Editoral: A Smashing Debate, Part 2

And we're back with part two of our Smashing Debate series. This time around, we brought a special guest to chime in and express his opinion!

As we did last time, we're giving you the issue, the perspectives and our opinions; but on what matter this time? Well, we decided it's time to discuss the future of Custom Moves, the fate of Palutena and how we should work this out as a community.

We brought the Youtuber One Hit Smash to give his thoughts on this subject, but first, let's take a look at why this is a theme of discussion. But before we start, a friendly, always useful, warning and disclaimer:

WARNING
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This article may generate some excess of sodium chloride, and a subsequent allergic reaction to it, followed by headaches and an unnecessary desire to insult people, also known as saltiness. You have been warned

DISCLAIMER
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This article reflects only, and ONLY the opinions of the people involved and does not state the opinion of Smashboards as a whole. By any means you shouldn't harm or insult anyone stating his or her opinion. If you are prone to insult other people, you can skip the opinion part.

The Issue​

We know there is pretty much a consensus on the matter: simply leaving customs off, but not all people believe that this is how we should play Smash 4. Last year EVO allowed players to use custom movesets, which was a pretty hard decision, as many fans got mad and even requested a change to the ruleset. It served as an experience and now there are no major tournaments that allow customs on Wii U.

There are some weekly tournament series or regional tournaments that use them as a separate category, therefore, leaving the discussion at that. Or does it?

The Perspectives​

There are not two defined perspectives, as there are more than one point of discussion. Most people may agree on just doing custom-specific tournaments, but there are people who think Palutena's customs should be available to use, as it brings a similar case to the Mii discussion. As you may know, Palutena's alternate specials are different from the original 1111 moveset, leading some people to think that they should be treated as a special case aside from other characters.

Our Opinions​

We brought a special guest to give his opinion, and it is the Youtuber, One Hit Smash.

One Hit Smash​

Well, at first, I really enjoyed custom moves. I liked the variety they added to the game, changing fireballs to huge orbs or more powerful ways to do moves. It was cool! As time went on people kept finding more and more problems with custom moves. Some had wonky hitboxes, some pushed and pulled you in odd, unpredictable directions, and others were just too powerful. When EVO had finally hit, it was exciting to see the entire lineup of moves, but as the competition progressed, it began to anger a decent amount of people due to the unfairness and unpredictability of moves; causing some to even drop from the tournament altogether. In my honest opinion,customs are fun! However, they should strictly be used for fun, not in a competitive setting. They are too unpredictable or powerful to be used in fair, even competition, and unless HUGE fixes were to ever come in, it should probably stay that way to say the least.

On the topic of Palutena's customs, they should not be allowed as well. It's true that she does not have unlock restrictions on the moves like the rest of the cast (excluding Mii Fighters). However, why should one character be allowed full customization while the others sit there and stay with a standard moveset? She gets to be improved, but everyone else stays identical and unmoving. In all honesty, if the custom moves didn't improve the character, people wouldn't be fighting for her to have them be allowed. So final verdict, all customs should not be allowed in a competitive setting (Excluding Mii Fighters, this is a completely different debate.)

Diosdi​

I sincerely think Customs are a thing of the past. This could be simply solved with a different category, just like Doubles. I DO think, they should be regulated to some specific movesets like the Custom Moveset Project does. Customs sure bring a different touch and mix things up; but to a strictly competitive and objective point of view, they should be out of the Singles category and put in a different, "Custom Singles" category, or in multiple custom counterparts to all different categories that exist within the "Standard" definition, like "Singles", "Doubles", "Triples", "Crews", etc.

The Palutena case should be closed with the same solution GimR proposed: "setting the Customs button to Off and allowing everything that this brings, including, alternate movesets to Miis". I may have said before that every character has its own attribute, and that the Mii's attribute is being customizable; but Palutena's attribute is not customizing; she was made to reflect the personality of a goddess, and she does so perfectly with her 1111 moveset.

