Fast Sm4sh

I've been working with a project of mine for a while now. I've been seeing a lot of global mods instead of singular ones, like I usually make, and it inspired me to give it a shot. I'm no expert with these kinds of things, but why not. It seemed like a fun idea and I went with it.

This is Fast Sm4sh, a mod aimed at bringing back a very fast and brutal pace, like Melee, while keeping the spirit of Smash 4 mostly intact. Of course, something were changed pretty heavily, but I think it's a neat little thing, and it's not much, but it's fun.

I've edited every single character in the cast to my liking, trying to balance fairly well. I may have failed miserably, but you guys can leave me feedback and I'll get right to it. Right now it only comes packed, and it will probably stay that way because I'm lazy.

Look it up. You have the internet.

VERSION 1.0

For now, I will only really list global modifications and a general overview of some characters. Doing a full changelist is a bit much for me. I will do a full changelist on all further versions.

Global Changes

• Gravity, falling speed, and traction increased all across the board, putting a bit more focus on edgeguarding and better punishes out of shield. I feel that in vanilla Smash 4 recovery is just a bit too easy for a lot of characters. But don't worry, characters who already struggled have some help. For example, Little Mac was a fastfaller in vanilla, with high falling speed and average gravity. In this mod, his falling speed was left untouched, his gravity slightly raised, and his side-B reverted to pre-patch, so he doesn't struggle as much in comparison to the rest of the cast now. This does however make him floatier compared to the cast as well. I changed all attributes to my liking, so each character was made with love.
• Hitstun cancelling is gone. This makes a few 50/50's confirmed, and allows for more creative combos, but doesn't affect things too much. It really just allows combat to flow much better.
• The global nerf to projectiles has been toned down. Many characters who saw their projectiles nullified in the transition from game to game, like Samus, Falco, and Link, have had their projectiles mostly restored. The reason for this was that all of the three characters I mentioned have below average mobility, specifically because of their (supposed) great projectile game. I felt this global nerf really broke a lot of characters.
• Almost no nerfs. The point of this mod is to make the game fast, which means I'm not going to just buff the bottom half of the cast and call it good. Every character was improved in some way, even the best of the best. While those characters may still be the best in my mod, I would say their easiest matchups are a bit closer now. For example, all the best characters have three things, essentially. A good damage racking game,  a good neutral, and good mobility. In my opinion, if a character does not have at least two of those things, they cannot be top tier, no matter what. With this in mind, it really took a load off my mind and made me not stress so much about making the worst characters viable. They are better, and the gap in viability is smaller, but I can't do anything more than that, really.

Those are the most significant changes. I'll list a few more minor ones here.

• Almost every meteor smash in the game is either stronger or easier to land, to further emphasize a faster pace. Sorry guys, watch out for Ganon.
• Every character has a higher damage output, again, to increase the pace of the game.
• Sourspots on most moves are generally less of a drawback, and sweetspots on most moves are generally easier to hit with. You know who I'm talking about. Marth, and the Marth with red hair.
• I've adjusted the default settings in versus to 4-stock, 8 minutes.
• Almost all characters with multiple jumps have had their air speeds relatively normalized. Why give a character an advantage just to give them a downside? Dedede benefits from this the most, being able to finally challenge others in the air.
• Most slow characters run faster and have slightly higher air speeds, in part due to the change above, and also just because it feels wrong to have so many slow characters in this game. It's not super significant, but it definitely helps the slowest characters (AKA the worst characters) keep up with the competition.
• Don't play as Ryu. Seriously. I have not yet been able to balance him properly due to some technical errors. His up tilt is broken and if you play as him in this mod I hope your friends stop playing.

