Customs make the game better, period! ...But why?

[Foozal]

Ever since the game's release, custom specials have always been an issue in terms of legality and viability in tournaments. As of late, it seems there are those that clearly want customs to be legal in major tournaments, however the implementation was always an issue.

Well now there's a solution to that, known as the Standard Custom Moveset Project. With this, it only takes a few TO's who have all custom moves to create standardized movesets for each characters, thus integrating custom specials into the competitive scene.

Ok cool, we can do that...but who says anyone wants customs in the first place? The point of this thread is to collect and then summarize a report that explains what you CAN do IF (that's a big if) customs were legal in let's say EVO 2015. We'd need to be able to showcase that custom specials make the game so much more versatile and interesting with character alterations.

The idea in those that have shunned custom specials usually go like this
"They make the game imbalanced!"
"They're too much effort!"

"I never bothered unlocking any, so why should they be legal if I can't practice with it"

See, we won't make customs legal in major tournaments by saying "Customs should be legal! Here's why!" , instead we need to say "Customs make the game so much more versitile and enjoyable!". We won't make customs the meta in the Smash 4 competitive scene unless we show that a tournament without customs is inferior and less interesting than a tournament with custom specials.

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Let me start us off!

- They make low tier characters viable and more enjoyable
- Palutena and her melee speed
- Mii Brawler obtains insanity with a very small Mii character
- Yoshi? Pfft, he's nothing compared to my custom Wii Fit Trainer (just an example, please don't burn me )

- They add so much more to the game, we'd be able to be even more creative and pull off things we couldn't do without customs
- Mario's explosive punch (up 3) is a kill move, imagine a zero-death combo ending with that!

- With a more interesting game, we'd have a more interesting spectator sport!

 

[Morbi]

It contributes to the meta-game in a positive way as you can "counter-pick" using the same character, but different custom moves, to avoid certain tools of other characters. For instance, Palutena's reflect is nearly worthless if she is up against a character without projectiles. She could counter-pick a different side-special for that MU and use another for a character with a projectile.

Customs help cater to a more personalized experience. Player preference is relevant and we can see different strategies evolve from different custom moves. Mirror matches would certainly be more interesting if players had adversely different builds.

 

[thehard]

I'll add that competitive Pokemon players (ORAS is being played at Apex) breed for perfect IVs and EVs which is a tedious process, but it gets done. Getting customs for your two or three characters is nothing comparably, if that's still a concern at this point. Also, if you're not willing to learn MUs against popular custom sets, you're not deserving of being in a competition anyway.

It's worth noting that some customs make bad moves viable/more interactive/give inflexible characters more utility (DK's windbox punch for example) and that's something that should be supported.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

A good character is good because they have good moves. Conversely, a bad character is bad because their moves are, comparatively speaking, bad. (Mobility ties into this too, admittedly, but we're focusing on moves here.)

Now let's bring custom moves into the mix.

A good move is not likely to have even better custom options available. It's as if you already rolled a 5 on a 6-sided die and are expecting to roll even higher. It's possible, but unlikely, and odds are you'll just get something worse.

A bad move, on the other hand, has nowhere to go but up. Its custom options are probably better in some form. Recycling the dice analogy, it's as if you rolled a 2 and are hoping to roll higher next time. Again, it's possible to be disappointed (Jigglypuff...) but the odds are in your favor. Statistically speaking, custom moves equalize the cast and bring them closer together on the tier list.

We can see this in action already. Diddy and Sheik, two of the undisputed top tiers, have very lackluster special moves and one could argue that their default 1111 sets are superior to any other options. By contrast, many low tiers can redeem and reinvent themselves with custom moves. Palutena has Super Speed, Samus has Relentless Missiles, Ganondorf has Wizard's Dropkick, and so forth. A lot characters also have an option tucked away that's unusually good for dealing with Rosalina, which helps address a key matchup against one of the most polarizing characters in the game. Even Jigglypuff, generally considered the loser when it comes to custom move selection, finds utility in Hyper Voice over Sing to get Luma out of the way.

And there are no broken custom moves. The closest is Mii Brawler's Piston Punch due to the One-Inch punch technique, but my understanding is that it requires a grab setup, can be escaped with DI, is only a guaranteed kill against lightweights like Jigglypuff, and usually requires a high platform in the first place. That's enough factors to allow for reasonable counterplay.

From a more subjective view, customs allow players to add their own flair to characters. Palutena's best set right now is, I believe, 2322. (Explosive Flame/Super Speed/Jump Glide/Lightweight) However, if a player likes Palutena but not the fast rushdown such a set promotes, then they're free to switch it up, perhaps to 2113. (Explosive Flame/Reflect/Warp/Celestial Firework) Very few characters have such polarizing options that everything else is completely worthless, and a metagame that encourages variety and experimentation is a good thing IMO.

