A public stance on custom moves.

[Overswarm]

It's pretty easy to prevent cheating on custom moves. If you haven't played with equipment before, it is painfully obvious when equipment is on. If someone plays with equipment equipped, they are DQed and banned from future events. /done

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

It's pretty easy to prevent cheating on custom moves. If you haven't played with equipment before, it is painfully obvious when equipment is on. If someone plays with equipment equipped, they are DQed and banned from future events. /done

In irl.

It'll be easy to tell. Online is a bit tricker.

 

[Overswarm]

For online you can't check at all; it doesn't even show the little circle.

 

[Zigsta]

It really just depends on how hard we want the CP process to be. If you have to pick your character AND your special before they pick their character, you can be suuuuuuuper hard countered. Bowser needs a different side-b and different up+b based on matchup and they're different enough to where it's like picking a different character entirely.

Is this different than saying "I pick Ike!" and your opponent CPing to Sheik? Is this something we just want to allow, or is it something we should pay attention to so that the character selection is wider? Should custom specials simply not be announced prior to the other player picking their character (double blind every time)? We'll need more experience with them before figuring it out.

I don't see personally why Bowser needs certain customs for certain MUs. His moveset all seems to me based on personal preference instead of necessity.

Which seems to be true of all the customs of other characters I've seen, really.

 

[Overswarm]

I don't see personally why Bowser needs certain customs for certain MUs. His moveset all seems to me based on personal preference instead of necessity.

Which seems to be true of all the customs of other characters I've seen, really.

You know this isn't true.

Logical proof:

Player A gets to pick the entire custom moveset for himself as well as his opponent

Will Player A have an advantage?

Obviously yes, which indicates that either his own custom movesets give an advantage or his opponent's give a disadvantage. If this is the case, it is possible that the same can occur with no change to movesets.

Bowser's "Fire Roar" is unequivocally the best in terms of dealing damage (20%!) and his over-B claw combos into forward smash while also letting him land safely and his grab over-B grab gives him shield pressure from a distance away. It's not preference.

Rosalina's Luma Warp combos into u-smash and has little lag. It is a better option in most, if not all, circumstances, weakened only by its lesser damage.

Shulks' two Monado arts are both stronger than his original, one lasts much less and one much longer, and actually make him viable (red d-throw kills bowser under 100%).

Sheiks' gravity grenade combos into tipper u-smash.

Megaman's danger wrap allows him to kill in multiple situations he could not otherwise. His plant shield is better than leaf shield in every meaningful way.

Custom moves make or break characters. Bowser will definitely not be a viable character without custom moves.

 

[Zigsta]

You know this isn't true.

Logical proof:

Player A gets to pick the entire custom moveset for himself as well as his opponent

Will Player A have an advantage?

Obviously yes, which indicates that either his own custom movesets give an advantage or his opponent's give a disadvantage. If this is the case, it is possible that the same can occur with no change to movesets.

Bowser's "Fire Roar" is unequivocally the best in terms of dealing damage (20%!) and his over-B claw combos into forward smash while also letting him land safely and his grab over-B grab gives him shield pressure from a distance away. It's not preference.

Rosalina's Luma Warp combos into u-smash and has little lag. It is a better option in most, if not all, circumstances, weakened only by its lesser damage.

Shulks' two Monado arts are both stronger than his original, one lasts much less and one much longer, and actually make him viable (red d-throw kills bowser under 100%).

Sheiks' gravity grenade combos into tipper u-smash.

Megaman's danger wrap allows him to kill in multiple situations he could not otherwise. His plant shield is better than leaf shield in every meaningful way.

Custom moves make or break characters. Bowser will definitely not be a viable character without custom moves.

I still see this as preference. Fire Roar for example does amazing damage but doesn't last long and takes a while to recharge. I personally prefer the standard Firebreath because it's a rather reliable spacing tool. I'm sure there's players who don't use Firebreath as much who would prefer Fire Roar. I personally don't like Dash Klaw, but almost all the Bowsers on the boards use it.

