Making a hypothetical balance patch and screwing with some kits

[youre_a_squib_now]

So I looked through the patch notes again.
I think this is all the introduction I'm going to give.

The crab tank duration nerf is fine, but I think it would be more interesting to nerf its range slightly instead. Nerfing its range would force it to position further forward, making it easier to splat or at least easier to force into ball form, giving the special more counterplay. I think this would keep it being fun to use. It already takes a few seconds to start shooting so yet another duration nerf would make it feel... not the best.

I'm assuming you made the machine changes based on chara's video on the subject, but he actually suggests reducing the interval by two frames, not three, and I think I agree with him. Machine was meta for a reason (and even with the 5 frame nerf, neo machine is starting to see a fair bit of use), and you only reduced the indirect radius by 5%, so a three frame buff (relative to 7.0) is a bit too much. Zooka is getting nerfed though so a two frame buff should be okay.

I think nerfing jet's paint is fine, but 15% seems like a lot, especially since that's a radius nerf. This decreases the actual amount of paint at the landing point by almost 28%. I don't see any reason for this much of a nerf, considering it's not that great of a weapon right now anyway. 5 or 10% feels more fair.

The dualie squelcher buffs I don't have any problems with, but I think together they might be a bit too much. It has weaker kits at the moment, but wave and chumps are both getting buffs, and idk if you've changed those kits. I think until we can test it, removing the damage buff makes the most sense, since the shots are supposed to be weak and 30 is a very good combo number.

For wave breaker, the player has to choose whether to shoot the wave breaker, jump over the waves, or tank the damage. Right now, the wave breaker is very easily destroyed, but you fixed that. The waves are also extremely easy to jump over. Having 4 of them fixes this to some extent, but I think slightly increasing the height of the waves would be a helpful change as well, making jumping over the waves require more commitment and making you more vulnerable while doing so. Your damage buff makes tanking the damage more unappealing when it was already the worst of the three options, and the wave doing more damage doesn't make a difference if it is just jumped over every time. So I think this should be removed.

The tri-stringer changes just seem odd to me. The strafe speed is a really cool aspect of the weapon that also separates it from chargers; why nerf it? Also, good bow players already feel fairly oppressive to fight, but it requires a lot of skill. Opening that up to lower skills (with the damage buffs) sounds like a nightmare.
Instead, I propose that we increase its movement speed while charging or charged by, say, 5%. A fairly small buff, but it should help its matchups against quite a few weapons, especially chargers. This plus the chargers' range nerfs should be enough to let bow compete with them fairly well. (If you're worried about the movement speed overlapping with with reef-lux and taking away from that weapon's identity, give it the same buff. It deserves it.)


And now the part where I just... don't understand the reasoning behind some of these.

Can you explain the inkjet boost buff? I don't really see any reason for it. it's pretty good at dodging as is, and shorter range weapons already have a slightly hard time shooting it down. Inkjet also doesn't seem like a special that particularly needs buffed.

A small hp nerf for booyah makes sense, but why the radius nerf? What problem does this solve?
also, what is the "charge scaling"? Is this a change to special gauge charging or booyah bomb charging? And why was it changed?

Why was blaster changed to lightweight? It's literally the "default" blaster.

Did you change octobrush's damage buff to a falloff buff? You said you were going to (message #23) but I don't see it in the patch notes anywhere.

Same for undercover. Pretty sure you were going to reduce the damage buff. (#25)

Why the paint reduction for curling? The damage one makes sense I guess to avoid shredding splash walls and such, but I don't see any reason to nerf the paint.

Vac is one of the weakest specials atm and i don't remember it getting any buffs in riibalanced. Being able to end it early would be nice but that could be hard to implement and idk how else it could be buffed.

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

I will spare you my thoughts on chargers for now

 

[Terret]

So I looked through the patch notes again.
I think this is all the introduction I'm going to give.

