Miis in Competition: an Analysis and a Suggestion

[Book Jacket]

We know of five customization factors for Miis: Class, Custom moves, custom equipment, the size of the Mii, and clothing.

Outright, we can ban the custom equipment, which alters stats, as we see here:

Way too complicated, changes individual characters too much, not all equipment items have the same stats, etcetera.

Custom moves and sizes are the main points of contention. With three options for every special, there are 81 options for each character. Three Mii classes make 243, and three sizes make 729 different possible Miis, and this is assuming there are only three distinct sizes, a la Mario Kart.

That in account, it does seem to be the strength of the Mii that they can change their moveset. This would only be applicable if custom moves were allowed overall, but Miis have serious metagame potential. However, for those who don't play Miis, match-ups may get confusing. There are, I think, two ways of looking at this: 1) The best asset of a Smash player is the ability to adapt, and therefore, skilled players should be able to get a feel for each individual Mii they fight regardless of size or moveset. Or 2) It is too problematic to try to allow all those different customizations into the meta game; players would need to know too much different information to play well. With so many possibilities, learning the Smash meta game would be 50% Miis.

The first solves itself, but the second leaves a problem. If the Smash community primarily sees the issue (from a majority standpoint) as the second, it begs the question, do we ban Miis?

If that is the consensus, that doesn't mean Miis need to be banned. Instead, we put in place a competitive standard for Miis. In addition, this solution may be favorable even if the smash community sees the issue from the first perspective, as we don't know as of now how much impact the height and weight of each Mii have on their characteristics/physics.

So, about that competitive standard:

There could be a set of playable Miis on every tournament Wii U. There are numerous ways to go about this, too. There could be one Mii for every size and class (i.e. Brawler Light, Brawler Mid, Brawler Heavy), or just one for each class. These competitive standard Miis don't even have to be generic "Guest" Miis, either. The CS (competitive standard) Brawler could always be Reggie, or the CS Swordfighter could always be Iwata. And if we used Competitive Standard Miis, match-ups would be minimally affected. With sizes, there would be 9 different Miis (with custom moves, 729), and without, and perhaps more favorable only 3 (with custom moves, 243). The 3 CS Miis would most likely be preferable to the community, due to size affecting melee range and such. And without different sizes, they don't have to be all middle height and middle weight; Brawler could be Large, Swordfighter could be Medium, and Gunner could be small, or any other combination, just so long as there is a standard.

It's also important to note that custom movesets only change specials, and that therefore jabs, tilts, smashes, aerials, and throws would all remain the same.

As far as clothing goes, it's as simple as keep or ban. I for one feel the clothing options could be allowed if it was, again, standardized, but other than that, kind of a hassle. I dunno, that one doesn't matter as much.

Thoughts?

 

[WritersBlah]

System sounds pretty decent imo. My only concern is really to what extent a Mii's size can be changed. Granted, we now know that height is variable by at least three different variations. We don't, however, know if a Mii's weight (skinny or bulky) will play into their character stats either. If that's the case, each TO will need to make sure each system has 27 different Miis. (Making one for each individual possible moveset is honestly too much; just let the players choose their special moves before the match and then lock them into that moveset for the rest of the set to avoid endless counterpicking.)

 

[Book Jacket]

Yeah, I figured custom moves would be on more of a pick/counterpick basis. And I dunno about locking them in for a match. I think custom move counterpicks could be pretty interesting, as it puts both players in a new situation, especially for miis, but also for the rest of the cast, seeing as how most custom move choices seem to be variations of the same concept (Standard / More Damage / Less Damage).

 

[Kerreb17]

This has been discussed to death in custom movesets threads, but I feel like I should bring it up again regardless. Both you and your opponent will have, at the beginning of the game, no idea what special moves each is using. Once those become common knowledge, however, a good Smash player would naturally be able to adapt by saying something like: "Oh, he's using more close-up moves than he could be. I should stay at a distance and play more patiently."

Whether or not the Mii has 3 types (I'm going to assume that each is a separate character) and 3 custom moves per slot should not make a difference. It would be the same as banning characters like Charizard or Greninja because people are too lazy to learn the matchups against those two as opposed to Pikachu. The same argument goes like this: It would be the same as banning characters like Gunner Mii or Sword Mii because people are too lazy to learn the matchups against those two as opposed to Brawler Mii.

