SSB4

[Manspeed]

Aug 6, 2011 0:04:05 GMT -5 Da Robot said:

In terms of Assist Trophies, maybe there's some way they could evolve the concept of it, maybe more interactivity/control over what, when and where and how they attack.

It's funny you mention that because I was just thinking about something like this the other day.

I figured instead of picking up Assist Trophies mid-fight like Pokéballs, you'd be given a separate select screen with a pool of Assist characters (sorta like Marvel vs. Capcom 1 or the Assist Koma from Jump Super Stars). Each player would choose one Assist to go with their player character.

During the fight, you'd have an "Assist" button that you'd press to summon your assistant. Each assistant would have 3 attacks, executed by pressing 'button', 'button + up' or 'button + down'. There would of course have to be some sort of limit on how many times you can summon the Assist, or how long you must wait between each summon.

[Prince~Of~Light]

Aug 6, 2011 11:36:20 GMT -5 Manspeed said:

Aug 6, 2011 0:04:05 GMT -5 Da Robot said:

In terms of Assist Trophies, maybe there's some way they could evolve the concept of it, maybe more interactivity/control over what, when and where and how they attack.

It's funny you mention that because I was just thinking about something like this the other day.

I figured instead of picking up Assist Trophies mid-fight like Pokéballs, you'd be given a separate select screen with a pool of Assist characters (sorta like Marvel vs. Capcom 1 or the Assist Koma from Jump Super Stars). Each player would choose one Assist to go with their player character.

During the fight, you'd have an "Assist" button that you'd press to summon your assistant. Each assistant would have 3 attacks, executed by pressing 'button', 'button + up' or 'button + down'. There would of course have to be some sort of limit on how many times you can summon the Assist, or how long you must wait between each summon.

Great concept! Let me see how I would vision how would they be improved up.

-The Assist Trophies have their own HP-meter, and can thus be hit. If their HP is depleted, they're gone. There's though some sort of item where you can revive them back.

-About the HP meter-idea, the AT's can be given back health by finding food. They'll eat it too. Though if there's one great food item (Maxim Tomato, Heart Container, etc), then after you eat, you share it with your partner in the same style as Kirby Super Star, or similar.

-The AT's can pick items like regular characters- some can take battering ones, others are specialised on throwable items.

- Maybe in the way of making the character more easier to help you, it's more ideal to let them follow you when you move. (like helpers in Kirby Super Star.)

- Your partner have their own standard attacks, which are everything, save for Smash attacks and grabs. You can give them commands with the Assist-button commands (like what Dinosaur wrote), which are their special moves. Sometimes they use them in their own to deal more damage and knockback.

- The characters can recover with their own recovery moves when launched out, but you can also call them back with a Space Jump if they're kinda away from your reach. To prevent this being too cheap, there's recharge of using it to call back your partner nearby, but not far.

-You can let them accompany you in the Classic Mode. If you do so, you acguire your Assist Trophy's trophy too.

-Each character has an ultimate attack which is so powerful that they have to leave your party after the use. They're not though Final Smashes. These are like very great attacks which can be compared those of strong damage and knockback-dealing PKMN or some good Assist Trophies.

This'll IMO can really evolve the concept of AT's, maybe so much to give them a name of "Partner Trophies".
They could be much more fun to use than AT's since they can do more and help you very well out. Also, these can be integrated if they can't be given much moves to make them playables.

I mean, think characters like... Prince Sable. (Assuming we all've been playing translated FTFTBT)- Sakurai might think he can't do much enough to have potential moveset.
But if he was made into a partner trophy, they could give him attacks original to him, and also integrate some moves from his game, without sweating too much as in making a playable character.

Prince Sable then attacks with his Snake Killer-sword, along with having great jump attributes. His standard assist move could be lunging into the opponent and attack him rapidly or similar: the more he has health and more the enemy has damage, the more successful is the attack and it's finishing knockback.
Also he defends with Mirror Shield at times. Sometimes he throws Wasabi at the opponent to make him trip or go dizzy (maybe one of his assist moves)

(There's more I could think of but I leave it here)

These ideas might make the Assist Trophies broken, but so far these are drafts- maybe I'll improve on these later.

So, what you think?

[Boo Destroyer]

I approve. Well done. That Assist Trophy idea does need more tuning up like that.

With the way they worked in Brawl, there was just something kind of.........lazy about that. Using a few attacks that mostly miss and then disappearing after a short time? Some assistance.

[Prince~Of~Light]

Aug 6, 2011 16:41:06 GMT -5 Boo Destroyer said:

I approve. Well done. That Assist Trophy idea does need more tuning up like that.

With the way they worked in Brawl, there was just something kind of.........lazy about that. Using a few attacks that mostly miss and then disappearing after a short time? Some assistance.

One name... SAKI.

Just. SAKI.

He always misses his foes.

Stafy... ugh, I still cry when he appears, as much as I love him, HE'S WORTHLESS when attacking.

