Customizable Characters?

[Zekersaurus]

What do you guys think about being able to customize existing characters SSB4, not just visually but the way they play?

For example, maybe you could allow the player to scale the abilities of a character up or down (damage, knockback, speed, etc). Maybe there could be an Item system could be similar to the ones found in DBZ games, or something similar to the weapons system in Soul Calibur.

You could also bring back stickers or make a brand new system completely unique to SSB4.

What do you guys think able character customization in Smash and could it be viable in competitive play?

Discuss

 

[Hypercat-Z]

How about making the character's statistics flexible and costumizable?
In F-Zero-X you could bend the balance between acceleration and max-speed.
In SSB4 they could put a similar option: After you choosed your character you can varying the percentuals of stretch, speed and stamina. Obviously with some limits. Bowser will never be as fast as Sonic.
Also: you might have three bonus stages you can choose the order of. Each one providing to increase one of your statistics.
Well, if all this sounds familiar maybe you have played that same oOoOoOold arcade boxing game I can't remember the title of.

 

[Robert of Normandy]

Terrible idea. Balance depends on way too many factors, so something like this would either be too simple, and thus ineffective, or too complicated to be usable.

Also, 'sometimes players get upset with the changes made to their character.' If they do, they'll get over it.

 

[Aaven]

This would be a nice idea for games like DragonBall Z or something, but for a game that is sure to have a huge competitive following this idea is a giant flop. The fact that players would be in control of balancing issues would be horrid for tournaments and would most likely end up being banned very early on so as not to cause even more issues.

It would be horrible years down the line when newcomers to the Smash Scene try to attend tournaments and would have no clue on how to approach balancing their character for competitive play. Plus the OP characters could just be modified as well and be even more OP.

 

[BluePikmin11]

I think this should only be in Story Mode, just to have an RPG feel..

 

[Hypercat-Z]

I think this should only be in Story Mode, just to have an RPG feel..

Stickers are for that. But I will talk about that in another thread.

 

[BluePikmin11]

Stickers are for that. But I will talk about that in another thread.

I don't think that gives an RPG feel that much.

 

[Hypercat-Z]

I don't think that gives an RPG feel that much.

I pretty agree. Their effect, as I told in the other thread, should be increased.

 

[nessokman]

The only reason brawl was so unbalanced was because sakurai did the balancing himself.this time he stated he will leave that to the namco team

 

[Hypercat-Z]

I think it's a good idea!

 

[Zekersaurus]

Terrible idea. Balance depends on way too many factors, so something like this would either be too simple, and thus ineffective, or too complicated to be usable.

Also, 'sometimes players get upset with the changes made to their character.' If they do, they'll get over it.

^ Captain Falcon...

Also. People are quick to shut ideas down but that doesn't solve anything. Instead of saying "This would never work" why not look at why it doesn't work and try to change it?

Mind you "Customizable Characters" is a very broad statement. Though I gave a few examples, it could mean an infinite number of possible aspects of a character that you could alter, the limits of which are unknown. I find it funny that some people can say, with apparent certainty that it would not work in competitive play.

 

[Robert of Normandy]

^ Captain Falcon...

Most of the changes made in Smash are absolutely horrid. People's complaints about falcon are totally justified. I'm refering to reasonable changes(i.e. buffs to bad characters, minor nerfs to overpowered characters). I don't think MK mans would complain if MK was nerfed a bit.

 

[Roche_CL]

Fighting games can be balanced
Minor tweeks can help a lot, and not change completely how you play a character, just stops some abuse.
In brawl for example, MK's tornado shoulda been nerfed somehow, maybe lower its priority, the damage it makes, the movility. That move is way to OP, and it would just change slightly the way the players use the move.
In melee, Fox should have had his Usmash and Uair weaker, and not make his Uthrow combo into anything. That wouldn't had changed the way you play fox, but it would've helped a lot those low tiers that died in low percentages (G&W, Mew2, Pichu, etc). PAL version had some changes that made the game more balanced, it shoulda been like that in NTSC, with no chaingrabs from Sheik, nerfed Dair from Falco and Marth, nerfed Fox, etc.

Hopefully at least they make big updates, like SF4 or MvsC3, releasing other versions but keeping the game's mood.

 

[Big-Cat]

^ Captain Falcon...

Also. People are quick to shut ideas down but that doesn't solve anything. Instead of saying "This would never work" why not look at why it doesn't work and try to change it?

Mind you "Customizable Characters" is a very broad statement. Though I gave a few examples, it could mean an infinite number of possible aspects of a character that you could alter, the limits of which are unknown. I find it funny that some people can say, with apparent certainty that it would not work in competitive play.

Ok, let's explain why customization at such a deep level could never work.