 

[Djent]

I suspect the game will be more balanced with Customs-ON (for reasons that others have already articulated), but in truth I don't know that.

I just think they deserve a chance. Smash has always been somewhat annoying in terms of requiring copious unlockables, and yet we jump through Jumbo Hoops to make sure we have them all available. Customs are just a more extreme version of this phenomenon, so it'd be a shame if people didn't bother just because it seemed too difficult this time. We as a community have already set a precedent that unlockables are legal unless there's good reason they shouldn't be, so why not continue this trend?

 

[Raijinken]

Logistics are the only truly valid complaint about them, and the Custom Moveset Project solves that issue for the majority of players.

 

[thehard]

It's always better to soldier through growing pains than to be overly safe with a ruleset so early on. Don't let players, viewers, and TOs become complacent with X banned or Y stocks when they only have hearsay to go off of, get HARD EVIDENCE that these things impact the game negatively (they probably won't)

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

I believe Thinkaman provided the best explanation for the validity of custom moves: http://smashboards.com/threads/the-...es-on-gameplay-and-balance-statistics.366457/

 

[Pazx]

Character, matchup and gameplay knowledge is something that has been rewarded in previous titles (in fact... in every game that can be played semi competitively) and having customs turned on makes that knowledge even more rewarding. It also means the more adaptive players are more likely to be successful. I fully support custom moves in competitive play.

 

[DeaDea]

The following is why I, personally, do not like the idea of customs being THE standard in competitive play:

It greatly increases the barrier of entry to newer players. One of the biggest advantages this game has is that its easy to get into. Buy the game, go online, enter for glory mode - after 120 matches you will already have experience vs real actual players and all the characters unlocked on a competitively viable stage - this has never been an option for Smash games. We are now asking new players to jump through a bunch of loops just so they can begin to practice competitive smash, let alone actually play vs some real life players. A) They have to unlock them all on their own machine first. Boring as hell, time-wasting and demotivating - that's not why I play Smash. Getting a 3ds with everything already unlocked and importing ALL the sets is a pain in the ass. B) For Glory mode becomes near-useless for practice. Yes, at the moment there is only Omega stages which sucks and its only 2 stocks, but at least you can jump online and get some good practice in without needing to go to a tournanment or smashfest. This is so, so, so important for getting people in Smash, and making custom moves the standard completely removes this.

What I ALSO think is that we should give this a go either way. Maybe all my fears and issues above will not actually be such a big deal, and customs are worth it because it will make Sm4sh a lot better and really balanced with loads of awesome aggressive combos. Maybe customs will just result in a completely imbalanced and stale meta that will make the game boring as hell to watch and play. Either way its not right to just outright dismiss something without giving it a shot. I personally won't be using customs until its proven to significantly improve the game and there is a practical/easy way I can unlock everything. Its the same reason I don't play MMORPGs and Pokemon competitively - I don't want to do a bunch of brainless grinding just so I can begin playing the actual game - that's not what competitive gaming is about in my opinion.

Fingers crossed someone comes out with a powersave hack for the wii u that unlocks everything from the get-go soon :D

 

[dragontamer]

I'm against customs, but I don't think there's anything I can say to convince yall of that fact.

As long as there are tournaments that I can go to without custom movesets, I think I'll be fine. There's enough tournaments out there right now for people to experiment with the rules. It'd be like Brawl vs ProjectM... it'd be a temporary fracture of the community with the bigger fracture will win out in the end.

As it stands, Smash has one of the biggest rosters in the game. It is truly difficult to get real matchup experience between the whole cast right now, and it will be that much harder as people optimize characters to different movesets. If vanilla Smash4 gets stale, I'll be willing to go for custom movesets, but I just don't see that happening in the near future.

-------------------

Its not so much custom movesets that turn me off, its the fact that you have to work so hard in a fighting game to get all of them and grind them out. MvC series is basically a massive custom moveset game. Street Fighter 4 also lets you choose your ultras. Even DiveKick gives you gems.

But the amount of grinding I have to do on my own to get my custom moveset for my character down... and then for all of my friends who play on the system... it turns me off significantly. My house parties are going to be customs off for sure, and my group of friends is definitely going to favor customs off at tournaments.

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

Its not so much custom movesets that turn me off, its the fact that you have to work so hard in a fighting game to get all of them and grind them out. MvC series is basically a massive custom moveset game. Street Fighter 4 also lets you choose your ultras. Even DiveKick gives you gems.

But the amount of grinding I have to do on my own to get my custom moveset for my character down... and then for all of my friends who play on the system... it turns me off significantly. My house parties are going to be customs off for sure, and my group of friends is definitely going to favor customs off at tournaments.

If it's only logistics that has you dissatisfied with customs, you should give a look towards the Custom Moveset project. I don't think anyone likes all the RNG grind for custom moves, but people do like what customs bring. For all their issues, it would be a terrible shame for customs to not be introduced into tournament play. The opportunities for characters to be the best they can be, and more individualized is something that should not be discounted.

