A Hard Sell on how to Implement Custom Moves

[King of Hoboz]

Before I saw anything, I'm going to need to explain my perspective. I am an Ex-Brawl player who was jaded by it before I even jumped onto Project M. I only play Smash 4 due to the intense amount of pressure to play it within the community.

I went to a tournament for Smash 4 yesterday to visit my friends out of town. They had Custom Moves allowed, which is a position I was already against, though I truthfully didn't know anything about Custom Moves or any experience against them. I tried to let myself be open to Custom Moves being fair and/or reasonable. . . but after playing against DK, God of Thunder and -Super- Mario, along with a wide variety of other customs, I want to safely say that I despite it all. None of the custom moves seem clearly balanced for competitive play and have wacky elements about them that seem to show how little 'balance' went into them. Example? I play Charizard, Charizard's Flare Blitz is a move designed to armor through projectiles to hit said person using projectiles. While he can charge right through a normal Fireball, when Mario was using the fast Fireball, not only was it near impossible to do anything other than to respond with jump, if I could use Flare Blitz then it would 'crash' into the Fireball instead of Mario like it's suppose to. HOW DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE!? After that, I actually decided against joining the tournament for Singles. I just outright refused to play in that kind of environment so riddled with customs.

Now that you know what my general perspective is, I now have a proposition. Just last night, I have a thought, a thought on how to at least have custom moves a more manageable option in competitive play. What if we only allowed 1 Custom Move on a character?

This seems to be a fair compromise for those hesitant to try customs. A huge problem with customs is when they drastically change a character's play style to the point it could operate as a new character essentially. In a 50 character game, this kind of work could get overwhelming if you have to learn a character and each and all variants of that character. In contrast, a single custom move shouldn't (probably) alter a character's dynamics so roughly that extensive research on the custom moves would be necessary, a strong bonus for those trying to enter the competitive scene.

As well, it still grants character balancing as pro-Custom Move advocates most optimally want (I'm assuming).

Again, not a real Smash 4 player. I didn't think too hard on this thought, only thought that this was interesting. I hope you all at least consider.

 

[Raijinken]

Customs, like any given move between two different games, shouldn't be expected to follow the same rules as their basis does. While it's definitely rather odd that a weaker fireball can clang Flare Blitz, this should be viewed as simply another property of the Fast Fireball. It comes with its own drawbacks and shortcomings, namely reduced damage and reduced gimp potential against much of the cast.

With the exceptions of Shulk (due to greater innate stat changes), Palutena (due to entirely altered moves), and the Miis (same reason as Palutena), the vast majority of custom moves don't significantly affect a character's over-all style. They're more specialized variants that, generally speaking, bring drawbacks which may or may not be relevant to the over-arching metagame. On top of that, they actually have been shown to be subject to balance changes - Dragon Rush (Charizard Side 3) was nerfed in damage, for instance.

I'd definitely agree, limiting characters to one custom would definitely be an easier pill to swallow for people who oppose them to begin with. A simple counterpoint to the character dynamic argument you propose is: If we allow any player to pick any one custom, it is still vital to know all 8 of their potential alternatives, on top of their four defaults. All that saves you is having to learn how any custom works in conjunction with another (thus, for instance, you don't have to be concerned with Dr. Mario using Soaring Tornado to make up for recovery lost by taking the Ol' One-Two, as that combination can't be run simultaneously).

I, personally, am greatly in favor of allowing all custom moves (and any combinations thereof). But I really can't blame players for disliking them, after all, they do greatly change (and in a lot of cases, improve) existing moves, and it can be confusing and frustrating to have to learn to adapt to a new threat. I do believe the gap from learning a character's default to learning the changes from customs is a relatively small one, and one that players would benefit from covering, but it's really down to preference. At this point, while both custom-legal and custom-banned tournaments are played, I'd just suggest players enter whichever they are more comfortable with.

 

[ChillySundance]

What's wrong with having to extensively research custom moves? If you're planning on learning a game competitively, you should be expected to learn it, variables or no.

People never made this kind of complaint about competitive Melty Blood when Actress Again hit and all characters were given 3 styles that drastically changed how they played.

 

[LimitCrown]

Charizard's Flare Blitz shouldn't be cancelled by the Fast Fireball custom move because Flare Blitz gives Charizard super armor and the Fast Fireball custom move deals less damage than the regular fireballs. Even when Charizard was at 999% damage, the Fast Fireballs didn't interrupt Flare Blitz.

 

[ChopperDave]

There are two problems I can see with only allowing one custom move per character:

1) If your problem is that you don't want to learn the unique qualities of special moves, what does this really solve? Even allowing one move per character means competitive players are going to have to learn what all 8 custom moves do so they don't get surprised. The only thing they wouldnt have to learn is how a character's custom move A interacts with his custom move B.

2) Some custom moves are only viable with other custom moves. I main Mega Man and this is particularly true for him. Tornado Hold, for example, works really well with Danger Wrap, as is kind of meh without it. Without DW I don't think that TH would be as viable.

I personally like custom moves. They don't sesm to change the play style of any characters in a massive way; they just enhance/diminish certain strengths and weaknesses.

Mega Man's offstage game and horizontal stage control is already pretty strong, for example. I like to go for offstage kills, so I tend to take Danger Wrap. This gives me another solid juggle/kill option and strengthens my offstage game, but diminishes my horizontal stage control because DW is much more vertical than Crash Bomber. It also makes it harder for me to recover to stage sometimes, because Crash Bomber is often good for countering my opponent's gimp attempts.

I haven't encountered any custom moves that truly break a character or change his play style massively. They just give us more options, which in my opinion makes the meta more fun and interesting.

 

[Methacrylate]

Allowing one custom move per character will mean that most Mario players will run with fast fireballs as their one custom in which case you are still going to have to learn how to deal with the fast fireballs.

 

[HeroMystic]

Allowing one custom move per character will mean that most Mario players will run with fast fireballs as their one custom in which case you are still going to have to learn how to deal with the fast fireballs.

I'm actually pretty confident most Marios would go for Gust Cape, which is much harder to deal with for any player than Fast Fireball ever will be.

 

[Asdioh]

Now that you know what my general perspective is, I now have a proposition. Just last night, I have a thought, a thought on how to at least have custom moves a more manageable option in competitive play. What if we only allowed 1 Custom Move on a character?

Never gonna happen, it's all or nothing.

A huge problem with customs is when they drastically change a character's play style to the point it could operate as a new character essentially.

Nope, that's the opposite of a problem.

Again, not a real Smash 4 player. I didn't think too hard on this thought, only thought that this was interesting. I hope you all at least consider.

It's an interesting thought, but it's really arbitrary. Some characters would want more than 1 custom, whether as a personal preference, or as a necessity for thriving in a customs-on environment. Holding some characters back simply because some players may be too lazy to git gud is a pretty crap system. Like you said, you don't even play the game, of course you have no idea how to deal with custom moves.

 

[Thinkaman]

First, "I only play this game due to peer pressure but here's how people should play it" isn't a perspective that endears much sympathy. I'm all about being inclusive as possible, but we don't water down the game to cater exclusively to new players.

Second, complaining about custom move balance requires actual balance complaints. Not only is your fast fireball vs charizard complaint wrong mechanically, but it's just bizarre. A Charizard complaining about custom moves??? The guy with Dragon Rush and all his other stuff???

Finally:

"Wow, this move is stupid."
"Wow, custom moves are stupid."