The Timeline of Smash Ultimate’s Projectile Bug and Misc. Bugs
By Yellowlord
The Background Behind This Bug
In Smash Ultimate’s 11.0 Update that added Pyra/Mythra, a new bug involving projectiles was discovered by Angie (firubii), a well known modder and programmer when it comes to Smash. This specific bug causes projectiles to somehow completely ignore characters hurtboxes at random intervals when that projectile should have hit them. Throughout the course of a few days, Angie documented her findings and presented them on her Twitter, with this set of tweets having been posted before the discovery the next day:
https://twitter.com/firubiii/status/1368382178447474688?s=21
The Tweet That Started It All
The next day, Angie goes into depth on her findings in relation to this bug, with the big discoveries being that projectiles completely ignore head hurtboxes during the forward momentum of a dash; this was tested with the previously mentioned Jigglypuff and Byleth’s arrow. In this tweet, Angie shows a video with the bug working on Lucas via the use of Link’s fully charged Neutral B arrow, with the arrow completely going through Lucas’s hair and missing his hurtbox entirely despite going through where it was located.
https://twitter.com/firubiii/status/1368687633480683523
Further �Clarification
Angie further clarifies on the meaning
of this video by pointing out the hitbox on
the arrow (represented by a blue circle via
her training modpack, with the yellow arrow helping to point it out on my end) and how that should have hit Lucas’s large hurtbox on his head. She also mentions how the phantom hit/graze particle effect appears inside of Lucas’s head rather than from outside, which is apparently not supposed to happen.
https://twitter.com/firubiii/status/1368689265467678720
User Response
Angie then responds to a user perspective saying that these glitches don’t tend to mean anything. While Angie does agree that past types of glitches don’t tend to mean much, she feels this one stands out more compared to the others. This is due to it affecting every projectile in the game and requiring a specific set-up to make it work, giving Angie the perspective that the devs are reworking projectile code for a new mechanic. It’s to the point that this works on Falco’s Shine/Down-B (meaning that projectiles returning to the sender can also be grazed).
https://twitter.com/firubiii/status/1368704178525200384
More Thoughts And Further Evidence
In these two tweets, Angie further clarifies her thoughts that this bug could be related to reworking major projectile code with a mechanic that ignores projectiles from how precise it is. She also confirms that this bug works perfectly when online in an unmodded game, no moveset mods, and with no desyncing. Both players can notice this bug as well, and it took her at least 100 tries to get it down consistently with how precise the arrow hurtbox needs to be on a character.
https://twitter.com/firubiii/status/1368692006881464326 https://twitter.com/firubiii/status/1368703194562523138
The Mysterious Dark Pit Glitch
The day before Angie discovered the projectile bug, a character specific bug related to Dark Pit was discovered by Le_Basth where Dark Pit’s Arrow gets stuck to his body through unknown means. From Angie’s perspective, her idea behind it is a mechanic that could be used by lightly tilting the control stick while also being able to held closer to a character by holding Neutral B, but it will follow the character at the same time.
https://twitter.com/Le_Basth/status/1368242856993947651
https://twitter.com/firubiii/status/1368706393277087750
Past Examples
In these two separate tweets, Angie cites various bugs that led to future characters, with examples including Cloud’s Limit Meter relating to Joker’s Rebellion Meter and Pokemon Trainer’s Switch breaking the patch before Pyra/Mythra appeared. She also noted how Steve has a ton of mesh visibility objects located within his model, which may relate to why Daisy’s dress had bugged out a while back.
https://twitter.com/firubiii/status/1368701525367914497?s=20
https://twitter.com/firubiii/status/1368703458623295490
This is the specific Daisy glitch from a while back; parts of her dress outright just disappear, which might relate to the mesh visibility point Angie makes in the second tweet. 🡪
Clarification on Hurtboxes
In these series of tweets, Angie believes that the developers wouldn’t need to rework the code for a headshot mechanic due to hurtboxes already having the property of only being affected by a specific hitbox, with Marth’s Neutral B cited as an example. She also clarifies in response to a user that the Lucas arrow graze is not a phantom hit as despite the particle effect appearing, it was inside the hurtbox, with the arrow having gone into the hurtbox and had done nothing. It appears to hit in every other instance otherwise.
