Super Smash Bros. series fan club

[NecrokaRTGreece]

i might play ya

[leaf]

Alright. I'll be online. Make sure you fix your items this time. Oh, and could you do me a favor and pick some stages besides FD every time? FD is great and all, but it gets boring after a while. How about mixing it up with some battlefield, smashville, yoshi's island (brawl), and maybe pokemon stadium 1? Those are the stages I'll be putting on random (along with FD).

[NecrokaRTGreece]

i kinda hate most of the other stages, but i guess i can try ^^;

[NecrokaRTGreece]

ugh, i got my butt kicked ... nyur...

[leaf]

Did I mention I mained pika when I first started brawl? lol

Although I kept turning around when I tried to use jolts =(

And lol@how many knees I missed as falcon

I'd offer you tips, but I dunno how good they'd be since I haven't played brawl competitively in so long.

edit: One thing I can say is that brawl is basically one big zoning game, so if you're not doing anything to control space while also staying safe, you're doing it wrong. It's why full hop jolts are so good. It lets you advance or retreat while controlling space. Standing jolts are a bit less spectacular, since they don't allow you to stay mobile, and they end up controlling less space. Autocanceled (finished before landing) retreating aerials are pretty nice as well, since your foe won't usually be able to punish it, and you can punish their attempt to punish you. With pika, the aerial of choice here is usually sh'd fairs, although the others work as well. Nair, fair, uair, and I believe dair can all finish within a SH, while bair finishes in a FJ. With fair, it may be optimal to sometimes just FF it instead of ACing, to let you combo into something (like a usmash, dsmash, or grab), but you wanna make sure you're actually going to hit and won't just get punished for it. And with dair's landing hitbox, you may also not always want to AC it, since the landing hitbox can keep you pretty safe if used well. You generally want to always AC nair and bair, though.

You seem to understand that dsmash is a really good move for getting people off of you (I had forgotten just how large its hitbox was, actually). Regardless of whether they SDI out or not (which I kept failing to do lol), you still have the initiative, and can either continue with a techchase (running usmash/dsmash/sh instant nair/grab/etc) or throw out a FJ jolt and continue the zoning game, or if they don't SDI out, you can pressure them with thunder (although this will usually be dodged, either directly or via AD). Despite being easy to dodge, thunder is still good... just not amazing. It's completely safe to throw out when they're high above you (as you could probably tell), and you can sometimes punish their AD afterward. Pika's fthrow and dthrow are both really good and can CG against certain characters, so that's probably something to keep in mind. If you're curious about it, I can look up some stuff on SWF for you.

[NecrokaRTGreece]

eh... dont worry about it, i sucked before, and i suck at it now. thats just how i am at games that arent puzzle games...

[leaf]

Eh... I edited in some stuff. Check it out if you're interested.

Oh yeah, and GGs.

[NecrokaRTGreece]

i'll probably have to edit my buttons too.. ^^; even then , i dont think i'll improve much..

[Salanewt]

Ooh, uploading stage file, I will have to do that for all of my stages. Even if I do upload them, I might have to explain some of them a tiny bit (mainly for how I thought of them, or if they are mine or not). Of course, I am back at the trailer for a really long weekend (Wednesday night to Sunday night), on top of finally getting an E-learn course, which will cut my visiting time at GSHC for the rest of July. This might force me to hold off getting Wi-fi as well, unfortunately.

Have a nice day.

[Charon]

*two reflectors

orite (ssbnoob lol)

I really want to send my homebrew music to my friends so they can mess around with it. Hey, is there a way to extract the textures as flat PNGs so I can edit them in GIMP? I can't seem to find them anywhere...

[leaf]

You don't need to rip the textures yourself. Someone's already done that, so just d/l the textures you want to edit.

What you need should be somewhere in here:

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=262863

[Salanewt]

Hm... Seems interesting enough. By the way, do you know if it is possible to change the polygons depending on character (like how Wario has different polygons for both of his skin sets, or how Pikachu has different hats)? It would be pretty neat to make a different polygon for Mario, to allow for a Dr. Mario skin... Or even for one of the Pokemon sets. I could probably think of several different sets of Pokemon to use for alternate skins, yet be able to keep the same movesets.

Also, can we add skins yet, instead of just editing textures on already existing ones? I would love to be able to have a black Yoshi when playing, or even a white one (while still retaining the other skins if I want). Is there a list or something of everything that can be done with Brawl?

