Custom Special Moves

[Raziek]

So, having messed around with a number of them, I think we should start discussing whether these custom specials have a place in tournaments.

Personally, I am heavily in favor of them. From what I have seen thus far, they allow a great degree of customization from a playstyle perspective, sometimes drastically changing the move's purpose!

As an example, Arcfire1 for Robin is a slow, lingering projectile that has guaranteed follow-ups. Arcfire3, however, is a very steep angled fireball that hits twice and fires much faster, to the degree that he can use it as an approach!

Customization takes no longer than setting custom controls, and can be done quickly and easily at character select in a matter of seconds.

The biggest limiting factor I see to them is that they have to be unlocked. I'm unsure if there will be a 'fast' way to do this, or if we're going to have to place the burden on the player to have their customs unlocked on their console if they want to use them.

Thoughts? I think the added depth is easily worth the trouble, my only concern is implementation.

 

[Strong Badam]

Should be legal on 3ds version and not Wii U imo. Easiest way to make sure the 3ds version doesn't become completely neglected when the Wii U version comes out.

Logistics need to be figured out though. Is custom move selection added to advanced slob picks? Cping custom moves?

 

[Raziek]

I would say you simply lump it in with the counterpicking process.

Stage -> Winner Character & Specials -> Loser character and specials.

I'd like to hope there's an easy way for people to unlock them in the WiiU version, because I think this adds so much.

 

[KuroganeHammer]

I would assume you can just transfer your data over to the Wii U version.

Definitely should be legal on the 3DS, Wii U depends on a number of things I guess, but I'd really love them to be legal for that too.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

Should be legal on 3ds version and not Wii U imo. Easiest way to make sure the 3ds version doesn't become completely neglected when the Wii U version comes out.

Logistics need to be figured out though. Is custom move selection added to advanced slob picks? Cping custom moves?

There's a couple of reasons I strongly disagree with this.

The first is that I don't see why the two games are being mentally separated. Both games are Smash 4, either ones progressive tournament scene is an indication of the quality of both as they share the same roster and game mechanics, which is ultimately the hilt of what we care about. Apparently you will be able to use the 3DS as a controller on the Wii U with Smash 4...which means even dedicated 3DS users who are much too accustomed to only using their 3DS will have a shot at tournament participation even on the Wii U. That alone should spur some forward thinking on their intertwining.

I think it would be a giant blunder, lack of foresight and all, to dismiss custom moves for Smash 4, and picking one of the versions, just because it's only one of them, counts as doing that. I strongly recommend we don't automatically throw the most unique and powerful addition to the game, something that could contribute to an extensive meta with impressive breadth, out to stink.

I'm pretty confident the Wii U version will intend to make the interface intuitive so that it's not any more complicated to tinker with than it is on the 3DS despite one single screen, but that's something that remains to be seen as of yet.

However, unlocking them has proved to be quite a task, and hence is my only real concern.

 

[False]

There's no reason to create a divide in the meta between both versions.

Adding customization is going to add a whole new world of depth to the game, imo. That's at least 12 special moves as opposed to 3, it'll take 4x longer to get used to everything. (Expanding the potential to a meta is never a bad thing in my opinion) and having to through the tedious process of unlocking won't be too bad. Subspace, anyone?

However, with more options comes the bigger likeliness that we might have ourselves a really broken character. /:

 

[Marc]

We should hold off on deciding for now, although I could see both games typically being run vanilla if it turns out it takes a long time to unlock all customization options. Subspace was never a requirement for characters or stages and the characters in particular are a breeze to unlock now, so I could see many people not going for a full save. Of course, this is merely from a practical point of view.

I also feel like the 3DS version will be pretty much replaced by the Wii U version competitively, so if that ends up being the case it would not be a bad thing if the 3DS metagame has its own niche.

Something I'm wondering about, do you have any way of knowing in advance what customization your opponent is using?

 

[Raziek]

Something I'm wondering about, do you have any way of knowing in advance what customization your opponent is using?

I discussed this with Ryker, and we both agreed that your opponent would have to show you quickly before the match (which is trivial to do).