The crab tank duration nerf is fine, but I think it would be more interesting to nerf its range slightly instead. Nerfing its range would force it to position further forward, making it easier to splat or at least easier to force into ball form, giving the special more counterplay. I think this would keep it being fun to use. It already takes a few seconds to start shooting so yet another duration nerf would make it feel... not the best.

Fair point. The change was more for a consistency thing because of Stamp being 7.5 seconds for some reason. gear dependency came to mind for the change but I could change it back.

I'm assuming you made the machine changes based on chara's video on the subject, but he actually suggests reducing the interval by two frames, not three, and I think I agree with him. Machine was meta for a reason (and even with the 5 frame nerf, neo machine is starting to see a fair bit of use), and you only reduced the indirect radius by 5%, so a three frame buff (relative to 7.0) is a bit too much. Zooka is getting nerfed though so a two frame buff should be okay.

Not only Chara's video but also a bit from Madness, another top player who specializes in midlines and buckets, who wanted the frames on Machine back. Neo machine is being used a LOT because of zooka and sensor at 190p for an AOE weapon so changing the neo kit and nerfing fizzy and booyah should be enough to fix this from being an issue but only testing can tell.

I think nerfing jet's paint is fine, but 15% seems like a lot, especially since that's a radius nerf. This decreases the actual amount of paint at the landing point by almost 28%. I don't see any reason for this much of a nerf, considering it's not that great of a weapon right now anyway. 5 or 10% feels more fair.

Because in its current playstyle, it is genuinely very boring and borderline unhealthy for the game. Because of this, I wanted to try to make an approach to make it more of a fighter by lowering paint but giving it a completely guranteed fourshot and for kits, an aggro and enabler kit. Its paint is still pretty good from what I've been using so I think it'll be fine.

The dualie squelcher buffs I don't have any problems with, but I think together they might be a bit too much. It has weaker kits at the moment, but wave and chumps are both getting buffs, and idk if you've changed those kits. I think until we can test it, removing the damage buff makes the most sense, since the shots are supposed to be weak and 30 is a very good combo number.

Dualie Squelchers might have been overbuffed. The kits are actually okay for them, even without buffs to the components but the weapons themselves were fairly weak. In terms of what the changes do, it doesn't change major interactions for wave and VDS as a main weapon. Chumps and CDS is a big interaction but one I feel is a fair one.

For wave breaker, the player has to choose whether to shoot the wave breaker, jump over the waves, or tank the damage. Right now, the wave breaker is very easily destroyed, but you fixed that. The waves are also extremely easy to jump over. Having 4 of them fixes this to some extent, but I think slightly increasing the height of the waves would be a helpful change as well, making jumping over the waves require more commitment and making you more vulnerable while doing so. Your damage buff makes tanking the damage more unappealing when it was already the worst of the three options, and the wave doing more damage doesn't make a difference if it is just jumped over every time. So I think this should be removed.

I do have to disagree with the last part specifically. The difference between some of the stronger specials and wave in terms of value is astronomical. While wave is creating three underwhelming shockwaves, you got crabs efficiently holding down area, strikes melting everything, and Zooka getting a random triple. Due to this, I genuinely think Wavebreaker two-shotting is fair. Increasing the height I'll look into but if two of its options were addressed, I'm not entirely sure how much I'll do it.

The tri-stringer changes just seem odd to me. The strafe speed is a really cool aspect of the weapon that also separates it from chargers; why nerf it? Also, good bow players already feel fairly oppressive to fight, but it requires a lot of skill. Opening that up to lower skills (with the damage buffs) sounds like a nightmare.
Instead, I propose that we increase its movement speed while charging or charged by, say, 5%. A fairly small buff, but it should help its matchups against quite a few weapons, especially chargers. This plus the chargers' range nerfs should be enough to let bow compete with them fairly well. (If you're worried about the movement speed overlapping with with reef-lux and taking away from that weapon's identity, give it the same buff. It deserves it.)

