Customization and competitive smash

[Gust14]

Maybe customization will not be a bad thing at all. Just ocurred to me that maybe, if the customization options are deep enough, it could be used to ajust balance when in case sakurai fails like the last time.

...Or maybe theyll be useless. Just trying to shine a light of hope for competitive players, what do you think?

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

Geez, I could have sworn there was a thread about this already... No matter, every time customization gets brought up so does its place in competitive play. Hopefully this thread will put an end to that discussion once and for all. I'll start:

Customization will probably never make its way into competitive play. There's a certain stigma about enhancing a certain character in a un-modded game even for the sake of balance. Not saying that is my thing, just calling it like I see it. I personally think customization is bad because it could bring a chaotic sense of balance to the game, and some match-ups may come down to a rock-paper-scissors type deal based on character variations. We also likely have balance patches to look forward to.

I think the automatic inclusion of customization options could lead to a debate that has many parallels with the Meta Knight debate. Some of the points of contention might be:

• "Is it fair that I must face a character that isn't being played as it was designed?"
• "Why should I be forbidden to use customizations while another player isn't, based on our character selections?"
• "This (otherwise) weak character only has access to customizations that make him the most powerful character in the game, other character variations considered. Should we continue including customization options?"
• "The versatility of this character's customization options can give him a match-up advantage against every character in the game. Why should we include customizations?"
• "The inclusion of customization options for the sake of balance has actually made several characters overshadow the rest of the cast, making the division of tiers larger than it was before."

 

[Jack Kieser]

So, wait. Hold on. When Sakurai gives us the item and stage switches, oh, that's a feature that we're given so of course we can use it to ban stuff! But, when Sakurai potentially gives us an in game mechanic that we could use to fix his own balancing oversights in-between patches, THAT'S a problem?

If we can use the item and stage switches, we can use the customization tools. It's simply a matter of implementation.

 

[nat pagle]

Customization will probably never make its way into competitive play. There's a certain stigma about enhancing a certain character in a un-modded game even for the sake of balance. Not saying that is my thing, just calling it like I see it. I personally think customization is bad because it could bring a chaotic sense of balance to the game, and some match-ups may come down to a rock-paper-scissors type deal based on character variations. We also likely have balance patches to look forward to.

I'm pretty sure Sakurai said he wasn't going to make customized attacks more powerful, just change directions or something along those lines. And there are already rock-paper-scissors match ups in every installment of Smash. They're just chosen by characters and not specific moveset choices.

IMO the customized attacks would just bring in another level of known factors to the game. It isn't a random factor like items, it's another addition to the depth of the game. Instead of adding 20 more characters to the roster, we just get more variety with the same amount or just a few less than before.

I think the automatic inclusion of customization options could lead to a debate that has many parallels with the Meta Knight debate. Some of the points of contention might be:

• "Is it fair that I must face a character that isn't being played as it was designed?"
• "Why should I be forbidden to use customizations while another player isn't, based on our character selections?"
• "This (otherwise) weak character only has access to customizations that make him the most powerful character in the game, other character variations considered. Should we continue including customization options?"
• "The versatility of this character's customization options can give him a match-up advantage against every character in the game. Why should we include customizations?"
• "The inclusion of customization options for the sake of balance has actually made several characters overshadow the rest of the cast, making the division of tiers larger than it was before."

• I don't remember MK ever being said he wasn't being used as designed. They just designed him too well. And the same could be said about Wavedashing or infinites. And customization will be just as designed, if something is incorrect, it will be patched.
• MK has never been really banned. And you're never restricted from using a character, it's just a poor decision. Like using Bowser in Melee against Marth or Falco.
• Sakurai clearly wants more balance to the roster. Screwing up the tier list is a goal here. And I highly doubt one customization has the possibility of shutting out every combination in the game. Especially since Sakurai knows he doesn't want another MK.
• That's going to be a rare case, if a case at all. Every character will have customization, the chance of one character suddenly becoming S tier from the C tier is very low considering each other character has customization.
• The possible number of movesets and attacks will be huge with customization. I highly doubt a handful of characters will be able to trump every other character along with every customization.

