Fighting Game Garbage: Tripping (Brawl)

[@BigYellowSilly]

Something I want to mention I just remembered, I remember seeing some people claim that things like F-Smash and Dash Attack can also fail and have you trip, but this doesn't seem to be true, it's the initial dash being cancelled that causes this, not the move itself. For example an F-Smash done with just the C-Stick will never make you trip. Btw again hope you don't mind me bringing up Kliff as an example of RNG done well it is very much debatable but I just love Kliff

[@ryanstudham640]

I actually think there's a few more obvious examples of randomness you could have brought up, like Pokemon's Protect (where it is often 'solved for' through alternating it with Substitute) and random draws in TCGs or poker (which can have and have had theses written about them). Totally understand if you wanted to stick to fighting games though. But the part I really wanted to talk about was the fact that I think Kliff being able to do a higher-damage punish combo only if he's willing to bet on having low/no stun is sick as fuck! There's options for exactly what combo you want to do, but they vary based on the resource you really should be keeping track of (and the size of your balls). To me, that one combo is everything that fighting games are: a risky option with more payout where the risk depends on your and your opponents' prior decisions. I'm going to convince my FGC friend to play +R with me so I can try this character.

[@spenser4885]

regarding kliff i definitely agree w/ your sentiment on the rng in his dodge, but i think in particular his super is a really awful use of RNG. he can either launch the opponent out of the super and get punished on hit, or get a lucky bounce towards him at the end and get a combo out of it, and i really dont like that at all. (great video as always tho, dont want to let that extremely tangential gripe overshadow that)

[@BigYellowSilly]

@@spenser4885 That's a very fair sentiment tbh, so far I've yet to have his super do anything extreme in either direction in a match, but once I do I'll probably feel the same lmao

[@ellachino4799]

@@BigYellowSilly I saw a chart with everyone's trip chances, and iirc Marth was actually one of the highest trippers

[@RiahGreen]

You gotta pin these my guy.

[@CharlieKraken]

I have heard one unironic defense for tripping in my life. It was all the way back in 8th grade when I was having a debate about it with another kid, and he defended it as a good mechanic because, and I quote, "It's really funny to see them fall."

[@GemmaBee14]

You know I change my mind I think he’s right

[@oof5992]

Sigma

[@RosalinaSama]

based

[@BigYellowSilly]

It does make a funny little noise so I will give them that

[@mythosinfinite6736]

I bet you Sakurai thought the same thing. That guy definitely went places.

[@hannahbriarly4192]

Random tripping increases the skill ceiling of falco dittos because you have to remember to walk and not dash while chain grabbing the fuck out of each other

[@critttler]

I guess like, I can see why tripping would be alluring as a mechanic to design in a party game. Theoretically, Winning a free for all casual game because your opponent randomly tripped into your falcon punch is a funny story the same way that a bomb-omb randomly spawning over you when youre doing an attack and killing you is a funny story. Thing is, Ive never heard a single positive thing about tripping from a casual brawl player either lmao.

[@illford]

Trip rate is way too damn high it's like 1% but your always running and dash dancing a bunch so it just sucks ass

[@DragoonCenten]

Only 6 people played brawl

[@mario-nk7be]

Tripping failed from the design standpoint since soccer guy did want to lower the skill gap and to deter competitive play. however, The fact that its in a *dash* kills any appeal it might have to casuals. There is not a single little timmy or first-time-picking-a-controler jimmy that would like that when trying to go fast their character hit the ground face first. It has negative cool factor It failed to stop competitive play from existing. While most players went back to melee, a competitive scene did form around brawl and was active until smash 4, and guess what: they fucking walked around everywhere. Check brawl footage and you'll see ppl walk a lot, bc of this horrid mechanic. Finally, its arguable that it actually widens the skill gap. Good players know not to commit to it, and can punish random trips better than casuals. I might also add how useless of an exercise it is to try and lower the skill gap between players, as it requires adding a radical amount of luck, to the point of turning it into a dice roller game. So tldr; it failed to lower the skill gap, it failed at stoping a competitive scene from forming, and it has negative cool factor, so it doesnt appeal to casuals in any way whatsoever. The more you look at it the more perplexing it is that it stayed in the game

[@lelouchvibritannia1818]

@@DragoonCenten brawl has more sales than the two previous entries (original and Melee) combined

[@scs44444]

@@lelouchvibritannia1818 brawl was definitely more popular casually, but this is also a terrible way to explain that. The Wii sold over twice the 64 and GameCube combined, and the ratio of sales of melee vs sales of the gamecube are actually significantly higher than brawl vs wii. Brawl Total Sales: ~13m Wii Total Sales: ~100m Ratio: ~0.13 Melee Total Sales: ~7m Gamecube Total Sales: ~22m Ratio: ~0.31 64 Total Sales: ~3m N64: ~33m Ratio:~0.09

[@sushiroll3795]

Healthy RNG vs Unhealthy RNG is one of the most interesting game design discussions in my opinion. RNG in general gets a bad rap due to unhealthy RNG being the most noticeable, and it's nice to see you explain why this specific usage of RNG is poorly executed, rather than simply claiming that it's bad because "RNG bad."

[@DragoonCenten]

RNG bad. There should always be a reason something happens and there's should usually be some kind of response to it happening.

[@derekallard4599]

The right kind of RNG can really make a game better. I watch way more speedruns than fighting game content, but it is easy to see why RNG would be considered bad. When trying to play the game as perfectly as possible, RNG can essentially be the chance that the game screws you over/forces a backup strat. When people play the same game hundreds of times trying to do it quicker, you would want the obstacles in the game to at least be manageable and have there be some predictable pattern to getting enemies to do what you want instead of just hoping for the best and possibly losing record runs because enemies didn't cooperate. I bring it up because I think plenty of games aren't designed with speedrunning in mind, and just the act of making cutscenes skippable would save time for people who are going to be playing your game the most. However, from a hardcore to even casual perspective, you don't want every enemy engagement in Dark Souls or a shooter to be the exact same thing every time. People aren't going to play a game as much if the same strategy continues to work. Needing to adapt and experiment with an enemy can be part of the fun. Games are more addictive when a person doesn't get the result they wanted the first time, every time. People wouldn't keep playing Roguelites if every single player could clear the game on their first run every time. Rewarding someone for a strategy that could backfire horribly or go incredibly right is fun. There is RNG designed to unexpectedly reward or challenge the player and make the experience more memorable. Then there's RNG that does nothing but waste time.

[@HellecticMojo]

@@DragoonCenten the reason is that probability landed on that chance

[@DragoonCenten]

@@HellecticMojo AKA "Just because for no reason"

[@HellecticMojo]

@@DragoonCenten no, it landed on that chance

[@researchinbreeder]

Minor thing at 6:07 but Ultimate's rendition of Judge stores 1 previous number to strike from the list, so it's 1/8. Smash 4 was the only entry to have 1/9, and by extension double 9s.

[@WhoIsSirChasm]

I knew Smash 4 had something besides Smash Run to be proud of!

[@randomname9723]

I thought it stored two numbers?

[@researchinbreeder]

@@randomname9723 it stores 2 in melee and (I think) brawl

[@nicocchi]

@@researchinbreeder it does in Brawl, but I didn't know it went back to storing the previous number in Ultimate. That's good to know. Sadly, the massively hype clips of G&W pulling like five 9s in a row are stuck in Smash 4

[@tezcanaslan2877]

@@WhoIsSirChasm pacman og death sound

[@porygonlover322]

A friend of mine who's more on the casual side of things explained the issue with tripping as "it makes it so there's a 1/100 chance that when you try to play Smash Bros you will not play Smash Bros". It doesn't really make the game any more fun or accessible for casual players because randomly tripping just feels bad no matter how skilled you are.

