User talk:Toomai/Cloneosity

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Nice job with the clone list! I just have a few suggestions: I would consider Ganondorf's up tilt to be unique from Captain Falcon's seing that Ganon's has a vacuum effect and can destroy shields, while Falcon's is used to rack up damage. Additionally, Ganondorf was given a different up throw from Falcon in Brawl, while his down smash functions a bit differently from Falcon. For Luigi, he was given a different down throw in Smash 4. Lucas' neutral special also functions differently from Ness', so I would make the value .75 instead of 1. OldLink5 (talk) 23:37, 12 November 2018 (EST)

Your opinion is noted, and I will consider looking again at SSBB Ganondorf's up throw (which seems similar in my memory but I'll have to check to be sure) and SSB4 Luigi's down throw (which I always forget about). However, the rest of your notes fall into the category of the move having different speed or hitboxes, which is explicitly not part of determining if a move is cloned by my system. Toomai Glittershine El Pollo 18:20, 13 January 2019 (EST)

@Toomai, I would like to apologize for editing your page without permission. Also, I noticed that Isabelle is not included amongst the SSBU characters. While she does have some unique moves, it would be interesting to see how different she is from villager. In regards to Ganon's up tilt, the move does not really have anything in common with Falcon's other than the fact that both characters use their legs: Falcon's is a sweep that can meteor smash, while Ganon holds his leg up and slams it with an accompanying explosion. Thanks for considering these points, and great job on making an in-depth table. Cheers! OldLink5 (talk) 07:39, 16 January 2019 (EST)

Whoops Isabelle being missing is indeed an oversight.

I stand by my opinion on Ganondorf's up tilt. While the nuances of the animation have been cleaned up over time, it's still a heel axe kick of very similar motion; you could trade the animation between the characters and (after matching its speed) it wouldn't look out of place at all. Toomai Glittershine The Engineer 00:02, 17 January 2019 (EST)

Dr. Tornado

I have to disagree with Dr. Tornado (and any other such moves -- I didn't comb the page to see how many others were treated the same) being considered "cloned" from Mario by merit of it historically being cloned. Our goal here should be to determine gameplay differences and "cloneosity", since that's what actually impacts our readers. Regardless of whether or not Dr. Tornado is a unique concept from a development standpoint, it does cause Dr. Mario to play differently from Mario. TheNuttyOne 00:19, 4 January 2019 (EST)

wait... why is Dr. Tornado considered "historically" cloned but neither version of Triforce Slash? TheNuttyOne 20:28, 4 January 2019 (EST)

I have to agree with Nutta; it is inconsistent to list one but not the other. I also would like to argue against Dr. Tornado being listed as cloned from Mario's down special, as, in Ultimate, they aren't really the same thing. Aidan, the Celebratory Rurouni 20:47, 4 January 2019 (EST)

Dr. Tornado is indeed a difficult case because of the evolution of the three bros, and I have yet to find a solution I'm completely happy with. The crux of the issue is that Dr. Mario began as a clone of Mario (in Melee), but since SSB4 is arguably also a semi-clone of Luigi (via transitivity with Mario, and having the same down special (and its customs)). So how does one condense "started as cloned from Mario and incidentally also Luigi but is now only cloned from Luigi who is still a semi-clone himself even though he no longer shares the move in question with Mario" to a yes/no answer?

I'm open to opinions here, but won't change anything until I have the rest of the cast filled in first. Toomai Glittershine El Pollo 18:20, 13 January 2019 (EST)

Actually I just figured it out after typing in the below section. SSB4/SSBU Dr. Tornado is cloned from Luigi in the same way that SSB4 Dark Pit cloned Zelda's Final Smash; history doesn't matter. Toomai Glittershine The Producer 18:26, 13 January 2019 (EST)

I mean... that would at least make it a 0.5, then, right? That's what Dark Pit got. I'm still not entirely in agreement (I think we need to be focusing more on the Mario/Dr. Mario relationship than how "original" Dr. Mario actually is) but I'd be satisfied with at least a slight drop in clone-age. TheNuttyOne 18:38, 13 January 2019 (EST)

But Dr. Mario is taking a move from Luigi, who is (I would hope inarguably) a highly related character (unlike Zelda/Dark Pit), and thus by system point 4 should count as a fully cloned move. I understand your focus is more on "how original is this character compared to their parent". However, I am seeing things more like "how much original effort did this character take to make", because I believe this is a more accurate sense of how the developers see clones. Toomai Glittershine The Steppin' 18:54, 13 January 2019 (EST)

I agree that your scoring is much more useful in identifying the developer's viewpoint, but I really don't think that's what the readers of our wiki care about (at least primarily). It matters more to most players how differently Dr. Mario and Mario play from each other than how long it took Sakurai to program Dr. Mario. While the developer's viewpoint is of course useful to know, I think it would be more important to focus on direct gameplay differences, possibly with development-based scoring done separately (although that would be more work). TheNuttyOne 19:03, 13 January 2019 (EST)

I might later consider some additional nuance with regards to the division between "developer intent" versus "player experience". But for now the whole point of the project is "developer intent". Toomai Glittershine The Engineer 00:02, 17 January 2019 (EST)

This rule for calculation makes no sense

"Some clones might have a special move that isn't cloned from their parent, but from a third character. If this third character is clearly related to the clone and/or the parent, this counts as a fully cloned move. If the third character is unrelated, the clone score is halved." Third characters are irrelevant to the calculation of two other characters. Instead, calculate each pair individually, 1-2, 2-3, 1-3. 47.26.8.175 10:17, 5 January 2019 (EST)