https://twitter.com/firubiii/status/1369049889871650819
https://twitter.com/firubiii/status/1368843114933346308
Lucas’s Hurtbox with a depiction of how Link’s arrow traveled in Angie’s video via my own arrow addition (which is meant to show that the hitbox at the arrow’s tip did connect with Lucas’s hitbox and grazed it):🡪
More on Hurtboxes and Scripts
A user had speculated that the lack of a hurtbox is due to a character that would disappear as a mechanic. However, Angie clarifies on this by mentioning this would not involve projectile code being touched, but by scripting instead; she cites Mega Man’s Down Taunt and Mewtwo/Palutena’s Teleports as examples of this among others. In another tweet, she reiterates on projectile code not being needed to be touched at all via restructuring; she also mentions Wonderwing as another mechanic/move controlled by scripts.
https://twitter.com/firubiii/status/1369462796052795401?s=21
https://twitter.com/firubiii/status/1369455715807621121
All Hurtbox Types Are Affected
After a few days from the initial discovery of this bug, Angie confirms that every hurtbox type in the game is affected by the bug after having changed Lucas’s head hurtbox type to the other types in the game and replicating the graze glitch from there; all that’s needed is forward momentum to pull off the bug. She also mentions in a later tweet that another requirement is that the arrow hitbox (or any other projectile hitbox) must come into contact with only one hurtbox, with them having seen it happen with Byleth’s Arrow and Snake’s Nikita through this condition; the Link to Lucas set-up is the easiest way to accomplish this bug as mentioned by Angie.
https://twitter.com/firubiii/status/1369448895290441730?s=21
https://twitter.com/firubiii/status/1369464740439851012?s=21
The Projectile Bug Existing Before 11.0.0.?
While this may come off as a surprise to some, there is the possibility that this bug existed before Update 11.0 as a user who had replied to Angie’s main thread on the bug had claimed that this exact set-up worked pre-patch. If this is truly the case, then
it would lead to the possibility that this mechanic has
been in the works since at least the Sephiroth patch if not earlier than that. While it has yet to be confirmed how far back this bug has been in for, it’s still extremely interesting in the long run.
https://twitter.com/yarnfang/status/1368953953069719552?s=20
Reimu for Smash Findings #1
Somewhat recently in the Reimu For Smash server, both Angie and Galactigal (Angie’s partner who is well known for her Reimu renders and one of the members of Team Destination) made an appearance and talked about the discovers they had made as of recently in relation to this bug. Most notably, Angie specified that projectiles seemed to literally ignore hurtboxes if the bone the hurtbox is connected to has forward velocity and in specific instances. Galactigal also mentioned that throughout their playing on the Pyra/Mythra launch day, it occurred a lot and first happened using Byleth’s arrow.
Reimu For Smash Findings #2
After that, Angie made note of
Snake’s Nikita and Falco’s shine being affected, similar to what was mentioned in some of her tweets. Galactigal also confirmed it even works with Min Min’s Ramram, which is coded as a projectile in-game with Falco’s Shine reflecting it back. Angie also confirms her experience with the previous Smash game and how that experience has been further expanded upon in Ultimate’s engine and how she knows a lot about it overall via her past modding experience.
Reimu for Smash Findings #3
After asking both Angie/Galactigal if this bug truly worked with all characters, the latter had confirmed it, but also made note of how it’s related to hitbox data rather than being character specific. She further elaborates in that from what her and Angie have tested, its truly related to forward velocity and could by extension be grazing related. Galactigal outright ends up saying that it perfectly emulates both Soku and AoCF with their grazing mechanics in that when dashing, you graze all projectiles coming at you and take no damage and knockback from them.