[@porygonlover322]

I think part of the problem from a casual perspective is that it's not bombastic enough to be fun party game randomness? Compare to the iconic casual Smash experience of having a Bob-Omb spawn in front of your smash attack - that's objectively way more bullshit, but that causes it to wrap around into slapstick comedy, where you and your friends can laugh at it when it happens. In a casual match your opponent probably won't even be able to get a follow-up from a random trip, and it won't feel cool or funny if they do. It's just bad all around.

[@porygonlover322]

One hour after making this comment I tripped and fell coming home from lunch, and while I'm uninjured I have learned my lesson and will not talk shit on Sakurai's grand design again

[@tcoren1]

While a lot more egregious, I think something like "all characters have a 10% to do a critical hit that deals X1.5 damage and knockback" would not be as bad. It would feel a lot more awesome from a casual side (the bombastic factor you mentioned), and while the competitive side would (justifiably) mald that RNG has such an impact on gameplay it would at least not disincentivize running around and dash dancing, things people find fun. And if sakurai's intent was to make it so a casual could occasionally win a match against a pro, well that would actually have a chance of making that possible

[@NatalieExists]

hell, if anything this WIDENS the gap between competitive and casual players, since more experienced players will typically be able to capitalize on the free opening better

[@joshshrum2764]

I never noticed it as a kid actually.

[@yxhsst]

tfw there's literally a -two- ONE line gecko code that disabled random tripping that existed as long as the game itself and they never allowed it in any tournaments

[@crack4184]

They wanted that game to fail

[@franslair2199]

​@@crack4184that's not even up to debate, tripping was specifically added to disincentivise competitive play

[@gilles4prezudent650]

The single most egregious thing about tripping is that against ice climbers, a trip is a lost stock, which incentivizes people to play ice climbers.

[@illford]

Tbf I like watching ICs but from a gameplay standpoint it sounds mad annoying so I can't even argue against its removal. I dunno how no one found that infinite in the first place

[@gilles4prezudent650]

@@illford I can see how, from a spectator's point of view, the IC's can be fun to watch. They're essentially a ticking time bomb, and that added tension can be fun to watch. But, as a player, you have to try and look for advantage in the safest, and most non-committal ways possible. Even if you out play your opponent several dozen times, you can still just lose because of a small over extension, or because you tripped.

[@MercuryPenny]

i went through a phase where i watched a bunch of old brawl vods years ago, and i don't remember a single icies match that was fun to watch. such a volatile character in a very, very not volatile game leads to boring stalemates, particularly since icies can struggle against zoning and platform camping, and the result is that icies matches tend to highlight all the worst parts of brawl as a competitive game (speaking as someone who likes watching brawl on rare occasions)

[@Lookitssteel]

This is why I set Ice climbers to CPU lv 1 for a 20 minute match daily. They’re so annoying and watching them suffer for their sins against my sanity is satisfying

[@epicthelegend9001]

I also think it's important to mention that Faust Item throw is built around the idea that Faust needs to interact with the item after it's thrown to get value. Most items he can't just toss and let them do all the work, he has to pick it up, or knock it towards the opponent, or create the rest of the pressure after or as it gives him an opening.

[@Guitar-Dog]

I really like peacock in Skullgirls for this.. She has a 1 bar super that's a big bomb that explodes after a certain amount of time but it will get pushed into opponent if you use the 3 bar super. Meaning it's a trap or extra damage. Kinda a tangent but item characters are cool

[@ucNguyen-gh9zn]

Same goes to platinum from blazblue. She has rng based moves consist of projectiles, powerful hits and more. The thing is platinum players must adapt to these given moves which open up a whole new layer of mechanic for them to master.

[@HoodWeegee]

@@Guitar-Dog And now they're kinda pulling that with Black Dahlia with her grenades. Her heavy reload makes the 3rd and 6th grenades either incendiary or be able to blow your enemy back and they each have their pros and cons. Incendiary can't hit an opponent on impact, but is a very evil set up tool that you can knock someone into or lock them down with for mix up and blowback is almost guaranteed to cause a wall bounce from anywhere for combo extensions, but it's reach is pitifully short. Every time she reloads, it's a coin flip on which special grenade will be where and now you have to decide if you want to roll with what you got if the grenade you want is 6th or take the chance a reload again with the possibility that the opponent can interrupt it even if you use an assist to help out.

[@quinnblackwood6397]

The dumbest thing in hindsight about random tripping being an inherently anti-dash-dancing mechanic, is that CPUs in Ultimate will actually dash-dance to mix you.

[@theofficialchannelofoffici7962]

I fucking cried when i first saw that btw, its so fucking funny that they do that

[@squidtheinconsistent]

Ultimates CPU is dumb. I've had a lvl 9 R.o.b. roll into the corner 8 times in a row without getting Roll staled, half the time it feels like its playing a completely different game.

[@ExaltedUriel]

I remember when Ultimate first came out and everyone was freaking out about how much better Lv. 9 CPU were than previous games, and how they'd actually read rolls and punish whiffed smashes instead of just having increased aggressiveness. Obviously it's still just CPU and it's far from ideal for practice but it does a better job of teaching players what to watch out for against actual players.

[@Rising_Lightning]

@@ExaltedUriel also remember how they literally had to get nerfed so people could unlock the characters

[@KeebyFan]

@@Rising_Lightning LMAO i do remember it was so funny, they nerfed them within the first week

[@pepperonipizza8200]

What always fascinates me is how the meta was created around tripping. Sure, Meta Knight is a busted character. But the fact that air camping to avoid tripping is one of his core strengths is hilarious.

[@DSaC_]

I always like to bring up how one of Marth's selling points in Brawl is that he has the highest walk speed in the game.

[@NinjaLobsterStudios]

​@@DSaC_ Lol i love playing Brawl Marth and thats one of the reasons why 😂😂😂

[@Receipt]

Shout out from 2024, I don't think the developers are playing like the pros during testing.

[@aguchamp7766]

I'll forever be amazed by how this was even a mechanic, like how the devs added this, and at no point during play testing did anyone realize how awful this was.

[@mypsizllez]

They realized it. They just wanted it. Makes me so sad.

[@SomniaCE]

They added it on purpose. It was just another thing they changed to spite the competitive community that sprouted up around Melee. That's why they gave so many moves almost no hitstun to remove combos, made movement slower, gave everyone magnet hands, adding tripping etc. Everything about Brawl's gameplay was not in the interest of improving the experience for the average player, but to spite the competitive scene.

[@SomniaCE]

You will never see such a brazen, unapologetic act of spite by a game dev ever again. Nothing comes close.

[@666blaziken]

This was made so sakurai could grab popcorn as he was watching the competitive matches

[@KeithTheGeek]

@@SomniaCE It's not that the moves have no hitstun, it's a mechanical feature of the game itself. You can cancel hitstun by airdodging or attacking, which would arguably be alright by itself as it's also present in Smash 4 and Ultimate and those games still have somewhat diverse combo routes. But the geniuses behind Super Smash Bros Brawl for the Nintendo Wii made it so you could airdodge out of hitstun absurdly early - after 13 frames, according to Smash Wiki. The only "feature" that I truly believe was added out of spite was tripping. Everything else makes sense when considering the Wii's large install base of casual players, and the fact they had to account for people playing this game on a friggin *sideways wiimote*.

[@gengarisnotinsmash...]

One thing I've heard with the random tripping is that it was meant to lower the gap between casual and pro players. A better player is likely using dash to make their movement better while a casual wouldn't really use it outside of charging at their opponent. The idea being that the better player is more likely to trip due to them using it more often. The low hitstun also kinda adds to this, it makes it harder for a good player to abuse a low level player with big combos.

[@Mepphy99]

this Just resulted in players playing the 5 characters with good aerial game tho GG Sakurai

[@EinDose]

It's almost an attempt to bring in what that one pro FPS player mentioned in that event that threw them into Street Fighter. In a shooter, you might luck out and blow up a pro player's spot, even if it's not gonna happen much. In fighting games, there's no chance of that... unless there IS, literally, a random chance of that.

