A More In-Depth Equipment System

[Lord_Brand]

Something I've thought would be cool for a long time is if Smash let you choose different weapons or other kinds of equipment for your fighters. Smash 4's equipment system was rather basic with generic equipment types; I'd like to see more specific items show up in Smash. For example, Link could equip the Biggoron's Sword instead of the Master Sword to add more reach and damage at the cost of his shield. Or Mario could equip a hammer to give his attacks more reach and damage at the cost of speed. Pikachu could equip various Hold Items such as the Light Ball. Cloud could use various Buster Swords from FF7, including the Ultima Weapon. Fighters could have different movesets for different weapon categories; Link with a Claymore would fight more like Ike or Cloud versus when using a Sword & Shield.

In addition to Weapons, fighters could get Apparel and Special Items. Apparel covers armor and clothing like helmets, masks, and dresses, while Special Items are used for specials and secondary weapons. Link for example could get Bombs, Bows, and Boomerangs as Special Items, while Fox gets Blasters and Reflectors. Each fighter gets different Apparel and Special Item options. In addition to cosmetic differences, there could be mechanical distinctions; wearing Soldier's Armor can make Link heavier and harder to flinch at the cost of movement speed. He can equip Remote Bombs or Bombchu instead of regular Bombs. And he could equip a Rod or Seed Shooter in place of his Bow to alter his neutral special.

This could of course go hand-in-hand with my Custom Fighter System, as part of creating and customizing fighters. Indeed, since the major draw of the CFS is that you can create virtually any character and therefore the Spirits aren't necessary for representing a wide variety of characters, Equipment could return as the customization feature of choice.

Edited February 3, 2020 by Lord_Brand

[Fabulously Olivier]

You know, I really loved the gear system in Injustice 2. It gave me something to chase. I would love it even more in a game like Smash that I actually like. 

 

It's probably totally unfeasible though. Especially for third party licensed characters.

[Lord_Brand]

I'd say it depends on the character. Cloud and Hero would be easy since they come from JRPGs with established weapons and other gear. And in Hero's case, a lot of the spells seen in the Down Special could be turned into Spellbook Special Items that can be assigned to the Neutral and Forward Special slots.

Ryu and Terry would be difficult since their own series champions barefisted fighting. Of course, nothing stops Ryu from picking up a bat or a sword in Smash, so I guess he, Ken, and Terry can pay homage to beat em ups? Other fist weapons, like claws, would make sense too, especially if there's a CFS that establishes fighter templates which can be used to create characters like Vega. Ultimately though the Street Fighter and King of Fighters templates would probably use Styles as their "weapons", representing the various fighting styles seen in their series. They may not make use of Special Items since their specials are part of their styles, like how Link wouldn't use a Special Item for his Spin Attack since his sword already serves that purpose.

Banjo & Kazooie could add Dragon Kazooie as a Weapon. Fire Eggs and Ice Eggs would make great Special Items for Egg Firing and Egg Rear respectively.

Mega Man has lots of easy options for Special Items: Robot Master Weapons. His melee moveset, on the other hand, would be difficult since it's comprised mostly of RMWs as well. But one could always group weapons into categories like Mega (Buster and Arm), Fire (Atomic Fire, Flame Sword, etc.), and Electric (Thunder Beam, Lightning Claw, etc).

Sonic has used a sword before, so Swords could be an option in addition to Gloves. Special Item options could include Chao, Wisps, and Bombs. Special attacks like Chaos Spear and Black Wave could be represented with Power Rings.

Yeah, an Equipment system would probably be a colossal task, especially as part of a Custom Fighter system, but it's something Smash 6 can look at. And it'd be an organic way to customize movesets. At the very least it'd be neat to have a Soul Calibur-esque weapon system in there where each fighter's weapons tweak their damage, special effects, etc.

Edited February 3, 2020 by Lord_Brand

[NinjaMonkey]

13 hours ago, Lord_Brand said:

Smash 4's equipment system was rather basic with generic equipment types

Which, like custom moves, pretty much nobody used (and there's no way these are going to be tournament legal). Also, this places some characters like the Wii Fit Trainer or the Mii's at a clear disadvantage to the rest of the roster, as they have nothing to draw from in terms of equipment.

Edited February 3, 2020 by NinjaMonkey

[Lord_Brand]

I used them, thank you very much. I even preferred certain custom specials to the defaults. But I feel Smash 4's equipment and custom specials were lacking. They didn't use enough existing material. Where were the various powerups Mario could use, like the Ice Flower? Where were the various items from the Zelda series, like the Fire and Ice Rods, or even Fire and Ice Arrow variants? Where was DK's Barrel Toss and Coconut Gun? Samus Aran's Wave and Plasma Beams? Mega Man and Palutena got custom specials right, at least. Maybe if more custom specials had that kind of variety and creativity, they would have fared better. Instead, most of the variants boiled down to "faster and weaker vs. stronger and slower" or "works better as a recovery but deals no damage vs. deals more damage but makes a poor recovery".

Likewise, while the use of character-specific Equipment types was a cute touch, I would have liked actual aesthetically-distinct items taken from existing games more.

The Miis are customizable by default, can't use that excuse for them. And they could always, y'know, create stuff for WFT like they did for Captain Falcon back on the N64 with the Falcon Punch. That said, odd ducks like WFT, MG&W, and DH aren't high on my priority list, and frankly I'd sooner cut them for a Smash 6 with awesome fighter customization than skip out on a cool idea for the sake of keeping novelties around.

[vanguard333]

This could be very interesting, so long as it is kept from getting too complicated. 

7 hours ago, Lord_Brand said:

Mega Man has lots of easy options for Special Items: Robot Master Weapons. His melee moveset, on the other hand, would be difficult since it's comprised mostly of RMWs as well. But one could always group weapons into categories like Mega (Buster and Arm), Fire (Atomic Fire, Flame Sword, etc.), and Electric (Thunder Beam, Lightning Claw, etc).

Another area that he could draw from: Battlechips. Seeing as Mega Man is supposed to be Smash's representative for the whole series, it could be interesting. 

But, if just Robot Masters, then there are a few more things I could see:

Alternate Standard Special:

• Knight Crusher

Alternate Side Special:

• Magic Card
• Spread Drill

 

[NinjaMonkey]

17 hours ago, Lord_Brand said:

Where was DK's Barrel Toss

You can literally pick up barrels and crates and throw them at people.

17 hours ago, Lord_Brand said:

I used them, thank you very much.

I said "pretty much nobody" used them, i.e. 99.99% of players.

[Lord_Brand]

4 hours ago, NinjaMonkey said:

You can literally pick up barrels and crates and throw them at people.

I said "pretty much nobody" used them, i.e. 99.99% of players.

You can also pick up bats and hit people with them, or pick up a ray gun and shoot people with it. Doesn't stop Ness and Fox from packing their own. Throwing barrels was Donkey Kong's original attack, it should be part of his moveset. And thanks to my proposed equipment system, it could be. Just equip the Barrel Special Item to the Neutral or Forward Special slot and presto!

And how can you confirm that statistic? What are your data collection methods? Have you collected data from public polls and surveys? Did you ask anyone else on this forum whether or not they used equipment and custom specials in Smash 4? At any rate, I was pointing out how flawed Smash 4's system was, thus my recommendations for how to improve it. Whether or not the majority of players in Smash 4 used those features isn't going to stop me from suggesting a better system.

Edited February 4, 2020 by Lord_Brand