 

[lordvaati]

Well, Competitive Smash pretty much is just a big ol' customization of the standard rules. also until we we know anything about the upcoming features, we can't really say what effect it will have on what-for all we know they may just make a 3rd Strike kind of thing where we pick special attacks or whatever.

 

[BADGRAPHICS]

It's way too early to discuss this. Yes, the customizastion could be used to balance the game but finding the "correct" setup for a given character would be a huge undertaking, and a massive point of contention. Regardless, we have no idea in what form the customization manifests.

If the options could be conducive to balancing play, people will experiment with that when the game is launched.

 

[Chiroz]

I made a thread about this a short while ago.

I believe the most probable options are either:

1. No customized chartacters are allowed in competitive play. You must choose a default character.

2. Certain specific customizations will be allowed but only with other given customizations creating Character Templates in a manner of speaking. Basically you would be allowed to choose between Mario 1, 2 or 3 which each have a different set of customizations allowed in Competitive play.

3. There will be a list created and approved by the competitive community of specific attacks that can be modified and used in competitive play. An example would be a list that says: Mario's Fair can be switched between 45 and 270 degrees, Fox's Foward Smash can be either option 1 or option 4.

4. You are allowed to customize any character freely and choose whatever attack directions you please. Some very specific customizations will be banned when they are deemed broken. Such as Villager being able to customize an attack that is incredibly easy to setup into a Spike and so obtaining an assured kill from any hit.



These are what I believe will be the possible options available, I ordered them from most possible to least possible.



Anyways it is good to note that even if customization was able to balance the cast, customization can only be done by playing and then linking the 3DS version to the Wii U version (at least that is what Sakurai has hinted at until now) which means that if customization was allowed, people without a 3DS would be at a huge disadvantage, not being able to practice with or against certain customizations.

That is another reason why customization probably wont be allowed.

 

[Lemonwater]

I would be okay with customizing to balance, but only if the customization is not directly enhancing moves so that the 'standard' ones are strictly inferior. The Diablo 3 rune system for custom skills comes to mind (ignoring the base un-runed skills).

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

IAnyways it is good to note that even if customization was able to balance the cast, customization can only be done by playing and then linking the 3DS version to the Wii U version (at least that is what Sakurai has hinted at until now) which means that if customization was allowed, people without a 3DS would be at a huge disadvantage, not being able to practice with or against certain customizations.

That is another reason why customization probably wont be allowed.

"Sakurai: The save data of the two games are completely separate, but there will be some degree of interaction, as it will be possible to transfer data relatives to the characters from one version to the other."

Doesn't look so mutually exclusive anymore.

I'm pretty sure Sakurai said he wasn't going to make customized attacks more powerful, just change directions or something along those lines.

"Finally, Sakurai noted that there will be some form of character customizability in the game. This customization will alter character performance, though in what way is still unclear."

• I don't remember MK ever being said he wasn't being used as designed. They just designed him too well. And the same could be said about Wavedashing or infinites. And customization will be just as designed, if something is incorrect, it will be patched.
• MK has never been really banned. And you're never restricted from using a character, it's just a poor decision. Like using Bowser in Melee against Marth or Falco.
• Sakurai clearly wants more balance to the roster. Screwing up the tier list is a goal here. And I highly doubt one customization has the possibility of shutting out every combination in the game. Especially since Sakurai knows he doesn't want another MK.
• That's going to be a rare case, if a case at all. Every character will have customization, the chance of one character suddenly becoming S tier from the C tier is very low considering each other character has customization.
• The possible number of movesets and attacks will be huge with customization. I highly doubt a handful of characters will be able to trump every other character along with every customization.

Way to make a post that wasn't about Meta Knight all about Meta Knight. "Meta Knight has never been really banned" is a misguided thing to say, or at least needs clarification. Meta Knight was banned under the 2.0 Unity and for a time only tournaments that featured the Unity ruleset were qualified to be sticky'd. As for the rest of that point, you're disregarding the context...

Just because you doubt something could happen does not mean it couldn't happen, whether or not it was an intentional implementation. You're probably being too dismissive of the erratic changes a moveset change could bring. In parallel, I think most people wouldn't have guessed during the pre-Brawl period that there would be a single character that would dominate the tiers relentlessly. I am just suggesting these could be points of contention. You are correct, however, that there are more safeguards in place now. I believe there will be further safeguards after the game is released in the form of patches.