 

[dragontamer]

If it's only logistics that has you dissatisfied with customs, you should give a look towards the Custom Moveset project. I don't think anyone likes all the RNG grind for custom moves, but people do like what customs bring. For all their issues, it would be a terrible shame for customs to not be introduced into tournament play. The opportunities for characters to be the best they can be, and more individualized is something that should not be discounted.

Custom Moveset project solves the issue for tournaments. Not for house parties. You need to blow over someone's 3DS save. I don't believe any of my friends would enjoy customs on. And I've got friends who want to play all stages with items on. So we're all not "hardcore" either.

Let me share with you my personal smash setup. I have a friend with a WiiU. We all go over to his house to play. While we all have our own 3DS, it is very unlikely that he'll let me sync my game to his system (because he has his own).

The fact of the matter is, the whole 3DS sync system which works for larger scale tournaments just doesn't scale down to small-scale house parties. Most likely, the only way my characters (and subs) will get their full movesets is if he unlocks them himself.

And then does that for each of our friends who plays at his house.

Yall are welcome to play with custom movesets on. But it is not the game I'll be playing at house parties. I know that for certain.

The opportunities for characters to be the best they can be, and more individualized is something that should not be discounted.

Frankly, I don't care. I've played games with 30+ person casts with 4 playable top-tier tournament winning characters. AKA: MvC2... or you know... Melee. These games can remain enjoyable for years... or even decades. Even then, Smash4 Patch 1.0.4 is amongst the most balanced games I've seen for a cast of this size so far. And it seems a shame to discredit the vanilla game with custom moves.

But that's just me apparently. I can see that the community has a different opinion on this already. As long as I get my local tournaments with customs off, I'll be fine.

-------------------------

Besides, based on my MvC2 experience, customized movesets only differentiates the top tier even more. Choosing between alpha, beta, and gamma assists, along with two helper characters only improved the best characters above and beyond everyone else.

MvC2 was a far less balanced game than Sm4sh 1.0.4 of course. But it is the height of naivete to believe that custom movesets automatically make a game more balanced. MvC2 really is a strong counter-example to that fallacy.

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

Custom Moveset project solves the issue for tournaments. Not for house parties. You need to blow over someone's 3DS save.

I don't believe any of my friends would enjoy customs on. And I've got friends who want to play all stages with items on. So we're all not "hardcore" either.

It really doesn't take long to do a transfer of one set from 3ds to Wii U man. Less than a few seconds of having it done.

The thing is, do your friends even know any of these moves or what they truly do? Or did they just vaguely hear about their effects and the most skin deep differences between them? Items come with this stigma of randomness and have incredibly pronounced different effects that are just there to go nuts with. Custom moves are set in stone, and have small nuances that we may not know about that we haven't seen in use yet for competitive play. The fact it is also so difficult for a casual player to unlock them all on their own makes them the greatest unknown factor.

Frankly, I don't care. I've played games with 50+ person casts with 4 playable top-tier tournament winning characters. AKA: MvC2... or you know... Melee. That really isn't the issue. Vanilla Smash4 is amongst the most balanced games I've seen for a cast of this size so far. And it seems a shame to discredit the vanilla game with custom moves.

But that's just me apparently. I can see that the community has a different opinion on this already. As long as I get my local tournaments with customs off, I'll be fine.

How do we really know how imbalanced or balanced the cast is? We have had the game for less than a few months. Any cast can start out balanced and end up imbalanced in only a few months. We don't know yet.

 

[dragontamer]

It really doesn't take long to do a transfer of one set from 3ds to Wii U man. Less than a few seconds of having it done.

The thing is, do your friends even know any of these moves or what they truly do? Or did they just vaguely hear about their effects and the most skin deep differences between them? Items come with this stigma of randomness and have incredibly pronounced different effects that are just there to go nuts with. Custom moves are set in stone, and have small nuances that we may not know about that we haven't seen in use yet for competitive play. The fact it is also so difficult for a casual player to unlock them all on their own makes them the greatest unknown factor.

I'm not calling them random, or anticompetitive or anything.

I'm just saying my circle of RL friends don't like the idea. Just being honest, we're not going to want to play anything where custom moves are on. This includes both the "hardcore" players (who prefer fewer set stage choices, items off, etc. etc.), and "casual" players who enjoy items.

How do we really know how imbalanced or balanced the cast is? We have had the game for less than a few months. Any cast can start out balanced and end up imbalanced in only a few months. We don't know yet.

No, I don't know if it will make the game more or less balanced. But at the moment, Smash4 is looking pretty well balanced to me.

And once again, custom movesets didn't save MvC2 from having 4 tournament-worthy characters. The majority of teamsetups were Magnito-A / Storm-A / Sentinel-A or Sentinel-Y. Maybe with one of those top-characters swapped out for something else.

