Forum:Further documentation on unplayable characters

Forums: Index → Proposals → Further documentation on unplayable characters

This discussion is in regards to a proposed change on SmashWiki. The discussion must first meet with a consensus before it is implemented.

To clarify, I don't know what the current standards are on this, but from what I see on the wiki, if I were to go ham on it, I would probably cause a ruckus of some kind, so I'm writing this up.

Recently I've been attempting to document some of the unplayable characters more effectively, mainly Giga Bowser. A thought crossed my mind regarding this, though: we don't really do moveset pages and the like for these characters, despite the only difference being their playability. Part of the inspiration for this proposal are a few "developing a meta" videos by Joseph Maolin, eg. this. They're some of the most analysis that has been done on Melee's "forbidden" characters at the very least and I think it's a shame there isn't really anywhere to put this type of thing.

So my proposal is this: should we expand upon the documentation of these characters in cases they can be played as through hacking? If so, should we design moveset pages for them that document their frame data and utility as if they were playable normally? I'm thinking to the degree of Master Hand and Crazy Hand's character pages, plus the moveset pages. Naturally, this would cover everything from the Wire Frames to 64 Metal Mario and Ultimate Giga Bowser. In Melee especially, the "forbidden" characters are decently popular and even see online use at times. Similar things can be seen for Ultimate, and while it was used for an April Fools, Rekzius did some analysis on Giga Bowser's hitboxes. I feel like there is a large benefit to analysing these characters seriously from an encyclopaedic perspective, even if it's moreso "for fun".

I suppose I should define what we're "expanding" here. I think the Giga Bowser (Final Smash) and Wario-Man pages are what I would consider to be the ideal form of documentation on the unplayable characters, it's just right. Perhaps an Overview on the character itself in the place of the final smash; this would particularly benefit the Wire Frames which have significantly different movesets to their counterparts, the current documentation is frankly not very good. I would also argue for the inclusion of moveset pages akin to what real fighters have — same for the Transformation Final Smashes that involve moveset changes of that magnitude, honestly — which would, again, make for solid documentation. This could also help the pages for Final Smash Giga Bowser and Wario-Man, as their movelists aren't too detailed as-is.

Master Hand and Crazy Hand have their own "character" pages, which has strangely not been done for any other unplayable fighter. I consider their pages to be pretty great for this role and could even be expanded on. If we were to take the character page angle, for example, I would do something like character pages for the Red, Yellow, Blue, and Green Alloys, Male and Female Wire Frames, Melee/Ult Giga Bowser, 64 Metal Mario, Brawl bosses, so on, so forth. You get the idea, yeah? Any controllable boss; the current pages for the Alloys/Wire Frames could be kept akin to the hands. I think there are a bunch of boundaries you could set for this though, which I think would be a pretty big discussion. How far do we go, etc? The standards on what defines a boss has changed significantly with Ultimate at the very least, drastically decreasing the significance of Master Hand and Crazy Hand as bosses overall, so this is perhaps something to consider.

The main argument against this is mainly "standards": they're not normally selectable, and should never be considered "real" fighters. Thus, because of the strange nature of these characters, expanding upon them is not important. I agree with this, I wouldn't include them on Fighter lists and want to take the angle of improving what's already present and improve their consistency. I do feel like there is a "market" for this type of documentation, and there is a small Melee community (specifically the Forbidden Character Discord) that has aimed to argue for the inclusion of the unplayable roster in the past. There are even mods like Smash Remix and Project M that make them playable normally, sometimes with strings attached. . It's also a pretty significant change overall, perhaps too much in some areas. There's a lot of weirdness. You could even argue that the current documentation on many bosses is sufficient, though I would disagree from an encyclopaedic perspective, considering that this proposal is being made at all and there's outside resources like Maolin's that are doing a better job than we are.