 

[Chiroz]

"Sakurai: The save data of the two games are completely separate, but there will be some degree of interaction, as it will be possible to transfer data relatives to the characters from one version to the other."

Doesn't look so mutually exclusive anymore.

Being able to transfer character data from the Wii U to 3DS doesn't exactly mean being able to customize on the Wii U. (You could transfer a previously transferred customization)

Until this day every time he talks about customization he says: "You will be able to customize characters on the 3DS version and then transfer them to the WIi U version". It seems pretty exclusive to me.

I might be wrong though and I might be missing a newer interview, but I haven't seen one yet where he mentions customization being on the Wii U version.

"Finally, Sakurai noted that there will be some form of character customizability in the game. This customization will alter character performance, though in what way is still unclear."

There is an interview where Sakurai said that customization will not involve making a character faster or stronger and it wont involve giving a character different attacks or costumes. In this interview Sakurai said that what customization will be is giving certain attacks different directions, but what this means still remains uncertain. (It might be direction as in angle, or direction as in purpose).

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

Being able to transfer character data from the Wii U to 3DS doesn't exactly mean being able to customize on the Wii U. (You could transfer a previously transferred customization).

That's great, Raykz. I never said that it means being able to customize on the Wii U. I said it looks to not be a mutually exclusive feature anymore.

I think you are missing the point of these links. Really Raykz, it's like everything you read turns you into a reactionary Devil's Advocate. I have never made speculative claims with absolute certainty. These quotations are to show that notions of whatever might be the case are largely insubstantial. Several people, including you, are resorting to "Well, X said this, therefore Y is Z" without realizing the most important thing to take away from the situation is that there are conflicting reports.

Additionally, please start adding something substantial to the discussion. Your list of possible outcomes was a waste of effort because they are pretty much a given. The most important thing, which what you failed to do, would be to elaborate on how the outcomes would be reached.

There is an interview where Sakurai said that customization will not involve making a character faster or stronger... Sakurai said that what customization will be is giving certain attacks different directions, but what this means still remains uncertain. (It might be direction as in angle, or direction as in purpose).

I hope you are not implying that changing the directions of a character's attack wouldn't have any impact on how good they are. That would be an extremely ignorant thing to say. Some things just aren't situational.

And there are already rock-paper-scissors match ups in every installment of Smash.

I agree, but I think the options of customization could accentuate the issue, as was the case in Team Fortress 2.

 

[Chiroz]

That's great, Raykz. I never said that it means being able to customize on the Wii U. I said it looks to not be a mutually exclusive feature anymore.

But, transferring characters was never an exclusive feature or it was never expressed as one by Sakurai or me.

What I meant to say by my post is that Sakurai has only hinted at being able to customize on the 3DS version and that he has (to my knowledge, I might be outdated on my interviews) never mentioned this customization feature to be in the Wii U as this feature is part of his "enhanced single player experience" that will be present in the 3DS

If that is true then that means that this feature is only accessible by player's who own a 3DS version and because of this it is improbable that it would be set as a default setting for the Wii U competitive scene.

I think you are missing the point of these links. Really Raykz, it's like everything you read turns you into a reactionary Devil's Advocate. I have never made speculative claims with absolute certainty. These quotations are to show that notions of whatever might be the case are largely insubstantial. Several people, including you, are resorting to "Well, X said this, therefore Y is Z" without realizing the most important thing to take away from the situation is that there are conflicting reports.

Actually if you read my posts I never claim Y is Z, on the contrary I am mostly the guy trying to guide people in the right direction while never actually claiming anything. (If anything your previous post did just that. You read that characters were transferable between versions and you said: This features aren't version exclusive anymore which isn't exactly a given from said interview, specially attack customization, which isn't even mentioned and it was what I was talking about in my post). Everytime I speculate or say anything I always try to alert to the fact that said thing is my own opinion and should be taken lightly. Normally when I analyze things by my own I always leave room for uncertainty, sort of like saying: Sakurai said this, I think that means this, but I could be wrong however :3.

Something that says there is not enough information does not contradict another interview which does have information.