Reimu For Smash Findings #4
There was also discussion on the Dark Pit bug briefly; Angie mentions in detail that the arrow gets attached to a single body on Dark Pit’s body, that being the “Bust” bone, located right in the middle of his torso. From her perspective, this would mean the developers are working on an object or article that can be affected by holding the neutral special button and the control stick lightly (possibly by tilting the stick). Galactigal specifically referenced the Yin Yang Orbs Reimu is known for having as this potential object or one of many objects she might have at her disposal.
Reimu for Smash Findings #5
Of the final notes Angie and Galactigal had made, the former believes that this might all relate to a passive graze of the sorts with the projectile bug and with various options in Reimu’s case from the Dark Pit bug. Angie also believes that a new hurtbox type is the most likely outcome of the former bug and that the developers forgot to bind it to a character ID or area; she also agreed that it may have been a mix of leftovers from testing and that by extension, these mechanics were revealed by accident.
The Projectile Bug Survived Patch 11.0.1.
A few days ago (specifically March 23rd), a new patch released for Smash Ultimate that focused on fixing the Wii Fit Trainer’s reduced vulnerability on her Side B (Header), which was completely unintended to happen. Due to this patch that may of not been a surprise to some due to the change mentioned above, some had wondered if the graze bug might of also been affected. However, according to Angie, the bug was not affected and remains the same; she also mentions that whatever is being worked on is something that’s simply too far in development to reverse without it basically breaking the game in many ways, hence the likely reason it was not patched.
https://twitter.com/firubiii/status/1374558830038749188
The Projectile Bug
Survived Patch 12.0.0.
As of June 29th, Kazuya came out after initially being revealed on June 15th and talked about on June 28th. Many had assumed the graze bug would apply to Kazuya due to how low he shifts his hurtbox, but this would eventually be proven to be invincibility frames rather than a case of grazing a projectile. Angie herself would prove this by showing off a hitbox visualizer mod that shows the given hurtboxes in a blue color, which represent invincibility frames. I have also provided the exact moment in Reimucord when I discovered the Graze Bug was confirmed to have survived the patch for reference.
https://twitter.com/firubiii/status/1410056437959647234
The Projectile Bug
Survived Patch 12.0.0. Section 2
To further clarify on the previous slide, Angie also posted a tweet showing the same visualizer hitbox of the very setup that she used to demonstrate the bug in the first place when it was discovered by her back in March. As one can see, the projectile represented by the yellow line goes right through Lucas’s head hurtbox (represented in white) perfectly. Again, as I’ve said before, any hurtbox will work as Angie has mentioned, but it needs to be in contact with that singular hurtbox only with some kind of forward momentum for the bug to work.
https://twitter.com/firubiii/status/1410063837324353546
The Projectile Bug in Action
After spending about 1-2 weeks of gathering clips for every character in Smash Ultimate and showing them to Angie for approval/review, I overall was able to accomplish the bug on 20 (or 1/4th) of the cast in Smash Ultimate. While it’s entirely possible to do this bug on all characters and this was something I genuinely attempted to do in my two main attempts, I wanted to make sure that I was accurate with how this video was depicted, meaning the video only shows the characters I personally was able to get the bug on. It’s a relatively short video, but it gets the point across and shows the bug in action and how I managed to get it on those 20 characters:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKBLrSQ02_A
Conclusion
While this bug and the Dark Pit bug do not officially confirm Reimu or other characters with similar mechanics, everything involving both bugs (more so the former) line up with mechanics and abilities Reimu can perform in her own games. If these two bugs had any correlation to a specific character if I had to think of one, I strongly feel it would lean towards Reimu the most, but this is just my opinion and is not meant to be taken as me saying she’s in. Only until we get an official announcement on who the next set of character are will we know who we’re getting, but at the very least, all of this information is extremely fascinating and intriguing. Will anything come of it? For now, we’ll simply have to wait and see; thanks for reading!
Credits
All tweets and images belong to their respective owners.