Third characters can be relevant. Take SSB4 Dark Pit. I'd say it's universally understood that his Final Smash is a clone of Zelda's. This is very relevant to him being a clone, even though it's not relevant to him being a clone of Pit. Toomai Glittershine El Pollo 18:20, 13 January 2019 (EST)

I simply disagree with this rule. And looking at the rest of this discussion, so does everybody else. 47.26.8.175 19:59, 13 January 2019 (EST)

A flaw in the “what move is the same” system

By your rules, Lucina would end up being more of a clone than Dark Pit and as much of a clone as Daisy. General opinion is that Lucina is the third most unique echo (after Ken and Chrom specifically), since lacking a tipper spreads across her entire moveset. Additionally, by your rules, Dr. Mario (SSBU) would end up being more of a clone than Ken is. (I didn’t mention this when I first posted this, but also Falco being as much of a clone as Daisy makes no sense.) So, I’d suggest having only completely 1:1 moves be worth 1 point, while characters whose moves have small differences are only worth 0.9. For example, all of Lucina’s moves will now be worth 0.9 points, while all of Daisy’s moves will stay at 1 point because they’re exactly the same. 184.181.102.188 17:28, 13 January 2019 (EST)

"Lacking a tipper" is nothing more than different hitboxes, which is explicitly ignored when determining if a move is cloned (see: Marth/Roy in Melee). I have yet to look at Chrom and Ken so I won't say anything there. Toomai Glittershine El Pollo 18:20, 13 January 2019 (EST)

If you insist that lacking a tipper is marginal enough to be ignored as a fully separate move, that’s fine. However, I still stand by that different hitboxes and knockback angles matter much more than animation changes, so I would reccomend still changing those from counting as 1 point to only 0.9 or 0.95 points. If you don’t want to, then that’s fine, but I definitely would not put Lucina on the exact same likes as Dark Samus and Daisy, no matter how unoriginal Lucina’s moveset is. 184.181.102.188 20:41, 16 January 2019 (EST)

The problem with what you're suggesting is two-fold. One, changing 1 to 0.9 is kind of pointless; if I did this to SSB4 Lucina she would be about 22.5/24=93.75%, which is still very solidly a full clone (the exact number matters less than the box it gets sorted in). Two, it's a lot harder to determine how different a move's hitboxes can be before they're considered "not the same". How big an angle change? How big a knockback change? Does changing from Slash to Flame matter? It's the same reason I'm not comparing attributes; it's significantly more difficult to decide at what point "same" becomes "different". Toomai Glittershine The Engineer 00:02, 17 January 2019 (EST)

Coming back to this now that you’ve finished it for Ultimate, I do quite like what you’ve been doing, and i agree with most of your choices. I just still think the actual number matters much more than you’re giving it credit for. After looking back, I noticed that Falco (Melee) was listed as a 100% clone, despite being nowhere near as cloney as Daisy, Richter, or Dark Damus. Additionally, I still disagree wih Lucina being listed as more of a clone than Dark Pit. Additionally, I don’t believe that Young Link should still be listed as a full clone. I know that you think this problem is two-fold and is too complicated. So, I have a suggestion for how you could incorporate different properties, damage, attributes, knockback, etc. If you don’t want to incorporate these because it’s too complicated and time-consuming, then I repsect you for that.

• Different values for physical attributes such as weight and speed are counted as removing 5% for each attribute, but only if it’s 5 or more values different (If it’s between 5 and 1 values different, it only counts as 1%).
• Different damages values ae counted as removing 0.3 points if the damage is more than 3% different. If the damage less than 3% different, only 0.1 points are removed.
• For individual frame data, I’d probably take out 0.05 points for every frame
• Slightly altered animations are fine being completely the same, and completely different animations do completely qualify as an entirely different move.
• Elemental attributes like Roy’s Fire are counted as removing only 0.1%, since they’re usually insignificant.
• Knockback is... complicated. If the angle is different, remove 0.3 points. If the scaling is different, remove 0.3 points. If the scaling or angle change is ever so slightly minimal (I’m bot a professional in this, so I don’t know the exact values), just take out 0.25 points instead (since knockback is a lot more important than anything in this game).

Again, if you don’t want to do this, it’s fine. 184.181.102.188 23:44, 30 January 2019 (EST)

Part of the problem with comparing characters like Falco (SSBM) and Daisy (SSBU) is that the way the developers handle clones has changed between games. By this I mean: we know they are considered clones by their standards at the time, but when you compare the 6 clones in Melee with the 7 echoes in Ultimate, it's clear their standards have changed from "a clone can have different proportions and should still have a fairly unique set of hitboxes" to "a clone must be about the same shape and can just have a few non-gameplay personality animations". It's difficult to come up with a cross-game system that can handle both definitions and sort characters into the proper buckets without ignoring hitbox properties completely (or only considering them in tiny ways that may not be worth the effort).

In the end, I think my system has done well: it lines up with the general community consensus on all non-Ultimate characters (Ultimate might be a bit too new to have full consensus on), and provides evidence to support forming a new "pseudo-clone" category for characters like Wolf and Lucas who have always been the most debated. Toomai Glittershine The Wacko 06:49, 31 January 2019 (EST)

Cross-Comparisons

We ever going to include Cross-Clone comparisons, like Dr. Mario/Luigi, Wolf/Falco, Young Link/Toon Link? 97.64.61.113 11:09, 14 January 2019 (EST)

If so, it'd be a lower priority (wouldn't be done until after everything else). Toomai Glittershine The Engineer 00:02, 17 January 2019 (EST)

Character Balance

I think I have figured out the main point of seperation between a clone, and a semi clone and a “non-clone”.