Sakurai (or at least his translator) used the word direction in 2 interviews and in both interviews stated that there won't be any enhancing of a character's or an attacks strength or speed. Everything I said was almost literally an actual quote from the interviews.

Additionally, please start adding something substantial to the discussion. Your list of possible outcomes was a waste of effort because they are pretty much a given. The most important thing, which what you failed to do, would be to elaborate on how the outcomes would be reached.

I was merely stating my opinion on what the possible outcomes were. I don't understand what you mean by I must add something substantial, we don't even have an actual idea about how exactly this customization is done or how it works, we cannot really discuss it in depth just yet. We cannot reach any of the outcomes until we know exactly what and how do you customize.

I hope you are not implying that changing the directions of a character's attack wouldn't have any impact on how good they are. That would be an extremely ignorant thing to say. Some things just aren't situational.

I am not implying that.

You quoted an interview that said things were still unclear. I was merely quoting newer interviews in order to shed light to new information that has come up since your interview in case you did not know about this information. This way you can read said information, analyze it at your own discretion and then make your own assumptions.

Changing an attacks direction obviously changes its power and value there is no denying that.



I did not mean to be rude honestly but it is just that you are using lack of information in one interview to try to debunk the others, I thought it might have been that you did not read the other interviews and did not know that info and so I tried to give it to you.

 

[nat pagle]

Way to make a post that wasn't about Meta Knight all about Meta Knight. "Meta Knight has never been really banned" is a misguided thing to say, or at least needs clarification. Meta Knight was banned under the 2.0 Unity and for a time only tournaments that featured the Unity ruleset were qualified to be sticky'd. As for the rest of that point, you're disregarding the context...

You said the list of issues was a parallel of the MK debates. It was already about Meta Knight.

And the Unity Ruleset ban went nowhere. How many tournaments exactly actually operated under the ruleset when MK was banned?

Just because you doubt something could happen does not mean it couldn't happen, whether or not it was an intentional implementation. You're probably being too dismissive of the erratic changes a moveset change could bring. In parallel, I think most people wouldn't have guessed during the pre-Brawl period that there would be a single character that would dominate the tiers relentlessly. I am just suggesting these could be points of contention. You are correct, however, that there are more safeguards in place now. I believe there will be further safeguards after the game is released in the form of patches.

And I simply don't believe one customization could dominate all of the others in Smash 4 or ruin the competitive scene. More characters will be viable if they can be customized and there are more options rather than just knowing how to stop a character and his moveset. For all we know, erratic changes caused by moveset customization could be better for the Smash community by tearing up tier lists and putting more emphasis on all characters having more place.

Secondly, people definitely could have guessed that one character could dominate the tiers relentlessly, Pikachu did it back in Smash 64.

In the case of a clearly OP attack or setup, it would definitely get patched or hotfixed by Nintendo. But I highly doubt it would lead to MK or Pikachu like domination.

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

But, transferring characters was never an exclusive feature or it was never expressed as one by Sakurai or me.

I am not sure what you are trying to communicate.

Actually if you read my posts I never claim Y is Z, on the contrary I am mostly the guy trying to guide people in the right direction while never actually claiming anything.

I did read your posts, but I did over simplify here. I should have said some people are being dismissive of information that seemingly conflicts with their understanding.

If [the customization options are exclusive to the 3DS]... then that means that this feature is only accessible by player's who own a 3DS version and because of this it is improbable that it would be set as a default setting for the Wii U competitive scene.

One of the better reasons to not include customization options in competitive play if the polls are any indication of 3DS availability.

I did not mean to be rude honestly but it is just that you are using lack of information in one interview to try to debunk the others

Where am I trying to debunk an interview? Good luck finding that. You will only find me suggesting to people they may have incomplete information.

You said the list of issues was a parallel of the MK debates. It was already about Meta Knight.

I said the customization debates could have several parallels with the MK debate. If by "it" you mean my list of possible points of contention, No, it wasn't already about Meta Knight. I don't even mention him. Where did you get that idea? Ideas having parallels do not make them the same. Connecting a hook against Mike Tyson doesn't make it the siege of Troy, but hopefully you could see the similarity...

 

[Chiroz]

I am not sure what you are trying to communicate.

I am trying to communicate that what you posted has nothing to do with what I was saying.