I can't speak for the other customs you mentioned as I haven't unlocked them yet, but all the customs I've seen or heard have their own drawbacks. Bowser's high lifting fortress (don't remember the exact name) goes up SUPER high--high enough that you can recover after a Koopacide--but it has no hitbox, so up B OoS becomes useless. Likewise, some players prefer the Quick Fortress as it can zip to the other side of the stage quickly--it's better for resetting situations but not as good at damage/shield pressuring, which to me is one of Bowser's greatest buffs in this game. Similarly his Bowser Bomb customs both cover his blindspot more but lack the upwards hitbox, which truly makes jab canceled Bowser Bombs an absolute nightmare for shields.

The only custom I've seen/tested that has a solid kill setup is Basiji's (probably spelling that wrong--sorry!!) use of Greninja's custom shuriken that sucks in the opponent and leads to upsmash KOs. Not sure what the drawback is, though.

I'm afraid I don't understand the argument of a player picking both his AND the opponent's custom moves, as it's preference what build you like to play with. I don't see a similar comparison in competitive Smash other than side tournaments where you pick what character your opponent uses. Of course if you picked both yours and your opponent's builds you'd have an advantage, silly!

I also strongly disagree that Bowser's no viable without custom moves--he's got the tools with just his vanilla moves. But I'll leave it at that in this thread because I don't want to derail things. Just my two cents, sir!

 

[Deleted member 245254]

In irl.

It'll be easy to tell. Online is a bit tricker.

I'm not so sure I fully agree with that. While it may be more of a pain that the match has to initiate before we can notice anything but it would be painfully simple to observe an obvious frame advantage or anything similar one may be sporting through a piece of equipment.

We can make the consequences for being caught in such an act severe and make sure people abide by scouts honor. It's super unlikely that someone wouldn't get caught, especially with the kind of talented, in-depth, observers that are really very common in this community.

However I don't use equipment very much as it is, so I haven't experimented with "shady" equipment load outs (unnoticeable to the human eye in order to not risk exposure) enough to know just how undercover you can make an equipment set. Any insight here?

I think a CP system for custom moves would be laborious, it really makes a lot more sense to simply pick their load outs, show their opponent, and start the set, but I can't rightly say that free changing of custom moves between matches should be disallowed because I see it as similar to changing your character, which is perfectly allowed.

 

[Overswarm]

I'm afraid I don't understand the argument of a player picking both his AND the opponent's custom moves, as it's preference what build you like to play with. I don't see a similar comparison in competitive Smash other than side tournaments where you pick what character your opponent uses. Of course if you picked both yours and your opponent's builds you'd have an advantage, silly!

That was the point. If you get an advantage, it can't be "preference" because it'd be a wrong decision -- like playing Kirby in Melee. That's just a wrong decision. The extreme version of deliberately improving your character and worsening the opponent's results in an advantage for one player. It follows that either both add to the advantage/disadvantage gap (in which case picking your own moves in a vacuum isn't just preference) or only when someone has a specific set against another specific set adds to an advantage/disadvantage gap (in which case one preference combined with another results in a strategic opportunity, meaning non-preferential).

 

[Overswarm]

I'm not so sure I fully agree with that. While it may be more of a pain that the match has to initiate before we can notice anything but it would be painfully simple to observe an obvious frame advantage or anything similar one may be sporting through a piece of equipment.

We can make the consequences for being caught in such an act severe and make sure people abide by scouts honor. It's super unlikely that someone wouldn't get caught, especially with the kind of talented, in-depth, observers that are really very common in this community.

However I don't use equipment very much as it is, so I haven't experimented with "shady" equipment load outs (unnoticeable to the human eye in order to not risk exposure) enough to know just how undercover you can make an equipment set. Any insight here?

I think a CP system for custom moves would be laborious, it really makes a lot more sense to simply pick their load outs, show their opponent, and start the set, but I can't rightly say that free changing of custom moves between matches should be disallowed because I see it as similar to changing your character, which is perfectly allowed.

I'd have to agree with Red Ryu; I don't think it'd be hard to catch people visually if they were streamed, but even if they were it's unlikely that someone like M2K would be DQed. Can you imagine DQing M2K, then 5 minutes later him showing his character with no equipment equipped (after he had time to change it)? It'd be a nightmare.