Good bow players ARE oppressive to fight, but in comparison to chargers and splatlings, not NEARLY as much. Because of this, I do genuinely think it deserves better damage overall. 32.5 on the explosions might be pushing it though so I'll give it back its movement speed and set the explosions back to 30. As for a movement speed BUFF, alright.

Can you explain the inkjet boost buff? I don't really see any reason for it. it's pretty good at dodging as is, and shorter range weapons already have a slightly hard time shooting it down. Inkjet also doesn't seem like a special that particularly needs buffed.

This is probably the only change where looking back, I had no reason to do this. I guess the SQ major having no inkjet whatsoever made me think it wouldn't be dumb. I'll revert it and think of a less annoying buff for it.

A small hp nerf for booyah makes sense, but why the radius nerf? What problem does this solve?
also, what is the "charge scaling"? Is this a change to special gauge charging or booyah bomb charging? And why was it changed?

Radius nerf came with a LOT of other strong specials that also recieved some form of radius nerf. This was intended to lower the power level of stronger specials by a small margin. As for the charge scaling, it's a change to special gauge for when teammates booyah. This was intended to increase the reward for helping a booyah charge and in turn, make it slightly better for regrouping.

Why was blaster changed to lightweight? It's literally the "default" blaster.

Honestly, I genuinely thought it'd be okay for Blaster considering I also gave Squiffer and L-3, with plans to give it to mini.

Did you change octobrush's damage buff to a falloff buff? You said you were going to (message #23) but I don't see it in the patch notes anywhere.

Same for undercover. Pretty sure you were going to reduce the damage buff. (#25)

I genuinely forgot about the Undercover one. Brush I thought about and then remembered it used to twoshot in 1 at close enough range with damage up. I do genuineely think Octo is fine at 42. It doesn't change any major interactions in that regard.

Why the paint reduction for curling? The damage one makes sense I guess to avoid shredding splash walls and such, but I don't see any reason to nerf the paint.

Curling is meant to be a movement tool. If something that only costs 45% of your ink tank is painting that well, there's a problem.

Vac is one of the weakest specials atm and i don't remember it getting any buffs in riibalanced. Being able to end it early would be nice but that could be hard to implement and idk how else it could be buffed.

I really don't know how to approach vac because I can't program it to cancel the shot. Because of that, I'm really hesitant to touch it.

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

A lot of really good points here. Also a lot of things that are really hard to determine without testing.

Because in its current playstyle, it is genuinely very boring and borderline unhealthy for the game. Because of this, I wanted to try to make an approach to make it more of a fighter by lowering paint but giving it a completely guranteed fourshot and for kits, an aggro and enabler kit. Its paint is still pretty good from what I've been using so I think it'll be fine.

I think because of the kits helping it have a more aggressive playstyle, it doesn't need as much of a paint nerf. In fact, because of having kraken as a special, having better paint might actually help it play more aggressively, since having a kraken ready is a good answer to if a short range weapon is rushing it.

I do have to disagree with the last part specifically. The difference between some of the stronger specials and wave in terms of value is astronomical. While wave is creating three underwhelming shockwaves, you got crabs efficiently holding down area, strikes melting everything, and Zooka getting a random triple. Due to this, I genuinely think Wavebreaker two-shotting is fair. Increasing the height I'll look into but if two of its options were addressed, I'm not entirely sure how much I'll do it.

Buffing two of them makes it more important to buff the third. Otherwise having a choice is pointless because the choice is basically made for you. No matter how strong the waves are, if jumping over them takes little to no effort, that is what people are going to always do. The same applies the other way around; if getting hit by a wave does almost nothing but it's a pain to jump over, people are going to tank the damage every time. This is equally bad. There need to be at least some situations that make each of the three options the preferred answer. Making the waves taller and leaving the damage at 45 means that tanking the damage could actually be a viable strategy sometimes, but with 55 damage this would almost certainly not be the case.

Good bow players ARE oppressive to fight, but in comparison to chargers and splatlings, not NEARLY as much. Because of this, I do genuinely think it deserves better damage overall. 32.5 on the explosions might be pushing it though so I'll give it back its movement speed and set the explosions back to 30.