 

[Marc]

Yeah, I would not like a system where you have to go in blind and basically play RPS or run away till you see how big your opponent's projectiles are.

 

[Ishiey]

I think something worth talking about here is how we would deal with custom moves that were deemed to be broken. What's the criteria? Do we ban the move, or ban custom movesets, or ban the character, or something else entirely (whatever that could be)? There seem to be a few questionable custom specials already, from my limited knowledge.

Banning a custom move seems a lot easier than banning a whole character, and I think that by including custom moves to start with (provided it's logically feasible) we can allow for more flexible ways to trim the crap out of the metagame without completely alienating players and recreating the whole Brawl MK situation.

 

[Marc]

Disregarding all practical considerations, that would depend on how many custom builds turn out broken IMO. It would get dumb pretty quickly to have an appendix to rulesets listing like 50 specific custom configurations or moves that aren't allowed and I think that could very well turn out as a strong argument for vanilla play.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

The communities don't necessarily need to even be divided if 3DS users can play on the Wii U version using their 3DS.

 

[Krynxe]

Exactly. Which is why, as Marc said earlier, this is not a decision we are fit to make yet. We need a deeper understanding of what we're looking at to consider what's ahead, so exploring the Custom Special Moves and their competitive viability should be our first priority in regards to making this decision. Though it is a good idea to discuss what we should look out for, as we have been doing, it is very important that we are blunt and objective about our observations and bring up anything that may seem game-breaking up for discussion.

We should also consider that this decision is not irreversible, but we should just make it clear that we are using experimental rules until we have the utmost confidence in a finalized ruleset for Smash 4. Open-mindedness is a chief factor in having a community respect our decisions when it comes to creating rules and regulations. Part of being open-minded is willing to try out different things, so rather than trying to conform what we think will work based off of previous Smash games or our fear of breaking the game, we should give genuine attempts with different aspects of the game to see what fits best. This goes for both stages, and Custom Special Moves.

@Zipzo, The two versions of the game being the same mechanically is not a guarantee that we have. Decisions regarding their assimilation as rulesets and communities should probably wait until that information is clear

 

[Strong Badam]

Agreed that we don't really have enough information to make this decision. Not only do we not know entirely how custom movesets work (or their unlock requirements), we've no idea what effect they have on the meta or game's overall balance.

I do think it'd be a huge shame if 3DS Smash became irrelevant when Wii U Smash released, and I do feel that allowing custom movesets on 3DS Smash and not Wii U is probably the only thing that can prevent that. 3DS Smash is our first opportunity for a Smash game where setups are not a logistical factor in tournaments. We can run Swiss tournaments during the other early phases of an event, break it down to top 8/16, then run a traditional double elim bracket from there. Very exciting prospect.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

Exactly. Which is why, as Marc said earlier, this is not a decision we are fit to make yet. We need a deeper understanding of what we're looking at to consider what's ahead, so exploring the Custom Special Moves and their competitive viability should be our first priority in regards to making this decision. Though it is a good idea to discuss what we should look out for, as we have been doing, it is very important that we are blunt and objective about our observations and bring up anything that may seem game-breaking up for discussion.

We should also consider that this decision is not irreversible, but we should just make it clear that we are using experimental rules until we have the utmost confidence in a finalized ruleset for Smash 4. Open-mindedness is a chief factor in having a community respect our decisions when it comes to creating rules and regulations. Part of being open-minded is willing to try out different things, so rather than trying to conform what we think will work based off of previous Smash games or our fear of breaking the game, we should give genuine attempts with different aspects of the game to see what fits best. This goes for both stages, and Custom Special Moves.

@Zipzo, The two versions of the game being the same mechanically is not a guarantee that we have. Decisions regarding their assimilation as rulesets and communities should probably wait until that information is clear

If the two games actually wind up different mechanically I will be seriously surprised as I figured it would make the most sense that they would be wholly the same, making swapping between the two as seamless as possible as many players obviously will plan to have both (one for the road and one for the living room).

My whole perspective obviously changes if that truly ends up being the case but I'm kinda leanin' on the likelihood of it.