I recognize that you wish to brave the frontier and play with custom moves. I'm not going to stop you... in fact, I encourage you to start up a tournament and try it out yourself. Maybe it will be fun. But personally speaking, I'd rather stick with Vanilla Smash4.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Let me share with you my personal smash setup. I have a friend with a WiiU. We all go over to his house to play. While we all have our own 3DS, it is very unlikely that he'll let me sync my game to his system (because he has his own).

It's not even a synch, it's literally "copy some sets from one system to another." That's it. It doesn't go any deeper than that.

 

[dragontamer]

It's not even a synch, it's literally "copy some sets from one system to another." That's it. It doesn't go any deeper than that.

And for the players in my group that don't have a 3DS or their own WiiU? How is allowing custom movesets fair to them?

One guy plays Ness / ZSS, another plays Marth/Dr. Mario. I play Marth as a tertiary, so maybe I can get Marth's custom moveset together for him, but no one with 3DSes plays Ness, ZSS or Dr. Mario.

As stated before, my concern for my personal sake is the house party that gets my RL friends together. I do recognize this is different than tournament settings and you guys probably don't care. But I'm going to prefer tournaments that have a ruleset that matches closest to my house parties.

Custom Movesets introduces non-trivial friction inside of the base level of the community. Maybe it won't be a big deal at tournaments, but to my circle of friends it is a big deal. I welcome the experimentation, but I personally will never attend a tournament with custom movesets on. It'd just be a different game than what I play typically.

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

And for the players in my group that don't have a 3DS or their own WiiU? How is allowing custom movesets fair to them?

As stated before, my concern for my personal sake is the house party that gets my RL friends together. I do recognize this is different than tournament settings and you guys probably don't care. But I'm going to prefer tournaments that have a ruleset that matches closest to my house parties.

You could always lend them your 3DS for when they want to try their own settings on the Wii U.

 

[dragontamer]

You could always lend them your 3DS for when they want to try their own settings on the Wii U.

Too many players, too many characters. We also have this habit of not picking each other's characters for some reason. (we're all special snowflakes, lol).

I rarely play 3DS single player. I don't even have all the custom moves for Pacman / Robin yet (my primary / secondary). Let alone me going out and gathering everyone else's custom moves.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

And for the players in my group that don't have a 3DS or their own WiiU? How is allowing custom movesets fair to them?

One guy plays Ness / ZSS, another plays Marth/Dr. Mario. I play Marth as a tertiary, so maybe I can get Marth's custom moveset together for him, but no one with 3DSes plays Ness, ZSS or Dr. Mario.

As stated before, my concern for my personal sake is the house party that gets my RL friends together. I do recognize this is different than tournament settings and you guys probably don't care. But I'm going to prefer tournaments that have a ruleset that matches closest to my house parties.

Custom Movesets introduces non-trivial friction inside of the base level of the community. Maybe it won't be a big deal at tournaments, but to my circle of friends it is a big deal. I welcome the experimentation, but I personally will never attend a tournament with custom movesets on. It'd just be a different game than what I play typically.

Will any of this argument hold water in, say, a year? By that point it's not unreasonable to expect any given copy will have the large majority of customs unlocked, if not literally all of them.

 

[dragontamer]

Will any of this argument hold water in, say, a year? By that point it's not unreasonable to expect any given copy will have the large majority of customs unlocked, if not literally all of them.

We can always revisit the subject later. If you want me to remain honest however... I can only speak for the now.

Again, I appreciate the excitement you guys have with changing the rules for tournaments and all that. Keep on doing it, keep on experimenting. Do what you must to keep tournaments fresh. But I expect you go see strong resistance from people who don't frequent these forums and are in a similar situation as me and my RL friends.

 

[Jams.]

Will any of this argument hold water in, say, a year? By that point it's not unreasonable to expect any given copy will have the large majority of customs unlocked, if not literally all of them.

I have to disagree with this sentiment. The grind for customs is most certainly not a trivial one. I don't own a 3DS so I can't speak for unlocking customs there (I've heard it's easier), but unlocking customs on the Wii U is a pretty tedious process. Given the unlocking process, individuals that don't care about custom moves and only enjoy playing versus mode with friends simply won't unlock any custom moves. I personally have no trouble imagining that in a year or two (assuming everyone doesn't get the sets from Ampharo's project due to a tournament), many people's Wii Us in our community won't even have a quarter of the customs unlocked.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I have to disagree with this sentiment. The grind for customs is most certainly not a trivial one. I don't own a 3DS so I can't speak for unlocking customs there (I've heard it's easier), but unlocking customs on the Wii U is a pretty tedious process. Given the unlocking process, individuals that don't care about custom moves and only enjoy playing versus mode with friends simply won't unlock any custom moves. I personally have no trouble imagining that in a year or two (assuming everyone doesn't get the sets from Ampharo's project due to a tournament), many people's Wii Us in our community won't even have a quarter of the customs unlocked.

