(LEGALITY) Custom Special Moves: Maybe. Modifiable Attributes: No.

[GUIGUI]

Unless I'm misunderstanding you, we do know what makes her different. The vast majority of fighters have four special moves with each one having two other variations, Palutena has twelve special moves.

How would that work? What combo do you do to use those 12 differents move?

Also, side not, but you can rank up that amount of combo a bit. Each Mii class has their custom moves too:

Really, here's my only shpeel with the whole issue. How the heck is this game ever going to develop a proper tier list when there's literally thousands of moveset combinations to evaluate? (...)

Isn't being able to develop a tier list a good thing? If you can't determine which character is the best, doesn't it means the game is avtually balanced?

 

[LiteralGrill]

Isn't being able to develop a tier list a good thing? If you can't determine which character is the best, doesn't it means the game is avtually balanced?

No, it really only means that you can't figure it out.

Honestly, there will be a best setup for each character. you'd probably just tier based on the best setup.

 

[Disfunkshunal]

@ GUIGUI

An average character, Mario for example has:

B- fireball or fast fireball or exploding fireball
B>- cape or electric cape or wind cape
Bv- fludd or scalding fludd or 3rd fludd
B^- jump punch or exploding punch or 3rd punch

Palutena would have

B- auto reticule or angelic fireworks or reflect
B>- explosive flame or angelic missile or lightweight
Bv- counter or super speed or heavenly light
B^- jump glide or rocket jump or warp

 

[GUIGUI]

I don't see how that make her any different from the other character having custom.

 

[JoeInky]

I don't see how that make her any different from the other character having custom.

All of her customisable moves have completely different mechanics whereas everyone else just has slightly altered attributes.

 

[Malex]

I don't see how that make her any different from the other character having custom.

Mario shoots a normal fireball, a fast fireball, or a slow fireball.
Donkey kong uses a charge punch, a wind punch, or (whatever) punch.
Fox uses reg blaster, slow blaster, wide blaster. (as an example)

Palutena has 3 completely separate moves per special. It makes her different, sure, but not a major one.

 

[Hong]

Really, here's my only shpeel with the whole issue. How the heck is this game ever going to develop a proper tier list when there's literally thousands of moveset combinations to evaluate? The proper thing to do would be to somehow have both vanilla matches and custom matches coexist without one gaining more traction than the other. That way, we can evaluate character strengths/weaknesses on a base level, and then we can find out which custom moves better suit each character (or even if certain custom moves should be banned outright.) Now, here's he kicker though: as has been stated before, we can't ban custom move matches, even temporarily, because the Smash community almost never unbans anything. But if we don't have any vanilla matches to compare, it'll be really tough to determine a proper tier list to make sure custom moves are set fairly. So...how do we fix this?

Same thing as any game with customization.

We'll "know" what all the best setups are per match within a month. If something is suddenly deemed valid and the metagame shifts, tier lists are updated accordingly. When tier lists are decided for SF4, for example, you assume the most viable ultra setup per character... characters are not classified three times. As per norm, every character is placed on the tier list based on each and every match-up they have. We will argue assuming the most competent choice per match-up.

While there may be more than one viable choice or it may be unclear, you still have at least one or more ways for a character to have a setup that either presents the greatest advantage, or the most mitigated disadvantage possible. If the metagame evolves and another option is seen as viable, tier lists are revised. Characters still of course will always have good and bad MUs, and special moves only augment their base strengths to varying degrees.

@ GUIGUI
For every confirmed character except Palutena and the Mii Fighters, they have four special moves. Of those four, each has a variant that will only add an effect or modify statistics. Palutena is entirely different; where as she can have a Counter technique for a special move, she could for example, replace that move with a projectile. Her special moves are not just alterations of existing moves for that character.

 

[GUIGUI]

Okay. I didn't see that as an actual difference, so the notion had difficulty to go through my tick skull, but presented like that, I guess I can see it. Thanks for the answers.