In the end I am agreed, it simply means we need more knowledge before we can make an educated decision.

 

[Overswarm]

I am doing vanilla only for my first tournament on Oct. 11th due to them needing to be unlocked. From what I've been told it doesn't take too long to unlock them for individual characters.

The Wii U version should be simple to use custom moves with -- you can simply download a full save file.

"If you do not have all of the custom moves unlocked, please download THIS FILE and install it to your SD card using THESE INSTRUCTIONS so all of the custom moves will be available."

/done


I haven't been able to see custom moves yet, nor equipment, firsthand. I plan on experimenting.

For adding it into the CP, I'd do either:

Loser picks stage -> Winner picks character -> Loser picks character -> Winner picks moves -> Loser picks moves

or

Loser picks stage -> WInner picks character/moves -> Loser picks character/moves

The former gives the winner more control and makes CPs less volatile. Imagine Little Mac with an over-b option that breaks shields and an over-b option that has more super armor. Against a character with a big OoS option you'd want the former and against someone with a disjointed hitbox you'd want the latter.

 

[NickRiddle]

I do not believe they should be legal from a MU point of view.
4 moves, with 3 variations, means that each character has 81 possible variations.
That's pretty absurd.

 

[Raziek]

What? That's like the worst reason I've heard so far, @ NickRiddle .

You're grossly exaggerating how much it is to learn. It's not. 81 variations, it's 12. And it's not even 12 matchups, it's slight variances to the matchup,

Ryu with Ultra 1 and Ryu with Ultra 2 are not two different characters. The difference is not so drastic that everything about the matchup changes.

Besides: How many team/assist combos are in Marvel, huh?

 

[NickRiddle]

It is not 12 variations.

1111, 1112, 1113, 1121, 1122, 1123, 1131, 1132, 1133, etc.
I haven't been able to test any of them yet, it is just the first thought in my head while discussing custom moves with other FL players after the first time we played the game.

 

[Overswarm]

Custom moves will be amazing. "You have to learn to much" is not a valid excuse for removing them.

 

[Raziek]

And what I'm saying is that it really isn't as you describe. The differences are small enough that it's not a matter of learning all 81 variations, but just learning how all 12 moves work.

Especially because I get the distinct feeling that it's not even going to be all 12 commonly seen in most characters.

As an example, Thoron (Robins neutral special ) functions exactly the same, all that changes is damage, range, speed, charge time. Slow, Default, Fast.

And some of he variants are just weak, like Elwind2, or the Tornado shield breaker on Marth/Lucina.

You're overestimating the learning needed.

 

[Overswarm]

Raziek, write me a list of all the stage names for Smash 4 3DS so I can create my spreadsheet

 

[NickRiddle]

If the variations aren't big, I guess it won't be that big of a deal, as long as you have to show your opponent what moves you're using.
As long as we can get TOs to agree to ban specific ones if they're broken. Again, I have no idea if any of these moves could actually be so good they're bannable, I just want the ability to make sure that a Brawl Tornado level move doesn't exist.

 

[Overswarm]

Banning specific custom moves isn't something we should really think about at the moment. ESPECIALLY not if one is just a "good" move. What happens if the default is the good move? What level constitutes "good"? Tornado shut down a lot of the cast, but certainly didn't work that well against some characters and became punishable in many matchups.

 

[NickRiddle]

Banning specific custom moves isn't something we should really think about at the moment. ESPECIALLY not if one is just a "good" move. What happens if the default is the good move? What level constitutes "good"? Tornado shut down a lot of the cast, but certainly didn't work that well against some characters and became punishable in many matchups.

If the default move a character has is absurdly good, ban it?
I've already said I don't know if any move/moveset would be broken, I just want to know that if it occurs, we would be willing to ban it.
Don't ask me for specifics, I haven't thought of any. I've played the game for 45 minutes, I barely know how my characters work.

 

[Neo Zero]

The effort required to unlock them is the more alarming thing, especially with some being locked on page 2 (maybe even page 3) of challenge mode. It could be a slow process gathering them all. At least with the 3DS though being 1:1 player ratio, you can make the argument that, as a player attending the event, you need to make sure to have the custom moves you plan to use on your system since it's not like a TO can be expected to supply everyone with 3DS' to use after all.

