I really can't imagine Smash in Melbourne without @
Attila_
. Not to discredit the hard work other amazing players put in, but I've been to a lot of events in Melbourne and every time I saw Attila putting in the time and effort to make things work as efficiently as possible. I don't agree with a lot of Attila's views and I think he's not the best at responding to points other people bring up, but he's definitely a great member of the community.
The sample size of the placings doesn't show too much and I think it would mean less and less during the early days since not everyone knows the best strategy with and without customs for their characters. As time went by, if we keep having customs tournies alongside non-customs, I do believe a legitimate impact could be observed.
I think most people are happy with the assortment of viable characters in this game. It is still early days but it feels like there are a wide range of good choices to compete with. But we can't be sure. Likewise, we can't be sure customs will "improve" the tier list or make the gap between the top few characters and the rest smaller. From what has been seen, people may perceive that customs aren't going to be beneficial in this regard because while we know Diddy is very good, it doesn't appear from an outside perspective to be as obnoxious as Villagers customs. No-one really knows, but for me personally from what I've seen I'm very content with how the characters feel and who feels viable in non-custom play. I don't believe the chances are good that customs will improve it, but this is not the reason I am personally against customs.
It's not just about tier list Venks, but some people believe the extra few moves and the counterpicking around them could take away from the core experience. Some people just want to "play the game" and "get good" which means they would like to follow the norm and perfect their play rather than the ruleset - which is why latching onto the decisions of major tournaments is justified. And there are some other things too yes, but some people also think it would be bad for the tier list. But that's not the only reason.
Also saying that V would be guaranteed first place with customs is not only rude but also not a good case for why it would improve the tier list. Tibs' advantage lies more in actually being good at the game rather than his character.
I'm happy with the list of viable characters. I personally think the entire roster is competitively viable. Until I see something otherwise this game is incredibly well balanced. Obviously certain characters are better than others, but it's not that bad.
Diddy not as obnoxious as Villager customs? That's your opinion. I'll take a Villager with trip sapling any day over Diddy Kong.
I find any Villager who isn't Venus to be incredibly free, trip sapling is no instant win. The sapling is just a tool that makes it easier for Villager to control space.
Diddys seem to be pretty good in a lot of hands. Armada, M2K, and ZeRo all use Diddy and have said they just use the character because he's the easiest to be good with. It doesn't require the same amount of effort you'd have to put in with other characters. Seeing characters with so many safe, high damaging options frustrates me to no end.
Again I'm not saying Diddy is OP or anything. He has a few bad matchups and people are learning how to fight Diddy.
I just personally find him the most obnoxious character in the game.
For me customs have nothing to do with Diddy, that's just an added bonus. It's about creating more interesting matchups. People already have their own takes on characters with their own playstyles. With the addition of custom moves we will see even more variety in any given set. This obviously seems like something to strive for from a spectating perspective. Especially since the vast majority of Smash players are in favor of customs themselves.
I don't mean to be rude to Tibs. The guy is easily one of the best Smash players I've ever seen in Melbourne. He plays the game a lot better than most other placers in Top 8. I've watched a lot of his matches and I'm really impressed with his ability to control space and cover multiple options at once.
My comment has more to do with how confident I am in V's abilities. She won every 3DS tournament and has been placing 2nd in Couch Warrior's Wii U tournaments. Melbourne's Top 8 players are all scary good at this game. For her to consistently trump them time and time again and make her way to Winners Finals and Grand Finals is impressive.
If customs eventually become the norm then I'm expecting her to dominate for a long while until people finally get their knowledge of customs up to her level.
Apex is the international premiere event but it by no means intends to set the standard for the future at this early stage of the game's life.
Straight up.
We had our own spins on rulesets for years, Australias rulesets were within their own; people's who's opinions were generally listened to were the guys you saw be apart of discussion internationally and had a vested and keen interest for knowledge and adjudicating a fair rule set. We went towards Apex towards the later years because our own scene had developed somewhat independently towards the same point as well.
