Custom Movesets Anyone?

[Deleted member]

I'm sure this idea has been said several times before, but I didn't see a thread for it.

Anyway, imho, this is the best and most efficient way to do away with the dreaded "clone" characters.

The premise is simple, you have the Standard movepool for the characters, which is what you get when you select a character as is, however, some characters (or all), have unlockable, swapable moves, which can be accessed and saved through some sort of profile, making the use of names, much more significant.

For example, lets look at Ganondorf.

For years fans have been asking for this character to be changed into something more unique, perhaps with a sword, however, others digress and feel that the use of a sword is useless and he should instead focus on Magic and punches or what have you.

Best way to solve this conflict, give people what they want and "let them eat cake."

Dorf, could have his usual movepool or something similar, but over the course of the story mode (or the 3DS version's campaign, or w/e), you can unlock different moves for the character you are playing as. So for example, instead of the Warlock Punch, you can unlock a Magic Fireball or something, etc... You could the switch moves to your liking and save them to your profile.

I recall hearing that they wanted more RPG-like elements in the 3DS version, and the first thing that came to mind was Square Enix's Dissidia series. So why not incorporate something similar? Give the characters the abilities to unlock a couple moves here and there. You can then "transfer" this data to the WiiU version for tournaments and the like.

I feel it would add a certain degree of complexity to the game, as you can have different builds for characters, but also, it would keep everyone happy on the subject of clone characters and movepools for characters. You miss Mario's Tornado, OK, you can have that move, oh, you actually LIKE the flood, no worries, swap it in for his v+B. This can also be done for some Smash, or Tilts, or Airs, or Throws. However, not ALL moves are swappable. So, for example, just because Fox can swap his Dair, doesn't necessarily mean Falco can too.

Thoughts on this?

 

[Frostwraith]

hmm... reminds me of an idea I had, but never actually posted.

this could work for some characters, especially weapon users. Ike could use axes (especially Urvan), Link having the Biggoron Sword, Megaton Hammer or other items from the Zelda series or Pit could have some of the many weapons from Uprising, or even the Three Sacred Treasures.

 

[Deleted member]

hmm... reminds me of an idea I had, but never actually posted.

this could work for some characters, especially weapon users. Ike could use axes (especially Urvan), Link having the Biggoron Sword, Megaton Hammer or other items from the Zelda series or Pit could have some of the many weapons from Uprising, or even the Three Sacred Treasures.

What was your idea? I'd like to hear it, it would give me some more things to compare and draw upon.

You're right about weapon users I hadn't considered the possibility of Ike using Axes with this. And yeah, KIU had lot's of weapons too. You could give Zelda, other spells to use, etc... Obviously some characters would have a wider range of moves to chose from than others. Some characters, like C.Falcon for example, don't really need alternate moves.

 

[Big-Cat]

This has been brought up a few times. The problem with this is balancing. Fighting games are balanced on a matchup basis. Therefore, you make one change to a character, you gotta test those characters against every character several times. Changing moves is supposedly much harder to do than to change the frame data of a character. That alone should tell why this kind of thing is impractical in the long run.

 

[Deleted member]

This has been brought up a few times. The problem with this is balancing. Fighting games are balanced on a matchup basis. Therefore, you make one change to a character, you gotta test those characters against every character several times. Changing moves is supposedly much harder to do than to change the frame data of a character. That alone should tell why this kind of thing is impractical in the long run.

I WOULD cite Dissidia as a reference, but Dissidia is a broken game to begin with anyways.

Also, the fundamental problem in this can be solved by adding a reasonable number of moves, enough to add some variety, but not so many to the point that it becomes a balancing nightmare. Also, ultimately you are testing how the moves themselves perform. ONE move is hardly ever enough to make for a broken character. Take Meta Knight for example, he doesn't have a "broken move" but rather, everything about him is beyond broken. Also, any hiccups found in the balance of the roster are likely to be fixed with DLC. I mean, it's what Brawl was craving for essentially.

One more thing, if a certain move itself becomes a balance issue, then that one move, or build for a character can be banned from competitive play. This should be easy if movesets are adaptable.

 

[Big-Cat]

If you really want to expand the amount of moves available to characters, there are less headache causing methods. Just within the confines of the last three Smash games, Ganondorf could have a taunt that switches between a dual sword fighting style and his current one.

Alternatively, the game could be remodeled so as to allow more attacks in (think 3D fighters) with the addition of a button or two (one is better, IMO) to help with that. Let's take Tekken as an example. Your characters have at least 80 (I've seen up to 150) different attacks to choose from, but most people will use only about 30-40 moves at the absolute most, possibly more depending on the character (i.e. they have stances). That being said, the beauty of Tekken, and likely other 3D fighters, is that they're fairly flexible in how you play your characters so there is an inherent sense of my Jin being different from your Jin.

If you really want to have an expansion of move options, the above is probably your best bet. Since we have Namco on board making the game, this COULD be a possibility.

And while yes everything about MK is "broken", sometimes a character could have a handful of moves that are stupidly good for a variety of reasons. IIRC, Jin in Tekken 4 had this exact problem and was one of many reasons why that game died quickly.

 

[Frostwraith]

If you really want to expand the amount of moves available to characters, there are less headache causing methods. Just within the confines of the last three Smash games, Ganondorf could have a taunt that switches between a dual sword fighting style and his current one.

Alternatively, the game could be remodeled so as to allow more attacks in (think 3D fighters) with the addition of a button or two (one is better, IMO) to help with that. Let's take Tekken as an example. Your characters have at least 80 (I've seen up to 150) different attacks to choose from, but most people will use only about 30-40 moves at the absolute most, possibly more depending on the character (i.e. they have stances). That being said, the beauty of Tekken, and likely other 3D fighters, is that they're fairly flexible in how you play your characters so there is an inherent sense of my Jin being different from your Jin.

If you really want to have an expansion of move options, the above is probably your best bet. Since we have Namco on board making the game, this COULD be a possibility.

And while yes everything about MK is "broken", sometimes a character could have a handful of moves that are stupidly good for a variety of reasons. IIRC, Jin in Tekken 4 had this exact problem and was one of many reasons why that game died quickly.

like what happens in lots of RTS (and also happened in MK7), it could be a good idea to release patches that tweak the characters a bit to bring balance to the game. at least, this could apply to multiplayer modes and training mode. other single player modes shouldn't be affected.

this said, it should NOT be an excuse to not attempt to balance the characters during development. patches only serve well if there were issues not detected during development, they do not serve as excuses for laziness during development.