I'm all in favor of seeing them used though, as a Melty Blood fan, one thing I loved about those games is picking a moon style to fit your own playstyle. Of course that's a bit more drastic since it also changed your normals, but the concept is the same. All it really does is add an additional part to the match set up process, as long as the moves are shown to your opponent before the match begins so they know rather than playing some blind game that should be fine. The process only adds about 10 seconds to a character selection so it's quick to do at the very least.

 

[Overswarm]

Character custom moves unlock isn't really that big of a deal past the first week. I'm banning them for my first tuornament, allowing for all others. Going to look at equipment before making a decision as it is currently all in moon speak.

3DS = "you are responsible to bring your own 3DS and have your own unlocked characters and moves"

Wii U = "If you are bringing a setup, you are required to have all custom moves, stages, and characters unlocked. If you do not have them unlocked, please download THIS SAVE FILE LINKED HERE and add it to the SD card for your Wii U to have them all unlocked"

 

[Raziek]

If the variations aren't big, I guess it won't be that big of a deal, as long as you have to show your opponent what moves you're using.
As long as we can get TOs to agree to ban specific ones if they're broken. Again, I have no idea if any of these moves could actually be so good they're bannable, I just want the ability to make sure that a Brawl Tornado level move doesn't exist.

None of the variations I've seen so far even come close to 'game breaking', so I don't think it's going to be a gigantic concern. Though who knows.

In general, the alternate versions have very clear trade-offs. Like, Lucina/Marth's DS3 goes about 1.4 times as high, but loses the attack portion of the move completely.

OS: I think you might be better off grabbing a list elsewhere? I've just been using the community names I see flying around, I don't know all the official names.

 

[Keitaro]

As of right now I'd love to see custom moves be legal on both systems. I've yet to see a custom move that truly seemed broken although some people plan to show me some that they think are problematic.

The issue I see however is getting custom moves unlocked on the Wii U. I heard it is a big pain to unlock them on the 3DS. For the Wii U, people will be going on and off the system consistently meaning all of the custom moves would have to be unlocked for every character on every system for a tournament.

Hopefully it isn't hard to unlock the moves on the Wii U. For now I'm completely down to have custom moves on for the 3DS but I'm having trouble seeing how that can be done for the Wii U due to this unlocking issue.

@ Overswarm Is there actually a proven way to trade custom moves or save data for the Wii U yet? Seems like Wii U hacking hasn't developed much in the last 2 years as I haven't heard about save state transfers for games yet.

 

[Overswarm]

Oh shi, you can't transfer to SD card? Apparently it formats the USB drive you put in too.

 

[Keitaro]

Yeah it's pretty sad. I have 2 USBs for my Wii U and it can only be used for that Wii U unless it's formatted. Hopefully there is a reasonable way to transfer custom moves and save data from a 3DS to the Wii U. That could make things go a lot faster.

 

[Overswarm]

That could put a serious damper on custom moves for Wii U. I imagine it won't be a huge problem for very long -- there's always going to be players at smash tournaments who will happily beat challenges for you on your Wii U ^_^

 

[Shaya]

The general community is about 9:1 in favour of them being legal (at least right now).
Obviously TOs have lot better judgement (sometimes). I think the extent at which people know the opposing character would be limited in early days anyway, if you want to win you do research, as much as you can. That's a competitive player's responsibility.

From what I see specific movesets will be preferred. Nearly all base specials are subpar to the other two options in some way, with usually only one of the two being optimal.
Better distance/faster start up to your recovery with invincibility? Done. Easy.
Better frame data option or better range option (from what I see it's actually both usually) or adds a kill option to it. Done. Easy.
Characters with reflectors will choose the one that doesn't come with a reflector against characters without them. One practical and common variable in player choices.

In other words, there may be some match up variation, but 'objectively better movesets' will likely become the norm, and unfortunately for the most part all custom specials are preferred over their bases. I'm sure there'll be some, I think Falco's base Side-B is preferred to one that is slower but does 12% but doesn't spike, or to a faster/longer/invincible one (BUT I COULD BE WRONG, the "better recovery" option may always win out).