The range reduction for chargers should fix most of this. I think bow's matchups against splatlings are pretty fair, but it's hard to tell since both of them are so overshadowed by chargers.

As for a movement speed BUFF, alright.

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or what, but I do think this would be the best way to buff this weapon. (And flux. I was serious about that one too.) It would let it back up slightly when the charger has charge, and advance slightly when it does not.
I think this is starting to bleed into the charger thoughts that I was saving for later. so I'll save this for later.

Radius nerf came with a LOT of other strong specials that also recieved some form of radius nerf. This was intended to lower the power level of stronger specials by a small margin.

I'm fine with nerfing booyah, but why the radius specifically? I don't think it's a bad change, but having a purpose when changing things is important, and I'm not sure what purpose this change could serve.

Honestly, I genuinely thought it'd be okay for Blaster considering I also gave Squiffer and L-3, with plans to give it to mini.

Again, what is the purpose behind this? What's the issue you're trying to address and how does this address it?

I really don't know how to approach vac because I can't program it to cancel the shot. Because of that, I'm really hesitant to touch it.

I completely see where you're coming from here, but also... I really want vac to be not terrible, and it's painful to see everything else get buffs but not this

 

[Terret]

A lot of really good points here. Also a lot of things that are really hard to determine without testing.


I think because of the kits helping it have a more aggressive playstyle, it doesn't need as much of a paint nerf. In fact, because of having kraken as a special, having better paint might actually help it play more aggressively, since having a kraken ready is a good answer to if a short range weapon is rushing it.

Fair, I’ll give some of it back.

Buffing two of them makes it more important to buff the third. Otherwise having a choice is pointless because the choice is basically made for you. No matter how strong the waves are, if jumping over them takes little to no effort, that is what people are going to always do. The same applies the other way around; if getting hit by a wave does almost nothing but it's a pain to jump over, people are going to tank the damage every time. This is equally bad. There need to be at least some situations that make each of the three options the preferred answer. Making the waves taller and leaving the damage at 45 means that tanking the damage could actually be a viable strategy sometimes, but with 55 damage this would almost certainly not be the case.

Wave at 55 I genuinely think is necessary. Less so now since Dread D doesn’t have it anymore, but still important. In fact, from multiple high level players, they want wave to twoshot, which was crazy to me too at first, but the idea grew on me. Maybe the fact it’s four waves makes it crazier than it was meant to be.

The range reduction for chargers should fix most of this. I think bow's matchups against splatlings are pretty fair, but it's hard to tell since both of them are so overshadowed by chargers.

It won’t. Otherwise, there might have been some usage in 4.1. It could be argued it was due to Zooka and Jet, but Splatlings were still very strong and Pencil wasn’t being picked too much at the time and bow still saw no use.

I can't tell if this is sarcasm or what, but I do think this would be the best way to buff this weapon. (And flux. I was serious about that one too.) It would let it back up slightly when the charger has charge, and advance slightly when it does not.
I think this is starting to bleed into the charger thoughts that I was saving for later. so I'll save this for later.

The way I said this looking back felt wrong. I am giving the mobility buff to bow. As for Flux, full air charge speed came to mind for mobility (and I gave it a kit now splat bomb zip) so that in tandem with an actual bomb should fix the

I'm fine with nerfing booyah, but why the radius specifically? I don't think it's a bad change, but having a purpose when changing things is important, and I'm not sure what purpose this change could serve.

My intention, along with the light inkjet nerf was to decrease the power level of stronger specials because if that bar for a decent special keeps going up, I fear it will get to a genuinely problematic level. This helps in that it makes Booyah that little bit less oppressive.

Again, what is the purpose behind this? What's the issue you're trying to address and how does this address it?