 

[Sarej]

Competetive community will go with characters and moves that are most efficient for competitive play. Miis and Palutena may looked over if there's a character that's stronger than them. And even if they have these special moves, people will customize them to a point where it's best for competition. So if we find one combination is better for a character many may adopt it, or we'll have a few people who try a different approach. This is no different from a player who uses ATs and those who don't (Lucas in PM, Pink Fresh doesn't DACUS much but other plays implement it. Hell, some do B-Sticking or the like to transform how he plays as a whole), except ATs are usually hard to pick up.

And it seems these customization skew how moves work. For example - Mario's fireball. Normally, it has a set bouncing path. With the customization, it changes to a big, slow moving singular fireball (slow to get out) or one that's quick, straight and weak. It's a trade off in most cases from the usual, balanced move with both power and speed.

I think people fear this because it'll make tier lists near impossible to make. Then tiers will really *ahem* be for queers (for lack of a better word). But hell, your Mario could be having trouble getting opponents with a spaced game, so he whips out his horizontal shot fireball. Now he has something similar to Foxes laser to deal with foes, and opponents need to become smarter and play better.

So why don't people want to change? Because we fear something different - something that's out of the norm. Smash 4 is not Melee. Smash 4 is not Brawl. It's a whole new beast. And this will be a key differentiator and an awesome addition to competitive play, if we let it.

Think of it, it may take longer, but it adds more meta game to the meta game. More thinking, more thought about how to handle matches. Some will choose a move set and keep it throughout, or some will mix it up, almost like a character counter pick. I think it would be a lot of fun and a refreshing addition to the Smash Bros formula.

Again, nobody holds us back but ourselves. Melee players and Project M players may not like this because it REALLY strays from the usual. But if they thought it would be close to Melee than I'm sorry but you were at fault from the start.

To me, we should be optimistic about this addition. If it indeed proves to be unbalanced, we can scrap it. I feel as a community we'll be able to work it out.

This needs to be plastered on every wall, the Lincoln Memorial and the ISS Space Station.

 

[Wazygoose]

Same thing as any game with customization.

We'll "know" what all the best setups are per match within a month. If something is suddenly deemed valid and the metagame shifts, tier lists are updated accordingly. When tier lists are decided for SF4, for example, you assume the most viable ultra setup per character... characters are not classified three times. As per norm, every character is placed on the tier list based on each and every match-up they have. We will argue assuming the most competent choice per match-up.

While there may be more than one viable choice or it may be unclear, you still have at least one or more ways for a character to have a setup that either presents the greatest advantage, or the most mitigated disadvantage possible. If the metagame evolves and another option is seen as viable, tier lists are revised. Characters still of course will always have good and bad MUs, and special moves only augment their base strengths to varying degrees.

@ GUIGUI
For every confirmed character except Palutena and the Mii Fighters, they have four special moves. Of those four, each has a variant that will only add an effect or modify statistics. Palutena is entirely different; where as she can have a Counter technique for a special move, she could for example, replace that move with a projectile. Her special moves are not just alterations of existing moves for that character.

Totally agree. The best set-ups will be determined very quickly, and variations based on specific matchups will be, too. There are so many characters that multiple viable setups will occur at least a few times, and be chosen based on player preference/style--this totally adds to the competitive play. There's no reason to not allow custom specials from the very beginning. Plus, in terms of the Wii U version most of this will have probably been sorted out on the 3DS, and the only issue that will remain is making sure each custom move is available for each character and that tourney setups don't take too long.

 

[GUIGUI]

Question: is it so difficult to set up a console a few days ahead?

 

[Malex]

Question: is it so difficult to set up a console a few days ahead?

In regards to what?

 

[Hong]

Question: is it so difficult to set up a console a few days ahead?

Assuming you mean having all the specials available on every setup, I don't see availability being an issue.

Smashers will just have to come prepared. Other games, for example, have several years worth of DLC that are a must-have for competitive play. Within the first month, we'll have lots of people with all the characters, all the special moves, all the stages, all the options, even working a 9-5 job. No one should be bringing Wii Us with clean data.

No, I don't know how easy it will be to unlock specials in Smash 4 for Wii U, but I do know that Smashers are monsters. We are going to eat this game alive and have everything unlocked in short time.

 

[Malex]

I thought copying save data was still a thing.