I haven't seen Palutena or Mii's customs yet. But as they change drastically apparently they could be very altering and hence some sort of counterpicking in them could actually drastically change match ups, which seems inherently unfair.

I think early 3DS tournaments can run custom move sets. It's probably better this way. I think there may be more concerns with Miis tbqh.

When WiiU first comes out, without transferal or save storing abilities I don't think its expected for users to have all custom moves for all characters, it likely means they shouldn't be legal at any early ones.

If there's absurdity in general to custom moves, it's probably safer to ban them completely, but we need to find out. I hope the variations aren't too powerful, like let's say an otherwise top tier character in vanilla being ultra-top tier with custom specials. Issues with Palutena/Miis could mean oppressing rules, but yeah... if characters are generally better with custom specials (they are) that would be good for the game overall, if custom specials force character centralisation we're going to need to be smart about this... like this could be "MK Ban Discussion" all over again in terms of splitting the community... we'd likely fold to individual custom special bans (ughh) but it would be a bad precedent and will likely just cause further issues... just like all the rules we kept needing to add or change to "balance" MK.

 

[Raziek]

I wouldn't totally generalize and say all the base specials are bad.

My Robin build is also certainly going to be Thoron 2 (High damage/kill), Arcfire 1/3 (Damage/Combo vs. Zoning), Elwind 1 (Just the best option I think), Nosferatu 1 (Best start-up of the 3).

I think it's better to look at it by character.

 

[---]

The vibe I'm getting is basically just allow them but to take things slowly at first. Given the hopefully short term issue of unlocking everything I don't see this being a major problem.

While on the subject of Miis, in hindsight I'm kinda surprised that the Brawler/Swordsmen/Gunner don't have their own separate boards. Seems kinda unfair to lump them together when the game treats them as separate characters, especially since the amount of testing needed could potentially be too large for one board to handle.

 

[Overswarm]

I separated them as "Fighter, Gunner, Blade" in my data sheet. I'm a progressive! Equal Mii rights!


A really big question is when the custom moves should be set.

They're either set when you pick YOUR character, or after BOTH players have picked their character.

If I'm playing and you counterpick to Mute City and I decide I want Palutena as my character, Palutena has a reflector. I ONLY want this reflector if you have a projectile character. I know you play Villager or Marth, one of which would have trouble with the reflector and one who would not.

It also may be that Villager would want Palutena to have a special neutral B that does massive damage so he could pocket it, but Marth would HATE it and it might decimate him.

This may or may not be a huge deal.

But if we pick character and then custom moves immediately and show them to the opponent, you may be able to counter their moveset as well as the character all at once.

I think it might be more fair to do:

Loser picks stage
Winner picks character
Loser picks character
Winner picks moves
Loser picks moves

so that way it could be like:
Loser picks Mute City
Winner picks Palutena
Loser picks Villager
Winner picks NOT reflector or massive damage neutral B
Loser picks different neutral B as they don't need pocket as much in the matchup anymore

 

[NickRiddle]

I'm all for picking your moves at the same time as the character.
You pick default moves at the same time you pick your character in other Smash games, and knowing the custom moveset might influence your character CP.

 

[Keitaro]

In the end, as much as we love the idea of custom move sets, having them at Wii U tournaments may pose to be a big issue unless we can transfer data easily.

I heard that the 3DS can have you transfer your custom character from the handheld to the Wii U. So maybe that can be a standard. I just hope there is an easier way because the thought of having to connect a 3DS to the Wii U for every player that wants custom moves simply sucks lol.

 

[Raziek]

Loser picks stage
Winner picks character
Loser picks character
Winner picks moves
Loser picks moves

so that way it could be like:
Loser picks Mute City
Winner picks Palutena
Loser picks Villager
Winner picks NOT reflector or massive damage neutral B
Loser picks different neutral B as they don't need pocket as much in the matchup anymore

This sounds pretty reasonable to me.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I wonder what we will do if we find one that is really loltoogood. That would make or break a character.