What do you think? Should Customs be legal? If so, how? Let us know in the comments, and don't forget to follow and subscribe to One Hit Smash!

 

Customs are dead. Why is this subject still going around?
At least for once it's not people trying to defend customs with awful arguments, but still. Let it go.

 

Consistency is still key in my mind when it comes to rulesets, so I agree with the notion that if customs moves aren't allowed as a whole, Palutena shouldn't get them either. There's really nothing meaningful differentiating Palutena's customs from any other characters.

 

but Palutena's attribute is not customizing; she was made to reflect the personality of a goddess, and she does so perfectly with her 1111 moveset.

Her trophy description:

In Kid Icarus: Uprising, the goddess of light uses telepathy to communicate and grants miracles to support Pit on his adventure. In Smash Bros., she has special moves like Warp and Heavenly Light at her disposal. She's very adaptable—you can customize her into a long- or close-range fighter!

Also

However, why should one character be allowed full customization while the others sit there and stay with a standard moveset?

I can say the same thing for Mii Fighters.

No, I don't give a **** if the almighty menu god blessed them to have their customs when customs are off.

 

I definitely believe in customs for Miis and just Mii legality in general. I don't, however, believe that customs should be allowed for all characters. There's pretty much no argument to support their legalization...

It would ruin MU knowledge and make the game a random mess.

 

Time to grab some popcorn and read through a series illogical post.

 

I can say the same thing for Mii Fighters.

No, I don't give a **** if the almighty menu god blessed them to have their customs when customs are off.

*Sigh* Here we go again...
That's nice for you if you don't care. That's not really an argument, though.

 

I really can't believe what I'm reading...

Unfair? Unpredictable? Those are terms that people use when they don't want to learn how to get around or overcome an obstacle in a game. It's especially hard to understand because this game has 60+ characters in it now.

Whenever a new character comes along, the community is enthusiastic about digesting and understanding whatever sort of weird, unpredictable, and seemingly unfair things they can do. The fact that the opposite attitude is shown towards customs, the majority of which don't stray far at all from the basic properties of their vanilla counterparts, is baffling to say the least.

If customs ever get re-legalized, I have no qualms whatsoever with suspect-testing the more dubious ones, and if certain moves have to get banned, so be it.

The real reason customs shoudn't be allowed, or rather, can't be allowed in most cases, is that having all of them unlocked is way too high of an expectation to be placed on a T.O. It's literally up to the mercy of RNGeezus to get them unlocked, and even then, it's going to take you weeks. Having to do it for every console, without an easy way to transfer saves, just throws a monkey wrench in the whole practicality thing.

All I'm saying is, I agree that they shouldn't be in competitive play, but don't ban them for the wrong reasons. Don't make excuses if you're going to call yourself a competitive smasher. No Johns, man. Adapt, Adapt, Adapt.

 

Customs for all characters should not be allowed.

 

I like customs. I just wish there was a way. Im also a FREE MII supporter.

 

I'm indifferent. Got tired of the revolving door arguments talked about with little to no change or resolution. They don't really detract from the game, but they're kinda just... there and I haven't used them much.


As for miis, I'd want events to try the mlg rule maybe once before writing the idea off.

 

Customs are better OFF, not just because of balancing issues but for sheer simplicity of rules. All the red tape that came with the Custom Movement can stay gone.

RE: Palutena
Just because she comes with unlocked moves doesn't make her an exception to the rules. She can have her Custom moveset along with everyone else if there is a Customs Tournament at an event.

RE: Mii Fighters
Each Mii is a unique character, which would explain why it has access to its bestowed moveset even with Custom Fighters turned OFF. There is no "Mii" character with custom move choices; there are a plethora of individual characters each with its own unique moveset.
#Free Mii

 

Customs can be on or off. That's a choice. If you "don't want to" and that's your argument, fine. But that doesn't work for Miis. People who are anti-Mii are anti-reason, as shown by their arguments finally crumbling to "I don't care about evidence" and "shut up".