Sorry for asking so many questions, but I have finally decided that I want to try some of this stuff out.

Have a nice day.

[leaf]

For the first question... you mean the model? Vertex hacking has been possible for a while now, although it's a very tedious process. Since the model is located in the same file as the texture for a costume, loading is as simple as choosing the costume that you placed it on.

And stop asking if we can add stuff. We can't. We won't be able to for a long time. If ever. We can only replace stuff. If you want a white or black yoshi, you're gonna have to replace an already existing texture on yoshi (probably his yellow, pink, or light blue costume, to avoid messing with the team colors). The closest we come to being able to add stuff is by using riivolution and swapping out what files will be replaced before you start the game, but that still means you'll be restricted to having to replace files... it's just that you don't always have to replace the same ones.

And I don't know of any master list or anything of what can be done with brawl, but off the top of my head...
1) Texture/model hacking. Not only can we edit what already exists, but we can also import models from other games into brawl.
1a) Characters. Fairly obvious; it's one of the first things people started doing.
1b) Stages. Includes boundary and collision editing. In other words, we not only have the ability to edit existing stages, but we can essentially create whole new ones, and they'll look a whole lot better than what the stage builder could ever give you. However, this does require a bit more work than making a stage builder stage.
1c) Menu hacking. The main menu uses textures and models just as characters and stages do, so we can edit this, too.
2) Hitbox and move property editing. Using PSA, we have almost complete control over the scripts that run when a character executes a move. This means that we can not only change the properties or timings of the hitboxes on a move, but we can also add things like interrupts or require certain conditions to be met in order to do something. We can change what graphics and sound effects play when. We also have the ability to edit the attributes of characters such as run speed, fall speed, jump power, etc, using the same program.
3) Animation editing. Ever wanted to see yoshi do a shoryuken? It's possible via a program called brawlbox. You would just have to animate it (using brawlbox's interface, which is rather annoying for animating). Between this and #2, we can create entirely new moves, and between #1, #2, and #3, we can add whole new characters to the roster (note: by replacing old ones). Brawlbox is also capable of much more than just animation editing, but I don't think I really need to get into the specifics of that here.
4) Music hacking. Custom songs can be streamed from the SD card. You need to use riivolution to replace sound effects, though.

When you look at that list, I think a better question is what can't we do? What we can't do is import entirely new models and animations that have been worked on in a program like maya. We still need a way to convert between .mdl0 files and something maya is capable of working with. We also can't add anything. Everything has to be done by replacing another file in the game. The only way we will ever be able to add entirely new stuff without replacing the old is if someone figures out a way to trick the game into thinking certain file paths exist in the game that actually don't exist, which would then be read from the SD card, and then also putting some way in the game to access those file paths. There are a lot of complications with this, so we don't know if a code for that will ever get made. I know someone was working on it for a while, but I believe they dropped the project.

[Salanewt]

Great, thanks. Also, this will be the last time that I ask unless one of my friends tells me that it is possible (again...).

The only way we will ever be able to add entirely new stuff without replacing the old is if someone figures out a way to trick the game into thinking certain file paths exist in the game that actually don't exist, which would then be read from the SD card, and then also putting some way in the game to access those file paths. There are a lot of complications with this, so we don't know if a code for that will ever get made. I know someone was working on it for a while, but I believe they dropped the project.

Oh wait, this is all done through SD card? I was kind of hoping to be able to copy the game onto my computer, and edit it that way (kind of like ROM hacking)... This is almost an extremely advanced form of using cheat codes, isn't it? Well, thanks for answering my questions, I will probably try it out in the future.

By the way, just to make sure, which normal characters are your favourites? I might be able to play on Wifi again in a month or so, and I would like to get some more training in before I compete.

Have a nice day.

[leaf]

You could say that it uses an advanced form of a cheat code. Using the file patch code, it's possible to load (almost) any file from your SD card, instead of where the game normally loads it from. This is not the only option you have for loading hacks, but it's by far the most accessible. If you really want to, you could indeed get a rip of the game, manually replace the files you wanna replace, and then burn a copy of the edited game and play it via a backup loader. That's how texture hackers used to have to test their stuff - by burning a whole new copy of the game. The file patch code makes it much easier and faster to replace files on the disc. 