I must be the exception or something because I've got over 300 (out of 376) of the custom moves unlocked and I'm not even grinding, I'm just slowly working through the cast for the "beat Classic on 7.0 with everyone" challenge. Throw in a few Crazy Orders runs once I found some home run bat and quick batter equipment and it's not hard, just tedious if you're aiming to get that last move that refuses to drop.

 

[Jams.]

I must be the exception or something because I've got over 300 (out of 376) of the custom moves unlocked and I'm not even grinding, I'm just slowly working through the cast for the "beat Classic on 7.0 with everyone" challenge. Throw in a few Crazy Orders runs once I found some home run bat and quick batter equipment and it's not hard, just tedious if you're aiming to get that last move that refuses to drop.

It's not bad if you want to complete challenges or actively work to get custom moves, certainly doable within the span of a year. However, I would say at least a quarter of my Smash community only play versus mode or play versus mode 95%+ of the time; these people will never get close to unlocking all the customs barring standard implementation of customs in tournaments.

 

[stancosmos]

Ever since the game's release, custom specials have always been an issue in terms of legality and viability in tournaments. As of late, it seems there are those that clearly want customs to be legal in major tournaments, however the implementation was always an issue.

Well now there's a solution to that, known as the Standard Custom Moveset Project. With this, it only takes a few TO's who have all custom moves to create standardized movesets for each characters, thus integrating custom specials into the competitive scene.

Ok cool, we can do that...but who says anyone wants customs in the first place? The point of this thread is to collect and then summarize a report that explains what you CAN do IF (that's a big if) customs were legal in let's say EVO 2015. We'd need to be able to showcase that custom specials make the game so much more versatile and interesting with character alterations.

The idea in those that have shunned custom specials usually go like this
"They make the game imbalanced!"
"They're too much effort!"

"I never bothered unlocking any, so why should they be legal if I can't practice with it"

See, we won't make customs legal in major tournaments by saying "Customs should be legal! Here's why!" , instead we need to say "Customs make the game so much more versitile and enjoyable!". We won't make customs the meta in the Smash 4 competitive scene unless we show that a tournament without customs is inferior and less interesting than a tournament with custom specials.

With your help, I plan on writing a small report or summary of this and hopefully change the scene in a good way.
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Let me start us off!

- They make low tier characters viable and more enjoyable
- Palutena and her melee speed
- Mii Brawler obtains insanity with a very small Mii character
- Yoshi? Pfft, he's nothing compared to my custom Wii Fit Trainer (just an example, please don't burn me )

- They add so much more to the game, we'd be able to be even more creative and pull off things we couldn't do without customs
- Mario's explosive punch (up 3) is a kill move, imagine a zero-death combo ending with that!

- With a more interesting game, we'd have a more interesting spectator sport!

Alright.. I'm all for custom moves. but claiming mario would have a 0-death combo is NOT a selling point. (nor is it true). That's a terrible thing to have in a smash game.

 

[Radirgy]

I think customs would be great for the scene. Obviously the easiest thing to do would be to divide tournaments as vanilla and custom. Vanilla smash would suit smaller tournaments as people have pointed out vanilla moves makes it easier for people to get into smash and learn how to play it. Customs would be awesome for big tournaments like Evo, considering how many big games revolve around things like character classes, custom stats and builds (CS, TF2, LoL, Dota, CoD etc) I think custom smash would be an excellent fit for a more tactical metagame at advanced play levels.

Mind games is one of the biggest factors as to whether you win or lose in competitive smash, custom moves practically belong in this scene.

 

[LimitCrown]

A reason why I don't think that the custom moves should be considered as the standard is because they don't benefit some characters as well as others and that either the custom moves are in most cases better or worse than the defaults. Also, since the custom movesets that are considered to be overall the best will be chosen most likely, then it wouldn't add that much depth to the game, in my opinion.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

A reason why I don't think that the custom moves should be considered as the standard is because they don't benefit some characters as well as others and that either the custom moves are in most cases better or worse than the defaults. Also, since the custom movesets that are considered to be overall the best will be chosen most likely, then it wouldn't add that much depth to the game, in my opinion.

The characters that benefit the most tend to be low to mid tier characters, in which case I hardly think it's a bad thing that they're brought up like that. Makes for a more even playing field.

Furthermore, as far as I can tell you're literally arguing that the metagame will likely stabilize around a specific set for each character anyway, so why bother? That is not a position I can ever agree with. I mean, the idea of a single custom moveset being considered the de facto best under all circumstances is generally false, as proven by the existence of Ampharos' custom moveset project. Do you really think there would be such a hubbub about which 6-8 sets should be selected if there was only 1 worth using? There are very few cases where one option outshines the other two to such an extent that there's literally no point to using anything else. In turn, this creates room for players to explore options and put their own personal touch on their character.