I was talking about how it is less probable for customization to be accepted in the competitive scene because up until now only the 3DS version can customize a character and in order to use a customized character on the Wii U it must be transferred from the 3DS, thus creating a separation between those who own a 3DS version and those who don't.

You quoted my post with a portion of an interview saying you can transfer characters (or rather data relative to characters which could even mean things such as games played or win/loss ratio and doesn't mandatorily have to mean character's per se) in between versions and said it wasn't exclusive anymore.

Since then I've been trying to explain that transferring characters doesn't mean anything for customizing. You will still need a 3DS version to customize a character until Sakurai says otherwise, thus my first statement still stands.

I did read your posts, but I did over simplify here. I should have said some people are being dismissive of information that seemingly conflicts with their understanding.

I can't talk about other people but the only thing in my posts that was not a direct quote and was my own understanding was the 4 possible outcomes (which you agreed with) and the above statement (Which as you can read in the above paragraphs has no conflicts with any interview to this day, or at the very least no interview presented yet in this thread).

So even though I agree that people do tend to do that a lot, I believe I haven't actually done it in this discussion.

One of the better reasons to not include customization options in competitive play if the polls are any indication of 3DS availability.

Yes, exactly what I was trying to express.

Where am I trying to debunk an interview? Good luck finding that. You will only find me suggesting to people they may have incomplete information.

Ok, I am mistaken then, sorry. I just thought you were using an interview to create conflicts with the interview I was quoting (thus debunking one of them or even both as they would be unreliable).

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I feel like the idea "we're going to use it to balance the game" is a bit strange since forcing people to use particular tweaks to how their characters play is just... off, but it could still be something we use. Customization within reasonable limits is something that might be fair; SFxT tried to do this with gems but it failed because the whole system was a cash grab. A system that's not a cash grab designed to let you subtly tweak how your characters play could be interesting though, especially if it's not obvious what the actually best things to do are so you can have various builds based on personal preference and subjective opinions. It all depends on what these systems actually are, how they work, etc. as per whether this will be something we can use or not (whether it's fair, whether it's built in a way that's time reasonable to use in a tournament, etc.), and I think we can only wait and see on that.

 

[Zage]

So, wait. Hold on. When Sakurai gives us the item and stage switches, oh, that's a feature that we're given so of course we can use it to ban stuff! But, when Sakurai potentially gives us an in game mechanic that we could use to fix his own balancing oversights in-between patches, THAT'S a problem?

If we can use the item and stage switches, we can use the customization tools. It's simply a matter of implementation.

Stage/Item switches affect both players. Both players are not able to use said Items and Stages.

Customization is drastically different for both characters and has the potential to change match ups and tiers.

They are not the same thing.

 

[Jack Kieser]

I never said they were the same. I said that the reason cited for banning customizations is the exact same reason cited for justifying banning stages and items, and that's contradictory. Besides, the most probable ruleset wouldn't allow each player to use a different customization, it would list customization sets for each character that anyone who played that character would be forced to use, thus allowing us to effectively balance characters between patches.

So, the fact that it can change match ups and tiers is exactly what we would expect and want.

 

[Crap-Zapper]

By Costumization, I only want new Costumes... and not the ability to change gameplay, that would kind of take the meaning out of the characters orgin.

 

[[Corn]]

I never said they were the same. I said that the reason cited for banning customizations is the exact same reason cited for justifying banning stages and items, and that's contradictory. Besides, the most probable ruleset wouldn't allow each player to use a different customization, it would list customization sets for each character that anyone who played that character would be forced to use, thus allowing us to effectively balance characters between patches.

So, the fact that it can change match ups and tiers is exactly what we would expect and want.

Honestly customization wont be allowed because it is basically different characters in one character and it is never really balanced unless the changes are purely cosmetic.
Balance is also a varied term among people and customization is generally disallowed in competitive games of this nature.

Regardless, nothing has been stated with 100% certainty that the customization talked about will even effect movesets. I personally would enjoy only cosmetic customization and would despise moveset ones.

