Just various (non-bugfix) tweaks I think should be in the fourth SSB game.
Main ideas
General
- Remove Brawl's ability to act during hitstun.
- Allow trips to be teched.
- If Brawl's reverse edge grabbing remains, add "grab the edge from behind" animations.
- Reimplement the "ow!" vocals on taking a big hit.
- Make all grab-based sacrificial KOs favour the user.
- 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 Flame-Grass-Water triangle or apply all other Pokémon type interactions. (Arm/Leg would be Fighting, Body/Spin would be Normal, Kirby's Stone would be Rock, DK's Hand Slap would be Ground, etc.)
- Have a way to visually approximate how much health a durable item has (splintered Crates, leaking Smash Balls, etc).
- 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 should be undodgeable (but still blockable) for that character. (Pikmin, Gooey Bombs, etc).
- 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 a vocal cue 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.
- 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.
Single-player
- In adventure mode, have underwater segments. While underwater, knockback is halved, everything animates at 0.7x speed, Smashers have infinite first jumps, and 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.
- 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.
- 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.
Peach
- Put double jump 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).
Bowser
- Attacks to Bowser's shell clang as if outprioritized (unless they cannot clang), followed by Bowser chuckling during the freeze frames.
- Keep the Flying Slam, but give the move Koopa Klaw-like visuals and behaviour if no one's in grab range.
Yoshi
- Give Yoshi a voice clip or unique hit sound for when he flutters through an attack.
- Fix Egg Roll. Give it reasonable hitboxes; give Yoshi some sort of protection while rolling.
- Let Yoshi eat items.
- Let Yoshi grab the edge with his tongue.
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.
- Let Diddy pull as many bananas as he wants, but only if he doesn't own any of the ones that currently exist.
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.
ZSS
- If ZSS starts a match, don't produce Power Suit Pieces.
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 range or non-fixed knockback.
- Increase the distance opponents are 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.
Ice Climbers
- Have some way of approximating how much damage the trailer has (e.g. exhausted standing animation once above 100%).
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
- Bring clang behaviour of aerials in line with everyone else.
- Weaken Blue Pikmin attacks; they're really not that much weaker than Red ones.
- Change Blue health from 14 to 12.
- Don't make Red Pikmin drown faster than the others.
- 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).
- Increase the line size to 7 or 8 to accomodate new Pikmin types.
- If terrain-based pluck speed is kept, make it more noticable.
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 Bob-ombs blow up while held.
- Bring back the Cloaking Device, though possibly as something else. (Vanish Block? Repel Gel? White Crystal?)
- Bring back the Parasol.
- 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.
- 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 walk by.
- Give Smoke Balls a random colour pattern instead of the same one every time (or at least have 3 or 4 different patterns).
Unusual/implausible ideas
- 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).
- 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 (more than a fair trade in my opinion).
- 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.
- 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.
- Windup-and-release or charge-and-release moves would be charged while hanging, while the release would propel the user onto the stage.
- Ungrounded attacks like Mach Tornado would act as if they were used in the air.
Wishful thinking
- Don't remove non-third-party characters, and re-add those that were removed.
- Detect when a tournament match is being played and replace all characters with Sandbag.
- Never patch the game.
- Do not allow character customization of any sort (this includes the existence of Miis).
- Do not have a version on a handheld.
- Make online as laggy as necessary to avoid having to put in an artificial lag buffer.
- Once the game is ready for release, delay it for a few months or a year solely to find and fix bugs and exploits.