Sakurai mentioned that in SSB4 the full clones are only balanced against their counterpart, if they are even needed to be balanced. This saves a “LOT” of dev time compared to testing them with the rest of the cast. By keeping the abilites very tightly together with the parent fighter, they ensure that in normal testing, they only need to balance the parent character, since the echo will be balanced in virtue of being similar. This also explains why the full clones share 95+% of every single attribute with mainly cosmetic changes. Ken for example has the same air speed and all stats except for run and walk, they are in production terms like souped up deluxe alternate models (think Inkling Boy or the Koopalings but with much more character flair)

For semi clones, they have a parent fighter, and share SOME attributes and mechanics, but they are different enough in stuff like body frames and skeletons (Pichu, Isabelle, Young Link), stats (Dr Mario, Falco), moves (Luigi, Wolf, Lucas), and general archetype (Ganondorf), that they need to be programmed and tested as if they were unique characters. You don’t save time playtesting and balancing, or tweaking mechanics.

Dr Mario and Mario aren’t considered “clones” in Ultimate because Dr Mario moves and jumps differently, his moves do different things, he’s heavier (gravity wise), so matchups won’t play the same, and the dev team need to consider that.

Non clones don’t really have a parent fighter. --81.152.89.15 17:45, 16 January 2019 (EST)

Hello Memoryman3. Firstly, give us your source that this “balance rule” still applies in Ultimate. Secondly, Dark Samus has a different skeleton. Thirdly, it doesn’t matter how many attributes Ken shares with Ryu, the fact that he has different attributes at all kills the “echoes must have the same attributes” arguement beyond repair. Heck, even Lucina and Chrom do different things from Marth and Roy, so your “moves do different things” arguement was dead ever since echoes were announced. Dr. Mario even has the exact same frame data on every move except his back throw, down air, and down special. While many other semi-clones such as Young Link and Isabelle work in your “definition” of what they are, Dr. Mario fills everybsingle bill an echo does. The only logical explanation as to why is is not an echo is the fact that Sakurai wanted to appease the Melee crowd. 184.181.102.188 18:21, 16 January 2019 (EST)

Dark Samus does not have a different skeleton. She even snaps to Samus animations when she lands etc. And last time I checked, an echo is defined by sharing stats. --81.152.89.15 14:55, 19 January 2019 (EST)

Grabs

Considering SSBU Luigi and Links, would it be worth it to list grabs in a separate column or the overall variance among grabs is just not enough? -Menshay (talk) 10:45, 19 January 2019 (EST)

In general yes grabs themselves have very little animation variance available, even less so than floor and edge attacks. In cases like SSBU Luigi and the Links, I believe they are sufficiently covered by their corresponding difference in zair-ability. Toomai Glittershine The Xanthic 15:44, 27 January 2019 (EST)

Luigi's Utilt

Luigi's Up Tilt should still be considered a non-clone move. It has more horizontal range, has less vertical range, does more damage, has less base knockback, has a different animation, has less ending lag, and because of these factors, Luigi retains the ability to use Mario's old Down Throw-Up Tilt combo from Smash 4. That's 7 differences in one move, think that's enough to separate their functionality. 47.26.8.175 12:18, 26 January 2019 (EST)

SSBU Luigi's up tilt is indeed very on the fence, and it took me a bit to decide what to do with it. I eventually decided to count it as cloned for a similar reason as I did with SSBU Wolf's neutral aerial: it was changed from being a unique attack to being very close to their potential parent's. Range, damage, knockback, lag, and combo usage are all explicitly irrelevant in my system. Toomai Glittershine The Xanthic 15:44, 27 January 2019 (EST)

Moves inherited from unrelated characters.

I feel Dark Pit's Ultimate Final Smash still being considered a cloned move on the grounds that it received no changes creates some inconsistencies especially in the case of divergences caused by changes in the original character: by this logic, Lucas's up air in Ultimate and Toon Link's dash attack in 3DS/Wii U should count too. Furthermore, Ganondorf's new smash attack animations seem to be near-exact copies of Ike's (up/side) and Cloud's (down, albeit a little less so). -Menshay (talk) 16:14, 9 February 2019 (EST)

I agree that Dark Pit's FS causes a lot of problems, and I really have no idea whether it should count as cloned in SSBU as a result. On one hand, DP is an echo and thus marked as "low effort", and copy-pasting his FS from SSB4 certainly counts as "low effort" (perhaps more effort than pasting it from someone else in the same game, but still). On the other hand, it brings up the very consistency issues you speak of - is Luigi Cyclone still a cloned move even through Mario hasn't had the Mario Tornado since Melee? If Ganondorf still had the elbow f-smash would that still be cloned from Falcon? I don't really know what the right answer is for that.

But at the end of the day, whether this page marks DP's FS as cloned or not doesn't change whether he himself is a clone. So it's annoying but it doesn't really matter either way. Toomai Glittershine The Riotous 16:28, 9 February 2019 (EST)

But shouldn't those smash attacks give penalties to Ganondorf? Skibot99 (talk) 09:36, 13 February 2019 (EST) You see, THIS is why taking unrelated characters into consideration isn't exactly the best idea. It creates all of these confusions as to what's really being cloned.