 

[LimitCrown]

In the custom move project, you can see that for some of the characters, 2 of their special move choices are the ones that are more prevalent. For example, Helicopter Kick/Piston Punch and Feint Jump are prevalent for the Mii Brawler. The Soaring Tornado is in all of the movesets for Dr. Mario. For Kirby, Jumping inhale is the one chosen for his standard special move due to the drawbacks of the move being negligible when you're battling only one person. I'm not really stating that one specific moveset will outclass all others, but certain special moves would be used more often.

Even though some of the characters considered to be low-mid tier tend to have custom moves considered to be superior to the defaults, does that necessarily mean that the custom moves make the game more balanced?

 

[Radirgy]

If characters are too weak or have too many short comings to compete with Diddy and Shiek then move buffs can help game balance, every character should be able to win, that is the whole point of having a character selection in a fighting game.

 

[Pazx]

Even though some of the characters considered to be low-mid tier tend to have custom moves considered to be superior to the defaults, does that necessarily mean that the custom moves make the game more balanced?

Provided that the best characters generally have poorer customs than the lower ranked characters, then yes, this does mean that custom moves make the game more balanced.

 

[thehard]

I'm watching a tournament stream where a player was carefully inputting his name which consisted of many accents and symbols.

If people are still worried about time constraints as far as customs go, their fears are unfounded.

 

[digiholic]

I wonder, if there were a way to unlock all of the moves at once in one easy step, like an optional downloadable patch, or possibly even a stage builder exploit like ProjectM uses (assuming we eventually get to save stages to SD cards), would this be an issue any more?

 

[Roge9]

I still don't see the harm in having side-tournaments with them.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I wonder, if there were a way to unlock all of the moves at once in one easy step, like an optional downloadable patch, or possibly even a stage builder exploit like ProjectM uses (assuming we eventually get to save stages to SD cards), would this be an issue any more?

If there was a reliable method to unlock all customs then we wouldn't be having this discussion in the first place, so I daresay you're right.

 

[Thinkaman]

Some people really get hung up on the idea that some move options are better than others.

"Uh, yeah. That's kinda the point."

It's not that some characters benefit from customs and others don't.

It's that some characters have their best 1v1 options as their defaults, and others don't.


Diddy and Sheik have great 1v1 moves as their defaults, and crazy FFA moves as their customs.

Ganon and Ike have crazy FFA moves as their defaults, and great 1v1 moves as their customs.

The game is way better when all the characters are played to their full potential, for the mode in question. This is the very spirit of competition itself.

 

[DeaDea]

Something else I want to add. Everyone is making out that custom moves are going to balance the game further.

The way I see it is that the default moves have had a tonne of 1v1 balance testing done by the devs, probably much more than customs (an assumption, but I think its a reasonable one). The roster is reasonably balanced (without customs) compared to the other smash games so far (this may change with the meta). I bet when (or if) customs ever get heavily used we are going to see a much more imbalanced roster and meta as the number of matchups and movesets will increase by thousands, and obviously if there are thousands of more possible match ups, the chances of imbalances happening are much, much higher than the probability of the game becoming more balanced. All it takes is one broken combination of moves and the meta will get stale around that e.g. meta-knight. I can imagine people also saying "it can make it more balanced though", but the more matchups, combination and character set-ups there are, the more imbalances there will be, simply because balancing characters takes hundreds of hours of fine-tweaking, whereas imbalances are easily introduced to a game where fighters are unique and plentiful as there are.

That's my logical opinion, but please prove me wrong

 

[Xinc]

Something else I want to add. Everyone is making out that custom moves are going to balance the game further.

The way I see it is that the default moves have had a tonne of 1v1 balance testing done by the devs, probably much more than customs (an assumption, but I think its a reasonable one). The roster is reasonably balanced (without customs) compared to the other smash games so far (this may change with the meta). I bet when (or if) customs ever get heavily used we are going to see a much more imbalanced roster and meta as the number of matchups and movesets will increase by thousands, and obviously if there are thousands of more possible match ups, the chances of imbalances happening are much, much higher than the probability of the game becoming more balanced. All it takes is one broken combination of moves and the meta will get stale around that e.g. meta-knight. I can imagine people also saying "it can make it more balanced though", but the more matchups, combination and character set-ups there are, the more imbalances there will be, simply because balancing characters takes hundreds of hours of fine-tweaking, whereas imbalances are easily introduced to a game where fighters are unique and plentiful as there are.

That's my logical opinion, but please prove me wrong

I feel there will definitely be characters with customs that can specifically counter other characters with customs. There will definitely be more matchups that will be changed drastically, but most will stay similar, since B moves don't usually change the flow of play THAT much. Arguably the more matchups will equal diversity, which will definitely create more balances against the overpowered (current) characters. It's basically the infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters theory, and it happens to be true.