What "normal" characters are my favorites? As in... vbrawl characters? I hate them all. They're so boring to play as. I may be a naturally campy player, but it's no fun when camping is the only valid strategy. If you wanna gauge who I'll use, well, let me put it this way: I'll use any character in the game as long as I'm still winning. Count on MK being the best character you might face. That shouldn't be too big of a surprise, though, since MK is the best character in the game. =p

[Aile~♥]

MK has his ins and outs. He's incredibly fast, has no landing lag, is virtually unpunishable, has his B move, which blocks some projectiles and isn't interrupted by clashing, and his sideB, which has transcendent priority. But he has only 2 powerful kill moves, 1 if you don't count the Final Smash. He also doesn't have any big hitboxes which he can use to control the opponent.

Having moves with large hitboxes is generally a big help. It's dangerous to try to run straight up to Ike. If he pulls an FSmash out, natural instinct tells you to back away, sometimes even if you could hit him with a dash attack and interrupt him. Likewise, being above Ike is dangerous, he can pull out an Aether relatively quickly in many situations, and Aether hurts.

And Sonic is by far the most broken character in Brawl. His Final Smash is nearly unavoidable if the Sonic player has any skill whatsoever (your only hope of avoiding it is a sidestep dodge, midair dodge or rolling dodge). And once you get hit once, you get hit every time until you're dead. Same thing with Lucas, but Lucas's FS is slightly easier to avoid.

Luigi comes a close second for sheer brokenness: When he pulls out his Final Smash, you're as good as dead, because: 1) If you try to go airborne to escape it, it will knock you out of the sky, often causing you to fall off-edge to your death on small stages. 2) It takes up the whole of Battlefield. 3) You're completely immobile during it, so he can follow it up with a sweetspotted upB, which is often an instant kill, especially after the Flower effect (constant damage)+the constant damage effect (more constant damage) it afflicts you with while inside it. 4) It lasts long enough for him to hit 2 other players with a sweetspotted upB if he hits both of them with it.

Not only his FS, but his attacks seem to be REALLY GOOD at knocking items out of people and getting the Smash Ball. AND his FSmash has crazy insane knockback, on top of being highly unpredictable (because of the subtle animation, it can be quite hard to spot it coming, even though it does have a bit of startup lag). His FAir has similar problems, though with less unpredictable. Sure, his projectile option sucks, but he doesn't even really need projectiles. Not only all this nonsense, but he's just really a pain to fight. Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention that once he gets you to near kill percents, he can use his dash attack to lead into his FSmash, and it takes an Epic Feat of Timing to get out of the way fast enough.

Diddy Kong isn't so much broken as he is just a pain. He has his sideB, which is just annoying for obvious reasons, like being insanely quick and having annoying amounts of knockback. Not lethal, but high enough to knock you to the ground. His FSmash isn't really lethal, it's just a pain because it's so fast you can't see it coming. His USmash is pretty much the same. His DSmash is the most predictable one of the bunch, and it's also quite hard to predict. Then of course there's his stupid spammy popgun, which has something most Brawl projectiles don't have: he can control the trajectory to hit different angles. DownB isn't dangerous, just really infuriating. Final Smash is painful and annoying. It's not even epic! On the other hand, it's not, like Sonic or Luigi broken or anything.

The worst part about Sonic and Luigi is that they aren't even fun to play as!

You know what I find funny, though? You said that Brawl has broken defensive options, while someone on KC:MM forums said that Brawl has drastically lacking defensive options compared to most fighting games.

Also, I just noticed today that Marth ends up with less landing lag from his UAir than he does from a full jump. So it's actually BETTER to use your UAir right before landing from any decent height, because it lowers landing lag time, and gives you a short-lasting disjointed hitbox above you to prevent you from getting whacked as you land.

[Charon]

Augh I hate Sonic... so cheap...

I know my friends can already hack music and textures - I've seen it in action (they made the King of Hyrule out of Ganon XD). Now I really want to change sound effects, so I'll send them these tuts. That'd be hilarious to hear the king laugh and say "Dinner" or "Mah Boi" in a match XD XD\

(augh I can't find what I'm looking for. Are the textures even available as editable image files? That's how they usually do it in most 3D animations...)

[leaf]

Ok jamie, let's see just how many ways you can be wrong!

MK has his ins and outs. He's incredibly fast, has no landing lag, is virtually unpunishable, has his B move, which blocks some projectiles and isn't interrupted by clashing, and his sideB, which has transcendent priority. But he has only 2 powerful kill moves, 1 if you don't count the Final Smash.