 

[Zigsta]

That was the point. If you get an advantage, it can't be "preference" because it'd be a wrong decision -- like playing Kirby in Melee. That's just a wrong decision. The extreme version of deliberately improving your character and worsening the opponent's results in an advantage for one player. It follows that either both add to the advantage/disadvantage gap (in which case picking your own moves in a vacuum isn't just preference) or only when someone has a specific set against another specific set adds to an advantage/disadvantage gap (in which case one preference combined with another results in a strategic opportunity, meaning non-preferential).

I can kinda see what you're getting at...

For example, Rosalina's really good at juggling Bowser and abusing his blindspot. The Bowser player goes for one of the custom Bowser Bombs in order to cover Bowser's blindspot more.

That said, I don't see it as a straight up advantage rather than a preferred playstyle. If you go for a custom BB, you lose the first hit and suffer from a weaker shield pressure game.

So I can see custom moves as some players' ways of patching up weak points in a MU, but I'm really not seeing where literally the ONLY way to win is using X custom move against Y character 100% of the time.

 

[Shaya]

I think the issue with the set up Xiivi showed there, is that there really isn't a way to notice.
That Fox is going to survive maybe 5-10% longer from an aerial than he would normally. Or just always be slightly less knockback than you would expect. People would come to think "oh, great vectoring".

I'm not sure what reduced landing impact does, but if it's something like "bouncing off of a spike or hit into the ground is less" (guessing by description) then it would surely be hard for people to notice as well.

I think on the plus side, it's hard to get a neutral load. But on the other side the equipment you can have could be so minor to see, that you wouldn't really notice, even from experienced players.
Then you have to prove someone cheated. There's no way to check what was someone's last custom moveset by a number/position, what's stopping someone having a neutral load with the same specials with an equipmentless load of the same specials and just being sneaky when they start matches?

We could tell players that you are not allowed to have any custom sets with any equipment whatsoever in any capacity. Before you start a match/set (and unfortunately this has to be for every character swap), you show your opponent none of your sets have equipment. As long as someone is in a lobby, they can't somehow mix that up.

But that can hit newbies hard.

 

[Overswarm]

Reduced landing lag = no lag from aerials. That would be very easy to spot.

Let's put it this way:

If someone is going to attempt to cheat by having equipment with special options, their options are very limited. If it actually gives them enough of an advantage to do well, it will be easily spotted.

 

[Overswarm]

I can kinda see what you're getting at...

For example, Rosalina's really good at juggling Bowser and abusing his blindspot. The Bowser player goes for one of the custom Bowser Bombs in order to cover Bowser's blindspot more.

That said, I don't see it as a straight up advantage rather than a preferred playstyle. If you go for a custom BB, you lose the first hit and suffer from a weaker shield pressure game.

So I can see custom moves as some players' ways of patching up weak points in a MU, but I'm really not seeing where literally the ONLY way to win is using X custom move against Y character 100% of the time.

Think in absolutes. If Fox had a shine that worked like Melee, a shine that worked like it currently does, and a shine that healed his opponents to 0% whenever it was used, you have one that is better and one that is worse. If this situation can exist, we can extrapolate from this situation that another situation that isn't as extreme can exist -- even if we haven't observed it yet. As time goes on this will become more important as information is gathered and it will turn out to not be preference but rather a strategic decision, just like character choice is.

 

[Zigsta]

Think in absolutes. If Fox had a shine that worked like Melee, a shine that worked like it currently does, and a shine that healed his opponents to 0% whenever it was used, you have one that is better and one that is worse. If this situation can exist, we can extrapolate from this situation that another situation that isn't as extreme can exist -- even if we haven't observed it yet. As time goes on this will become more important as information is gathered and it will turn out to not be preference but rather a strategic decision, just like character choice is.

This I totally get. Before banning any customs it absolutely makes sense to get more data.