 

[mimgrim]

We don't even know that the customization is even going to be and people are already saying it will create different characters. If you haven't noticed Sakurai has been rathervauge with what it will be and thus we don't know what he means. It could be small tweaks or it could be huge changes. It could be something as simple as giving attacks status aliments or something as crazy as changing at which attacks send the opponent. All we know for certain is that customization will not be for alternate costumes or something like that, as Sakurai said tht himself. :L

 

[Evil-Guy]

We don't even know that the customization is even going to be and people are already saying it will create different characters. If you haven't noticed Sakurai has been rathervauge with what it will be and thus we don't know what he means. It could be small tweaks or it could be huge changes. It could be something as simple as giving attacks status aliments or something as crazy as changing at which attacks send the opponent. All we know for certain is that customization will not be for alternate costumes or something like that, as Sakurai said tht himself. :L

What if its a translation error? What if it is just editable button inputs?

 

[Seraphim.]

I just hope it means changing how a character looks or something, I hope it doesn't actually change gameplay.

 

[Jack Kieser]

Honestly customization wont be allowed because it is basically different characters in one character and it is never really balanced unless the changes are purely cosmetic.
Balance is also a varied term among people and customization is generally disallowed in competitive games of this nature.

Regardless, nothing has been stated with 100% certainty that the customization talked about will even effect movesets. I personally would enjoy only cosmetic customization and would despise moveset ones.

Then, why do we allow stages to be banned? We can never strike a balance that people agree on, obviously (the stage list is still really contentious to this day). Why do we ban items? That changes the game balance drastically, and that kind of customization is generally disallowed in competitive games, too. This is exactly what I mean. It's cherry picking. You're approaching it with the preconception that items and stages are ok to edit around and mess with, but this customization isn't, and you're trying to justify it from there. Instead, you should be wondering if character customization is ok, finding the justification for either ban or not ban, and coming to the conclusion then. That's the only explanation for the blatant contradiction in logic in this thread.

You can't say "Smash is different, so we can choose our stages and items and f**c the FGC" in one breath and "well, it's common among fighting games not to allow this so we won't" in the exact same breath.

 

[Uffe]

By Costumization, I only want new Costumes... and not the ability to change gameplay, that would kind of take the meaning out of the characters orgin.

That's all I'd want from that. You'd think after all the texture hacks that Sakurai & Co. would get the idea. I'm not saying that they're not considering the idea, however. Even if it's a palette changer I don't mind. I never cared for the stat changes like they had in I think was Soul Calibur and/or Tekken.

 

[Lemonwater]

Customization of attack properties and not simply strength would be interesting, I suppose. Balance would be questionable, but there should be sincere attempts to balance the options available. A system for customization might increase the need for balance patches.

For instance, when choosing to customize Ness's PK Thunder you can choose to keep it with no changes, or:
Option 1: PK Thunder will now pass through enemies and deals -3% damage, and also loses 20% speed
Option 2: PK Thunder is now twice as powerful but loses 40% of its range
Option 3: PK Thunder now travels 40% faster but the damage and knockback dealt by Ness being blasted into enemies by it is reduced by 1/4th
Option 4: PK Thunder now launches Ness himself 30% further, but Ness will now deal multiple weak hits to enemies on contact and then pass through them rather than one powerful hit, reducing the KO potential greatly.

 

[Oracle_Summon]

Maybe rearranging the character's placement in the roster? I would like that feature.

 

[nat pagle]

By Costumization, I only want new Costumes... and not the ability to change gameplay, that would kind of take the meaning out of the characters orgin.

Why would customizing attacks take away from the character's origin? I doubt Sakurai would add some ridiculous move like a sword to Falco, or a gun to Pikachu. I think customization of attacks would even out the tier list more and put more depth into the gameplay. Assuming that's what Sakurai means by "customization".

I mean, what's so wrong about allowing Marth to slash his sword a different way?

 

[kid craft 24/sonic master]

the type of customization im expecting is basically a mix between subspaces stickers and kid icarus uprising block panels. The abilities will probably be drawn from brawls stickers with as well, tbh i personally would like to be able to used customized characters in competitive play they could be linked to a persons name tag and in this way every person has a unique setup. in a way kid icarus uprisings weapons and powerups customizations woukd work if we were willing to accept them. sure i think we would maybe have to ban a couple customizations but i thing this would lead to more interesting styles of play.