Now for the first smash 4 international tournament, technically 2 months after it's release, skill and understanding of the game are going to be well below a standard worth giving it the notoriety of 'the standard'.
Now customs can be ickie right now, but they're worth testing out/developing. I'm not sure if right now is the best time to do so, but at the same time when will any other time be the right time (MK-ban arguments
)
We as human beings will always have a status quo tendency. When it comes to customs the danger is that in a few months/years time when we're looking at potentially spicing up the game (a time something like customs would be looked at) the best players (i.e. those with the loudest voices in social-media-esque stuff) are going to prefer the game they have and are winning in over one they'd have to sit down and relearn or be at a knowledge deficit in compared to someone else. Anyone going to believe otherwise?
Now customs have a few quirks that are at first glance obnoxious. We know of trip sapplings, heck Venks is sure that V would win custom tournaments because of these (and some other customs too!). Making
certain characters more viable to the point of not improving the game by the damage they wrath; Villager customs stall games almost indefinitely - are the best characters we perceive right now have much of a chance? If they don't, and no one else doesn't, that's an issue. Who's going to agree to cull Villager custom choices? How much frustration should be put onto players when there's an easier option out there they are mentally aligned to and are willing to come to terms with the broken that exists (diddy dthrow! etc)? How long is it going to take?
Anyway, it's all a big problem. We have two solid stances - Making our large scene stronger, faster (to an 'international' standard) and trying to find the best "game" possible with the new options (customs) that exist. Tournament resources aren't going to allow both to exist in parallel at the same event. However bigger scenes in the USA right now are having multiple tournaments per week, including weekdays with solid numbers. Supporting both stances would be better than only supporting one (although I'm firm that the latter is still helpful for skill universally, you will be behind the former 'meta' which by whatever reason is more common at this point but not by too much IMO; [you should have multiple characters under your belt anyway]).
A lot of my chagrin about the former is that people's opinions on the alternative seems to get worse as time goes on without even attempting it (or ever attempting it) as a serious thing. When characters were chosen and they weren't as compatible with customs-environment, it was the rules fault rather than the player's choice. But it goes both ways.
Rant rant verbatim point concluded later maybe.
There's no need to ban any custom moves.
Trip Sapling is an incredibly good custom move that requires little effort to get a lot out of it. The main problem here is actually V the player and not the actual move itself. It took me a good week or so of playing V regularly before I could beat her custom Villager with Little Mac, DK, and Sheik. And even now I still find it really difficult.
But I play in a lot of the online tournaments posted on r/smashbros, including the awesome ones hosted by Hypest - @
LiteralGrill
, and some of them have custom moves enabled. I can't tell you how easy the other Villagers are. Personal experience aside, no Villagers with custom moves are dominating any tournaments.
And when does Villager customs 'stall' games? Stalling is when Ice Climbers are pummeling over 300% or Meta Knight is flying around and planking to eternity. Is Diddy Kong stalling if he tosses a banana down and starts shooting his peanut popgun?
No. That would definitely be space control. Which is the same thing Villager does with his sapling and slingshots. Villager gets the benefit of the sapling staying in place for a long time, but it is immobile and therefor it doesn't have an offensive advantage like the banana does in Diddy's hands. Instead Villager gets a defensive advantage that makes it easier for Villager to "win" neutral though the damage is a lot smaller.
@
luke_atyeo
Do you actually want to play a game with a character that can stall game indefinitely? Is that something we actually want in the meta?
As stated earlier, no custom move is unbeatable, but they certainly can make the game stall-ish and anti-competitive.
I've yet to see a custom move that removes competition from Smash Bros. And I've also not yet seen a move that makes it so neither player can gain a lead over the other. There are definitely custom moves that benefit zoning more than what we see in default special moves. And personally I would like to see more matches in Smash Bros that have a emphasis on zoning.
Yukiko is my main in Persona 4 Arena and she's all about zoning. I've gotten a lot of hate in tournaments for playing "lame" and not approaching. But zoning has been a part of the FGC since Hadouken.