A character is more than the sum of its parts. Just because a move may seem mediocre by itself doesn't mean it's useless for the character over all.

Balancing is done based on matchups with the whole roster. One change means you have to reexamine the entire roster to make sure nothing's out of sync and this requires high level playtesting.

Changes tend to be very subtle rather than obvious. Things like increased blockstun or a frame or two cut off for startup won't seem obvious to a casual player but can make a gigantic difference to a veteran players. As such, these changes are often minor tweaks and there's no way they'd give the player that ability to have that level of customization.

The other problems surrounding this whole thing is that everyone will try to be pushing their changes as the right changes and this makes both online play and tournament play unbearable.

The closest thing you might be able to achieve is something similar to SFxTK's gem system but hopefully more streamlined.

TL;DR if you want to rebalance a character, you might as well make a flat out mod of the game and change up characters while you're at it ala Project M.

 

[Zekersaurus]

Most of the changes made in Smash are absolutely horrid. People's complaints about falcon are totally justified. I'm refering to reasonable changes(i.e. buffs to bad characters, minor nerfs to overpowered characters). I don't think MK mans would complain if MK was nerfed a bit.

Hmmmrrruhh... I guess... But why bother when you can have that power in the palm of your hands?!:masterball:

Ok, let's explain why customization at such a deep level could never work.

A character is more than the sum of its parts. Just because a move may seem mediocre by itself doesn't mean it's useless for the character over all.

Balancing is done based on matchups with the whole roster. One change means you have to reexamine the entire roster to make sure nothing's out of sync and this requires high level playtesting.

Changes tend to be very subtle rather than obvious. Things like increased blockstun or a frame or two cut off for startup won't seem obvious to a casual player but can make a gigantic difference to a veteran players. As such, these changes are often minor tweaks and there's no way they'd give the player that ability to have that level of customization.

The other problems surrounding this whole thing is that everyone will try to be pushing their changes as the right changes and this makes both online play and tournament play unbearable.

The closest thing you might be able to achieve is something similar to SFxTK's gem system but hopefully more streamlined.

TL;DR if you want to rebalance a character, you might as well make a flat out mod of the game and change up characters while you're at it ala Project M.

Again. You don't know the extent of said alterations so how can you say whether it would work or not? Yeah, even a subtle change can have a huge effect on competitive play. Giving
players the ability to alter the way their character plays in anyway could potentially turn the entire meta on it's head... but its keeps the game interesting. Who's says it wouldn't be for the better? As of right now tiers can still screw people over. Maybe patches will solve this... maybe... but my idea is more fun.

At worst it's in the game but never used in competitive play, but you can't say it won't work because you don't have enough information.

 

[Aaven]

At worst it's in the game but never used in competitive play, but you can't say it won't work because you don't have enough information.

It's not the fact that it simply can be turned off for competitive play that bothers me, if it's a huge flop I would hope they'd just put that wasted effort towards something else like more carefully tweaked character balancing and other add-ons that would actually be worth the time, such as implementing the Tablet control for a fun and interactive experience with a 5th person as stated in another thread.

I feel like no one will ever be able to 100% state why this idea isn't ideal and wouldn't work, but when you have majority of the percentage of people giving negative feedback it's usually just common sense to move on and try pitching other ideas or going elsewhere with the theory. Just my opinion but it seems like this one won't get off the ground for popularity.

 

[Robert of Normandy]

Hmmmrrruhh... I guess... But why bother when you can have that power in the palm of your hands?!:masterball:

Because making changes like what you're suggesting would be far too complicated to be implimented well. You'd need sliders for literally everything in order to make it work properly.

Oh, and it's lazy on the part of the developers.

 

[Zekersaurus]

I feel like no one will ever be able to 100% state why this idea isn't ideal and wouldn't work, but when you have majority of the percentage of people giving negative feedback it's usually just common sense to move on and try pitching other ideas or going elsewhere with the theory. Just my opinion but it seems like this one won't get off the ground for popularity.

Good point but I'm too stubborn.

Because making changes like what you're suggesting would be far too complicated to be implimented well. You'd need sliders for literally everything in order to make it work properly.

Oh, and it's lazy on the part of the developers.

Again, what am I suggesting? I've only given examples. Something like this could be done an infinite number of ways, and you're telling me that it will always fail regardless? Closed minded, pessimistic much?

 

[Cool Daddy Booty Funk]

One of the issues with customizable characters is 9/10 times the top players are going to find what works best and always use that. There isn't actually any custom attributes and it just forms an entry barrier for people that don't know what they're doing.

If you play any MMO you'll see that every single person will have everything min/maxed perfectly. That is fine in an RPG but just doesn't feel right in a fighting game.

 

[Dark Phazon]

I thought it didnt even need explaining why this is a bad idea...

