than 1.2x).
• If a character takes 50 damage from one other player without being released from hitstun or being grabbed, they flash cyan and cannot be damaged or grabbed by that player until they are out of histun/have finished their grab release animation. Gives players a chance to get out of potentially infinite combos, but the attacker can still get more hits in if they are expecting it and time their attack better than what the target decides to do. Does nothing to team combos and would have no effect on combos that have even one frame of escape window.
• Have damage and/or knockback be dependent on how much of the hitbox's volume intersects the target's hurtbox.
• If multiple hitboxes from one attack hit at once, the resulting damage and knockback are an average between them. Would require a system for excluding certain hitboxes for cases like Lightning Kicks, if redesigning such moves was not an option.
• Having the freshness bonus apply whenever a move is not stale seems redundant; you can get the same effect just by slightly strengthening the reductors. Maybe the freshness bonus should only apply the first time a move connects per stock.
• Have staleness apply per individual target, so your up smash might be stale against player 2 but fresh against player 3. And then you can stale it against P3, which won't refresh it against P2.
• Implement a "hype" system that punishes character overuse and rewards skill with multiple characters.
  • Every character's hype starts at baseline every time the game is turned on. Characters unlocked during play start at baseline when first available.
  • Completing a match, or quitting a match in which at least one stock has been lost by any participant, counts as one match. Anything that is not VS. Mode does not count as a match.
  • If a character is not used in a match, their hype level goes up by one. If a character is used in a match, their hype level is reset to zero if positive, and then goes down by the number of players who were using the character. Hype cannot exceed -5 or +5.
  • If a character with negative hype is picked by Random, they won't be affected by it, and their hype won't go down due to the match. If a character with positive hype is picked by Random, they will be boosted by it, and it will be set to +1 after the match.
  • CPU characters do not affect and are not affected by hype.
  • The damage done by a character is affected by their hype level. Hype also affects the character's speech volume.

Hype	-5	-4	-3	-2	-1	±0	+1	+2	+3	+4	+5
Damage	0.75x	0.85x	0.90x	0.95x	1.00x	1.00x	1.00x	1.00x	1.10x	1.20x	1.30x

Wishful thinking

• Don't remove non-third-party characters, and re-add those that were removed.
• Do not waste development time on graphics. Frankly Melee's graphics are good enough.
• Never patch the game.
  • If the game ever is patched, ensure that detailed, technical, and complete patch notes are released to the public.
• Do not allow character customization of any sort (this includes the existence of Miis as anything but an avatar).
• Do not waste a version on a handheld.
• Make it reasonably easy to access things like models and moveset data, but extremely difficult to replace anything.
  • Alternatively, make such data and most/all formulas publicly available either online or in-game.
• Make online as laggy as necessary to avoid having to put in an artificial lag buffer.
• Do not have an online rankings system of any sort.
• Don't let balance get in the way of characterization or fun.
• Once the game is ready for release, delay it for a few months or a year solely to find and fix bugs and exploits.
• Don't write a story mode that is so specific that it damages or invalidates peoples' personal universes.
• Don't listen to the vocal minority.
• Come up with some sort of completely new, fascinating, out-of-nowhere, genius, non-disablable mechanic that all players agree is both absolutely necessary for the game to be playable yet renders serious, tournament-level competition completely impossible.