[@NCozy]

Except the pro players just ended up not relying on dashing and instead use walking and jumps more the bad ones are more likely to trip

[@halbarroyzanty2931]

That may be what their thought process was, but it's pretty dumb. In practice, a good player is gonna avoid dashing more because they know about random tripping while a casual doesn't know it's there and will be fucked over by it more often

[@mythosinfinite6736]

It's a short-sighted decision in a game where its best competitive characters sre either in the air all of the time or walking everywhere.

[@MakeMeASandwich27]

Also wanted to say that your knowledge of fighting games as a whole rather than just whatever you are covering specifically adds a lot to these videos, keep up the good work

[@NurseValentineSG]

I've always seen it like this: If the RNG is caused by a player, it is ok. If you are fishing for an item as faust or for a 9 with Game and Watch, it is because you actively wanted to do that. Nobody actively wants to fish for a trip.

[@sablesalt]

biggest example of rng in fighting games is that whenever I play couch pvp the enemy always does different stuff every time and has a different tag than "cpu" and I think this is a massive bug that has been ignored for years by many developers

[@roboscout64]

The thing with faust’s item toss is that the randomness isn’t actually that unique. There’s plenty of situations in the game where reacting to a variety of options the opponent can do is expected. All faust’s item toss does is apply that situation to both players. As both faust and the opponent need to react to the result of item toss.

[@christiangleason122]

Isn't that basically what he said in the video? Or am I dumb and misunderstood what you're saying?

[@arcfieri5965]

I mean that's exactly what makes item toss so unique in most gear games, it requires quick decision making from both players, whereas most other options rely mainly on the player on the receiving end to deal with only. It also means that Faust needs a lot more situational awareness. Like for example in xrd fausts combos, pressure and even neutral can change drastically depending on what item he tosses. Like if Faust throws meteors he may be more likely to play more aggro in neutral or use the meteors to extend a blockstring opening up more mixup opportunities. Also off CH 6p usually you wanna toss an item since it has a decent chance of adding a large damage increase to the combo, hammer or weight hit on the way up which will just improve his normal air combo damage, but blacko hole leads into a much longer rejump string, as well as bomb and meteors being able to be used to extend the combo. But this is balanced by how the Faust player has to visually confirm what item he got and then take the correct actions while also being aware of the opponent's position and the game state at the time

[@trashman1791]

Its always so funny to me that the mechanic made to make the game more "fair" helps the 2 best characters in the game the most. MK can just stay in the air and ics can kill you at 0% if you trip

[@whereisspacebar2991]

"It's a good thing it never came back." *Looks at random untechables when at 100%+ in Smash 4* I guess there's always gotta be something.

[@duncathan_salt]

In fairness, the untechable spin animation was almost certainly an oversight, not an intended mechanic like Brawl's tripping.

[@elmaionesosexo]

@@duncathan_salt it was still pretty bad, i've heard that people took a lot of time to discover it because it "hide" itself

[@topazlight1586]

Random tripping seems to me like something that was added to potentially "even the playing field" in a sense, to give less experienced players a chance to pull out wins or at least get some good hits in, but it can obviously totally backfire and just screw them over even more because of how indiscriminate it is. IMO the idea solution would be just to have an ON/OFF toggle for it in the Options menu. That way you're never forced to deal with it, but you still have the option of playing with it on if for whatever reason you want to.

[@Bacchus325]

I think one of the biggest aspects of acceptable RNG is that it should be fun and fair. If it's a super fun mechanic people are more than willing to overlook it's flaws

[@ink3487]

Hehe top deck Hocus pocus thwack at 0

[@NCozy]

I think the Kliff example is good because the randomness has rules to it. Like when the RNG is dependent on something you can control then it becomes more about analyzing the situation, and in the case of Kliff managing your resources.

[@nobodyinparticular9640]

Or more like Managing your back Hah

[@amberhernandez]

Since nobody's made the joke: MAN, the devs must've been TRIPPING when they added this feature!!

[@BigYellowSilly]

this is what I'm looking for ty

[@lofty8037]

😐😐😐

[@epicsause21]

Good one LULW

[@Christoph8]

Like they bought shoes from a drug dealer.

[@SoggySlopster]

FUNNIEST COMMENT IVE EVER SEEN ON KZbin THANK YOU GOOD SIR 😂😂😂

[@HMZeroTwo]

Random tripping was definitely made by somebody who hated dash dancing.

[@djroscurro9859]

@Joshua Suh I guess we could say he had a character arc cuz CPUs in ultimate will dash dance from time to time

[@technicolormischief-maker5683]

@@8Kazuja8 While Sakurai has clearly played fighting games before, I’m honestly not sure he *understands* them very well. Tripping is a big example, but also, look at how long it took stance characters to function on a basic level. Look at Sakurai’s statements in interviews, showing disappointment with the cautious play inherent to any fighting game. Look at Brawl MK, Sm4sh Bayo and now Ultimate Steve. A smart fighting game dev wouldn’t have fucked up Ultimate’s shorthop, or Yoshi’s shield across all the different games, or many of Melee’s crunch-job balancing decisions. I straight up doubt he understood the importance of frame data before Smash 4, and his grasp on it remains clearly weaker than his peers in the broader genre or even compared to other platformer fighter devs. The evidence overwhelmingly shows that Sakurai is a *terrible* fighting game dev, and got this far through his incredible skill and talent in basically every other facet of game design. Smash as a concept could have only come from that perspective. This imbalance also lends the appearance of further credibility to the idea of Smash being solely a party game, which feeds into the toxic false dichotomy between casual and competitive that Sakurai himself created.

[@Hitmonchu]

Back in the early smash 4 days, i distinctly remember some of the brawl holdouts vehemently defending tripping day in and day out in facebook groups of all things. "Its actually better for you to trip because you get s from it" -real actual words that a human said

[@WhimsicottFanatic]

Brawl is funny to me, because it always seemed like it was trying to be tougher than it actually was Between the Fake HD graphics when everyone thought brown and gritty was the key to high definition instead of the reality that it looks like everything is lightly covered in oatmeal, having Solid Snake as one of the first third-party characters, and the plot of Subspace Emissary [which, admittedly, is still sick tbh], it really seems like it's trying to go "This ain't your grandma's Smash Bros!" So it's almost poetic that the best character in the game, and at that the best incarnation of any character in the whole series, turned out to be one of the Edgelord Kings: Meta Knight Although my claim kinda Titanics when Brawl is also the game that introduced tripping as a whole into the series, which would seem to imply they also wanted to go for a bit more kiddie slapstick, but that is kind of a major appeal of Smash

[@starmaker75]

Yeah looking back brawl was a bit confused for what is trying to be tone wise. I mean granted smash always kinda had a inconsistent tone with it crossover characters, brawl was really confused.

[@ThreeEyedFish]

I got whiplish after watching a cute cutscene of kid's game characters segway into the Gourmet Race remix. The tone is just all over the place, its almost comedic.

[@bigpapi5343]

I really enjoyed the general aesthetic and tone, though. It really hit the sweet spot, and since then I feel like only melee has rivaled it in this regard.

[@toastwings9358]

extra poetic that said "edgelord" character has a cutesy face under his mask but tries to hide it

[@smallchildlord637]

one thing I wish you mentioned is the fact that in the dolphin build that people who play brawl in the modern day use, tripping is actually disabled. I started playing the game relatively recently, and it's a very fun, albeit niche because of its slower pace, competitive experience when you don't have to worry about random chance fucking you over.

[@BigYellowSilly]

no yeah Brawl is genuinely a fun time and the fact that's removed is great

[@thecrimsonfuckeralucardlor5087]

Modders making a better game than Sakurai. The smash ultimate competitive community should make their own official waluigi mod for use in competition too.