Anyway, thanks for hearing me out. The more background checks I did on this topic, the more I realised how big a "project" this would be, but I'm very interested in seeing how it plays out. --Plague von Karma 09:04, September 29, 2021 (EDT)

I think there's a fairly major distinction necessary between non-standard characters which a player is able to play as without external modification (Wario-Man, Giga Bowser, Master Hand) and ones that do require hacks to ever be under player control. I also don't see moveset tables and such being necessary for things like the Wireframes/Alloys/etc. since they're functionally just stripped down versions of normal characters' movesets. Miles (talk) 13:32, September 29, 2021 (EDT)

I'm not entirely sure as to whether they'd be unnecessary, at least for the Wireframes, which have different frame data entirely on some moves alongside varying properties. They're stripped down, yes, but the differences make them more like Melee's playable clones overall. For example, Female Wireframe's UAir and smashes may as well be different moves entirely, and Male has a freakishly huge UTilt hitbox. I can't speak for the Alloys due to general inexperience with Brawl's unplayable characters but eh. Do you agree that the rest warrant similar treatment to the hands, though? --Plague von Karma 14:33, September 29, 2021 (EDT)

Not really. I think that it would ultimately be a pretty frivolous kind of bloat to bother adding. Miles (talk) 15:35, September 29, 2021 (EDT)

Very late on this but I don't see why we shouldn't have that information on the wiki. Even if you can't play as them normally, you do still fight them, which makes that moveset information still fully relevant. A wiki that aims to be fully comprehensive about Smash should not require people to search outside the wiki for relevant game data. Omega Tyrant 19:57, April 18, 2023 (EDT)

Thanks for the bump, OT! I'm still open to assisting with this, and have some new things to share that have happened since then.

• Firstly, I want to note that Melee Giga Bowser has seen notable traction in the past few years, as seen in this YouTube video. Tournaments experimenting with a legal Giga Bowser have been played, making him in particular a notable character among the "unplayables". Arguments for legalising these characters are still debated sporadically in at least the Melee community.
• Secondly, I unearthed an old spreadsheet for Melee Giga Bowser's frame data and statistics, which could be used in the creation of a character page for him.
• Smash Remix has unplayable characters like Giant Donkey Kong available, which has seen a massive rise in the tournament scene.
• Finally, my friend EyeDonutz made a spreadsheet for Ultimate Giga Bowser as well, which I believe I've used for editing in the past.
• EDIT: Toomai brought up some stuff on Discord, regarding documenting the Brawl bosses. In terms of moveset pages, it makes sense to document them like command input pages; "Move 1" and so on. For numbering them, internal move order sounds correct. Collecting data on SSBU characters may be difficult given the difference in compilation, but Giga Bowser's is at least there.
• EDIT 2: I produced an SSBM Giga Bowser page to get across what I'm after.

I believe that unplayable characters should have pages akin to that of playable characters, talked from the perspective of playing against them, and playing as them, in separate sections, with the latter being pretty much as detailed as a playable character's. Therefore, I believe that my previous comment about the Giga Bowser and Wario-Man Final Smash pages is wrong, and that they don't go far enough. Even simple overviews seem perfectly fair: We have character pages for characters from Project M and so on, and I would put hacking in playable characters like these ones on exactly the same level as them, personally. With at least the Melee community having discussions along these lines, it seems reasonable to have this information on the wiki to aid in future discussions. Other areas are doing better on documentation than SmashWiki as said before, and we should contribute to the progress in some capacity. From an encyclopaedic perspective, more is always better, and shutting things down with the idea of it being "bloat" is counter to a wiki's interests. --Plague von Karma 20:41, April 18, 2023 (EDT)

I think the reason why the Hands have per-game pages is because their movesets change drastically in each game. I do think detailed move lists and even specific move hitbox data are definitely a very good idea, though I'm not particularly keen on separating each one of them per-game like the Hands. The reason why certain mods have their own pages is because of their competitive usage, and in your draft of the Melee Giga Bowser page, it's stated that his competitive usage is very low. Also, aside from Galleom, Ridley, Giga Bowser, and the Fighting Mii Team (which is just a stripped down version of playable characters) none of them have appeared in more than one game, so making separate pages for each boss is just bloat, especially for smash-original ones where figuring out what would be on the main and specific game pages would be a nightmare. I think only Giga Bowser, and fighting teams (besides the Miis and Polygons, which should just be covered on the base fighters' pages) should get separated pages. The rest have pretty bare movesets and were only in one game, and when Galleom came back he only got like 2 new moves, and Ridley getting Brawl and Smash 4 pages would indirectly imply he was playable before Ultimate. Stage bosses should definitely not have their own pages, as aside from Ridley they have barebones movesets and what actually counts as a stage boss is kind of subjective. Unnamed anon (talk) 23:59, April 18, 2023 (EDT)