But I'm going on assumptions here. If we take into account Link's power bow, all of Ganondorf's customs (geeze, he gets a lot more counters now, don't you think? :D ), Sheik's Abyss, Dr. Mario and Mario's Breezy Cape and neutral B, Falcon's multihit Falcon Kick (Brawl minus anyone?), Marth's dash assault and Iai counter, as well as Lucina's, and Mr. Game and Watch's extreme Judge, you get a lot of moves that change the metagame. But they are moves that do impact that game, but not by that much, as the standard attacks and grabs remain the same. Of course, follow ups will definitely become different, but the more matchups and combinations means the more you need to be familiar with your character, but it also means you have more ample opportunities to beat characters you normally have issues with.

For each character, they have 2 other custom moves per B move, meaning 3^4 = 81 different movesets. 81*50 = 4050. Of course, the actual number will be lower, since there are customs that are not that useful. But with this many movesets, and with B moves slightly altering gameplay, there is a high opportunity for balance.

 

[Thinkaman]

I feel there will definitely be characters with customs that can specifically counter other characters with customs.

This isn't really true in practice, due to the way special moves tend to fit into matchups.

Special moves tend to overwhelmingly be movement tools, pressure tools (including projectiles and command grabs), recovery tools, and charge reward.

All of these categories tend to lean more towards anti-polarization, with the exception of certain classes of projectiles.

Putting more options or focus on these categories tends to depolarize matchups.


For contrast, grabs/throws, tilts, and aerials tend to be the source of most matchup polarization via speed, range, disjoint, or the way they combine to juggle in certain interactions.

If we had a bunch of random options for customizing normal moves and throws, the game would probably be more polarized (less balanced) as people discovered the optimal combo and juggle combinations for each given matchup.

It's basically the infinite monkeys on infinite typewriters theory, and it happens to be true.

Well, not quite. I'm only throwing a red flag on this analogy because infinite monkeys is a terrible balance strategy that will only end in tears, no pun intended.

This is more like re-rolling dice until you get a good result. The difference is, unlike moneys, there are bound limits on the way dice roll.

But I'm going on assumptions here. If we take into account Link's power bow, all of Ganondorf's customs (geeze, he gets a lot more counters now, don't you think? :D ), Sheik's Abyss, Dr. Mario and Mario's Breezy Cape and neutral B, Falcon's multihit Falcon Kick (Brawl minus anyone?), Marth's dash assault and Iai counter, as well as Lucina's, and Mr. Game and Watch's extreme Judge, you get a lot of moves that change the metagame.

Uh...

Many of these moves are pretty bad... At the very least, these are poor examples of moves that shake up matchups.

For each character, they have 2 other custom moves per B move, meaning 3^4 = 81 different movesets. 81*50 = 4050.

This is a grossly false outlook. Special moves rarely interact, at all. There is no combinatoric behavior going on, no "81 Marios" for people to learn or explore. Fast Fireball doesn't have any different meaning, value, or use with Gust Cape as it does the default.

Note that this would not be true if we were customizing normal moves and/or grabs/throws. But specials rarely interact.

Something else I want to add. Everyone is making out that custom moves are going to balance the game further.

The way I see it is that the default moves have had a tonne of 1v1 balance testing done by the devs, probably much more than customs (an assumption, but I think its a reasonable one). The roster is reasonably balanced (without customs) compared to the other smash games so far (this may change with the meta). I bet when (or if) customs ever get heavily used we are going to see a much more imbalanced roster and meta as the number of matchups and movesets will increase by thousands, and obviously if there are thousands of more possible match ups, the chances of imbalances happening are much, much higher than the probability of the game becoming more balanced. All it takes is one broken combination of moves and the meta will get stale around that e.g. meta-knight. I can imagine people also saying "it can make it more balanced though", but the more matchups, combination and character set-ups there are, the more imbalances there will be, simply because balancing characters takes hundreds of hours of fine-tweaking, whereas imbalances are easily introduced to a game where fighters are unique and plentiful as there are.

That's my logical opinion, but please prove me wrong

Thanks for your well-reasoned concerns. The constructive tone is welcome!

There are 3 different ways to address this.


One is raw theory. This has been well-covered already.


The second is an evolved understanding of the purpose and function of customs.

Smash's balance targets a mix of 1v1s and FFAs. (As has been stated many, many times in interviews) This means that character that excel in one mode tend to be handicapped slightly in the other. If Ganon were buffed into a top tier in 1v1s, FFAs would be a nightmare. If Sheik were buffed to be a top character in FFAs, 1v1s would be awful.

The main purpose of customs is allowing players, on their own terms, to re-calibrate characters towards a different mode. You can make Ganon a more reasonable 1v1 character, or even make Sheik better suited for FFAs. Either case, the options tune the roster to be more balanced in the given context.

A secondary purpose is to allow alternatives to moves that are frankly underpowered due to skill skew. This is either because the move can't be upgraded due to legacy concerns, or because the difficult "expert mode" alternatives would be alienating to casual players. (Luma Warp, Zigzag Shot, Thoron+, Super Speed, Lightweight, and Decisive/Extreme Monado Arts are good examples.)