[@massivebees]

My favourite RNG character personally is Platinum from Blazblue, whose gimmick is they have weapons they equip at random that have a set durability. These items can drastically change the type of game Platinum wants to play (ie if you get missiles or bombs, you may want to start zoning.) The thing that makes this neat IMO is the fact that Plat's HUD displays both the item they has equipped AND the next item in queue, so both players will know whats coming. This not only lets Platinum and the opponent know whats going on, but still gives Platinum a net advantage due to the fact they have a special move to throw away the current item if they don't like what they're holding or just would rather have the next item in the queue AND an Install super that buffs your next item, not the one you're holding. (If you're still reading this and haven't tried Blazblue yet, do it.)

[@anothenblue2630]

You've failed to mention the actually good RNG Platinum has. Her 5A picks one of 3 random animations: rock, paper and scissors. In a mirror match, if two Platinums use 5A at the same time, instead of trading or clashing, whoever randomly chooses the right animation (paper>rock, rock>scissors, scissors>paper) wins.

[@tcoren1]

@@anothenblue2630 worth mentioning that the animations are completely identical from a gameplay perspective in all other manners

[@anothenblue2630]

@@tcoren1 yes, it affects only the mirror match. On a technical side of things, it's not actually a whole different animation, her hand is merely replaced externally.

[@Gensolink]

I like how dustloop compare it to a tetris block bag because it exactly what it is. It's also worth saying that only the order in which you get the item is random. But there wont be a point where she will be stuck with 1 items n particular because of how it manages them

[@anothenblue2630]

@Metal Sign Except Plat can't pull line pieces out of her bosom on demand for easy unblockables.

[@Zenondikar]

I love Faust so much in strive, what a sick character design.

[@mnmwizard]

Literally.

[@laymankeepitbrief]

Last time I played Brawl was when I was still inept at fighting games and was content with using a sideways wiimote as a controller. I think tripping would have been the least of my worries during these dark times.

[@CambriaBold]

Tripping was meant to be an "equalizer" of sorts for players of different skill levels...but better players will get better punishes off of tripping anyway, so it didn't even accomplish its *intended* purpose.

[@felixcohen1247]

I heard that the developers actively disliked the fact that Melee had a competitive scene. I think the theory was that the high skill level scared away casuals or something like that. So tripping was supposedly introduced to stop dash dancing. Since casual players don't dash dance as much, they are much less affected. i tried googling for sources, and apparently Sakurai once said in an interview that when watching sprinting competitions, he didn't like that you could tell very early who would win, and that tripping in smash was meant to stop the better player always winning.

[@joshshrum2764]

I just think that’s retarded because i do love sakira, but man that’s really disrespectful, and rude to the people that dedicated themselves to learning smash melee, and becoming gods at it, but i guess it’s half by using a broken mechanic since wavedashing wasn’t intended it was just something they couldn’t get working in time for release.

[@djroscurro9859]

I don’t think they disliked the competitive scene itself, but how high the skill floor was for entering it Doesn’t make tripping less wack though

[@Neogears1312]

The idea anyone was scared away from THE SYSTEM SELLER OF THE GAMECUBE because some guy figured out shine combos is fucking absolute stupidity. That’s like saying no one skateboards because tony Hawk’s 900 scared them away from just doing ollies. Lets be honest most kids didn’t know anything about melee’s skill ceiling because why would they? There’s an option to call in Pokémon grow super tall and run at Mach speed with items. There’s options there for how do I kill earlier and how do I move faster or get in for casuals to be satisfied with. Most casuals play with items growing up except for fake comp players who just wanna say they’re more skilled but are just as meh at the game as the average game. No one I ever knew even heard about comp melee until years after brawl released because the comp scene is so small compared to the normies that the average person would have to deliberately looking for it back then. They just butchered the game because people weren’t playing it how they wanted and got mad. It’s the same thing quake 2 did with bunny hopping. Cool thing the average person doesn’t know about gets neutered in the sequel and no one is happy.

[@anevilghost670]

@@Neogears1312 Not to mention EVERY game has a competitive subset somewhere in there. Hell, people play Mario Party competitively and analyze the odds like it's Professional Poker. Football started off as some bored kids tossing a ball around in a field, now it's a national event that's as cultural as America can get. Could you imagine if the NFL had to enforce that every player wears frictionless cleats covered in oil because "The audience doesn't like looking at the matchup and knowing who'd immediately win!" Not to mention, people love watching competitive games BECAUSE there's a dominant player in there somewhere, like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Usain Bolt, and Mike Tyson. It's mesmerizing watching them cream the competition and even more exciting when there's someone who could actually match their skill, like high-level Melee Play where there's MULTIPLE dominant players (aMSa, Zain, Mang0, Hungrybox, etc. Even back in the Five Gods era). I respect Sakurai a whole lot, but his (or whoever convinced him it was a great idea) logic here is completely baffling.

[@morge6547]

One of my favourite examples of rng in fighting games is eyedol from killer instinct. Eyedol is a stance change character who switches between a rushdown character and a zoner. The catch with this is that the player doesn’t get so decide when to switch stances, they just switch as random. They can increase the likelihood of switching stances, but the player still can’t choose when to switch. This means the eyedol player has to pay attention and be able to react to switching stance and switch up their playstyle, otherwise they’re suddenly going to go from playing a rushdown character point blank to playing a zoner at point blank. I don’t really play killer instinct so I don’t have a super deep understanding of it, but the concept of this character alone makes me want to get into it.

[@alexanderkosten7611]

Also, the move that increases the chance of switching stances is Eyedol punching himself in the inactive head, which does a small amount of self-damage. He also has a secondary resource system of gaining charges from one head to benefit the other head next time you switch to it. KI2013's comeback mechanic, Instinct, gives him a third, temporary stance: both heads are awake, and you have the combined attributes and attacks of both. He's an excellently designed character, with a unique and powerful moveset... or rather, movesetS, tee hee~!

[@Robin_Robout]

“Not every game has to be melee.” Really refreshing to see this take for once.

[@mjul7003]

I just posted this same comment. I played Smash 4 and Melee religiously, at the same time. It was sad to see how toxic the Melee community was towards *their own fucking community.* I understand where their pride was coming from but maannnn. People needed to be nice and just accept that people played and enjoyed Smash 4 for different reasons.

[@Waveburd]

@@mjul7003 what reasons? And how would adding melee tech and mechanics in the game conflict with that enjoyment? Only mechanic I can think of that directly clashes is ledge trumping and I remember competitive people complaining about it quite a lot throughout smash 4’s lifespan There is zero competitive arguments against including the stuff, other than you just don’t like it for whatever reason. Imagine one day tekken devs remove kbd and people insist the game is better for it, that it’s somehow something different even though the only change is the removal of movement options

[@mjul7003]

@@Waveburd Smash 4 had a neutral that no other Smash game can replicate. Anyone who enjoyed Smash 4 (which is plenty of people, according to my own experience) will tell you that. It was slower paced, but the devil lies in the details. Perfect pivoting and the RAR mechanics made for some interesting interactions at high skill levels and the overall psychological interactions were very satisfying to learn. This is NOT to say that Melee doesn't have a neutral or psychological interactions. That's ridiculous. But, as someone who played both, I can tell you from experience that Melee does not give you the same kind of satisfaction that Smash 4 neutral gives you. It never will. I still think Melee is a better game but Smash 4 has its own special place in my memories. As for additional mechanics, I personally don't care for this kind of analysis. If you change Smash 4 then it's not Smash 4 anymore. If you change Melee, then it's not Melee anymore. I like both of these games with their imperfections in tact. Except maybe Rage in Smash 4. That was some horse shit. I think Melee would be better without Crouch Cancelling. I know that is a VERY controversial opinion, but I just don't like the mechanic. I think it forces "depth" in a way that isn't fun to interact with, much like glitch jabs in UMK3. I would have loved to see Melee with better overall balance and moveset design, as even when playing low tiers only in friendlies, I don't like how many characters feel like they revolve around a few single options. As you can see, my gripez with Melee are very minor. In Smash 4, I would have liked to see Up Smash buffering fixed, but I don't think I'd want any Melee mechanics. I think L Cancelling is super unnecessary. I enjoy the skill expression it gives but I hate the way it forces your hands to move to play the game. At least on a Gamecube controller, it's uncomfortable and causes problems with my hands. I enjoy Smash 4 and Ultimate just as much without L Cancelling, so I wouldn't mind Melee just having L Cancel landing lag by default. It would make my hands a lot happier. As per ledge trumping, it was fine. The people who complained about it were either just salty or didn't understand it, from my experience. I personally loved ledge trumping interactions. I'm not sure what else to say, but I'd love to talk more about it if you have any other questions.