Two powerful kill moves? MK may not be a bowser in terms of power, but between dair (gimps), dsmash (when fresh), fsmash (slow, but can kill early, and isn't very punishable if spaced), first hit nair (this move is retardedly strong, even though you have to get pretty close to your opp to use it), SHUTTLE LOOP (reverse shuttle loop kills at silly percents), and glide attack (completely safe and follows after a shuttle loop), he has plenty of ways to kill the opponent while staying safe himself.

He also doesn't have any big hitboxes which he can use to control the opponent.

Having moves with large hitboxes is generally a big help. It's dangerous to try to run straight up to Ike. If he pulls an FSmash out, natural instinct tells you to back away, sometimes even if you could hit him with a dash attack and interrupt him. Likewise, being above Ike is dangerous, he can pull out an Aether relatively quickly in many situations, and Aether hurts.

What. Have you seen MK's dair? Fair? Dsmash? Dtilt? Ftilt? He has range, and he has speed, as well. All of these moves are incredibly safe to throw out, and have the range to beat out most attacks. You can counter half the cast with just dair alone. Ike is a horrible example to go by if you're judging a character's range, considering ike has a huge frickin sword. Even still, ike's fsmash is slow enough that you should never get hit by it if you're paying attention, and aether is really meh, as well. Shield it or SDI out and then punish. It can be used OOS (out of shield), but you still have to be wary of the foe SDI'ing out and punishing you for it. Ike's fair, nair, and jab are about all that make him usable. Also, being above MK is dangerous, too. Ever get hit by uair uair uair uair upB? It hurts.

And Sonic is by far the most broken character in Brawl. His Final Smash is nearly unavoidable if the Sonic player has any skill whatsoever (your only hope of avoiding it is a sidestep dodge, midair dodge or rolling dodge). And once you get hit once, you get hit every time until you're dead. Same thing with Lucas, but Lucas's FS is slightly easier to avoid.

lol FSs

No one uses items in competitive play, which includes FSs. Sonic is a pretty bad character overall in brawl, with his best range moves having either a lot of startup (bair) or problems with them that prevent them from ever actually doing anything (uair; just SDI the first hit in and the second will miss). He doesn't really have good priority on any of his approach moves, and there's a reason vbrawl sonics had to adapt a "bait and punish" playstyle. He can't do anything else.

Luigi comes a close second for sheer brokenness: When he pulls out his Final Smash, you're as good as dead, because: 1) If you try to go airborne to escape it, it will knock you out of the sky, often causing you to fall off-edge to your death on small stages. 2) It takes up the whole of Battlefield. 3) You're completely immobile during it, so he can follow it up with a sweetspotted upB, which is often an instant kill, especially after the Flower effect (constant damage)+the constant damage effect (more constant damage) it afflicts you with while inside it. 4) It lasts long enough for him to hit 2 other players with a sweetspotted upB if he hits both of them with it.

Weeeee more FS BS.

Not only his FS, but his attacks seem to be REALLY GOOD at knocking items out of people and getting the Smash Ball. AND his FSmash has crazy insane knockback, on top of being highly unpredictable (because of the subtle animation, it can be quite hard to spot it coming, even though it does have a bit of startup lag). His FAir has similar problems, though with less unpredictable. Sure, his projectile option sucks, but he doesn't even really need projectiles. Not only all this nonsense, but he's just really a pain to fight. Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention that once he gets you to near kill percents, he can use his dash attack to lead into his FSmash, and it takes an Epic Feat of Timing to get out of the way fast enough.

Items? Really? Again? Luigi is somewhere around middle of the pack, tbh. He's got some good stuff, but he's also shut down by some characters.

Diddy Kong isn't so much broken as he is just a pain. He has his sideB, which is just annoying for obvious reasons, like being insanely quick and having annoying amounts of knockback. Not lethal, but high enough to knock you to the ground. His FSmash isn't really lethal, it's just a pain because it's so fast you can't see it coming. His USmash is pretty much the same. His DSmash is the most predictable one of the bunch, and it's also quite hard to predict. Then of course there's his stupid spammy popgun, which has something most Brawl projectiles don't have: he can control the trajectory to hit different angles. DownB isn't dangerous, just really infuriating. Final Smash is painful and annoying. It's not even epic! On the other hand, it's not, like Sonic or Luigi broken or anything.

You clearly haven't played a good diddy. His bananas are what make him good. Nanner locks and setups all over the place. Oh, and his fsmash is easy to SDI out of, greatly diminishing its value as a kill move.