 

[Byxis]

Mario shoots a normal fireball, a fast fireball, or a slow fireball.
Donkey kong uses a charge punch, a wind punch, or (whatever) punch.
Fox uses reg blaster, slow blaster, wide blaster. (as an example)

Palutena has 3 completely separate moves per special. It makes her different, sure, but not a major one.

Fox confirmed for Reggie Blaster.

 

[Erimir]

Only wanted to add something from the perspective of how the metagame works in other games.

In Magic, for example, you obviously have many options for archetypes. But ultimately, there are color decisions and a few major archetypes (aggro, control, combo, tempo). There are some variations and different strategies within those (e.g. attacking or mill can both be a kill condition for control or combo). But there are usually a few known archetypes for a particular format.

But you also have sideboards (15 cards you can swap into your deck between matches) and, of course, the ability to simply include different cards in your decks.

People do not complain about the fact that you don't know the contents of your opponent's deck before you play them. That is seen as a part of the game. If you make a surprising choice, you might win because of surprise, not because your opponent can't beat you if they're prepared. When they messed up due to imperfect knowledge can vary - it could be that they didn't bring the right card at all, or they didn't sideboard it in, or they made an avoidable play mistake because they were not thinking about this card.

By comparison to a game like Magic, the amount of variation introduced by customizable moves is pretty small. There will be certain combinations that are expected for certain characters (much like most deck archetypes have some very standard choices). But if you learn how to use one of the "bad" custom moves in an original and effective way, you might be able to get some wins because your opponents aren't expecting it. That's not "unfair" - that's just different. You now have to think about different things than if we stick to default move sets.

However, since unlike Magic, there's less variation and new characters and moves won't be constantly introduced over time, eventually the strategies should settle.

The question is only whether the strategies as a whole are balanced.

It just makes character and move selection into an important strategic portion of a match up. It creates opportunities for some players who are better at that and hurts players who want to stick to one character, one move set, all the time.

 

[Jaxas]

Something I haven't seen anyone mention as another possibility for selecting custom special variants:

Why not use the Wii U pad?

It's doubtful it'll be used as a controller (what with the 1 per system requirement), so why not just have P1 enter their moveset on it, lock it in (makes the pad hide what they picked, and doesn't return ((so that P2 can't just press Back and see what they picked)) unless advancing to SSS and returning or something) then hand it off to P2, etc?

Obviously the CSS screen ideas posted previously would work just as well, but there's a number of ways that it could be made quick and streamlined. I don't think we need to worry about pre-match setup time too much, though

 

[Wazygoose]

Something I haven't seen anyone mention as another possibility for selecting custom special variants:

Why not use the Wii U pad?

It's doubtful it'll be used as a controller (what with the 1 per system requirement), so why not just have P1 enter their moveset on it, lock it in (makes the pad hide what they picked, and doesn't return ((so that P2 can't just press Back and see what they picked)) unless advancing to SSS and returning or something) then hand it off to P2, etc?

Obviously the CSS screen ideas posted previously would work just as well, but there's a number of ways that it could be made quick and streamlined. I don't think we need to worry about pre-match setup time too much, though

That's a really good point. The Wii U pad could be used for the menu interface pretty easily, I hope that's the case. Don't really see a reason not to, I'd be disappointed if they didn't use the game pad in some way to actually utilize the capabilities of the Wii U uniquely. Also hoping a 5th party can use it to manipulate conditions in a match real-time, items, bosses, stage elements, whathaveyou. Would also be nice if in a 3-4 multiplayer stock match the first ones out still have something to do once they've been eliminated a la Bomberman 64 and Bomberman on Sega Saturn (which I'm pretty sure no one else in the world has played, but trust me it was awesome).

 

[Geizt]

Would the Amiibos store character data for transferring from game to game? Even if it's just one character.
Or is it just like a partner fighter data thing?

 

[Malex]

I find it hard to believe that people would be willing to leave their gamepads lying around for tournament use.

 

[Pazzo.]

I honestly hope we'll be able to use the custom moves in competitive play... and that we all don't just outright ban them.