[@mlalbaitero]

@@mjul7003 how does l cancelling hurt ur hand it's just pressing one extra button if u do it with z, since u should cause it doesn't lock out of tech. Or light press triggers

[@mjul7003]

@@mlalbaitero I couldn't tell ya. All I know is that my hands aren't perfect. The only reason I brought it up is to clarify that I probably have an unfair bias against L Cancelling

[@Coil_]

The random tripping confused me so much playing Brawl when I was young, only found out about it years later. Great video btw. Speaking of +R, I'd love to see a Fighting Game Garbage on Sol's Dragon Install 2nd cause that's the most meme move I've ever seen in Accent Core. Requires 100% Tension 214214214214P+H input No invincibility whatsoever Absurd startup time And drains your health down to 1 pixel What an amazing super.

[@lor84881]

It's very nice to see someone actually trying to analyze how rng can be well implemented or not even in a competitive game instead of just going *RNG sux* and calling it a day

[@joshshrum2764]

Yeah theirs good rng.

[@Zetact_]

My guess is that it was added because the team realized they were spending a ton of time adding walk animations to the game that nobody ever sees because walking is objectively inferior to dashing and it was something they thought would encourage people to walk more, or it could have been they thought it would help slower characters since it might limit faster characters' ability to bully them, but it was incredibly poorly implemented.

[@OmegaTyrant]

"because walking is objectively inferior to dashing" This isn't even true though, when walking you still have access to all your options, while out of a dash prior to Ultimate you can't do any standard attacks aside from u-smash, dash attack, and grab (while in Ult you still can't do other attacks until you're in your run state, which varies from 7 to 16 frames depending on the character), and you additionally can't shield during your initial dash in any of the Smash games. So walking already had its uses without random tripping.

[@DBE_TheZek]

If walking was objectively inferior in the other Smash games, you wouldn't see it at high level. As a strong competitive player, walking has definite advantages over dashing, since dashing is so committal.

[@snuffysam]

On top of what the others said, if tripping was meant to be a mechanic to help characters with worse mobility, it just doesn’t make sense. Like, the odds of tripping would be dependent on run speed, rather than a consistent rate for every character. And limiting ground options just makes characters with air mobility that much better, which still excludes slow heavyweights. A mechanic that ACTUALLY benefited slow heavyweights was rage, which was generally a good idea on paper (though the numbers had to be tweaked before it was actually good “in practice”). Since slow characters are more likely to be at high damage than fast characters. And it seems to have worked, Smash 4 made DK and Bowser scary grappler threats for a while, and Ultimate smoothed things out to where heavyweights in the meta are the healthiest they’ve ever been imo.

[@FamilyTeamGaming]

*ahem* Dashing *sucks* in high level Brawl/4/Ultimate and the higher level you go, the less you see it. Dashing is more of a movement mixup than a standard option, especially on some characters. For them, there is literally nothing that dashing does that walking or air movement won't do better and with less limitations.

[@youngemu3949]

I remember the early days of modding via hexing, one of the first mods to be made was remove random tripping. We want that out as soon as we can

[@BigYellowSilly]

blessed fr

[@ikushin2012]

Yup, the best argument for tripping was that it spurred an entire community to hack the Wii/Brawl just to patch it out: Even the most reserved mods like Balanced Brawl and Brawl+ got rid of it immediately.

[@mattguy1773]

Tripping being removed from project m is the best part of project m

[@bigdog6431]

Ahh, Brawl. Even with all of it's flaws, I still can't help but have a soft spot for it. It's a big bag of oddities, it's a lot of fun rummaging through it. It always makes me ask "what", "why", and "how", but I honestly love that. Keeps me coming back for more. Like, tripping dude? What is this? Why is this? How is this? See? It happened again. What a peculiar game.

[@elmaionesosexo]

yah, Brawl is fucky but i always want to comeback

[@maskofice9432]

Brawl is probably the smash I played the most, not because it's necessarily my favorite but just hitting at the right age for me. Plus the Subspace Emissary is still one of my favorite things in any Smash game. I have a soft spot for it too, but I'm also not necessarily going to defend it.

[@EvilCoffeeInc]

It's also worth pointing out that you can control when random-effect moves activate. Judge and Item Toss have random output, but the INPUT is under the control of the player, who can choose to or not to use the moves. This goes a long way to making the randomness feel more fair.

[@morphstarchangeling8024]

Good point. I personally really hate Kirby down tilt in smash ultimate because it's a super unreliable combo starter due to it's random trip chance. When it trips Kirby can capitalize on it to an amazing degree but when it doesn't trip which it's likely to not do you get nothing off it.

[@StarkMaximum]

Hearing about how tripping reduces your defensive options (which I never knew as a kid, I just said OH THIS SUCKS every time it happened) makes me think of like, imagine in Street Fighter 2, if you moved backwards and forwards too many times repeatedly, the game auto-dizzied you for a second, giving your opponent just enough time to get in and get a free punish. It would be atrocious.

[@andrewroes7942]

I do think it's a shame how much people don't give any credit to brawl whatsoever, it's got a ton of really cool stuff that hardly anyone knows about anymore (Sure would be nice if the crowdfunding money for the Brawl Doc didn't go to False's weed fund) so all anyone knows is the terrible stuff people don't play it for. I have absolutely no idea where I was going with this tbh, anyways this is a great video and it's nice to see someone going more in depth about the topic, as well as giving some credit to brawl in the end there instead of just writing it all off. Same for RNG in general, I dislike people viewing it as an objectively bad thing

[@mjul7003]

"Not every game needs to be Melee. Melee already exists, if you want Melee then go play it" As both a Smash 4 veteran and a Melee player, I am SO HAPPY to hear these words. Thank you for understanding.

[@mandalorianhunter1]

My first competitive Smash game was Brawl, back in my college days of 2013, so I had to deal with it a lot. Forced Tripping was good but random was terrible. As someone who mained Sonic, this was bad. I did have someone defend it because in his words, "it was realistic". I am willing to go back to competitive Brawl over Smash 4 for the likes of Brawl Diddy, Falco, Pit and Marth.

[@oohfun241]

As much as I never liked tripping, I'm a total nerd when it comes to looking at game animation so seeing each character have a different trip that comes from their dash is just a neat thing to examine

[@D00D64]

I remember a long time ago, someone tried to defend tripping, saying it was like "In sports, you just get injured sometimes. That's what happens when you push yourself." And you know what else causes injury? Attacks. We don't need random tripping on top of that.

[@suezuccati304]

Do you remember when Ali was fighting Foreman and then he tripped in a super goofy manner and fell on his butt? Yeah, me neither.

[@bigplanner]

@@suezuccati304 lol

[@Thornskade]

I don't like this argument. One advantage of digital games is that you can remove some of the negatives associated with real sports, where random unwanted things can happen. Why on Earth would you want to emulate unwanted things no one wants to see in a medium that doesn't have this problem by default??