[8bitretroshit]

Aug 6, 2011 11:36:20 GMT -5 Manspeed said:

I figured instead of picking up Assist Trophies mid-fight like Pokéballs, you'd be given a separate select screen with a pool of Assist characters (sorta like Marvel vs. Capcom 1 or the Assist Koma from Jump Super Stars). Each player would choose one Assist to go with their player character.

During the fight, you'd have an "Assist" button that you'd press to summon your assistant. Each assistant would have 3 attacks, executed by pressing 'button', 'button + up' or 'button + down'. There would of course have to be some sort of limit on how many times you can summon the Assist, or how long you must wait between each summon.

This would be a right step up from the regular summons, if handled well. Afterall the Jump Super Stars summons were an unbalanced clusterfuck, I wouldn't want to see everybody pick the same cheap helper with any fighter all the time.

One way of limiting summon spam would be with the use of ye olde power meter. Punch people/get punched and it fills up (speeds varying per assist) and once filled allows you to summon said assist. Perhaps slap a level system on it with Manfrog's 3 different attacks idea: filling the bar once gets you a weak assist, filling it thrice and you can summon your helper to do a heavier attack. That or just take Card Sagas Wars' system where you get a random assist every time you fill up that bar, getting stronger summons if you 'save up'.


Either that or the possibility to earn Final Smash attacks the power meter way. I like items 'n all, but being able to pull special moves/assists by fighting for it instead of picking up an item is more satisfying.

[Koopaul]

I don't know. What about ATs like Andross or Metroid? This might not work.

[Boo Destroyer]

Aug 6, 2011 18:27:35 GMT -5 Koopaul said:

I don't know. What about ATs like Andross or Metroid? This might not work.

Some could stay, but some could be removed.

These two could easily be moved over to boss and enemy roles, respectively.

[Prince~Of~Light]

I thought more about that some AT''s could stay as they are (like Dr.Wright, what to do with him anymore if there's no more AT?), and then there's those "partner" assist trophies, working in the way like Dinosaur and 8Bit put it. (-lvl-)

But surely they might come up with new AT's, which we wish aren't characters that deserved to be playable.

[Koopaul]

True, I'm not a fan of ATs that act like fighters because then... well they should have been fighters! I think I want more ATs to be things that absolutely can't be playable like a Kracko assist.

[Dances in Undergarments]

I'm digging the assist idea (though Horsetail's ideas for it are waaaay too complicated). There is a lot of potential there.

I also don't see why characters like Andross and Metroid couldn't be included with assists like this, either. I mean, its dependent on how exactly the system is implemented, but they could certainly work.

[Manspeed]

My idea was basically to just have a character appear, do the attack you picked, then disappear. Maybe depending on the attack they'd run up to a target. Nothing more, nothing less. All you'd need is some sort of limit on the summoning.

Some of the existing Assists would be hard to pull off due to being too large, not having more than one attack, or just not attacking at all (in the case of Nintendog). Like Boo said, I'd rather have the likes of Andross and whatnot just be bosses or enemies.

[Dances in Undergarments]

I wouldn't even think they'd need more than 1 attack, to be honest. I'd just have you hit the button and the assist does its 'assisting'. You could perhaps have different levels of attacks as 8bit suggested, but I wouldn't bother having 3 different moves that are activated with different button presses.

I also wouldn't necessarily restrict it to just plain attacks. As an example, Tails could be an assist, and when summoned could act as an extra recovery for your character. A Metroid could, potentially, latch onto an opponent and build up their % whilst shrinking yours in the process. Etcetera, etcetera.

[Manspeed]

I just wanted to give the players a little more freedom of choice. Maybe just have it be like Marvel vs. Capcom where each Assist has three attacks but you can only pick one after choosing it on the selection screen, then during the match that'll be the attack it uses when you summon it.

[Prince~Of~Light]

I still support the multiple attacks. Don't really wish AT's seem not much that improved from last time.

[Dances in Undergarments]

Aug 7, 2011 11:29:46 GMT -5 Manspeed said:

I just wanted to give the players a little more freedom of choice. Maybe just have it be like Marvel vs. Capcom where each Assist has three attacks but you can only pick one after choosing it on the selection screen, then during the match that'll be the attack it uses when you summon it.

I do get where you are coming from, but I would feel that having 3 more attacks which are essentially special attacks - thereby giving each combatant 7 (!) - runs too much of a risk of every character becoming way too similar. After all, you can dress up attacks differently or whatever, but really there are only a finite number of potential attacks, and you're going to reach the point where attacks start repeating a lot quicker this way.

Regarding the MvC form of picking a move out of 3... well then why not just use the time required to implement 3 different character animations to use 3 different moves to perhaps implement 3 different characters with 3 different moves? Its the same result gameplay wise, but the perceived choice would be greater. And if at least a significant portion of wanting to implement this idea is to get more characters hanging around (which I'm certain it is), then surely having 3 one-attack assists does that more than 1 3-attack assist.