 

[MajorMajora]

Now, I know what you are thinking, this is a bad idea because it will unbalance the game. Well, guess what? We've got regular tourneys for that. This would open up a new experience for players and viewers. Yes, tier lists would be more severe, but this can still be adjusted with Houseruling.

Anyways, here's how the system would work.
1. Every player starts by picking a character.
2. Before each match, they can see who they are facing and what character they use. Each will have a turn customizing a move set for that match, but they can't see what the other player customizes.
3. They play with whatever customized character they made.

This'll allow for more strategy and variety within a tournament, making it more interesting for both players and viewers. Picking a move set to counter an opponents character could possibly add a lot of depth.

 

[Cap'nChreest]

Custom moves should be a normal tourney standard. I honestly doubt they will be game breaking. If anything it can help balance the roster. Maybe I'm thinking too positively. Or maybe I don't want to see Palutena and Mii's banned from competitive play.

 

[Gravitational23]

Hopefully they are allowed it could change how people play with different characters.

 

[LiteralGrill]

There are already tons of threads about this, search the forums next time.

 

[greenluigiman2]

Custom moves should be a normal tourney standard. I honestly doubt they will be game breaking. If anything it can help balance the roster. Maybe I'm thinking too positively. Or maybe I don't want to see Palutena and Mii's banned from competitive play.

I really don't want custom moves in major tournaments. Also, Palutena wouldn't be banned from competitive play since she has a default moveset.

 

[SoaringDive]

There are two big problems with custom movesets in tournaments

1. Time. Custom movesets could take too much time, especially if we allow counterpick movesets. I hope that there'll be an option to do up movesets from the Character Select Screen like you could names in Brawl.

2. Custom specials are unlocked. We saw in the Treehouse stream that, at least with the demo build, custom specials are random drops in Smash Run. What if the person providing a Wii U didn't unlock every move? I don't know how Wii U handles game saves, so I don't have a clue how easy it would be to distribute a 100% save to tournament consoles.

Banning custom moves because they have the potential to be OP is like banning characters for being top tier. Both players will have them equally at their disposal, so it's fair.

 

[Hong]

@ MajorMajora
I moved your thread into this one, since this thread already had so many insightful posts on the subject.
Thanks.

 

[MegaMango]

What do you think? Would certain custom moves be okay for "clone" characters? I think it would be nice to allow that to have some diffrenciation between them (I'm looking at you, Lucina).

 

[SpeedBoost]

I think custom moves could be a thing. I think of it like the Pokemon Metagame where there is a bunch of moves for each Pokemon and if Smogon can make a Metagame with all 700 whatever pokemon there is, then we can do it for 50 some characters we get (or how ever many characters we get). I know though Pokemon and Smash are two different genres but I think it could work if people learn to accept it.

I do understand the fall backs though, for tournaments it could be a pain in the ass to have to add the moves and change the set for each character. And that could be a major issue. We don't have the game though as of yet, maybe Sakurai is waiting to show a cool way to save the moves of the character on a SD card or something or a Ambio.

 

[Moon Monkey]

The part worth noting (3:46 to 4:27) This is what I envision the future of smash to be with customizable movesets.

We as a community would obviously need to use our discretion about what moves are okay and what aren't, but I'm confident every character will at least have 2 or 3 moves in their moveset that can be viable and fair.

If a game like Mortal Kombat can implement moveset variations in it's metagame i see no reason smash can't as well.

 

[The One Who Wrote This]

I think that giving custom movesets a chance would be advisable. I mean, we won't know it they will be gamebreaking tools until we try them.

 

[DakotaBonez]

Unfortunately I'm having a hard time visualizing how you would select custom moves with 4 other people at the same time, unless you cycle through them one by one over your character card/slot.

Well I suppose on the DS you'd have your own personal screen to select the moves from, but on the Wii U? I'm having a hard time visualizing it too.