[@queenofthesalt5199]

Tripping was made so that a casual crowd could get into the game, because melee got so competitive. However, if anything, tripping makes it harder for casuals to compete. When your opponent trips, you need to know the best way to punish them at the time. Whether to throw out a kill move, a grab, combo starter, or whatever, in order to win. The thing is, that this benefits competitive players who KNOW what’s best to choose in those situations. The people able to get the biggest punishes off of trips are the pros. Items are supposed to effectively act like a gun in a knife fight. Whoever gets it immediately has a big advantage, and it’s basic enough that everyone knows how to use it. Tripping doesn’t do that. To use the same analogy, instead of powering up the casual player, the way the gun does, it basically takes the knife away from the person who trips. That’s the problem. People want to feel powerful, not like their opponent got fucked over.

[@frtd12345]

My favourite RNG character is Dampierre from SoulCalibur V. He has some moves that all come with a chance of him falling over or spinning out which actually ends up being an RNG stance change since he has some attacks that can only be done while laying flat on the floor or from faking pain. It's super gimmicky and he's bottom tier but I love the silliness and creativeness of his moveset. Random tripping is like that except there's nothing to gain from tripping and it's a universal mechanic so you can't just pick a different character.

[@lvl5Vaporeon]

That reminds me of the Tekken 3 character called Doctor Bosconovitch who had some of the best moves but would fall over from his scoliosis. It created this funny dynamic that I still remember fondly.

[@dat_senpai_guy4400]

I only heard about this mechanic by second hand once or twice in the past. It literally doesn't sound like a real thing that would be in the game. It's kind of amazing to see it happen.

[@gspandem1204]

Another good example of RNG in fighting games is Oro's VT2 in SFV. Since some items give a bit of V Meter back on hit (and block iirc), it can extend, or allow for entirely new combos. But it's entirely optional because..well, it's VT2, you don't NEED the extra damage most of the time. So it's really about sending a message.

[@alexkottke7694]

I also wanna add that tripping is still a thing in the single player modes too, for absolutely no reason. I went back to Subspace a while back, tripped on an autoscroller and died off the side of the screen, which sure was something.

[@lvl5Vaporeon]

Because Tripping was in this game, it caused what we call *Air Camping* where meta knight jumps and spams down air. What a lame game man.

[@BigYellowSilly]

There's something so funny about tripping indirectly kind of benefitting him because of his ability to play around it lmao

[@RoninofCrimsonMaple]

Brawl, the casuals favorite game and the competitive mans most hated game. Subspace is the hardest trade off ive ever seen in Smash history.

[@BigYellowSilly]

@@RoninofCrimsonMaple Subspace is still so sick tbh I will take a thousand random trips for it

[@Mepphy99]

down air? mtf can be at 1 cm on the filed and spamming up air and still beat you

[@RoninofCrimsonMaple]

@@BigYellowSilly For real. Still get hyped at the clashes in the story. Fox vs Rayquaza, Mario vs Link or Ike cutting the subspace bomb. Memorable moments.

[@goldglovegrappler1382]

Welcome to Kliff Gang, where the only thing easier than the damage is the hitconfirms. I mostly use my meter on 236S FRC & j.236D though, I just don't bother with the dodge unless I've not been touched that round yet.

[@Harmless_Music]

A while ago, a good friend of mine who mained Luigi in Brawl asked me why they felt like their character tripped so often in the game. I did some digging, and it turns out Luigi is the only character in the game with a 1.5% trip chance, compared to the universal 1% It explained a lot

[@excaliburzx1134]

Honestly, I think if Casuals knew what random tripping was they wouldn’t like it either because say like two casual players are playing and one trips and that gets them killed. Like when I was younger I played a lot of Brawl and there were sometimes when playing against CPU, playing Subspace, where I would trip and that would be what screwed me over

[@wusstunes]

I play peach in melee, and I think turnips are probably the limit of how much rng should impact smash matches. I think peach has an aprox. 5 percent chance of getting a special turnip, and this means that she has a comeback mechanic against camping opponents. Some commentators have called it her "meter" lately.

[@anothenblue2630]

It's not a comeback mechanic when her success or failure in the match is irrelevant towards the mechanic. She could get absolutely destroyed and never get anything more than a basic turnip or she could demolish the enemy and get a Bob-Omb anyway. It can be used for a comeback, but so can be any fixed move like a yolo DSmash.

[@wusstunes]

@@anothenblue2630 it works well when you consider the meta. The characters that make it hardest to pull turnips are also pretty good against them like falcon, sheik and spacies. They're pretty essential and common in the Marth, Samus, puff matchups though, to name a few. It's annoying that it is random, but just by probability, the more you let peach pull, the more likely she's going to get something good. And even if she doesn't, a base turnip is still a really good projectile.

[@wusstunes]

I guess it's not a comeback mechanic but it's a mechanic that allows for comebacks. A lucky downsmash could arguably do more, for sure, but again, a lot of this is matchup dependant! You are extremely unlucky if you never pull a stitch while fighting Marth/puff/Samus, and the meaty downsmashes tend to effect fastfallers more than anything. The turnip means that characters that could just run away all game or stay a distance away are encouraged to approach, which plays into the character's strengths in scraps. So yeah idk if comeback mechanic was the right terminology here, but I do think rng turnips work at the end of the day, even if someone making a fighting game from the ground up might make different decisions today. I'm pretty sure P+ removed beam swords and bombs from the list of things peach could pull, which makes sense.

[@MrNapkino]

Peach turnip pull is by far the worst rng mechanic in melee and it isn’t even close. Unlike judgement, peach isn’t taking a risk pulling a turnip because pulling a turnip is already very very good for her. She basically just has a random chance to pull something completely broken instead of something very good, and there isn’t any counterplay to stop her from doing this aside from getting a read she’s gonna turnip pull and stuffing it out. I’ve lost several games to turnip pull rng alone and it’s bullshit.

[@wusstunes]

@@MrNapkino ok deal with it

[@OmegaTyrant]

The defense I mainly see for tripping is that it wasn't the most detrimental mechanic in Brawl, which is true when Brawl's hitstun cancelling, ledge mechanics, and stale-move negation all had far greater negative effects on Brawl's competitive play, while tripping was something that actually made a difference once every dozen or so games, if at all (I personally can't think of any tournament match I won or lost because of tripping). However like you said, tripping was the most objectively bad mechanic; you could make some argument on how Brawl's hitstun cancelling, ledge mechanics, and stale-move negation were actually good things (and given how Brawl still has a few diehards who play it over the other Smashes, there's at least some people out there who think that way), but there's really nothing positive you can argue that random dash-induced tripping adds to the game.

[@Celia_Dawn]

I disagree with the stance that it didn't affect competitive play just because it didn't happen. Just the threat of tripping pretty much completely stopped players from ever dashing, causing basically all movement in high-level Brawl matches to be either walks or jumping. Because of that, it had an invisible impact on nearly every game ever played, even if it wasn't seen directly.

[@OmegaTyrant]

@@Celia_Dawn That is just completely false, people still very much dashed, because you can't not, and tripping didn't happen frequent enough to keep you from doing so. Additionally the main thing keeping people from dashing everywhere as much as they did in Melee is because dash dancing was nerfed to shit before tripping was even factored (which Big Yellow didn't cover, dash dancing in Brawl basically amounts to just spazzing in place and was unviable regardless of tripping, which is why you don't see true dash dancing in Smash 4 and Ult either), as well as the lack of wave dashing and removal of being able to crouch out of dash made dashing a lot more committal (out of dash in Brawl you can only jump, u-smash, dash attack, grab, and do a special move, and then shield after your initial dash frames, while trying to run back in the other direction puts you a laggy pivoting animation). Ask any Brawl vet, and they'll tell you tripping's actual impact on competitive play was very minor; it didn't change how they played, and rarely did it actually cost people matches.

[@Celia_Dawn]

@@OmegaTyrant Players in Sm4sh and Ult dash waaaaaaaay more than in Brawl, even though dash dancing is just as nonexistant in all three titles - just watching any high-level tournament set will show you that.