The Case for Wolf's Specials

Forgive me if I'm incorrectly adding to discussion. I'm new to Wiki, trying to get used to the formatting. Onto topic, the Cloneosity page currently has both Brawl and Ultimate Wolf's specials all marked as 1:1 compared to Fox's. I feel that this is a complete oversight of just how different his specials truly are. Aside from Wolf's Down Special, which is functionally identical to Fox's in both titles, the rest of his specials are different enough to at least warrant being marked as 0.5, if not 0.

Starting off with Neutral Special, Fox pulls out his blaster and is able to rapidly fire small lasers that deal low percent damage and no stun. In both Brawl and Ultimate, Wolf whips out his blaster, dealing melee damage with the bayonet. He then fires off a single, large, high damage, knockback inducing blast before holstering. In both Brawl and Ultimate, these two moves are functionally and visibly very different from eachother. To consider them 1:1 because 'They both use a gun' is an awful oversimplification.

Next, Side Special. Fox Illusion has him dart out in a straight horizontal line, with the 'after-images' dealing damage. In some games, it can be shortened. Wolf's Side Special is functionally completely different. Wolf darts into the air at a diagonal angle, with a large hitbox at the end that's capable of meteor-smashing at the sweetspot. No after-images, no ability to shorten. In Ultimate, Wolf Flash can even be angled up or down, making it even more different. Once again, the two specials are functionally completely different from each other, and considering them to be 1:1 because 'They both go sideways' is an oversimplification.

Lastly, Up Special. Now, in Brawl, these moves are pretty similar. Fox's does one hit and has slower startup, whereas Wolf's does multiple and starts much quicker. However, Wolf Flash was tweaked a decent bit in Smash Ultimate, to the point where labeling them as 1:1 simply feels inaccurate. Fox's travels much further, in a straight line, and always the same distance uninterrupted. Wolf's doesn't travel nearly as far in general, travels further vertically compared to horizontally, and unlike Fox, Wolf carries much more momentum after the move ends. Fox's also still deals one hit, whereas Wolf's deals multiple, and is more reliably used as a kill move. They are similar in name and the fact that they're both multidirectional attacks. In-game, however, they're much more different from a mechanical standpoint. 1:1 isn't an accurate comparison between the two. Maybe 0.5 would be better, since there's more differences. -AlphaSSB (talk) 15:10, 20 February 2019 (EST)

I respect your opinion but won't budge on mine. Fox in SSB4 has custom specials that all do the same thing as Wolf's (powerful single-shot blaster, diagonal dash without damaging afterimages with sweetspot at end, multi-hit non-fire dash with altered distance), and custom specials are pretty much by definition clones of the default special (identical animation but can differ in hitboxes and number tweaks to properties). So if Fox can use Wolf's specials (or at least extremely similar versions of them), they really can't be all that different. Toomai Glittershine The Obfuscating 06:57, 7 March 2019 (EST)

Pseudo-Clone range too short?

I feel that 30-45% is too small of a section. I understand why Semi-Clones are so big but I feel the Pseudo-Clone section should have as much range as a full clone at 20% (Limbo doesn't really count as a category in my eyes, It's just acknowledging there are no characters at the moment with a 80-85% range). So I propose extending the range of Pseudo-Clone to 25%-45%. I feel that sharing less than 1/4 of your moves is a better threshold than 3/10 to be considering a "unique" character. Skibot99 (talk) 14:34, 6 March 2019 (EST)

You have reminded me that I forgot to put a "Limbo II" section in the 25%-30% zone, which means the same thing as the 80%-85% one: there are no characters in this range so we don't know which section it should count as yet. Toomai Glittershine The Obfuscating 06:57, 7 March 2019 (EST)

That makes things look more balanced though it’s making me wonder if there needs to be a third limbo section for 45-50%. But then I realized that Ganondorf is at exactly 50% which makes me wonder what do we do if a character is right on a line? Skibot99 (talk) 08:27, 7 March 2019 (EST)

Yeah there being someone on the line is why I didn't put one there, and a range smaller than 5% I don't really want to make a new section for.

If a future character puts themselves perfectly on a line, ideally the line will be moved as little as possible to accomodate them; the line would go towards the bigger gap between the new character and the next character in either direction. Toomai Glittershine The Quiet 06:49, 8 March 2019 (EST)

Accommodating custom moves for comparison across titles

You mention that it's kinda silly that the custom move penalty affects the comparisons between Dark Pit/Lucina in SSB4 and SSBU. Isn't the solution to simply consider custom moves not as special penalty/bonus but as part of the moveset (thus affecting the total possible number of points). In addition to the comparison for the default moves, you would have a score for It would make sense for custom moves to get less weight than the default moves since they must specifically be selected and can't be used much of the time, so instead of a score out of 24, in SSB4 you would have a score out of 25 or 26 (custom moves being worth 0.125 each or 0.25 each).

I'd also argue instead of having a special penalty for a custom matching a default move, you simply consider whether a character's custom move can be considered a clone of any of the parent's special variants. I don but with a stricter standard, since custom moves are already generally "clones" of the default move. Lucina would simply be 100% clone in SSB4 since all her specials default or custom match, while Lucas is penalized for Ness's Lucas-customs but not for Ness's other customs.

