A Super Meter for the Sequel: A Good Idea?

Classic Fighting Games Super Smash Brothers Brawl
#1

I’ve mentioned this on the Smashboards quite a bit, and it’s a controversial debate, at least in the SSB4 thread. I decided to come post my thoughts here in order to better gauge the opinion on this from both a competitive and casual perspective. So anyway, here it goes.

My idea for the super meter is mix of your standard super meter and your revenge meter. You can fill it up in the following ways:

  1. Using Special Moves
  2. Stringing Combos
  3. Counterattacks
  4. Teching/Ukemi
  5. Taking Damage
  6. Losing a Life

Of course, some methods fill more than others. An Ukemi won’t increase your meter much, but losing a life fills it with half the maximum meter.

Similar to a number of fighting games, the meter would be broken into 4-5 parts with a super special move available when a part is full. These super special moves are what they imply, stronger special moves, but some have different properties. For example, Mario’s Super Fireball shoots three fireballs instead of one.In order to execute a super special move, you have to press X and the direction of your choosing. This is to ensure there aren’t accidental Super Specials.

When the meter is full, you can still perform super specials, but you now have the option of using a revamped Final Smash. These would be much more balanced in that they aren’t guaranteed to perform a OHKO. For example, Sonic’s new Final Smash would be Super Sonic, but with a big difference: if the first hit connects, he goes into an animation juggling the opponent with 3 ramming hits. To execute this new Final Smash, you have to press R.

Now, here I ask two important questions:

Casual Players: Does this seem like a straightforward mechanic?
Competitive Players: Do you feel that this would upset the balance of the game?

#2

The game’s idea of combos is very limited in comparsion to the community’s point of view. In the game, it basically only counts jab infinites as true combos, which are useless. If the game could somehow reward good reads(ie, tech-chasing, punishing airdodges, etc) it’d be slightly better.

I still don’t like the idea of it in my smash games though. Super Specials, maybe. I can deal with that but super meter granting you a final smash, not so much.

#3

I don’t like the idea of a meteor that fills for stuff like this. I would much rather have it so the system finds some sort of way to reward good reads. Lets say is a system in place that rewards you for doing a series of follow ups by giving you a Smash piece. Smash pieces can be used to perform super specials that are activated by Shield+direction+B. But you don’t want to hold on for them for too long if you are put at a disadvantage since they can be knocked out of you.

Each character will have 3 super specials and a burst. The first super special will cost 1 smash piece and will be activated by down+shield+B. The second will cost 2 smash pieces and will be performed with forward+shield+B. Burst will cost 2 smash pieces and will be performed with back+shield+B. A third super special will cost 3 and will be performed with up+shield+B.

If you manage to get 4 you can hold shield and press B to release a Smash ball on the field. This smash ball will always try to weakly home in on its releaser but will still be knocked away with momentum from hits. I think this would be the only way to decently have final smashes in the game for a competitive scene.

I personally think this method fits the smash bros style better but whatever it aint gonna happen anyway.

#4

In nintendo fashion the super bar would be charged by how much you are trailing by. In mario cart wii, the race is not over until your wheels have touched the finish line. Anything until then is fair game. I verse my liil bro in mario cart and without items i win most of the times but when items are on, i find myself getting smashed by items and end up coming either 1st, 4th or 8th (something along those lines).
So in a ssb4 game there would be super moves that would favour the trailer according to nintendos ideas from previous games.

#5

I think some kind of meter would be a good idea due to a couple of stuff having no requirements to perform, such as Air Dodge and Air Glide.

#6

I’m pretty happy that Super Smash isn’t a carbon copy like all of the other damned 2d perspective fighters out there. They all have random inputs for moves for no apparent reason. Why not just forward and b for that hadouken, why does it have to be a rotation then a button in a very specific timing. I’ll never get it. Seriously ever since the super meter has been invented every damn 2d perspective fighter has carbon copied it in. Capcom and SNK need gimmicks to sell their games. Just being honest about my opinions here. I actually like SNK games a lot though, just the super meter thing seems so ridiculous to me.