Blaster is fine as a main weapon, aside from the jump rng being stupidly bad. In theory. In execution, it has two meh kits with its frame data while amazing, not doing it any favors in midrange matchups.
More than anything, I kind of wanted to give it leverage to actually compete with range which imo is in an almost perfect spot in the game right now.

I completely see where you're coming from here, but also... I really want vac to be not terrible, and it's painful to see everything else get buffs but not this

I’ll figure something out, but its strengths are pretty extreme. Not as much as bubble and it’s not as problematic as wail, but still a bit scary to touch, especially since a lot of what could be buffed will likely cause a problem if it is.

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

Wave at 55 I genuinely think is necessary. Less so now since Dread D doesn’t have it anymore, but still important. In fact, from multiple high level players, they want wave to twoshot, which was crazy to me too at first, but the idea grew on me. Maybe the fact it’s four waves makes it crazier than it was meant to be.

If you do 55 you shouldn't increase the height too much, but I still think it should be increased because if no one hits the waves, the damage change doesn't do anything.

It won’t. Otherwise, there might have been some usage in 4.1. It could be argued it was due to Zooka and Jet, but Splatlings were still very strong and Pencil wasn’t being picked too much at the time and bow still saw no use.

It should at least solve some of it. More buffs would not be a bad thing for it though but I'm not sure what buffs it should get.

I’ll figure something out, but its strengths are pretty extreme. Not as much as bubble and it’s not as problematic as wail, but still a bit scary to touch, especially since a lot of what could be buffed will likely cause a problem if it is.

Maybe run speed?

 

[Terret]

It should at least solve some of it. More buffs would not be a bad thing for it though but I'm not sure what buffs it should get.

Damage buff is probably going to be toned back specifically for the explosions. Mobility is a good change, only objection is how it kind of intersects with Splatlings in that regard but I think that’s fine.

Maybe run speed?

Run speed would be a good change since it allows the vac to enter more favorable positions more quickly. Maybe an increase in maximum suction but a decrease in time you can suck could help as well

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

This is gonna have to take second priority to modding my Wii U for pretendo, then
I've modded my Wii in the past so it should go smoothly, but due to some logistics i might not be able to for the switch
we'll see though

Pretendo is up and running!

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

Ultra stamp could probably use a hitbox buff on the underside of the stamp, to make it harder to shoot through. It should have counterplay, yes, but shooting directly at the front is the one thing it's supposed to protect you from.

 

[Terret]

Ultra stamp could probably use a hitbox buff on the underside of the stamp, to make it harder to shoot through. It should have counterplay, yes, but shooting directly at the front is the one thing it's supposed to protect you from.

I think that has to do with collision parameters which I currently am incapable to mess with. I am trying to address the hammer issue though

 

[a hot mess]

pablo needs a damage buff

 

[McSquid82]

I know this is kind of an old thread, but I think this belongs here. Chara and some other pros have started discussing weapons restrictions and bans over on YouTube. Normally I don't agree with such drastic measures but after over a year of this meta, things have stagnated and I agree something needs to change in the next balance patch. But to keep this brief, I'd say the three main culprits are Pencil, Cooler and Zooka. What do you think needs to happen? I have my thoughts, but I want to wait until everyone else weighs in.

 

[Terret]

I know this is kind of an old thread, but I think this belongs here. Chara and some other pros have started discussing weapons restrictions and bans over on YouTube. Normally I don't agree with such drastic measures but after over a year of this meta, things have stagnated and I agree something needs to change in the next balance patch. But to keep this brief, I'd say the three main culprits are Pencil, Cooler and Zooka. What do you think needs to happen? I have my thoughts, but I want to wait until everyone else weighs in.

That is a great thing to bring up. Honestly, I’d personally ban Zooka altogether with the potential exception of Tent. I feel like with less Zooka, crab can come back, and Zooka is the safest to ban. If Pencil is banned, there’s the potential issue of a very unhealthy Z+F meta and if cooler is banned, Zooka meta becomes even worse. While with Zooka banned, Pencil SEEMS too strong but you have to consider that Crab and Booyah become much better options into pencil to bring the game to more of what it was like in 4.0, but Jet isn’t as overbearing.