This could also apply to other attributes such as tether grabs, wall jump, etc. getting less weight than other moves. Then you don't have the issue of some characters being over 100%. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.191.240.42 (talk • contribs) 04:34, 7 March 2019‎

This is not a bad idea; the only major issue I can see is that a DLC clone doesn't work nicely with it (Lucas gets a penalty on his "NS default", but where does he get his "NS custom 1" and "NS custom 2" scores from?). I'll think about it. Toomai Glittershine The Obfuscating 06:57, 7 March 2019 (EST)

Perhaps you could just keep the ?/24 scale for Roy and Lucas due to them lacking custom specials while the characters on the base roster use this new scale proposed. Skibot99 (talk) 08:33, 7 March 2019 (EST)

I was making a reply to this message when I looked back over my numbers to discover that I applied my rules incorrectly for Lucina and Dark Pit; I must have copy-pasted from Lucas and missed fixing it later on. So I'm going to fix that right now, and the oddity will vanish. Toomai Glittershine The Quiet 06:49, 8 March 2019 (EST)

Young Link and Toon Link scores too high?

In your column comparing Captain Falcon to Samus in Smash 64 you deducted points as Captain Falcon holds items in the opposite hand of Samus. Shouldn't this argument also apply to Young Link and Toon Link in Smash Ultimate? As in Ultimate Adult Link is now right handed and this likely means even more animations are different as it won't just effect items but also how they swing the sword Skibot99 (talk) 13:09, March 14, 2019 (EDT)

You're not wholly wrong, but you're taking kind of a shallow view of it. My comment on the Samus/Falcon pair in SSB64 is to say "These characters have a major difference that resulted in a lot of necessary extra decloning work". Or to put it another way, SSB64 Falcon could theoretically have used mirrored animations of Samus for his items, but he has fully unique ones instead. The SSBU Link/Young Link pair is not like this; the majority of YL's animations are fairly clearly mostly copy-paste-mirror operations on Link's, which wouldn't have taken more than a minute or two of effort per animation (maybe even less depending on the dev tools; don't forget that SSBU can mirror animations by itself). Toomai Glittershine The Free 22:34, March 19, 2019 (EDT)

I understand thank you for clarifying what that penalty meant. Sorry if my comment came across as rude. I have only played a bit of Ultamite and happened to notice the Links had different dominate hands Skibot99 (talk) 09:19, March 20, 2019 (EDT)

Cross-Game Cloneosity, what?

You gave Dark Pit an 0.5 on his Final Smash because Zelda had it in Smash 4. Zelda isn't even relevant to Dark Pit, and that Final Smash isn't even in Ultimate. Not to mention you contradict this logic by saying Light Arrow isn't relevant to Link or Young Link. And you're right. Light Arrow is also from another Smash Game. So this logic should be the same for Dark Pit. If you're focusing on comparing clones in Ultimate, please don't bring characters from the other games into the case, they are completely irrelevant. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.225.177.90 (talk • contribs) 11:31, March 19, 2019 (EDT)

Please sign your name next time with four ~'s.

Though you do have a point, it's kind of weird. Other games shouldn't have an effect on the score. SammyTFM (talk) 17:28, March 19, 2019 (EDT)

As explained in an above section, I'm not all that pleased with either way of calling Dark Pit's FS in SSBU: it's pretty blatantly a cloned move, but it also isn't shared by any other characters in the game. You can say that other games shouldn't matter, but I don't think that's a valid point of view, because every veteran starts with their previous moveset by default and thus naturally inherits all their old moves, cloned or not. The question is whether they should still count as cloned if their parent goes in their own direction, which as said above there's no real good answer for.

You're right that I didn't treat Triforce Slash like this. I don't quite remember why actually. Maybe it's partly because Young Link never had a FS before, and so it's unclear whether he cloned it from Toon Link, SSB4 Link, or pre-changed SSBU Link. I do agree it should at least be consistent, so for now I'll set both Triforce Slashes to 0.5 like Dark Pit's. Toomai Glittershine The Free 22:34, March 19, 2019 (EDT)

As a random suggestion maybe make the score .25 if cloned from a previous game. That way it's less damning on their score while still acknowledging the moves cloned origins. Skibot99 (talk) 09:21, March 20, 2019 (EDT)

By following that logic Toomai, that would mean Luigi would keep his Luigi Cyclone at an 0.5 because "it used to be Mario's", and this would apply to several other moves too. It's outrageous. If we made this comparison to every single fighter in the game, they would all most definitely be some level of clone. There IS a simple answer - keep those moves at a 0. If it's different, it's a 0. Don't compare one clone to the entire cast, Compare them to their parent character and their current moveset in each game. If the parent character gets a change, then the previously cloned move essentially belongs to that fighter now. If that's not a simple answer then I don't know what is. SammyTFM (talk) 15:05, March 20, 2019 (EDT)

That's a simple answer but that doesn't automatically make it the correct answer. As discussed in an above section, I haven't yet figured out a good, consistent-across-everything way to deal with moves that are "historically cloned". Skibot99's straight multiplier idea is not a bad start but I need to consider the matter more deeply to see if more nuance is necessary. For example: Does it matter if the clone's version of the move changed a bit in the same game the parent lost it? Should such a score effect only apply once, or once per each game? Should the rate be different between normal attacks and special moves (since specials are naturally higher-effort)? Treating all characters in a per-game vacuum is one way to do it but I'm strongly of the opinion that it's not accurate.