[@OmegaTyrant]

@@Celia_Dawn I would suggest you actually watch Brawl play if you think people never dashed, or actually ask people who played Brawl how tripping factored into their play, I can assure you that people didn't not dash because of the 1% chance they might trip. You're also ignoring how 4 made dashes faster (and even then people weren't dashing around like they did in Melee because the action was still a lot more committal), and how Ult made dashes even faster in addition to adding the ability to perform any action out of your run state (making dashes considerably less committal), dashing was at its worst in Brawl before tripping was even a factor.

[@puffypuff3144]

Honestly this whole 'calculated risk' rng thing you described with G&W's Judge... is putting something I've said in related contexts into much better words. I was using G&W's Judge as a comparison to Hero's random criticals in that the former is a deliberate risk you consciously take while the latter is just a random boon you get on an action that isn't inherently used for that risk, and I think the way you described G&W Judge does a better job of explaining how a move like that is okay by comparison than I've ever managed

[@alexanderkosten7611]

To be fair, Hero's smash attacks have some risk associated with them, in that only F-smash has particularly good hitboxes or frame data. I never see anyone use the other two except to talk about how bad his non-crit U-smash is.

[@Ocarinist_Drew]

Yeah I remembering playing Brawl as a kid and not understanding what was happening whenever I tripped. I didn't realize it was completely random. I assumed I was doing something wrong, but could never figure out what.

[@DShy96]

I'm actively shocked you didn't talk about this until now. Still, glad it's being talked about now.

[@FishyAshB]

Another example of good fighting game RNG I really like is Oro's tengu stones. The way the different items that can appear effect the length or hitstun you inflict, and how those different items can change what the optimal combo out of V trigger can be, is amazing.

[@CaptainL]

Back in the day, the best player in my region unironically argued that random tripping is good. His logic was the following 1. Walking is usually better, regardless of whether you trip 2. Tripping forced people to realize this fact sooner than they otherwise would have So pretty much just arguing that its existence made the meta develop slightly faster

[@Toxic-Pyro]

Babe wake up new fighting game garbage

[@HewleyxAngel]

I think Kliff is a good example of RNG actually, and while I’m not the most fighting game literate, it reminds me of a point you brought up in a couple of Pokémon videos about randomness, I believe the banned/nerfed vids. Namely it’s RNG that can be taken into account like a Gen 1 Freeze. That sort of RNG is something both players can utilize and strategize around, whether as the one playing the character or opposing them. If I’m playing Kliff I know I have to be careful about when I take the dodge and strategize accordingly, and if I’m going against Kliff, I know this and can plan on how to capitalize if the chance presents itself. I never encountered any random tripping in Brawl, but that was because the matches I was playing with some of my friends were so hyperspecific and niche I never had to dash. Namely because it was an all Ganondorf match save me playing Kirby, and just normal movement and jumping was more than sufficient. Shout out to the B-Lounge crew, miss y’all. Thank you for the vid and cheers!

[@mikamoschella3410]

I think the offensive application of kliff's backsway RNG is actually kind of neat. If you're pressing strong offense and haven't been hit in a while, you can reliably pop it and have a 100% success rate, but if you're mounting a comeback just after getting pressured hard and taking a lot of stun, the big damage route is a risky option. Kind of an inverse of a comeback factor?

[@oreore949]

Damn, Wolf's F-smash had that early Kazuya tech, huh?

[@KeithTheGeek]

One of my least favorite bits of rng that still exists in Smash Ultimate is the random item drop. Getting hit while holding an item sometimes causes you to drop it. And AFAIK most items don't really do anything when dropped like this. But Diddy's banana peel, well that bad boy can still trip you. Diddy holding a banana and playing defensively is amazingly frustrating to deal with because you could break through whatever wall he's putting up and sometimes the game just plays the UNO reverse card on you and makes you trip anyways.

[@BigYellowSilly]

I have very little Ult exp so I never knew about this but that sounds rough

[@elmaionesosexo]

wait, this exists? i've never seen this in a match, tho, if its true, bad mechanic, or at least badly implemented

[@meta04]

@@elmaionesosexo yeah, it happens more with stronger attacks, and for certain non-tournament items, it also depends on whether you're winning or losing already...

[@XylitoI]

"Walking all the time is a big ask" And yet, part of playing Brawl competitively is knowing not to overextend and playing the defensive game to the best of your ability. Even without considering the random chance of tripping, dashing can be a big commitment and a lot of the time you might want to space your character relative to the opponent and the stage more carefully. Walking is a tactic. For characters like Marth (with a high walking speed), it may often be strictly superior to dashing.

[@genericyoutubecommenter589]

i'm sure walking is entirely viable in some scenarios but i fail to see how that makes random tripping any less bullshit, my guy

[@XylitoI]

@@genericyoutubecommenter589 I don't think I claimed random tripping isn't bullshit.

[@justinurbanich2828]

Hey, at 6:09 you say that GnW’s hammer is a 1 in 9 chance in sm4sh and ultimate. This is actually not entirely true as in ultimate you cannot get the same number twice in a row. This means the first time you use the move getting a 9 is a 1 in 9 chance and every time after it is a 1 in 8 chance, assuming thr last number you got was not a 9 in which case its a 0% chance.

[@purplenamako86]

I love that this is also a showcase on how RNG can be implemented well in a fighting game

[@SuperGamefreak18]

I see random tripping as that overcorrection for things they didnt like about melee, and they learned it was a mistake.

[@tinyclover3849]

Still weird to me how one of the most cartoony and random mechanic was added to the most realistic-looking smash

[@pantslesswrock]

Well, it was the HD Generation where more games across the industry were looking like this and cartoons visuals left for a few years, and it was also the generation where Nintendo was focused on bringing as many people into the fold as possible, by making games where anyone could play and feel like they have a chance of winning.

[@supernebula101]

Weirdly, I never even noticed tripping when I had this game as a kid

[@BlueKnight117]

i like tripping because I’ve used gecko codes during fights without my friends knowing that increases the chance of tripping >:)

[@BigYellowSilly]

Evil but extremely badass

[@sorakh4119]

You evil bastard I love it

[@Fin0fLenster]

Back in the day I had a friendly online tournament end in grand finals to a random trip. That was the last time I think I really played Brawl without mods.

[@oliviahughes3158]

Brawl would have been legitimately awful even without tripping. Meta Knight and Ice Climbers Brawlimar holding 6 Pikmin Diddy getting two bananas Chain-grabs and infinites being the only way to actually combo in this game Hitstun-canceling Insane spot-dodge mechanic A billion poorly thought out mechanics that fuck over a lot of characters in unique ways (for example, Trainer's Stamina mechanic and the grab release animation of the Mother kids)

[@reinforcedpenisstem]

Trainer wasn't in Brawl

[@oliviahughes3158]

@@reinforcedpenisstem Pokemon Trainer not Wii-Fit

[@reinforcedpenisstem]

@@oliviahughes3158 Oh right sorry

[@MTGDuelist8870]

O k so, I'm not here to argue about tripping, we all agree it sucks. I just came to say that brawl is an ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFUL looking game :3.

[@ioncavegrandma9256]

For the wii it sure is. Plenty of insanely good looking games on the 7th generation (Halo 4 comes to mind) and Brawl is definitely among them.

[@elmaionesosexo]

did you put on your glasses?

[@japester5927]

"Tripping is one of the features that resulted from our focus on pacing. The Random Tripping system attempts to slightly influence the highs and lows of the game by stopping a player's movement completely, based upon the player's recent dashing. In summary, the more you're dashing the more likely we'll make you fail. This helps create those rare high moments where the enemy player goes on a rampage and gets lots of damage in rapid succession."

[@BigYellowSilly]

Wack if they actually said that cause it's just a lie lmao

[@japester5927]

@@BigYellowSilly They didn't, but the TF2 Dev team said this in their developer commentary and I was making fun of them for designing such a trash machanic

[@NinF37]

I absolutely love brawl, one of my favorite smash bros games to watch. With that said, random running tripping has only been interesting once that I can remember from all the brawl I’ve watched recently.