You know what I find funny, though? You said that Brawl has broken defensive options, while someone on KC:MM forums said that Brawl has drastically lacking defensive options compared to most fighting games.

Most fighting games have backdashes, backairdashes, and bursting, plus of course the primary defensive ability to block high or low, sometimes with the ability to parry or pushblock. The airdodge in brawl takes the place of airdashes, granting invincibility without changing your momentum. Airdashes would require you to avoid your opponent, but airdodges can go right through their attack. Bursting doesn't really have a purpose to exist; there aren't any combos in brawl to burst out of! Backdashing doesn't really have a purpose to exist, either, when you just turn around at will, but you could say rolling takes its place, even granting invincibility starting as early as frame 4. Then we get to the shield. Instead of a high/low game, your shield covers your whole body and has very little shieldstun (most attacks have negative advantage on block) and very low drop lag (7 frames), in a game where there is no such thing as on-hit cancels. What this means is that attacks are in general punishable off of a shield. In addition to all this, brawl also has spotdodging, which thanks to its IASA frames, is a very safe way to avoid attacks.

Also, I just noticed today that Marth ends up with less landing lag from his UAir than he does from a full jump. So it's actually BETTER to use your UAir right before landing from any decent height, because it lowers landing lag time, and gives you a short-lasting disjointed hitbox above you to prevent you from getting whacked as you land.

I don't think uair has less than 4 frames of lag. His soft landing animation has 2 frames of lag before you can interrupt with something. His hard landing animation has 4 frames of lag before you can interrupt with something. This is true for all characters afaik. You're seeing the animation go on for longer than the uair's landing anim, but it doesn't actually have more lag.

[Aile~♥]

You see, THERE'S the difference! I'm talking about who's more broken in CASUAL play. "Competitive" play is for people without a sense of fun. Brawl isn't about a sheer skill contest. Brawl is about insane and hilarious kills, and insane and hilarious suicides! Brawl is about Snake killing you after he's already dead! Brawl is about FUNNY! And "competitive" play ruins all that.

Plus, it just causes hard feelings, when the whole point of it is "competitive". In regular Brawl, you can't control when the stage decides it's time for you to die! You can't control when a crate spawns above your head, sending you flying off-edge! In regular Brawl, nobody really cares who wins or loses, because sometimes items can kill you even if your opponent never manages to touch you! The only times you should care about losing is when you get beaten by a level 1-6 CPU. Yes, that's right, if a level 7-9 CPU wins, you shouldn't even CARE unless you get horribly owned!

And MK's FSmash has kill power? Don't make me laugh. That move outright SUCKS. Its hitbox is completely horizontal, so it's a pain to hit with, and hitting with it doesn't do much damage and its kill power is close to non-existent! Sure, it can kill at 150%, but that's not kill power. Ike can kill you with HIS JAB COMBO at 150% (granted, he's Ike, but still! Point is, his BASIC ATTACK COMBO, which comes out faster than MK's FSmash, and is, well, A JAB, kills at similar percents to MK's FSmash).

Not only that, but MK has trouble forcing the opponent close to the edge, because most of his moves have no knockback to speak of! NAir is really the only option there, though it is quite a viable option, due to the fact that it comes out so fast.

Meta Knight does have aerial range with DAir and UAir, but on the ground, often characters without disjointed hitboxes can out-range him, like Samus (though she does have a few, they are aerials and USmash, which doesn't hit people on the ground anyway) and Donkey Kong (his one disjointed hitbox has less range than his other moves). And as for characters WITH disjointed hitboxes, well, let me name a few who can out-range Meta Knight: Pit, Marth, Ike, Link, Zero Suit Samus, ROB.

Not only all of that, but he has no projectiles! So, if you're one of those crazy competitive players who plays with items off, he has no access to any ranged attacks, which puts him at a disadvantage against characters like Link, or especially Pit and ROB.



Items are actually one of the "balancing" factors in Brawl: Anyone can kill with a Dragoon (but why Dragoon and not Hydra? Everyone knows that the Hydra is the one that deals instant death to other air ride machines, and not Dragoon), anyone can kill with a Warpstar, anyone can blow stuff up with a super scope.

[Charon]

Play the game as you want - that's how I go. I personally like playing with tons of items with my friends because it's hilarious, even though it levels the playing field a bit unfairly.

Although when I get a Wii I will practice for competitive play. :3