Power-up Potential changes

[digital oracle]

I’m not super bothered by it, but some power ups are annoying and are clearly better than others so I came up with a few small ideas to potentially balance them?

• Make the ice flower counter the blue shell
• Make it so you can mash to get out of ice flower freeze faster
• Propeller spin doesn’t remove stars (make its only purpose movement)
• Make fireballs only bounce twice (possibly 3 times?) so that they don’t hit opponents from super far away (similar to ice flower single bounce)

This is just a few things I thought of in a few minutes, so there’s probably more good ideas for this sort of thing

[vague wadi]

ice flower used to freeze the blue shell. it wasn't healthy for the game.
mashing to get out faster was rejected, dont want people tryharding
I kinda agree but, I think propeller should only remove 1 star no matter what
fireballs should remain faithful to the original game 🤷‍♂️

[digital oracle]

Fair enough

[alpine token]

If the uhh boomerang powerup gets added then that can counter the blue shell

[bleak summit]

doesn't the ice flower already slow down the blue shell?

if hit once, it slows down a bit, and if hit again it stops the shell's movement?

[spice zodiac]

I think the other hits just slow it down to an extreme amount

[tiny nacelle]

Ice Flowers originally did counter Blue Shell, but iPod changed it

[alpine token]

🪃

[tiny nacelle]

Propeller Spin doesn't remove stars
If we remove that, then a regular spin drop won't remove stars either

[alpine token]

Boomerangs in all mario games interact with shells rather then destroying them

As you can probably tell, i like boomerang flower

[tiny nacelle]

Fireballs bouncing only 2 before disappearing is just OK. Tho most of the fireball stuff are close range

[vague wadi]

but sometimes missing your fireball is punishing

since it'll continue until it hits something

and you can't fire it again

[tiny nacelle]

You can

But you have to wait a little

[digital oracle]

It’s on a timer I believe?

[alpine token]

You have 2 fireballs right

[vague wadi]

which in itself is a nerf

:-)

[digital oracle]

Rather than a 2 fire ball limit

[tiny nacelle]

You can shoot a max of 6 balls

[vague wadi]

the timer activates once you hit the limit

[tiny nacelle]

Once you've shot six, you cannot shoot another until one of the balls are destroyed

[alpine token]

Oh I thought it was 2

[tiny nacelle]

2 is how much you can fire at a time

[alpine token]

Oh is 6 the limit for all players then

Or am i not getting this

[tiny nacelle]

6 is the limit you can shoot.
If there's not 6 Fireballs you shot, then you fire 2 fireballs, wait, and fire 2 more. If there are 4 fireballs, you can fire 2 more fireballs, but you cannot fire any more unless one of the 6 bouncing fireballs are destroyed

[alpine token]

Ah

Fair

Although it’s unlikely to reach 6

[tiny nacelle]

As for the two bounce limit, no game ever had that not even Smash Bros

[alpine token]

They wre thinking of the ice ball

That has a bounce limit

[tiny nacelle]

Rather than doing 2 bounce limit, I'd just make the hitbox a bit smaller

Hitbox of the fireballs

[alpine token]

Mm yeah

Fireballs are a bit annoying when mini

[tiny nacelle]

Cause currently, fireball hitboxes are bigger than the original, in the original they could bounce over mini and shall players. Not here

[alpine token]

Would this also apply to the ice

Ball

[tiny nacelle]

Yeah

Some of these kinds sound like a skill issue to me

[alpine token]

Yea

Just use a blue shell to counter the blue shell

[tiny nacelle]

A reg shell can counter a blue shell

[rocky fern]

a greeg shell can counter a red shell

[gleaming matrix]

If anything I think fire flower needs a buff to compete with everything else

[alpine token]

Fireflower is fine

It honestly needs a debuff with the hitboxes and thats it

[vague wadi]

every powerup has their problem 😋 its decently balanced on some maps

[alpine token]

Except pipes, pipes sucks for all powerups

[tiny nacelle]

Super Mushroom

[rocky fern]

fire flower in first is an instant win smh

[errant scarab]

I don't understand the ice flower

or what it does

[rocky fern]

its freezes

👍

[errant scarab]

i mean

the oddities surrounding it

[rocky fern]

elaborate

[errant scarab]

for one

getting coins is the only way to obtain the ice flower, and its as rare as stars and mega mushrooms

[rocky fern]

yeah

[errant scarab]

and fire flowers seem to be better

[rocky fern]

thats debatable

[errant scarab]

why do mushrooms spawn from getting X coins

[rocky fern]

balancing

[errant scarab]

thats basically just sometimes you get nothing

[rocky fern]

mushrooms spawn way more often for 1st place

yeah prioritized usually for 1st

who doesnt need good powerups anyways

[errant scarab]

so what are the powerup tiers anyway

[rocky fern]

its a table of rng

here is an example of it in json that i yoinked from ipod

spawnchance is the base chance of it spawning, and losing bonus adds to that value if you are losing (distance from 1st place in stars)

negative values obviously reduce that chance

[errant scarab]

where's ice flower on this?

[rocky fern]

didnt implement it

i can go find the table rq

[errant scarab]

is ice the rarest

[rocky fern]

mega is

spawn chance of -1 and a max of 2 is rare

ok found ice

ice is
0.5 spawnchance
1.5 losingbonus

which ig

makes it somewhat equal to mega in rarity

not really but sorta

because you can totally get ice flower in first, however its really rare

now 1-ups

1-ups have a 0 chance and a 0 bonus

ok jokes aside, is there anything else you need?

[errant scarab]

how is the ice flower supposed to be used

[rocky fern]

to freeze opponents

this lets you take advantage of them

really easily

and on maps that are easy to die on, its a musthave

example 1 : bricks

because when you throw a frozen player, they slide across the map until they hit a wall, so if you throw them under the rising platforms with good timing, free kill

also

you can groundpound them for free

but only for 2 stars instead of the usual 3

[errant scarab]

2?

[rocky fern]

yeah

[errant scarab]

when i did it it was 3 im pretty sure

or 6

[rocky fern]

6

nah its 3

[errant scarab]

i managed to like ground pound the other person twice ig

yeah its 3

ah i see you can throw them

and if they unfreeze on top of you you lose

and if you pick them up next to a wall you lose immediately

and if you're carrying them and they come ANYWHERE within 20 feet of a wall you get ground pouneded

is mini mushroom good

[rocky fern]

25-75

nah

10-90

mini mushroom is bad

but it has uses

but overall its ass

you get one shot by fire and ice balls

getting ground pounded kills you too

you cant steal stars unless you ground pound

[errant scarab]

i suppose tower is pretty good for ice flower

if they get frozen under a crusher they kinda get crushed

but with how rare ice flower is id say fire flower is still top tier

blue shell, propeller mushroom, and fire are the best

blue shell beats fire flower because it's invulnerable to everything except being jumped on

guess how easy jumping on a blue shell is when the player can jump while spinning

but i suppose its supposed to be broken so i digress

and propeller mushroom is just great for movement

anyway i found out the ice flower slows down the blue shell but idk how useful that is

[errant scarab]

i wonder why blue shell is the only non-time-limit-ed powerup that can hurt players

as in make them lose their powerup (or if they dont have one-- make them lose a life)

ig tbf fire flower is really good so blue shell making players take damage is probably balanced around fire flower

especially since while you're in your shell you cant be fire flowere'd