 

[Overswarm]

If the SBR should really be doing anything, it should probably be promoting mentalities that help the community grow. Many, many players have already said "boo, Smash 4 sucks! No combos!" -- mostly Melee kids. A lot of people who have played with custom moves and seen a reversal when it comes to a matchup they are used to (or the effectiveness of a certain move/character) often have a negative response and their immediate response is "ban it".

 

[Shaya]

If the SBR should really be doing anything, it should probably be promoting mentalities that help the community grow.

Indeed.

 

[Shaya]

Way too many people are coming in around about now asking questions like
"wait, custom moves is actually a thing?" "some tournaments have them, others don't!" "what am I meant to practise?" "how long until they get banned?"

Within my own country (not my own region, where we've been pro-customs the entire time), I see a lot of people who just assume they would get banned, and have played the game under that assumption from the get go. Their first events had customs legal and most of the old caste did very poorly, there's been metric tons of ******** since and the TO is now only hanging off the pretense that Apex will have customs legal (which isn't even a confirmed thing yet) to keep them up.

Sad days.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

I'll be honest, until custom moves are more accepted I won't be using them. Also, because they aren't legal on the AiB ladder or For Glory which are the two primary ways I play the game at the moment because of my life schedule.

I WANT to use custom moves, I just don't have the opportunity.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

AiB ladder doesn't have them legal? Weird.

Still I'm not really seeing the why on them being banned in the first place outside of, "it's different" If they scream OP, I would question if they were to try and learn to deal with them.

 

[Overswarm]

"It's different" is the reasoning behind that entire subset of players for the majority of things they want removed.


"First they came for stages, and I said nothing because I liked Flat-Plat stages.
Then they came for ledge play, and I said nothing because I hated planking.
Then they came for some of the infinites, and I said nothing because my character could be infinited.
Then they came for custom moves, and now I know how Overswarm felt."

 

[Deleted member 245254]

I'll be honest, until custom moves are more accepted I won't be using them. Also, because they aren't legal on the AiB ladder or For Glory which are the two primary ways I play the game at the moment because of my life schedule.

I WANT to use custom moves, I just don't have the opportunity.

This is sort of the situation I'm in. I like custom moves and the implication of them but it's difficult to practice with them when most of the time you are playing with them off in terms of For Glory and laddering, so unless you have limitless local buddies to practice with it would seem that custom moves get the the blind eye turned purely out of it being similar to your training environment.

It's unfortunate but isn't so unexpected, we are generally at the mercy of Melee in terms of competing for competitive space (sadly, when it should be shared) due to the polarizing separation between games the 'general' community tends to employ, and Melee being the golden standard, doesn't use custom moves. So why should we, right? (This is sarcasm)

It's almost like we need to create and run our own separate majors. Like Smash 4 needs to begin like it's some brand new franchise. The majors we have now are just too intertwined with traditions that imply and forge the basis for what their communities find acceptable for rules in a Smash game. Smash 4 requires a complete dislodging from that mindset. It requires flexibility and open-mindedness, and I'm starting to believe this is not so possible to achieve with the community within those majors.

 

[Overswarm]

Most of the "majors" we have are run by TOs that don't actually love all the games they're hosting. At a certain point they need to stop worrying about the amount of entrants and instead worry about the quality of the event.

 

[Overswarm]

Overswarm's plan for custom moves after watching the 50-fact extravaganza:


Step 1: Unlock all custom moves
Step 2: Set up 7 custom move slots for each characters (leaving the 8th slot open for others)
Step 3: Upload each of these custom move default selections with names like "1111", "1112", "1313", "1323", etc., to indicate what the moves will be. Players of these characters will already know these moves.
Step 4: Do this for people that bring their Wii U system to tournaments while taking registration
Step 5: There is no step 5, you really only have to do this once or twice until you basically have all the local's Wii U tournaments set up.

<3 custom moves

 

[Keitaro]

The two issues that can prevent Apex from having custom movesets are time consumption and wireless interference.

Seems like the best bet is to have someone take their 3DS custom moveset and transfer it to the tournament's Wii U for a match, but that can take time to do and it deals with wireless controls, which big tournaments aren't good with.

Also it deals with manipulating custom movesets on another person's Wii U.