 

If we could get something along the lines of the Official Custom Moves Project going again, I'd love to see them implemented again. Unfortunately, the amount of time and effort this would take doesn't really seem worth it. Of course, Miis are a different story, and it's a damn shame they get the boot unfairly. Even if you don't care about Mii Brawler, Gunner or Swordsman, they're still characters like everybody else. If you brush off [insert character] because "I don't care about [insert character]" it's your own damn fault for not doing your research when so many sources are avaiable.

But we're not here to talk Miis, we're here to talk customs.

 

Thank you so much for not trying to lump Miis into the Custom Moves debate.

Honestly, my biggest issue with Custom Moves is that they are a royal pain to get set up. On a standalone Wii U, it took me about a week of dedicated grinding with a turbo controller to unlock all of my remaining custom moves once I set out to do so for an upcoming customs tournament or something like that, I forget exactly what the occasion was. I realize that 3DS transfer makes the process much quicker, but even then, unlocking all the custom moves on a 3DS takes a long time as well, even with things like Smash Run. Plus, if a tournament were to use the 3DS transfer method, it still takes a long time to upload predetermined sets in bulk since you have to do it character-by-character, and that time really adds up, speaking from experience.

Palutena's customs being unlocked right away just means there's one less character to grind, but even then, they are custom moves, treated like any other custom move in the sense that they are prohibited in a Customs: Off environment. Mii specials do not fall under this banner and their legality should be assessed differently as a result (as was done in the article), but I digress.

I wouldn't be opposed to a coexistence of Customs and Non-Customs play, but I completely understand the competitive concerns on customs in general, seeing that they're rarely ever touched by balance patches (with Mii Moves being an exception, with things like One-Inch-Punch being fixed quickly and moves like Brawler Side-2 and Neutral-2 getting buffs to stay competitive), and there's some strategies which are simply too dominant like Villager's Trip Tree ledge camping or Windy Kong as obvious examples.

 

To me, the concept of customs create s a huge risk. It could add tons of depth to an already-deep game, but at the same time it could also make the game far less accessible to spectators if they are not aware of what customs are beiing used (i.e the people runing the stream don't up date the list) or harm the game as a whole if layers decide that they don't want to learn 9 slightly-different versions of MUs. IMO, Miis and Palutana shold have them avalible as they cost no time to unlock unlike the rest of them.

 

IMO, Miis and Palutana shold have them avalible as they cost no time to unlock unlike the rest of them.

That's not really a good reason to allow Palutena's customs though. If there were a good reason, it'd be because, like the miis, each of her customs is completely unique, and you could say that that indicates no 'default moveset' except for what happened to fall on 1111.
Then again, unlike miis, she can't use these moves with customs off, indicating that it IS a default moveset
Then again, that's more of a result of the miis each having internalized movesets with nothing to default to.

These are all important considerations.

 

Lol the argument of the Magic Button makes me chuckle.
Because that is the reason to believe Sakurai wanted Miis to have customs (Oh sorry, "Mii Specials") and Pale Tuna to use her obviously default, totally functional, special moveset.

Yet trailer, trophy description AND the specials AND their unlock criteria (none) show that Palutena was meant to have customs just as much as Miis.

The Magic Button solution is pretty much saying we should play 2:00 Time Matches because it's how Sakurai meant it judging it's the default option.

Both Miis and Palutena should use their specials because they're both unlocked from the start (eliminating every non-scrub argument) and both are meant using them for more obvious reasons than the Scrublord's clause of the Magic Button.

 

We should care about the spirit of the character, viability, and burden on the TO and players.*

Spoiler: Justification

The first reason is good from a fan's standpoint. We want our characters to be their characters.

The second is good from a competitive standpoint. We want as many viable characters as can be reasonably accomplished, for the health and diversity of the community.

The third is important for current and future competitive players, and the most important. We want to encourage people to host and attend tournaments, and keep the entry bar for competitive play low.*

Palutena is meant to be versatile, customs make her more viable, and her moves come unlocked.