 

[Zekersaurus]

One of the issues with customizable characters is 9/10 times the top players are going to find what works best and always use that. There isn't actually any custom attributes and it just forms an entry barrier for people that don't know what they're doing.

If you play any MMO you'll see that every single person will have everything min/maxed perfectly. That is fine in an RPG but just doesn't feel right in a fighting game.

What if say, you could have a limit of items/weapons on a character, like 3 for example and you could choose from things specifically designed for that character or something available for multiple characters? You give a slow an item that gives him a 10% running speed boost, allow Kirby to start the game with a hat, or give Mario a cape that boosts his recovery.

You could simply ban what is deem to be overpowered on a character, or limit what that character can you to 2, 1, or 0 or strike an item from a character in a similar fashion to stage striking. If you limit it's use no one can really break it.

 

[DakotaBonez]

I liked the stickers that let your character start off holding an item. Imagine if ya could slap these onto a custom stage or set it in options so ya start off fights holding Beam Swords or infinite bob-ombs.

Pretty much expand on Brawl's special brawl mode to include more items, not that we would ever use anything item related -_-

 

[PikaJew]

Customization of existing characters would be so stupid. Stickers in Brawl already added to their speed, special, power, etc. so keep that in for story mode. Gimmick modes such as the Bunny hats and increased speed already exist in multiplayer.

As far as storymode, I think you should be able to create your own character. Have a Mii your starter. Completely customizable. Unlock new movesets as you progress through story mode. Each skill set balances out so it just comes down to preference.

As for multiplayer, absolutely not. Use the characters that are there. Maybe have a mode where you can battle with your customized Mii. But as far as giving Jigglypuff a Falcon Punch i'm not on board. As awesome as that would be it would ruin the game.

 

[Zekersaurus]

Customization of existing characters would be so stupid redundant.

Fixed.

Stickers in Brawl already added to their speed, special, power, etc. so keep that in for story mode. Gimmick modes such as the Bunny hats and increased speed already exist in multiplayer.

As far as storymode, I think you should be able to create your own character. Have a Mii your starter. Completely customizable. Unlock new movesets as you progress through story mode. Each skill set balances out so it just comes down to preference.

As for multiplayer, absolutely not. Use the characters that are there. Maybe have a mode where you can battle with your customized Mii. But as far as giving Jigglypuff a Falcon Punch i'm not on board. As awesome as that would be it would ruin the game.

That... was actually a pretty decent answer. I pretty much said all I had to say though, unless someone gives me reason enough to argue again.

 

[Hypercat-Z]

Customization of existing characters would be so stupid. Stickers in Brawl already added to their speed, special, power, etc. so keep that in for story mode. Gimmick modes such as the Bunny hats and increased speed already exist in multiplayer.

As far as storymode, I think you should be able to create your own character. Have a Mii your starter. Completely customizable. Unlock new movesets as you progress through story mode. Each skill set balances out so it just comes down to preference.

Or it simply evolves it's statistics and moves (and maybe even the clothing) following the way and the characters you fight.

for multiplayer, absolutely not. Use the characters that are there. Maybe have a mode where you can battle with your customized Mii. But as far as giving Jigglypuff a Falcon Punch i'm not on board. As awesome as that would be it would ruin the game.

For multiplayer offline yes. For moltiplayer online NO!
But before it being usable outside the story mode you have to finish it with it.
Also, like in Mario Kart, you can't activate more than one Mii.

 

[Jaedrik]

90% sure? Why not 100%? No game is ever 'balanced' ever (Okay maybe Tic-Tac-Toe). What does that word, 'balanced' even mean? I'm not about to go by any organization's worldly conceptualization of language, I mean it's REAL meaning, intellectually, Platonically.

Aside from random philosophics, I would rather patches, otherwise everyone will just make the most OP character in any category and pick that.

There is also the fact the players/community can make their own patches anyways, you just have to modify the game files.

 

[TerminalMontage]

I think the game would be even more imbalanced if we had this much customizability.

 

[FalKoopa]

Total Customizability is asking too much, i think. Seriously, is it even programmable, given the large moveset each char has?

 

[Tollhouse]

No customizing of any kind should be in this game at least when it comes to characters. The game is supposed to be simple gameplay. Customizing would just **** the whole game up.

 

[Mr.Jackpot]

Customizing would turn Smash into Pokemon.

Why do people care so much about balance anyways? Probably less than 3% of Smash players get to a level where top level balance is relevant (most of the general fanbase that complains about Brawl's balance think Ike and Pit are top tier), and balancing it around lower levels of play is plain poor game design. Solid, fast, deep, and fun mechanics and physics are a million times more important.