Also I'm not comparing clones to "the entire cast". There are very few cases where it's the correct call to say a move is cloned from a non-parent, and SSB4 Dark Pit's FS is one of them. Toomai Glittershine The Bold 20:06, March 20, 2019 (EDT)

I think a good step to figure out this dilemma is to also set a criteria of what moves we should take into consideration as cloned from an unrelated character. For example in Smash Ultamite Ganondorf's Smash attacks are borrowed from Ike and Cloud, should we include Smash Attacks in this umbrella or just spacial moves. Granted I don't play competitively but I want to help in any way I can as I am very intrigued by the creation of move sets and your analysis. Skibot99 (talk) 21:15, March 20, 2019 (EDT)

If a rule you have is inconsistent, it's better off removed. SammyTFM (talk) 18:32, March 21, 2019 (EDT)

It's better to try and fix things before removing them. Toomai Glittershine The Producer 06:55, March 28, 2019 (EDT)

A way to incorporate physical attributes and different damage into the chart

I know I’m not alone when saying that SSBU Ganondorf and SSB4 Luigi are arguably psudeo-clones. They’re both pretty much on the line between psudeo- and semi- currently, but I feel like this is partly because different physical attributes (i.e. speed and weight) are completely ignored in this process. While I do agree that changing said pieces of data is much easier than chnging an animation, I don’t believe that completely ignoring them in determining what type of clone they are really is. I honestly feel like that things such as slight damage/knockback differences may have to count as well (I suggested something similar prior to creating this account, so as to knock Lucina and Falco down to less of a clone of Dark Pit). While they are definitely not as difficult as changing an animation, they should still be minimally counted.

• For every point of weight that is different, remove 0.1% from that characters’ total cloneosity; and for every point in running, walking, air, and falling speed, as well as traction, acceleration, nd anything wlse I may have missed, that is different, remove 0.01% from their total cloneosity. While these differences are small, this should knock down Ganondorf, who would now be below 50%, and thus a contender for psudeo-clone. For Dr. Mario, he would be unaffected, as all of his “different” stats are actually permanent spirits (significantly reducing the workload to “change” them), and thus is exempt from having percentage points docked, and thus safely remains a full clone

• For every percent in damage that is different, remove 0.01 points from said move being cloned. This should drop Lucina and Falco down to being less of a clone than Dark Pit. Ultimately, this portion may be useless in the end, and Lucina and Falco are still full clones with this in mind, but it’s been bothering me to list Dark Pit, who only has three moves with any difference at all, as less of a clone han two characters eith different damage outputs for eah of their moves.

• Knockback is admittedly hard to measure, and could be exempt from docking percentages or points from each move or character. Additionally, things such as elemental effects are too minor to be counted, and are also exempt.

Does this sound like a decent idea? I apologize for bringing this up again, but I do believe that Ganondorf really should not qualify as a semi-clone anymore, and that Luigi hasn’t since Smash 4. Lou Cena (talk) 17:30, March 26, 2019 (EDT)

The entire point of this page and process is to come to a result that does not care what anyone wants the result to be. Therefore, I am not making any modification based on people saying "well if you do this, then X would move from Q to R". Toomai Glittershine The Producer 06:55, March 28, 2019 (EDT)

Melee Jigglypuff

I agree with most of your assessment on Jigglypuff in Melee, but something doesn't quite add up. In Smash 64, you rated Neutral as 2/3 and B-throw as 1, yet you rated both moves as 0 in Melee even though they really didn't change much, certainly not enough to be truly decloned (I could maybe understand for Neutral, since they swapped the order of jab 1 and 2 for Jiggs, but the animations are otherwise practically identical imo).

If you were to give those two attacks their Smash 64 ratings, Jigglypuff's score would bump up to 7.292/23, or 31.7% - well within pseudo-clone status. Even if you left Neutral at 0, the score would be 6.625/23, or 28.8%, on the upper end of Limbo II. Of course, that would bring up the issue of having to analyze Jiggs' clone status in the later games, but from what I can tell it really doesn't change much.

Here's my personal analysis from Brawl for comparison (still within pseudo-clone status at 30.8%, Limbo II at 28.1% if you leave Neutral at 0):

Pair		Neutral	F-tilt	U-tilt	D-tilt	Dash	F-smash	U-smash	D-smash	N-air	F-air	B-air	U-air	D-air	Pummel	F-throw	B-throw	U-throw	D-throw	N-special	S-special	U-special	D-special	Final Smash	Floor/edge	Other	Total	%
		2/3	1	1	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.125, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25, 0.25	-0.25	7.542/24.25	30.8%

b2jammer (talk) 17:41, June 30, 2019 (EDT)

Your thoughts Toonami? Skibot99 (talk) 08:14, March 3, 2020 (EST)

Terry

Terry shares his up tilt, forward tilt, down tilt, up smash, forward air, back air, and down air with Ryu and Ken, or 7/24 (29.1%). Considering this falls into the upper edge of the limbo II category, should the psuedo-clone percentage be expanded to fit in Terry? It's a ridiculously tiny percentage as is (15%, compared to 35% for semi-clones and 25% for full clones).

Also, on a side note, I noticed that a couple moves that are clearly different, such as Young/Toon Link's down special, Ganondorf's up tilt, and Roy's Final Smash are listed as exactly the same move as their bade counterpart. 72.203.118.154 13:48, January 11, 2020 (EST)

Yes I have not looked at Terry yet, I should do that at some point.

You did a math error, the clone range of 85%-100% is only 15%, not 25%.

If you think that Ganondorf's up tilt is not cloned I don't know what to tell you. It is a very clear example of a cloned move, with its only non-hitbox difference being "is carried out at a different speed". The Link bombs and Roy's FS I can see your viewpoint with, but I stand by my opinions that they are not different enough to be worth debating whether to give them a 0.5. Toomai Glittershine The Producer 14:59, January 11, 2020 (EST)

I've done Terry. Because of how his neutrals/tilts don't have the tap/hold mechanic, and he has completely unique gimmicks and extra moves, he came out to 24.3%: not a clone, very slightly below SSBM Jigglypuff. Toomai Glittershine The Dispenser 16:36, January 11, 2020 (EST)

Ganondorf and Falco in Ultimate

I decided to analyze the moves that are listed as similar on your chart but different on the Clone page. Mathematically, they would be psuedo-clones (as anything less than half shared is 45.83%) if we only look at the mainspace page, but they are listed as semi-clones.