You didn't respond to my points. You just insulted me and pretended to respond. And then you did it again.
1. This was a direct response to a post earlier, which referenced me as a bandwagon ruleset supporter.
2. It's not a mistranslation. I linked it and re-translated myself. Feel free to perform a translation independently.
3. Outside of the Winner CPing customs, this doesn't address the problem I presented at all, it just pretends it doesn't exist. Winner CPing customs is silly; it reverses the CPing system lol. We just want it balanced. You'd be better trying to involve stages here to still give an advantage, but not make a landslide.
4. That doesn't make sense. It ignored my point and posted something else. How would playing a different game help us keep up? It would be like playing vanilla SF4 to get good at USF4. Sure there are similar options, but the differences in option selection and punishment choice make for a very different gaming experience. Emulating rulesets is the optimal way to get good at them.
5. My scene likes these rules and that is important to acknowledge.
6. I never said any moves were 'too good', just that they were dumb and anti competitive. Piston Punch is one, even if it's not a OHKO it's bloody close, which to me is not something I consider a healthy component of the meta (similar to Little Mac's super punch, but part of the character is the strong opportunity to KO him before can use the punch). Slippery Sapling was another, not unbeatable, but bloody stupid and anti-competitive. I'm all for making bad characters better, but making them dumb, cheap or unfun is not something I support. This was the main issue with the previous build of PM, also.
In the CPing process the Winner bans stages first to hopefully protect himself, but Loser still picks the stage which ideally is supposed to give him an advantage. The Winner can change to a different character to give him a better chance on the stage, but again Loser picks character last so there is a chance it can still be a bad matchup with a good advantage for the Loser.
Custom moves seem the exact same. Winner chooses customs first to hopefully help with the matchup, but Loser picks customs last so that ideally he has the advantage. Obviously the Loser needs to keep in mind his opponent's preferences for stage, character, and customs or he might make a poor choice.
I personally feel custom moves don't have as big of an impact on counter-picking as stage and character do. I've personally never cared what custom moves my opponent was using as long as I knew what they did. I've yet to see a custom move effect me as much as changing the stage to Delfino Plaza or a sudden counter-pick Sheik appearing.
I disagree about the comparison between SF4 and USF4 to customs and no-customs. With customs on you still have the exact same frame-data for all of your normal attacks. The only difference would be up to four special moves. Also customs-on doesn't suddenly add new mechanics like delayed wake-up or Red Focus. Heck even SF's Omega Mode and USFIV wouldn't be a fair comparison.
It would be like if there was a version of Street Fighter where Ryu's Hadouken had an alternate that worked like Sakura's Hadoushou and an alternate that worked like Guile's Sonic Boom. Oh and I guess he could also have a Shoruken with more power, but no invincibility or a Tatsumaki with more knock back.
Have you seen Street Fighter V? It appears all of the characters will be able to use meter to go into stances that add new attributes to their special moves. I don't feel these stances invalidate non-stance play. They do add "differences in option selection and punishment choice" and it does "make for a very different gaming experience", but that's just part of the game.
Personally I applaud Capcom's direction in making the game more varied and interesting.
Piston Punch is definitely dumb. It's not half as good as you probably think it is. I mean down-throw+up special is pretty annoying, but it's not a combo like Diddy's down-throw+up air and it doesn't OHKO half as easy as people make it out to be.
Ice Climbers are waaaaaaaaaay more consistent towards touch of death than Mii Brawler. The difference is ridiculous and I have no idea why people even care about Piston Punch. These people should probably play against more Mii Brawlers or try the character out themselves to see why it isn't such a big deal. I can understand people calling Ice Climbers anti-competitive and why some tournaments banned wobbling.
Mii Brawlers are actually turning to Helicopter Kick as the choice up-special because it is more consistent as a damage builder, a reliable KO move around 90~100%, and is safer on whiff. Though it isn't the best for recovering and makes Mii Brawler pretty easy to gimp.
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