Major Character Specific Changes

• Dark Pit De-cloned a fair bit from regular ol' Pit. He has faster grounded movement than Pit, better KO potential, and generally deals more damage. However, his moves have more endlag (relative to Pit, as he still has pretty good frame data), his neutral is weaker, he's slower in the air, and his combo throw is much worse.
• Lucina Again, de-cloned from Marth. Her Fair and Bair now send opponents at a 55 degree angle instead of the Sakurai angle, allowing for neat followups. She jumps lower than him, but is floatier and faster. She's also slightly lighter. And her Up-B's sweetspot is at the end of the animation. Cool!
• Palutena Come on. You know she sucks. Not anymore! Her frame data, her biggest weakness, has been significantly improved. All smash attacks have less endlag, most of her aerials have less endlag, are stronger, and autocancel sooner, her tilts are all faster and come with better utility, her dash speed is even faster (being among the fastest in the game), and her teleport, if ended on the ground, has almost no endlag, allowing for mindgames and avoiding getting juggled. The start-up is also halved. Nice.
• Shulk Shulk had many problems similar to Palutena. A garbage neutral and terrible frame data. Although his reach was long, the Monado had sourspots on the tip of the blade, punishing you just for using your reach! His aerials all didn't autocancel, all had high landing lag, and all came out very slowly. Monado Arts, while helping to alleviate some of his problems in specific situations, were exactly that: situational. My solution was simple. His attacks have less start-up, less endlag, and no sourspots. His aerials now have autocancel windows, with Fair autocanceling in a shorthop, Nair, Uair, and Dair are all much faster, and Bair is stronger. The biggest change, however, is that Monado Arts now have no downsides! That's right, you don't move slower in Shield, you don't get sent farther in Smash, you don't take more damage in Buster, and you don't jump lower in Speed. The only "downside" I kept was that Buster still reduces the knockback of your attacks, but this just allows them to combo better. Overall, Shulk used to be a man of extremes, but I believe he is now a jack of all trades, capable in everything, and not really bad at too much either. To compensate these changes, his damage output was reduced from high to only above average.
• Little Mac Little Mac was another character of extremes, but I mostly kept him that way because he was designed like that. His recovery, while improved, is still bad, and his grabs are better but still not worth using. Little Mac is definitely not an air fighter, but I thought it was ridiculous that his aerials were all slow, all weak, all had bad autocancel windows, and all had high landing lag. To remedy this slighty, I removed the sourspots on all aerials except Dair, halved the start-up on Fair and Bair, improved the autocancel windows and halved the landing lag of all his aerials. While he is still a complete joke in the air, with poor range, poor power and no combo potential, he can get foes off of him if need be. He also can no longer lose KO Punch, and earns it just as fast from dealing damage. KO Punch also now KO's all but the toughest fighters at 0%. Personally, I think it's ridiculous that a character as good as Cloud not only charges Limit faster than KO Punch just from playing, but he can charge it, it has more utility, and he can't lose it! Stupid.
• Bowser Jr Bowser Jr suffered from a lot of problems. I believe I have remedied this, however. His mobility was pretty bad on the ground, but I increased it to being quite a bit above average. What's the point of a vehicle if it can't get you places fast? I also removed the difference in damage between his cart and his body. All attacks do the same damage to him no matter where he gets hit. His aerials are stronger, with less landing lag, too.
• Jigglypuff Jigglypuff has had it rough ever since Brawl. Her only true moment of fame was Melee, and that was a long time ago. Except she's good now! All of her smash attacks deal more damage, allowing her to KO with them reliably. Her aerials were all reverted to their Melee versions, giving her excellent edgeguarding tools. Her air speed is as high as it was in Melee, her up throw functions like in Melee, giving her the space animal slayer back, and her rest was also reverted to Melee. Wait a minute. She's basically the Melee version of her self!

VERSION 1.1

I made some significant changes in this version. I said I would give a full changelist, but unfortunately my changelist was corrupted, meaning I can only summarize my changes. I promise I'll actually do a full one next time.

• Chain grabbing has been removed. Again. This changed the game far too much. Many characters could not be given proper reliable combo throws without also having broken chain grabs. I want to focus more on combos, not cheap damage.
• Small fixes. A few things just weren't working properly, or not how I wanted them to, so I just tweaked them a bit.

Character Specific Changes

• Lucina has been changed again. Instead of a 55 degree angle on her fair and bair, it is now 67 degrees, like Marth's fair and bair in Melee. However, because the sweetspot of her Up-B is at the end of the animation, she can use her fair to combo into itself multiple times, and then finish with an Up-B to kill. If they airdodge, use dair!
• Cloud's falling speed in 1.0 was raised much higher relative to the cast than other characters. However, this created problems with his recovery, making it as bad as Little Mac's, and also messed with his autocancel windows, making autocancelling his dair when Limit is charged impossible. I lowered his falling speed to be more in line with other characters (2.5 -> 2.1).
• Ike had a lot of power, but relatively low damage output compared to that power. Almost all of his aerials deal more damage, but with knockback compensated. This was partly due to the fact that Ike doesn't combo very well, so he should be able to deal damage easier. His size was also raised, giving him more range and making him taller than Marth, rather than the same height. His forward tilt is much stronger, no longer being weaker than Marth's and Roy's.
• Ryu's shenanigans were fixed. His up tilt is still very good, but no longer broken. It is safe to play as him, but he still has a very good matchup against fastfallers.
• Bowser had a lot of unsafe moves and not much reward to them. His down tilt has been changed so the second hit is just as strong as the first hit, and his forward tilt deals 2% more (12 -> 14%), killing sooner.

Bugs and Crashing

Unfortunately, there are some bugs, some of which are not fixable. I'll list them here.

• Captain Falcon's grounded Up-B crashes the game. I have tried every solution I can think of, but nothing will change. I have not even modified the move and it continues to do so. I doubt all your pro strats rely on this, but be wary.
• Bowser's down air crashes the game if he falls too far with it. It is usually safe to use onstage, but if he falls more than half the screen, the game will crash. This is most likely fixable and I will fix it.
• Bayonetta does not crash the game, but has not been modified whatsoever due to bugs. Modifying her moves in the slightest crashes her. Her physics are still changed, but not her actual moves. I don't mind too much however, as she is already pretty damn good in vanilla. I do not know how to fix this.