Mii's are meant to be customized, they make them more viable, and their moves come unlocked.

No one else has their character design centered around customization, they may or may not be more viable with customs, and they aren't unlocked.

*Forcing anyone who wants to be competitive to unlock RNG based customs for 50+ characters raises the bar of entry too high to be reasonably expected of players and organizers. It discourages TO's from hosting games, and it discourages players from competing when they must unlock the customs to test and play against. This isn't an issue with Mii's or Palutena.

 

The viability argument is one of the weakest.
IIRC, EVO top 8 was your standard set of top tiers at the time, with Grand Finals being Diddy/Sheik lol.
Characters just get jank options that make it even boring to watch because people mindlessly focus on literally overusing their now-good special moves with no concern for their normal attacks. It's boring. There's more to a moveset than just the same 4 moves.

 

I like customs, but just... no. It's not a matter of "this isn't fair and balanced" but more along the lines of them helping characters like donkey kong, while stuffing Jigglypuff completely. If customs helped every character be a bit more viable then it would be a different argument, but the fact that some characters have near useless customs all the while still having the same problems of their base character just isn't fun for the people who characters. As a DLC main I also think it's unfair to give tools to the rest of the roster that these characters aren't given. Just turn the custom button off and we can deal with the mii discussion another day.

 

Customs are not dead, its just as important as other topics. Whether people like it or not, it needs to be discussed. Great job on this Disodi.

 

Customs honestly have too many logistical issues for me to support them anyway, but they do also affect gameplay in a negative way (IMO).

Yes, they add options for players, but they also add complication to the metagame. Like, a lot of complication. Too much, at least in my opinion. There's so much to memorize, so much to study, so much to unlock... It's a high barrier to entry, to say the least. And no, this isn't a good thing – by itself anyway. While there is a decent amount of depth added by customs, there's also loads and loads of complexity. (Depth and complexity)

In game design (disclaimer: I'm in no way an expert in this field), it's often said that complexity is like currency you use to buy depth. So if you add, say, a mana mechanic to your strategy game, then yeah, the player has to become familiar with that added complexity, but it also adds depth in that you have to make strategic choices about how you use your limited supply.

To me, custom moves are like an extravagant million-dollar mansion. Sure, it's a really nice mansion and it's really big too, but it costs a million dollars, and (assuming you're not incredibly wealthy) you can't really afford that. Sure, customs add a lot of depth, but I don't think that we can afford all of that complexity.

Another issue is how customs remove a lot of the game's consistency. A Mario, currently, is a Mario; you know what to expect. But with customs, that sense of consistency in the game is lost, and some consistency (quite a bit of it) is vital for a competitive game like this. Otherwise you don't have any one thing to practice against / study, spectators may be lost as to what's going on, etc.

Plus there are the occasional custom moves that seem to disrupt the flow of gameplay at a quite fundamental level (e.g. bomballoons and planking, HSB, etc), but I don't have much competitive experience beyond online play, let alone experience with customs, so I'll let those who are more qualified discuss this facet of custom moves.

Actually more relevant here than where it was originally posted, how about that.

 

Theres a reason why Palutena has her moves unlocked already. Just think. Who made Kid Icarus? Who made Palutena?

Exactly.

 

Theres a reason why Palutena has her moves unlocked already. Just think. Who made Kid Icarus? Who made Palutena?

Exactly.

I mean if you want to get really technical about it, Gunpei Yokoi made Kid Icarus and Palutena.

 

People have probably spent more time arguing back and forth on customs than actually playing with them at this point.
This is downright silly.

 

I think Custom Moves should be the way to go. But in all honestly though, it's rather ridiculous how little they have been tested. One tournament shouldn't decide the outcome of the Custom Moves, especially when said tournament was in the early ages of the metagame.