[@nrr620]

Since my first smash game was brawl, I found strange that the other games didn't have this mechanic

[@thetruejerrycan]

Personally I LOVE videos that go into the mechanics of a fighting game, as I find that useful information about the mechanics themselves and what effect they have on the game outside of "nerf this/buff this" is far and few between. Your FGG on Breakaway left a pretty good impression on me, made me think about how beneficial it is for universal mechanics having universal inputs and how those universal mechanics should be tuned for both the attacker and the defender, so I definitely would not mind another video in this vein! Also respect for my man Kliff Undersn

[@StarkMaximum]

Also, a key point for all of those Good RNG examples you brought up: They're all opt-in. Obviously you can choose to play those characters, but the RNG within them is honestly varied in how important it is. Yeah, Faust's item throw is a key part of his kit, but I imagine you could play GnW or Kliff without even interacting with those RNG mechanics unless you absolutely had to. You don't "opt-in" to tripping. It is forced upon you no matter who you play. And like you said, one of the best characters to punish a key trip is already the best character in the game, and I imagine that would extend to any fast characters with good reach who are frequently already high tier, so it only makes the rich richer.

[@zeigman]

Dan's pink fireball is also a good recent example of randomness used to prevent infinites.

[@PrinceSilvermane]

Them's Fightin Herds has a character that's a good example of randomness too. Paprika can throw out random items, not unlike Faust and has a specific meter associated with it. For 1 piece of the meter she can throw random items, but for two she can use a specific input to throw out one of her choosing. If you're using it for zoning, you usually can just throw out a random one. But combos might need you to throw an item with a property you need to continue the combo.

[@BigYellowSilly]

I'm not familiar with TFH at all but I think that's a really cool way of going about a move like that tbh

[@lucko4576]

I never understood how random tripping improved the casual experience. Maybe a casual player finds it funny the first few times, but even as a kid I found it really annoying. It's kind of like Nintendo shot themselves in the foot just to shoot the competitive scene in the face.

[@elmaionesosexo]

imagine a game that at its core focuses around movement...and then you put an obstacle to that movement

[@elmaionesosexo]

@Joshua Suh he forced himself, he created Brawl

[@elmaionesosexo]

@Joshua Suh sorry, it looked like you were blaming the fanbase

[@elmaionesosexo]

@Joshua Suh i know, but if he never wanted that, making the game deep was his worst mistake

[@elmaionesosexo]

@Joshua Suh im talking about 64, as old as that game is it has a lot of deepness which Melee built in top of

[@3pICTheAnimal]

This is extremely well made and a well thought out argument, very well done.

[@lasercraft32]

Sakurai is great, I love the guy... But seriously, sometimes he can be very petty. He didn't like people playing competitively so he basically did everything in his power to stop people from being able to do so. Another semi-unrelated instance of Sakurai being petty is the fact that he refused to have a story mode with cutscenes in later Smash titles all because people leaked Subspace Emissary's cutscenes online... Strange how BOTH instances of Sakurai being petty have to do with Brawl.🤔

[@LunaTulpa]

"hope you don't mind me talking about a mechanic" you've talked about fish in a tank, talk about whatever you're passionate about and we'll almost certainly like it

[@budinhapalmieri]

I like Faust's randomness, he turns my games into casual smash with items

[@Neceroe]

What personally annoys me most about random tripping is that this was basically a response to wave dashing in melee which need i remind you sakari (definitely spelled that very wrong) found and decided to leave in the game before it was even released they really could have just removed it from this game or that one if they didn't like it that much.

[@TheAweDude1]

One thing I like is when a random chance is a purely beneficial event. For example, Peach can never really "whiff" on her turnip. The worst turnip still does a great job at being a turnip, and getting a stitch face or bomb is purely beneficial. Another example is the recent DnD themed Magic the Gathering set, where a bunch of cards have effects that make you roll a d20 then apply the affect. There's a few "critical hit" effects that are amazing when you roll the 20, but nothing really hurts you when you roll a 1. You just get a slightly less than efficient effect. If they wanted to reduce dash dancing, make the tripping take 4 repeated dashes to start, then have a really high chance of tripping. And it resets after like 30 frames of not dashing or after any non-dash action.

[@TiresAreForCars]

dash based tripping is the most hilariously bad mechanic in a fighting game... even in a party for fun fighter its unfun... never made sense

[@redphienix]

I'm a big fan of these videos expanding to mechanics like the break-away vid, so this was a treat. Also while of course it can be argued as an imperfect random element, I'd argue for your inclusion of Cliff just because it's a random element with considerations put in place for consistency. OBVIOUSLY imperfect, with some of the examples being in your talk itself, but the fact that it's guaranteed at 0 stun and increases incrementally as stun increases means there's at least some effort put into place allowing the players to expect and plan around it. Not perfectly, no stun bar, he has other moves that increase his own stun other than just the dodge, and there's something to be said about being locked out of defense just because you got hit (in say in a dropped combo etc) but again- not a defensive character and it's something with planned randomness and spots where it's guaranteed- I think it counts as at least "Good" random, if not "great". Sick work on this btw, thanks for creatin'.

[@cirlu_bd]

I'd balance Brawl's tripping like the dodge-rolls in ultimate, that stale the more you use it. So tripping would occur only while dodge-rolling after you've done it too many time, each time you dodge-roll your chances of tripping goes up. (but keep the chance at zero for the 5 first rolls of each stocks !)

[@jimmyjuice697]

My best guess as to why tripping was added was to create "funny" moments in casual matches. Drastically swinging the favor of the match and causing humorous "fuck you" moments to one player specifically. Sort of like items but without an option to turn the feature off.

[@Lankpants]

Yeah, this was probably the thought process but in practice it doesn't. It's far too easy to just, not even notice the trip. It's not a large or dramatic thing. You'll often see people saying stuff like "as a kid I didn't even realise it was in the game", because if you're not super invested you just don't see it. The mechanic that best creates the random "fuck you" moments is definitely just items. A random bomb spawn, assist trophy etc does a far better job than tripping ever did. Even stage hazards do better. That's why in spite of these things being terrible for competitive they don't get the same amount of hate as tripping. They actually have a reason to exist.

[@Gamesmarts194]

I'm pretty sure the only reason tripping exists is as a giant middle finger to competitive Smash. It's been increasingly clear that Nintendo (or at least the Smash devs) have tried to steer clear of competitive Smash for one reason or another, and it wouldn't shock me if they've been doing this since Brawl's inception.

[@nathanmokoi4945]

Wow, I grew up on brawl and I swear to god I’ve never tripped in the few years that I played the game

[@WishMakers]

I know that this video is mostly about the random tripping that destroyed Brawl's mobility on the ground, but I think *both* varieties of tripping are problematic actually, at least to some degree. I get why they are a random chance. Something like Ness' dtilt hits a lot of tripping hits in rapid succession and while hitting a tripped opponent means they can't immediately get tripped afterwards, you could theoretically infinite off of a low "rapid jab" style move which is really stupid. That being said, there's a lot of moves that are just hurt by being random. Kirby's combo game in Ultimate is really cool if you manage to get the trip off of...I think it was ftilt? Dtilt? It's been a hot minute. But the issue is that only happens like 40% of the time, so the other 60% your best follow-up is a dash attack into Nothing and that's really lame! A character has a good combo game but only if the dice lands in your favor and that's unfortunate. It's not even like a random item pull since someone like Peach can combo with anything that's not the funny bomb, she just gets less damage. You still get the combo, Kirby doesn't. That's the worst example I can think of so obviously it's not as awful on other characters, but I still think the new tripping mechanic is inherently pretty stupid. I think the 7% chance off of any move is kinda whatever but it's not like I lost a set over it or anything. Btw great coverage over other randomness in fighters. I think RNG isn't inherently bad in fighters but you need to be careful with it