 

[grizby2]

i have to give it to the OP for sticking to his guns, but customizing stats is a bad idea, and id go as far as saying its a sin for fighting games.

have you played SCIV (soul calibur 4)?
making a custom character was cool and all, but when the armor you decorated your custom character with actually changed the stats of the character itself, thats when customization goes wrong. for a fighting game, customizing should be cosmetic and ONLY cosmetic. as kuma said, re-arranging character stats, even by a little, can alter the game greatly.
putting more power in the hands of the player is nice if the people playing the game are working TOGETHER, but when they're fighting eachother, the word "unfair" begins to repeat itself.

in a nutshell

appearance = yes
stats = no

 

[Zekersaurus]

i have to give it to the OP for sticking to his guns, but customizing stats is a bad idea, and id go as far as saying its a sin for fighting games.

Saying it's not right for smash is one thing, but a sin for fighting games? Really? Explain that?

As far as I'm concerned, the gameplay in Smash is so far removed from the standard fighting that it has had to have committed more of a sin than what I'm suggesting but it was still executed well.

 

[Big-Cat]

Saying the Smash gameplay has been executed well is up for debate.

The reason why customizing stats would be a "sin" is because it defeats the purpose of all the work and balancing that went into the roster. As mentioned, such a level of customization would have a domino effect on balance.

Asking for it to be still executed well may very well asking for the impossible.

 

[Zekersaurus]

Saying the Smash gameplay has been executed well is up for debate.

Well, that's an opinion, which we're all entitled to but when a game's fan base is in the multiples of a million and so are the sales, I think developers did something right.

The reason why customizing stats would be a "sin" is because it defeats the purpose of all the work and balancing that went into the roster. As mentioned, such a level of customization would have a domino effect on balance.

Asking for it to be still executed well may very well asking for the impossible.

It still has a purpose. This option is in DBZ games, Naruto, SC, and plenty others. It's not there for no reason. Yeah, in most cases options like these are not seen in competitive play but it's not really all that hard to pick and choose what item, weapon, or adjustments would be gamebreaking and limit or ban it's use.

 

[ScubaGoomba]

Opinion: The 3DS Smash Game should be an RPG that lets you customize the way your characters develop. The Fox you play on WiiU, for example, is one version of the maxed out Fox, but the 3DS cartridge allows you to change the way his abilities are spread (think of games like X-Men Legends and how leveling up works there). If you wanted to, you could import characters from the 3DS to WiiU (akin to, maybe, Mario Tennis), but these (probably) wouldn't be used for tournament play.

 

[TreK]

Rofl, I'm working on this game. I'll release it on Ouya in 2-3 years (or whatever android based console will be what cool kids play when my game's ready). Funny how I come across this thread now xD

As soon as customization isn't only about aesthetics, it HAS to be the backbone of the game, and not an additional feature. Imho, it doesn't fit Smash because of this.

But 'customization' is a very vague term. You have to be clear about what you can, and what you cannot customize. If there are no limits, it's not going to be interesting. If there are too much limits, it's not going to be fun.

Last but not least, customization is not about balance in existing games, it's about variety (and sometimes farming /DBZ). That's something to keep in mind.

That said, it's still a possibility. Miis could very well be on SSB4, and they're all about customization.

 

[Zekersaurus]

Rofl, I'm working on this game. I'll release it on Ouya in 2-3 years (or whatever android based console will be what cool kids play when my game's ready). Funny how I come across this thread now xD

As soon as customization isn't only about aesthetics, it HAS to be the backbone of the game, and not an additional feature. Imho, it doesn't fit Smash because of this.

Probably not.

But 'customization' is a very vague term. You have to be clear about what you can, and what you cannot customize. If there are no limits, it's not going to be interesting. If there are too much limits, it's not going to be fun.

Well, I was purposely being vague. I wanted to discuss viability of any level of customization that would affect the way your character plays and just let people come up with there own ideas.

Last but not least, customization is not about balance in existing games, it's about variety (and sometimes farming /DBZ).

You know... it didn't actually occur to me til after reading your post that I should probably edit my first post. This thread really isn't about balance. I think I had balance it mind but was more interested in the idea of character customization and what it could add to the game.

 

[Zekersaurus]

Edited My first post.

 

[VictoryIsMudkipz]

Maybe for standard offline game matches, but not for online play, characters would become broken real quick

 

[Vintage Creep]

I recently purchased Tekken Tag Tournament 2 and I love the customization of the characters. Since Namco/Bandai is on board, I hope give a similar treatment to Smash Bros 4. If you ask me, statistics shouldn't be customizable, only the look of the characters should. This way, they could represent even more franchises which aren't big enough to have a character or a stage. Don't know, you can purchase Mach Rider's helmet or something like that, even original/WTF outfits.