It will be tough to have custom movesets for Nationals, but if there is a way to do it then I'm certainly going to find it.

 

[Overswarm]

"We will do our best to accommodate a player's custom movesets by having them preloaded onto the Wii U consoles. Due to the nature of larger tournaments and the limited spots available, we may not have yours loaded on a particular station. It is your responsibility as a player to have a 3DS onhand that can be used to load your presets to the console -- any preloaded custom movesets are only out of convenience, not obligation.

If you are interested, see the following PDF that indicates which movesets are going to be preloaded if time allows."

Have assistant TOs with 3DS systems go around and copy 7 (leaving a blank spot) presets that match the PDF. /done

 

[Keitaro]

"We will do our best to accommodate a player's custom movesets by having them preloaded onto the Wii U consoles. Due to the nature of larger tournaments and the limited spots available, we may not have yours loaded on a particular station. It is your responsibility as a player to have a 3DS onhand that can be used to load your presets to the console -- any preloaded custom movesets are only out of convenience, not obligation.

If you are interested, see the following PDF that indicates which movesets are going to be preloaded if time allows."

Have assistant TOs with 3DS systems go around and copy 7 (leaving a blank spot) presets that match the PDF. /done

How would the player know which custom moveset is theirs? Technically they'd have to check through all 10 or so which is easily wasted time.

Also who would be willing to setup 10 custom movesets for 48 to 50+ characters? That's a possible 500 custom movesets for each of 16+ Wii Us. So that's 8000 custom moveset setups for 16 setups, which isn't even enough for an Apex btw.

NO one is going to set that up lol! In short, that option doesn't seem feasible.

 

[Overswarm]

How would the player know which custom moveset is theirs? Technically they'd have to check through all 10 or so which is easily wasted time.

Also who would be willing to setup 10 custom movesets for 48 to 50+ characters? That's a possible 500 custom movesets for each of 16+ Wii Us. So that's 8000 custom moveset setups for 16 setups, which isn't even enough for an Apex btw.

NO one is going to set that up lol! In short, that option doesn't seem feasible.

You would just name the customs "1112", "1313", etc., since the customs are numbered.

In the Wii U version you just select the custom moves you want to bring over and then bring them all over at once; you can see the process on the "50 things" video.

 

[Keitaro]

You would just name the customs "1112", "1313", etc., since the customs are numbered.

In the Wii U version you just select the custom moves you want to bring over and then bring them all over at once; you can see the process on the "50 things" video.

You'd still have to create the custom moves on a 3DS first. That makes the process easier. But it still involves about 500 custom move presets being sent over to 16 Wii Us individually.

Maybe if the process is really fast then we'll be good. I'd actually try it out if it is a fast process.

 

[Overswarm]

You'd still have to create the custom moves on a 3DS first. That makes the process easier. But it still involves about 500 custom move presets being sent over to 16 Wii Us individually.

Maybe if the process is really fast then we'll be good. I'd actually try it out if it is a fast process.

It doesn't even really have to be fast. Say it's a nightmare scenario and it takes 10 minutes to carry them all over for whatever reason.

You only need to do this once per Wii U and then it is set forever. If you have 16 Wii Us at your first tournament, it takes 10 minutes to do an individual Wii U. You'd need several 3DS systems to do it, it'd be terrible. But you only have to do it once then it's just there.

If this is the case, the "you require a 3DS to guarantee your custom moves are present" isn't a huge requirement for the early tournaments. Something like APEX should know where its setups are coming from in the first place and have them pre-loaded anyway -- regionals would be the ones with a larger problem. After the first month or two it won't be that big of a deal.

 

[Raziek]

That's not true actually. To my knowledge, It's still undetermined if it can. You can't transfer from 3DS to 3DS, so there is a high assumption that it might not be allowed.

This is now confirmed, JFYI. We have a copy in Nova Scotia thanks to based Nintendo, and it is quick and painless.

"The first thing I tested was to see how long it takes to transfer over custom fighters. It doesn't take long at all; you just press a few menu buttons on both the Wii U and the 3DS version. There's no threat of pairing to a different Wii U because there's an open menu of which Wii U consoles are seeking, sort of like when the 3DSs are seeking for a local game.