 

[OnePotWonder]

I know this is kind of an old thread, but I think this belongs here. Chara and some other pros have started discussing weapons restrictions and bans over on YouTube. Normally I don't agree with such drastic measures but after over a year of this meta, things have stagnated and I agree something needs to change in the next balance patch. But to keep this brief, I'd say the three main culprits are Pencil, Cooler and Zooka. What do you think needs to happen? I have my thoughts, but I want to wait until everyone else weighs in.

We're not far out from the mid-season patch now, only a couple more weeks. As far as balance is concerned, I'd like to see Snipewriter lose a bit of range (and deal 65 damage because round numbers), Zooka get more startup and a longer delay between its shots, and if we're very, very lucky, Cooler's Special Saver being reduced to only 29 AP, the same as its Run Speed and Swim Speed effects.

If you're asking about what to ban, I agree largely with Terret because I despise Zooka. Banning double Cooler also seems a good idea.

 

[McSquid82]

Thanks for the replies and I'm on board with all of the changes everyone has suggested so far. Another idea I've had is that Pencil can keep its range but not its paint. Reduce the width of the strips it lays down by around 10 percent to start with and that would cut its paint output considerably. I think with the changes OnePotWonder suggested, Zooka wouldn't be nearly as OP as it is now, and you might not have to ban or restrict it. I would increase VShot's PFS to 210 like the Squeezer. That way it's not nearly as spammable without gear dependency. People might have to alter their builds from what they're using now to add some Special Charge Up.

 

[youre_a_squib_now]

I still haven't typed out what I think about chargers but I just thought of a thing that could singlehandedly make them feel so much more fair to fight.

make squid rolls work against them.

It wouldn't have the same problem ink armor did because you can't just walk up to a charger and be safe; you have to proactively squid roll and predict when they are going to shoot. This also gives the charger a chance to delay their shot if they see the squid roll, and shoot after the armor goes away.

Basically it makes there be mindgames on both sides, and makes the gameplay feel more interactive instead of just "don't peek the charger"

I think one-shot blasters should stay as they currently are though. Their shots are very predictable, and once they push the button they can't change when it comes out, unlike chargers. And blasters aren't the ones that need changed anyway.

 

[a hot mess]

make hydra's walk speed faster please..

 

[a hot mess]

We're not far out from the mid-season patch now, only a couple more weeks. As far as balance is concerned, I'd like to see Snipewriter lose a bit of range (and deal 65 damage because round numbers), Zooka get more startup and a longer delay between its shots, and if we're very, very lucky, Cooler's Special Saver being reduced to only 29 AP, the same as its Run Speed and Swim Speed effects.

If you're asking about what to ban, I agree largely with Terret because I despise Zooka. Banning double Cooler also seems a good idea.

but zooka is the only balanced special.. it'll just be a pain to play with if your idea comes to fruition..

 

[Terret]

I still haven't typed out what I think about chargers but I just thought of a thing that could singlehandedly make them feel so much more fair to fight.

make squid rolls work against them.

It wouldn't have the same problem ink armor did because you can't just walk up to a charger and be safe; you have to proactively squid roll and predict when they are going to shoot. This also gives the charger a chance to delay their shot if they see the squid roll, and shoot after the armor goes away.

Basically it makes there be mindgames on both sides, and makes the gameplay feel more interactive instead of just "don't peek the charger"

I think one-shot blasters should stay as they currently are though. Their shots are very predictable, and once they push the button they can't change when it comes out, unlike chargers. And blasters aren't the ones that need changed anyway.

I’m not completely sure if that’s a balance thing because charger shots if I’m not mistaken are already parryable. I genuinely think that’s an issue with netcode

 

[Terret]

but zooka is the only balanced special.. it'll just be a pain to play with if your idea comes to fruition..

Hahaha April fools, right? Please tell me you’re joking. If not, ig I got a lot to explain