Ganondorf up tilt: Despite my earlier claim, they do share pretty much the same animation. As much as I consider it different gameplay-wise, it's similar animation wise.

Ganondorf forward throw: Captain Falcon faces the screen, Ganondorf faces away from the screen. This was shared between the two of them in SSB4, and all of their other throws have them face the same direction (though up throw has a different animation). There was definitely an intention to declone Ganondorf with his forward throw, and the animation definitely isn't mirrored like Young Link's are.

Falco forward tilt: Could go either way. They both do a roundhouse kick, but their arm motions are completely different. Unlike Ganondorf and Captain Falcon's forward throws, this was also the case in SSB4 (not sure about Brawl), so maybe this is just the same move?

Falco town tilt: Same as Fox's. I don't know why this was listed as different.

Even disregarding Ganondorf's controversial up tilt, his forward throw is definitely intended to animate differently, which is enough to put him into psuedo-clone status. For Falco, it depends on if you consider the arm motions from his forward tilt enough to be a different move. However, their down tilts should definitely not be listed as different. Thank you and have a nice day. 72.203.118.154 21:18, February 18, 2020 (EST)

Mii Fighters?

It's very obvious that the Mii Fighters all take inspiration from other characters on the roster. But I think the most obvious is with Mii Gunner. They clearly have moves taken from Fox and more notably Samus. Do you think they're worth digging into for comparison?

Skibot99 (talk) 08:17, March 3, 2020 (EST)

Inconsistencies With “Cloned” and “Unique” Moves

I have noticed some inconsistencies with certain clone ranks for moves. For Jigglypuff, the 64 chart says it’s Neutral Attack (2/3), Down Tilt, and Back Throw are cloned from Kirby, but aren’t in Melee’s despite both sharing their similar attacks from 64. Jigglypuff’s Pummel in Melee is also similar to Kirby’s, with Ultimate being the first game to give Jigglypuff a different Pummel. For Luigi in Melee and Brawl, the charts say his Down Tilt is cloned from Mario, but not in Smash 4 and Ultimate despite it being the same attack. Also, why is Luigi’s Up Tilt in Ultimate considered a cloned move when all that changed was the way Luigi faces during the move? Diddy Kongstar (talk) 18:26, August 13, 2020 (EDT)

Redrawing the lines

I'm sure you get a million suggestions about things like this, but I've noticed that the lines used to denote each section are largely arbitrary, skipping the 1st, 4th, and 5th largest gaps between characters yet utilizing the 6th largest. If one instead uses all six, it miraculously creates 3 very small limbo categories - the three of which contain a total of 11 characters - right around the quartile markers. Like, within 3.5% on all of them. I might not be describing this well so I've pictured it below, though this takes up a lot of space so you can remove it if necessary. I think this definition of drawing a rough line at each quartile would better establish the "gray area" nature of this sort of thing instead of drawing such hard lines, while at the same time giving more reasoning to the lines through more uniform use of character gaps. Grapevine (talk) 04:30, February 4, 2021 (EST)

	Non-clone	~25%	Pseudo-clone	~50%	Semi-clone	~75%	Clone
	100.0%
	100.0%
	100.0%
	100.0%
	100.0%
	100.0%
	98.9%
	98.9%
	97.9%
	97.9%
	97.8%
	95.8%
	94.7%
	94.6%
	93.8%
	91.7%
	90.9%
	90.1%
	88.5%
	78.1%
	76.8%
	75.3%
	75.0%
	75.0%
	73.3%
	68.1%
	66.0%
	63.6%
	63.5%
	62.5%
	61.5%
	61.4%
	60.9%
	59.4%
	52.8%
	50.0%
	43.9%
	42.3%
	40.6%
	38.1%
	36.5%
	32.3%
	24.5%
	24.3%
	22.4%
	6.3%
	4.1%
	Non-clone	~25%	Pseudo-clone	~50%	Semi-clone	~75%	Clone

I skipped the 1st-largest gap (between 22.4% and 6.3%) because it's so far down on the scale between two characters that are universally recognized as not being any sort of clone. Had I added more pairs of characters with similarities but are certainly not clones, I'm sure I could fill in this gap until it no longer exists, but that doesn't seem like a good use of effort. I'm not sure where you say I'm using the 6th-largest gap from; gap 6 is between 73.3% and 68.1%, where there is no division. In addition, explicitly creating "limbo" categories that contain characters defeats the entire purpose of this exercise, which is to conclusively determine who is a something-clone and who is not. Toomai Glittershine The Irrepressible 08:02, February 4, 2021 (EST)

I miscounted that gap as being 6.2%, not 5.2%, my bad. Anyway, I don't think it defeats the purpose, I think it better demonstrates the gray areas that exist as I said (and as you said: "it's a continuous scale, even if the terms are used in a fairly hardline fashion"), as well as actually making clear that this isn't a definitive thing and that people can disagree on the exact lines, but that's just a difference in philosophy I suppose. Grapevine (talk) 15:27, February 5, 2021 (EST)

Wow...

Ok, I just took a look at this page for the first time, and I must say this: we absolutely should NOT be using this page to inform decisions made on the clone article, or on any other Wiki article, in its current state. Some of the claimed evidence of cloning on this article absolutely reeks of personal bias and subjectivity. This would not be a problem if this page were just treated as any other user subpage, but it's not. You, along with multiple other users, frequently cite this page on discussions regarding clone categorisation on the Wiki, and this therefore makes the presence of these factors a massive issue.