After taking this step back and seeing how customs are made to fit into the game, we can draw better conclusions about their long-term validity.


But the third (and most important) outlook is real, hard experience.

I've been playing this game pretty hard for the last ~3 months, and have been playing more with customs than without.

The game is just really self-evidently more fun with optimal movesets than without. I have the luxury of playing a ton of different characters. (In the last St. Louis tourney, I won the event playing 7 characters.) Insights from playing ~12 characters with and without customs:

• Palutena, Ganon, and Duck Hunt become absurdly fun characters. Way, way more fun to play as and against.
• Palutena, Ike, Robin, Villager, and Ganondorf go from "probably viable" to "absolutely viable".
• Falco, Duck Hunt, Wii Fit Trainer, Charizard, and Samus go from "probably not viable" to "probably viable".
• Ness, Jigglypuff, and Mega Man don't change at all. I run defaults on all of them.
• Captain Falcon changes very little. I run 2113, but think defaults might be better. (I just think 2113 is more fun. >_>)
• Little Mac changes very little. The armored side-b and dashing counter options are nice in his worst matchups, but normally not really useful.
• Of the characters I play, I would never play Duck Hunt, Wii Fit Trainer, or Robin in a tourney if I were forced to use their defaults. I would play Ganon, Jigglypuff, Ness, Falcon, or Mega Man. I *might* play Palutena.
• Of all the characters I play EXCEPT Wii Fit Trainer and Duck Hunt, I feel a particular set of customs is dominant in all matchups and stages. (And use only that set)
  • I only change Duck Hunt's down-b between 2 options, but change 3 WFT moves.
  • I genuinely feel that WFT is the only character who has a wide variety of truly equally viable options.

It's not some random wacko internet-forum theorycrafting. It's a couple thousand games of real life, zero-lag play with competitive players. When I tell you that the game is more fun with customs, it's the world's biggest anecdote.

 

[Book Jacket]

Something else I want to add. Everyone is making out that custom moves are going to balance the game further.

The way I see it is that the default moves have had a tonne of 1v1 balance testing done by the devs, probably much more than customs (an assumption, but I think its a reasonable one). The roster is reasonably balanced (without customs) compared to the other smash games so far (this may change with the meta). I bet when (or if) customs ever get heavily used we are going to see a much more imbalanced roster and meta as the number of matchups and movesets will increase by thousands, and obviously if there are thousands of more possible match ups, the chances of imbalances happening are much, much higher than the probability of the game becoming more balanced. All it takes is one broken combination of moves and the meta will get stale around that e.g. meta-knight. I can imagine people also saying "it can make it more balanced though", but the more matchups, combination and character set-ups there are, the more imbalances there will be, simply because balancing characters takes hundreds of hours of fine-tweaking, whereas imbalances are easily introduced to a game where fighters are unique and plentiful as there are.

That's my logical opinion, but please prove me wrong

I like your approach to this debate. I really like everybody's approach to this debate, really. Good thread goin' on here. Lot of open-mindedness, good stuff.

As for the proving you wrong bit:

The no-custom game was not totally balanced to 1v1. Sakurai has stated as much that he and the rest of the devs put time into balancing the game as much in FFA as in 1v1, so a 1v1 (and 2v2) metagame does not have the dev team totally on its side. As has been cited, Ganondorf and Ike are brilliant examples. Wizard kick is nothing compared to the Wizard's Dropkick. Ike's Side-B 1 (forgot the name, sorry) is nowhere near as good in 1v1 as Close Combat.

And as far as the game going imbalanced, it won't. Metaknight felt broken not because people dreaded the drill-rush, but because his normals kicked but (I will give a nod to Shuttle loop though, but this game doesn't have any shuttle-loop caliber moves). Each custom set can only have 4 different moves, 4 moves which will almost never combo into one another. Specials are rarely combo moves, and often they are approaches, finishers, or mix-ups. The most 'broken' good game in the move so far is Diddy's up-air, which is a normal anyway, and the only custom worth worrying about is the Mii Brawler's Piston Punch gimmick, and that thing is really hard to work, so props to the guys who can pull it off in practice anyway.

That, I think, is the big note. These are not combo moves we're messing with, and rarely are they set-ups. These are options. We are trying to give characters more options. Options, in practice, are what make the top-tiers as good as they are. Diddy and Sheik as we know now have the best ways to get damage and react to your opponent. They have solid approaches, and solid mix-ups. Changing their customs does little for them - their normals outshine their specials regardless of customs. But if we give the mid-tiers and low-tiers access to better options, and moves that may multiply their options, then we give a chance for dull fan-favorites to be crowd-favorites and winners. I want that.

Edit: Greninja'd. Thinkaman is too good at saying things.