#7

The reason for “random inputs” such as [down, down-forward, forward] is so that you specifically get the moves you want. Unlike Smash bros. which has two seperate buttons for normal and special moves, games like SF require you to perform special moves with your normal buttons. If hadoken was forward+punch, you would get a fireball everytime you walked forward and tried to punch your opponent, even when you didn’t want it. Also, you have to take into consideration the risk/rewards of special moves. Shoryuken for example is a pretty good move. It comes out fast, does decent damage, has invicibility frames, and it’s an anti-air. Having a braindead command like down+punch would make it too good. Can you imagine if Zangief only had to press two buttons to do a Spinning Piledriver? He could easily grab you before you could throw out an attack. That would suck.

Also, the super meter is not a gimmick. In most fighting games, there are moves and/or options that are crazy good. They might do lots of damage, break offensive pressure, recover your health, or a whole bunch of other stuff. If you could do these moves anytime you wanted for free, without any cost or requirements, those moves would be broken. That’s why the super meter is there; that way, if you want to take off 50% damage with Shin Shoryuken or break a combo, you have to have enough meter to do it. It’s just like anything else you buy. You can’t have it for free. Could you imagine playing an RPG where nothing cost money/coins/rupees in the shops? You could have a whole bunch of stuff without paying for it and the whole game would be easy. Same principles apply with the super meter. Zangief could walk up and do a Final Atomic Buster anytime he wants, and without “random inputs”, he’d only have to press two buttons. Does that sound like fun to you?

See what happens when you take those “Random Inputs” out of Street Fighter. Look at Guile in this video.

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Benimaru: “Do you understand?”

#8

lol, must be a Korean port…

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#9

Umm, that video of Guile is interesting but doesn’t it just discredit Capcom’s ability to balance a game and not the importance of super meters and special combinations of inputs? I’ve played RTS far more and they don’t have complicated inputs for anything and are far more competitive in my opinion than any fighter. Chess is competitive as hell and doesn’t require inputs that are complex, solely the ability to read. Complicated inputs are a capcom thing that are being phased out, and they improperly phased it out if that Guile video is any indication. There are laser locks in brawl, banana locks, but it’s part of the metagame and you can do a lot to reduce your vulnerability to those, don’t get bair’ed off a ledge and don’t get grabbed to jabbed at exactly a 1% region. But there is barely anyone pulling this stuff off in tournaments because it’s so hard to setup and the people that do (DEHF only) are on a whole other level. And he only did it 3 times in 13 matches of grand finals.

Complicated inputs, tech skill, are not the only things that make a fighter. Consistency, mindgames, yomi, playing to win are what make a fighter competitive and the ability to do that. Brawl has one thing admittedly against it in that region, tripping. It really should be a standard to mod that out.

#10

Umm, that video of Guile is interesting but doesn’t it just discredit Capcom’s ability to balance a game and not the importance of super meters and special combinations of inputs? I’ve played RTS far more and they don’t have complicated inputs for anything and are far more competitive in my opinion than any fighter. Chess is competitive as hell and doesn’t require inputs that are complex, solely the ability to read. Complicated inputs are a capcom thing that are being phased out, and they improperly phased it out if that Guile video is any indication. There are laser locks in brawl, banana locks, but it’s part of the metagame and you can do a lot to reduce your vulnerability to those, don’t get bair’ed off a ledge and don’t get grabbed to jabbed at exactly a 1% region. But there is barely anyone pulling this stuff off in tournaments because it’s so hard to setup and the people that do (DEHF only) are on a whole other level. And he only did it 3 times in 13 matches of grand finals.

Complicated inputs, tech skill, are not the only things that make a fighter. Consistency, mindgames, yomi, playing to win are what make a fighter competitive and the ability to do that. Brawl has one thing admittedly against it in that region, tripping. It really should be a standard to mod that out.

#11

Or how about this. Why don’t they redesign the game so that you can do over punch for a fireball. As it stands now, Street Fighter is very archaic. Fighting games are the only games to use those motions when every other game genre out there has different inputs and you never have to put in a motion. Also, people only buy arcade sticks for fighting games. You don’t see a Halo fan walk into Gamestop and buy an arcade stick. People don’t want to drop almost $80 for an arcade stick that wont work for most games, is hard to store, and not the most comfortable to use when you can buy a standard controller for, at most, $40 which is easy to store, easy to hold and works for every game you may own. Basically, everything else has changed, but fighting games refuse to. This is why Smash Brothers can in and dominated.