I think there are illogical arguments against Custom Moves. If I can use competitive Pokémon as an example: Some Pokémon and Items are really hard to find, but you need them if you want to compete optimally. Similarly, the same could be said about Custom Moves. Yes, it can be annoying to spend weeks on trying to get them all. But in competitive Pokémon you can go on and breed literally hundreds of Pokémon just to get the right ability, nature, IVs and so on. Yes, for ONE Pokémon. And you need (read: should have) SIX Pokémon in your party for competition. But the Pokémon players do it, as it is something the game offers, despite being a pain in the ass and very time-consuming. The same could be said about Custom Moves. It's not fun, but it's not something that should be banned for the sake of it being a pain in the ass.

And also, I don't get why people use such bad arguments like "custom moves are random", "custom moves are bad", "some are broken", "they are a pain to get", "bla bla bla...." Just no. If you are going to ban something, then there should be real and logical reasons for it. Think about it: If the community didn't want to ban Brawl Meta Knight and Ice Climbers's infinite chain-grab, then why do they want to ban Custom Moves? Any character with the most optimal Custom Moveset will not be broken. (Should we ban all Top Tiers now, because they are too good and whatnot?)

Okay please, even if you want to ban Custom Moves then give at least ONE logical reason from a competitive standpoint as to why doing it is justified. I at least can't find any. (Something being hard to unlock is not a valid argument against Custom Moves and neither is "they are too good/broken" because firstly, there are no broken Custom Moves/Custom Moves that make a character broken, and secondly, a character doesn't get better than the current top tiers in the game. Even if they did, then they would be around the Top Tiers's level of viability. But I don't see the the Top Tiers being banned and neither was Sheik banned...)

It's sad to see people being against diversity and balance, since Custom Moves help many unviable characters to be better characters and thus making them have better matchups. Sigh...

 

I wish customs were dead. Why do all these people have fun doing something different than me?

Fix'd

 

Chang'd to something you didn't say at all

Fix'd

 

[deleting]

 

I wish customs were legal. However, i remember saying they needed to be introduced early on or its just going to be impossible to implement them later. The set up process also takes longer and it takes long enough at the tourney i went to.

 

Palutena's 'Customs'' are really additional skills like Ryus and Cloud special inputs

 

I think that the fact that none of the DLC characters get custom moves decides that custom moves should be banned from competitive play.
However Mii's are a different story as no two mii are the same. Each mii is a unique character based off You. It'd be silly to treat them as one absolute character with many faces and sizes....

 

Palutena's 'Customs'' are really additional skills like Ryus and Cloud special inputs

...Not really. Palutena gets entirely different moves with entirely different properties and applications.

All Ryu gets is the same attacks with slightly more power, and in the case of true-Hadoken/Shakunetsu, the fireball gets bigger for both, and becomes a multi-hit for Shakunetsu. In the end it's still the same move, just slightly enhanced.
Cloud is in the same boat where it's literally the same moves just exaggerated versions of what they could do before, barring Finishing Touch. Again, same moves but enhanced, and only one of them becomes a single new move until it's used up.

It's not comparable at all.

 

If customs were to become legal in competitive play, there would first have to be custom move set DLC for the seven characters without custom moves, which is unlikely. So until that happens, this debate is pretty much futile, am I right?

Also, I agree with GimR about mii fighters. They were made playable for the soul reason of being able to customize them. They don't have an "original move set" and that is what makes them a very unique part of Smash 4.

 

I think this debate is over in majority in no customs.

 

>Implying customs aren't dead

The only custom move that should be allowed is Lucario's beautiful butterfly up-b. It's the same, just so much more graceful that none can argue its validity.

 

One of the first things I did on smash boards was argue about customs being legal with like 3 other people. Good times

 

One of the first things I did on smash boards was argue about customs being legal with like 3 other people. Good times

Hey! Do you recognize my profile pic?

 

>Implying customs aren't dead

The only custom move that should be allowed is Lucario's beautiful butterfly up-b. It's the same, just so much more graceful that none can argue its validity.

What about Ganon's sword? It's a masterpiece.