 

[pickle962]

I'd imagine that they (custom movesets) would be easily accessible like name entries on the character select screen

 

[Moon Monkey]

I have decided to make a video on the topic

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

The more I think about custom moves, the more optimistic I get. This really could be a great system; every special move basically gets three chances to be good. Do that across the whole cast and you end up with a much smaller pool of bad moves and a higher average power level, both of which seem likely healthy for the game. I look forward to exploring custom moves in depth when the game drops; I'll be sad if this system turns out to be broken at this point.

As per procedure, it's like this (for Wii U). Game 1 you double blind characters, double blind movesets, stage strike. For counterpicks, you do movesets after characters are locked in both sides. Loser picks stage, winner picks character, loser picks character, winner picks moves, loser picks moves. This will take less time than you probably intutiively think, and worst case scenario we have to start standardizing time limits for these decisions or get strict about no "hand warmers" or other such things that aren't progressing the set but are taking time. I don't really see the virtue in hiding moveset selections until the game starts and don't think in practice it will be possible to do on Wii U (so Wii U will have to just use a standard that everyone will know selections ahead of time for fairness), but it will probably be a default thing on 3DS where we will happily take the time savings and just have everyone set things up on their own games in advance of the tournament. How you pick Miis will depend on the interface, but the standard rules will have to be system Miis only for Wii U (any pre-made Miis for 3DS) and any details you specify on css are specified at character selection whereas anything specified in the moveset menu is specified there. There also is a crazy edge case where someone wants to play random and input custom moves for every character they might get; I'm not sure how a TO should handle that since there are major downsides to any ruling, but it's such an extreme situation that it's hard to imagine any serious player ever wanting to do it. I don't think the ruleset situation is that difficult if we go with custom moves at all.

 

[rmw6190]

I dont really see why they shouldnt be allowed. Sure if they are stupid broken than ban them, but you have to figure that the inclusion of custom movesets make the game way more diverse. It basically takes the roster and multiplies it by around 10. It would also help with balance most likely, as characters like say zelda might be too bad to use in their current state. But say they have a really awesome custom moveset, by having her not be able to use her best moveset it'd take away from that characters usage. If you dont beat the best form of the character how can you say you beat the character at all.

 

[Shadow Ganon]

Posting Relax Alax's video on the subject. I didn't see it posted.

I will be very disappointed if custom movesets are banned, especially if they are banned right away on day one.

My only concern is how it will work for the first game of a best of three. I'm not familiar with how competitions decide in what order the players select their characters and who selects the first stage so I have no idea how that would work.

 

[Katy Parry]

There was a time when Items were part of Smash(Melee) tournaments until an exploding capsule appeared in a Regional finals.

The main problem isn't their potential imbalance but rather their accessibility. If we can manage all of their options in a streamlined amount of time, then I see nothing wrong with customization.

I think, for certain rulesets, characters should get to have a certain "preset" if you will. For example,

For THIS tournament, OUR Mario IS:

B Slow Fireball
> B Normal Cape
^ B Super Fire Punch
V B Mist FLUDD

If that makes any sense. I think the community should decide on what different moves should be used to make the character the most balanced. Since this is really the only thing we have control over (until the inevitable PM 2.0), we should give all of the characters their best options.

EDIT: Also, hopefully customization can be made in the same menu style where names are inputted. That way, it doesn't take that long. If people know which moves they want to use, they can set them up just as quick as it takes to input their name.

 

[.Shìkì]

I'd love having custom moves in competitive play as long as the people know what the other has picked. But let's see.

(The following only applies if they decide to ban custom moves after all)

ONE Thing I'm absolutely sure on though: At least SOME custom movesets WILL be used in competitive no matter what. Why do I think that? Easy: Because if there is a move, like Meta Knights down B, that can be bugged to high heavens they WILL select another move and make THAT the legal move instead of outright banning the character himself. Banning a whole character when you can just rebalance him somewhat by changing the broken as F move would be MADNESS. Same goes for so called "trash tier" fighters (not that i care about tiers personally) : If there is a move that makes said character trash tier, and there would be a custom option that made him mid-tier, they would most likely change it to that as a legal option. All of this only applies if the customized move would solve the issue obviously.

TL;DR : Custom Moves decided by the individual player? Maybe and Hopefully.
Custom Moves as a balancing method for the ones that decide on the rules? Definitly.