User talk:Toomai/Cloneosity

Table Tweaks

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)