Let's Get Technical

All right, now that we're starting to get into the game engine, I think it'd be a good idea to finalize our plans about what advanced tech stuff we'll PLAN to have in the game. (Note that a lot of this stuff pops up by accident and is found by the community) Why now?  Some of these decisions have a large influence on the details of how the engine is programmed.

Wavedashing
Let's start with (in my opinion) the big one.  "Wavedashing" is one of those words that's often thrown around when comparing Melee and Brawl, often alongside words like "Melee elitists" and "Brawl is shit" (honestly, that's on the less offensive side of the spectrum).  While I wish there wasn't a technique that split the community so harshly, it's important to acknowledge that both types of people exist, and there are plenty of others that have less polarized opinions to consider.  On top of this, wavedashing is an extremely difficult technique that truly does separate beginners and advanced players by a good degree.

Therefore, I say that wavedashing should not be in our game, both to make the game more beginner-friendly and to maximize the potential fanbase. (Melee fans, don't worry, there's stuff for you guys too) For similar reasons, I say that L-canceling should not be in the game either, as it simply increases the number of buttons that need to be pressed to play at the same level as others.  Aerial attacks can simply have low landing lag without need for an extra input.

Dash Dancing
To keep the game from feeling too clunky for Melee players (hopefully), I say Melee's dash dancing and general dashing mechanics should be kept—long dash-startup animations, cancelable into dashing in the other direction, the ability to instantly shield out of a dash/run, and the ability to preserve momentum when jumping out of a dash.  Note that, when combined with higher, Melee-esque gravity levels (which I also assume are wanted, as it enables far more combos), this does mean that tech chases will be in the game.  If we wish to weaken these, we will thus use mechanics like wake-up grab or massive shield damage from wake-up attacks.

Chaingrabs
For better or worse, many grabs that allow follow-ups will allow another grab as that follow-up.  I'm personally not a big fan of chaingrabs, not because of balance or "easy damage" or anything, but because they're rather boring to watch and play against.  Hopefully, we'll be able to make chaingrabs not last for longer than ~30%, while still allowing other followups at higher percents.

Shields
A very unique mechanic that encourages (or rewards?) offensive play differently than most fighting games (chip damage vs. shield break/poke).  I don’t think this mechanic will get us in copyright trouble, as the number of smash knockoffs that use it is high (and none of them have been busted for it).  To be safer, we could instead use a bar indicating shield strength at the bottom, perhaps even similar to spirit in official Touhou fighters, though I think we should keep shields a thing (and balance them later, it's 3AM and I'm tired).  This also means that shield dropping should be kept if possible.

P-items, Spell Cards
An idea a few of us have discussed—hitting your opponent spawns P-items, gather them to gain meter that lets you use your Last Word (like a Final Smash).  While I certainly want to use my Last Word in non-item play (and have it more consistently than needing to break the stupid smash ball), using coin-like P-items, and a meter in general, will change the entire feel of the game, possibly making it snowbally, or comeback-oriented, or area-control based, or maybe even luck-based.

While we're on the topic of meter (a common mechanic in fighters, Soku's cards+spirit is its version of this), it seems that we're living in a low-projectile environment at the moment—our first character only has 2 projectile moves, one of which is semi-spammy.  The doomed project seemed to try to answer this by introducing unique attacks at the end of fully charged smashes—a concept originally seen on Black Mage in SSF2.  This is not the only way to implement projectile-heavy spell cards; A+B inputs can be used, and they can even use meter.  Perhaps we could burn meter on Spell Card usage, or use one meter for Spell Cards and another for Last Words.

Note that in a projectile-heavy environment, it's important to have ways of dealing with the spam, so we may need to use Soku's airdashes and/or buff shields against projectiles, give attacks graze frames, something.

None of this is final and, fortunately, none of it will need to be implemented for a while.  However, I'd like everyone to think about it and come up with a decision on these things; we can meet and discuss in maybe 2 weeks.

[b]Ledge options
As wavedashing isn't in the game, I think that there shouldn't be slower get-up animations when you're over 100%, as the safest way to get back onstage (release->midair jump->wavedash) isn't available.  As for whether ledges should behave like Sm4sh ledges or traditional Smash ledges, I'll make a poll and y'all will vote on it (unless someone makes a VERY convincing argument either way).

Other tech (RAR, ledge cancel, jump cancel grab, DACUS, glide toss, etc)
These are (generally) not as impactful nor as disliked as wavedashing, so I see no reason why they shouldn't be in the game.  They all simply involve the ability to cancel certain animations either a few frames in or under certain circumstances, and thus should be easy to implement.  (Hopefully Update vs. FixedUpdate won't fuck things up)

I think that's all for now.  I wrote stuff about incorporating humor into animations, but that can come later.

TL;DR
No wavedashing
Melee dash-dance
No L-canceling
Keep shields
No >100% slow ledge animations
Spell Cards?  Meter?

VOTE ON SM4SH VS TRADITIONAL LEDGES


...watch everyone be neutral on ledges...[/b]

Whether wavedashing is in or not all depends on the type of airdodge we decide to go with, since the exploit lies in whether you you can move during air dodging or not. It's not so much a question of wavedashing vs. no wavedashing, it's a question of Melee airdodges vs. Brawl airdodges.