Then there are the weight and height issues, which can be elegantly handled by something that's already in the Mii Maker itself: a physical representation of whether or not your Mii is light, medium, or heavy based on its waist size, and whether or not your Mii is short, medium, or tall based on the height of the Mii itself. This should be a no-brainer. I would hope that everyone in real life can tell the difference between skinny, fat, short, and tall. I don't think that's too much to ask.

Ignoring the last two paragraphs, understand that the number of matchups you need to learn should NOT influence whether or not a character should be banned or restricted. A similar argument would be Smash 64 players saying that you should ban Falco in Melee so that they don't have to learn the difference between Fox's and Falco's attacks. There's a clear difference between the characters, and that difference should be expected in Miis where anyone can look at the character to determine what type it is (Brawler, Sword, Gunner), what weight it is (light, medium, heavy), and what height it is (short, medium, tall) so that they can fight accordingly.

(tl;dr) The number of customization options for the Mii shouldn't be a factor in banning/restricting it, outside of the equipment mention in the OP.

 

[Book Jacket]

This has been discussed to death in custom movesets threads, but I feel like I should bring it up again regardless. Both you and your opponent will have...

Makes sense, as Smash is fun because you have to adapt to your opponent and everything else. My only question has to be about the actual fighting.

Fox and Falco have similar moves, but you see them and you know (because you've put in hours of work and you're used to it) how heavy they are, how fast they run, how fast they fall, their options OOS, combos you can use based on percent, how they respond to juggling, their recovery, all of that, but when fighting a mii, you have to know their current specials on top of their height and weight at all times, with the only indicators being the mii itself.

I don't have any problems with custom moves, I actually favor their legality, it's just the height / weight that bothers me, and the process by which they are selected, and really the only problem is whether or not each tick on the mii's h/w slider makes a difference or if it's just Mario Kart sizing. And if it's not Mario Kart, then the Mii's opponent will have to figure out everything all over again every time they fight another Mii.

Not saying it can't be done, just saying that it does have to be addressed.

 

[Kerreb17]

Fox and Falco have similar moves, but you see them and you know (because you've put in hours of work and you're used to it) how heavy they are, how fast they run, how fast they fall, their options OOS, combos you can use based on percent, how they respond to juggling, their recovery, all of that, but when fighting a mii, you have to know their current specials on top of their height and weight at all times, with the only indicators being the mii itself.

Then there are the weight and height issues, which can be elegantly handled by something that's already in the Mii Maker itself: a physical representation of whether or not your Mii is light, medium, or heavy based on its waist size, and whether or not your Mii is short, medium, or tall based on the height of the Mii itself. This should be a no-brainer. I would hope that everyone in real life can tell the difference between skinny, fat, short, and tall. I don't think that's too much to ask.

You may be right. Again, I don't think it should be too hard to tell whether or not a Mii is tall or short and what that means about the character itself. You could see it in the character entrance, you could see it while you're waiting for the timer to tick down, you could see it while they're fighting, etc. This doesn't seem like a hard thing to me, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

I don't have any problems with custom moves, I actually favor their legality, it's just the height / weight that bothers me, and the process by which they are selected, and really the only problem is whether or not each tick on the mii's h/w slider makes a difference or if it's just Mario Kart sizing. And if it's not Mario Kart, then the Mii's opponent will have to figure out everything all over again every time they fight another Mii.

It really shouldn't make that much of a difference. You know that fat Miis are going to be heavy. You know that small Miis will have smaller hitboxes. Whether there are three weights or a spectrum of weights shouldn't mean that much. If you understand the maximum weight, minimum weight, and medium weight (and compare that to the Mii structure as above), then you should have a pretty good idea of what weight the Mii character is even without Mario Kart tiers of weight. It's the same sort of thought process that you go through when you see Donkey Kong as opposed to Luigi. You know that Luigi is lighter just by looking at him. The same rule would likely apply to Miis as well.