So let me start with the first eyebrow raiser: the pairing of Mewtwo and Lucario in Smash 4. Aside from the unexplained absence of this pairing in the Ultimate section (in spite of the 2 shared moves still being present in said game), the reason this pairing is included in the first place is because of their neutral specials, which you may have a point about, and apparently their forward smashes? I guess there's a vacuous similarity between the 2 forward smashes, but ignoring particle effects, the animations of the 2 moves are very different, from start to finish, from the way they lean back to charge, to the way they thrust their hands forward, to the way they pull back again afterwards, nothing is copied.

I bring this up for the reason that if you can consider these moves as evidence of cloning, even if those moves alone aren't enough to categorize the characters as such, then that means you can easily decide to take characters that are on the boundary between categories, and fudge the numbers by picking another pair of moves that vaguely resemble each other to push them through it. As for the personal bias side of things, it's pretty clear that the ONLY reason you even bothered to include these moves at all is because you personally see Lucario as an easy target for claims of being a clone, due to him being viewed as a replacement Mewtwo. How do I know this? Well, let's suppose you really DID intend for this page to be exhaustive, and that's why you include even fringe examples like this. Why then, do you not also include the pairing of Incineroar and King K. Rool, for instance? There's a very clear similarity between said characters' forward air, up throw, down smash and potentially even down air. Furthermore since both characters are Ultimate newcomers, and thus developed alongside each other, which is evidence that this isn't merely a coincidence. This is just one possible example, but there are many others. My point is that if you wanted this page to maintain a reasonable standard of objectivity, then if you were to include the pairing of Mewtwo and Lucario, you would also have to include the pairing of Incineroar and King K. Rool, along with every other pairing where a half-decent argument could be made for at least a couple of moves being shared between characters. Your page would, of course, become exceedingly long, but that's a sacrifice you would have to make if you wanted to keep the Mewtwo/Lucario pairing, while also maintaining a reasonable standard of objectivity.

I've gone in depth on this one specific example to prove a point: it is abundantly clear to me that this page ought not to be viewed as authoritative in any way, as it is quite clearly just a personal user subpage, like any other, in its style and content. Indeed, you yourself appear to acknowledge this, in your refusal to allow other users to contribute to or modify it in any way, even going so far as to protect the page to prevent other users from doing so. Why then, when addressing issues raised on clone-related articles on the Wiki, do you point to this page as though it were an official Wiki project, rather than a personal user subpage, and why do you not caution other users for doing so themselves?

You seem to want to have it both ways. On the one hand, you are quite clear on the fact that this is your page, that you and only you get to decide on its content, and that others are not to edit it. However on the other hand, when it's convenient for you, you treat it as though it is of the same caliber as an official Wiki guideline article, and implicitly encourage other users to do the same. The way I see it, you shouldn't be able to have it both ways. Either you intend for this page to be your personal user subpage, or you intend for it to be a Wiki guideline for handling potential clones on articles. Either it should continue to very clearly be a work of your own mind, moulded by your own opinions and personal biases, or it should be open for other users to contribute to, and moderated the way any other Wiki guideline would be.

So, what say you? Alex the Weeb 06:49, February 4, 2021 (EST)

Apparently this got removed in a revision somewhere, but the reason for including a small amount of "pairs that are obviously not clones but are sometimes parroted by the comunity as clones" is to just have some non-clone data. The Mewtwo/Lucario comparison is one of these. You are correct that it's a waste of effort to do too many of them.

The rest of your comment appears to boil down to "I don't trust you to be objective", which I suppose is a fair opinion for anything on the internet, but doesn't really help solve anything. I have made changes in the past when pointed to errors, so it's not like the community is barred from contributing. The reason I have the page locked down is simply because the subject is so contentious (e.g. Luigi or Ganondorf players doing everything in their power to get the "anything-clone" label off their characters) that I think it's for the best if it's not open season to edit. Toomai Glittershine The Irrepressible 08:02, February 4, 2021 (EST)

I have no problem with you not allowing others to edit the page, but rather my issue lies with you referencing the page on discussions on the Wiki, as though it were a Wiki guideline, when you very much treat it like your own user subpage (which it is), and I'm sure there would be many points of contention among users of the Wiki regarding some of your decisions (I know I have a few). The page is currently in a sort of hybrid state where it gets the benefits of both a user subpage, and a guideline article, which I think is a major issue, since often when something on the clone article is contested, either you or some other user will point to this page, as though it were authoritative. Alex the Weeb 08:18, February 4, 2021 (EST)

I'm not Toomai, but I don't know if calling this page "authoritative" would be accurate. Is he not doing, albeit maybe a little biased, controlled testing to come to a conclusion about how closely related clones are in Smash games? I don't think it would be any different if anyone else, admin or not, were to do the same thing. Aidan, the Lovely Rurouni 09:19, February 4, 2021 (EST)

Agreed with the above. There is no objective answer as to what makes a clone, and someone has to draw the lines. I don't see any viable alternative to the way it's done now. Grapevine (talk) 15:30, February 5, 2021 (EST)

An error on this page

The archive box leads to User talk:Toomai/Archive 1 rather than User talk:Toomai/Cloneosity/Archive 1. Superbound (talk) 06:54, February 4, 2021 (EST)

Template sucks. Will try and remember to fix it when I have time. Toomai Glittershine The Irrepressible 08:02, February 4, 2021 (EST)