Also, a super meter is a horrible idea. There is nothing interesting about it and nothing that makes it stand out from other games. Smash Balls are fun because you have to chase them down, and you can still steal it back from your opponent. That’s the thing you’re forgetting; the Smash Ball is fun. There is nothing fun about building your meter. It’s too mechanical. You’d also have to weaken the normal Final Smashes as if players are going to routinely get them, then they have to be weaker. You can fill your bar and get a Landmaster. Then, you remove the fun of controlling a powerful attack. They have to be weaker to accommodate the game.

Also, how are supped up special moves that great? Do we really need a better version of Link’s boomerang, or Captain Falcon’s Raptor Boost.

The problem here Kuma is your stealing the playbook of the losing team. The question should not be “How can Smash learn other fighting games,” it’s “How can fighting games learn from Smash.” There is no question that Smash is far more successful then all these other fighting games out there and, after three games, still continues to grow. Contrast this to other fighting games where their sales usually go down. Smash is doing things right, while the other guys are doing things wrong. Customers vote for their wallet and they sure as heck are not voting for fighting games. They vote for Smash.

#12

super meter? This isn’t Street Fighter.

#13

-using your opinion of “fun” as part of your argument?
-attributing Smash’s commercial success to its input simplicity, when it obviously gets so much sales because of the nintendo characters
-totally misunderstanding why arcade sticks are used, and obviously knows nothing about real arcade environments

-_- jesus christ Smashchu … embarrass your community more, please.

#14

What Smashchu said would just kill the fighters, not put them over Smash.

Smash is a fanservice fighter attracting multiple Nintendo fandoms (and with Brawl, Sonic and Metal Gear fandoms). The average fighter has their fandom centralized on the fighter itself. Smash’s is more diverse and widespread. That easily will make up enough sales to match Street Fighter. Smash was destined to reap the gold

Items and Smashballs are just tiny details when you look at the big picture of why Smash sells. It would sell without the item Bullshit. Hell, it would sell if they just copypasted Street Fighter’s gameplay on it. Unless it was unplayable gameplaywise, it’d be hard to ruin Smash commercially.

But if say Street Fighter redesigned itself to emulate Smash, it would fucking fail. The traditional fans wouldn’t pick it up and casual Smash fans wouldn’t pick up up a Smash clone without their favorite Nintendo characters in. Only people who would be interested would be fans of both Smash and Street Fighter which are MUCH smaller market.

jesus christ Smashchu…WTF was that post?

on-topic: A Super meter would be fine as long as Supers aren’t Final Smash strong. You’d just need a good system for filling it.

#15

What this guy said.

I like Smash Bros because it’s different.

#16

It’ll never happen, to be perfectly honest. I think Brawl is great because it ISN’T a super serious fighter with precise inputs and timing, it’s a competitive party game that has some depth, but not too much.

#17

The great appeal of Smash Brothers is how it’s easy to learn but takes forever to master. This may add too much complication to the controls, but I think this can still be a fun way to play and might add a new layer of strategy. But the other great part about Smash Brothers is that you can customize a lot of the rules to fit your needs (if only tripping had an off button…). All there needs to be is an on/off switch for this idea and everything could work pretty well.

#18

You need to try Brawl+. You can turn off tripping, and it’s essentially Melee 2.0 (if that’s you’re kind of thing). I do agree with your comments on the appeal of smash, but I would say that it’s much quicker to master than street fighter or other “serious” fighting games.

#19

You misunderstood. I was saying all the super meter idea needs is an on/off switch. But I disagree that Smash is a lot quicker to master than other fighting games. You can say that about barlw, just not Melee.

#20

OH! Sorry for misunderstanding. That IS a good idea, but just turning that on or off would totally change the way you play the game, which I guess could be good or bad. I agree with your thoughts on difficulty of learning Melee as well. I spent many many hours on that game and still didn’t master it or really come close even.