When you're paired, you can select to either play a game or transfer custom characters. If you choose the latter, you're sent to the character select screen, with every character you DON'T have customs for greyed out. Then you select which character you want, and which customs sets you want. It also shows the moves you have, so you don't have to explain them to your opponent. You can send multiple custom sets for your character at once, so if you want to counterpick a different set, you don't have to transfer a second time.

The only drawback is that each character can still only have ten sets. If a popular character uses a lot of different customs from a lot of different players in a tournament, you may have to overwrite them often."

 

[SamuraiPanda]

This is fantastic news!

 

[iRJi]

This is now confirmed, JFYI. We have a copy in Nova Scotia thanks to based Nintendo, and it is quick and painless.

"The first thing I tested was to see how long it takes to transfer over custom fighters. It doesn't take long at all; you just press a few menu buttons on both the Wii U and the 3DS version. There's no threat of pairing to a different Wii U because there's an open menu of which Wii U consoles are seeking, sort of like when the 3DSs are seeking for a local game.

When you're paired, you can select to either play a game or transfer custom characters. If you choose the latter, you're sent to the character select screen, with every character you DON'T have customs for greyed out. Then you select which character you want, and which customs sets you want. It also shows the moves you have, so you don't have to explain them to your opponent. You can send multiple custom sets for your character at once, so if you want to counterpick a different set, you don't have to transfer a second time.

The only drawback is that each character can still only have ten sets. If a popular character uses a lot of different customs from a lot of different players in a tournament, you may have to overwrite them often."

That's good information.

1) It ports just the custom characters you made, and saves them to the Wii-U, or does it port the custom moves to the Wii-U?
2) If you disconnect the Wii-U, does it take any of them 2 mentioned in question 1 away?

 

[Shaya]

Although I haven't seen it myself, indications/videos etc have shown me

1. Yes it just ports the custom moveset itself, not the custom moves itself.
You can put a 3333 Sheik on a WiiU, hell every wiiU in a venue very quickly, it cannot be edited/changed, only deleted. Everyone can use that 3333 Sheik option (actually I don't know if two people can use the same custom set at the same time! that's something). But people cannot then make a 1333 Sheik set if they haven't unlocked those moves already.
2. pretty sure this is a no.

 

[Raziek]

That's good information.

1) It ports just the custom characters you made, and saves them to the Wii-U, or does it port the custom moves to the Wii-U?
2) If you disconnect the Wii-U, does it take any of them 2 mentioned in question 1 away?

Just the saved profile.

They stay on there until they are overwritten.

 

[Shaya]

Welp, I feel a sense of responsibility for not pushing this harder.

We're now fighting an uphill battle due to the precedent/status quo now being customs banned. Glorious.

The neutral circle, equipment exploit is only an issue on 3DS where selecting a character doesn't show you their stats/set up.

On the WiiU it does.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5ZyZz9PIvI&feature=youtu.be&t=38s and

The logistics issue is real and I see it as a fair thing to do, especially in light of a day 1 WiiU tournament.
However, "recommending for apex" really pushed the line of fair judgement, @ Keitaro . We're now seeing the immediate wave/knee jerk/sensationalist response to it, where everyone's individual truth/bias on why they didn't like customs is now being proliferated as fact "they're all stupid" [due to "one inch punch is stupid"], and all they need to say is "well it's going to be like this at apex" to any pressure or request for logical reason.

I'm personally a little upset. Another generation of ruleset warfare.

 

[Overswarm]

You don't say.

Overswarm is always right. >:[

 

[Deleted member 245254]

I'm curious to know if any of the balancing patches that have happened thus far have made any sort of modification to a custom move of any kind for any character.

 

[Overswarm]

Movnig moves to Wii U is super easy. Anyone find any easy ways to unlock customs on Wii U?

 

[Raziek]

Crazy Orders.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

It would seem based on this, that the future of custom moves is quite bleak, but a part of me says the reasons presented are quite unsatisfactory, I think I just never thought logistics would be such a sensitive issue in the face of an insane meta-game changing quality that could only benefit us.