 

[Book Jacket]

It really shouldn't make that much of a difference. You know that fat Miis are going to be heavy. You know that small Miis will have smaller hitboxes. Whether there are three weights or a spectrum of weights shouldn't mean that much. If you understand the maximum weight, minimum weight, and medium weight (and compare that to the Mii structure as above), then you should have a pretty good idea of what weight the Mii character is even without Mario Kart tiers of weight. It's the same sort of thought process that you go through when you see Donkey Kong as opposed to Luigi. You know that Luigi is lighter just by looking at him. The same rule would likely apply to Miis as well.

I guess that's one thing we can't know until the game comes out, but I hope you're right. It'll make things a lot more interesting if we can just have miis be whatever.

 

[タオー]

The issue with the 'spectral' w/h variables that I see have more to do with how well these variables can remain balanced enough given such a large number of basic control of physics to keep mii's viable and not broken. Obviously there will have to be a large amount of experimentation (which I am looking forward to contributing to) before we can arrive to anything conclusive.

 

[Book Jacket]

The issue with the 'spectral' w/h variables that I see have more to do with how well these variables can remain balanced enough given such a large number of basic control of physics to keep mii's viable and not broken. Obviously there will have to be a large amount of experimentation (which I am looking forward to contributing to) before we can arrive to anything conclusive.

That was really well put. And yeah, I guess there isn't much we can do until we have something to work with.

 

[Jakario]

What would work best for the mii fighters in the competitive setting is to make mii fighter standards. Perhaps a mii created among the Smashboards community of iconic people/characters from Nintendo Company.

For example:
For a Brawler standard accepted by Smashboards someone could try to recreate the Reggie mii in height and moveset. Such would provide a standard brawler to be used at SSB4 tournaments.
Iwata could be the sword fighter and Bill Trinen/Sakurai as the gun fighter standard.

That way the mii fighters could stiill be used and not banned at tournaments. The standard however would have to be made by a group of players or created by smashboards vote.

EDIT: The reason why I thought it would work best is because there would be arguments to ban them for just being miis or that since there were so many combinations that it would provide an unfair advantage against players who have never played against the combos.

I do not want to have to train to fight against every single mii fighter combo and I am sure a lot of other people don't want to either.

EDIT EDIT: This is basically just me echoing Book Jacket

 

[Book Jacket]

What would work best for the mii fighters in the competitive setting is to make mii fighter standards. Perhaps a mii created among the Smashboards community of iconic people/characters from Nintendo Company.

For example:
For a Brawler standard accepted by Smashboards someone could try to recreate the Reggie mii in height and moveset. Such would provide a standard brawler to be used at SSB4 tournaments.
Iwata could be the sword fighter and Bill Trinen/Sakurai as the gun fighter standard.

That way the mii fighters could stiill be used and not banned at tournaments. The standard however would have to be made by a group of players or created by smashboards vote.

And I totally agree. It seems like the best compromise if people are that opposed to Mii fighters. Also I think I used the same Reggie example in my first post. Great minds, eh?

Edit @your edit: No worries. Like I said, great minds.

 

[タオー]

A common idea I keep coming across in the overall "Mii tournament legality discussion" is limiting to one standard layout per class of Mii. I'm not that big of a fan of that. The point of a Mii is to try and incorporate a more personalized playstyle, and to limit that simply because its "too much to account for" seems like a cop out. The way I see it, custom move alteration doesn't have to be limited to Mii's. As far as I've heard all the standard characters can have custom movesets as well. As player of competitive RPG's such as the Diablo series, I feel certain character 'builds' will find their way out of the woodwork. It could then be the communities job to ban specific builds that are broken, and to select viable legal builds. To me it seems like a waste to simply limit these options for new characters essentially, especially when we're given such a great tool to expand the way smash is played.

Edit: A possible way of integrating custom movesets into tournament play is to require every special to be shown during handwarmers. If you take out the specials variable (which essentially every character has the option of) you're looking at 3 class types x 3 weight classes (hopefully) x 3 height classes (again, hopefully). that's adding 27 new characters, all of which I feel are not going to be that difficult for those who play smash to adapt to, especially because I'm pretty sure that the weight/height classes could very easily (HOPEFULLY!!) be uniform across the different class types, resulting in 9 different weight/height variables. Lets face it, smash demands a ton from a smasher, I really don't think this is such a big hurtle to overcome.

 

[Book Jacket]

A common idea I keep coming across in the overall "Mii tournament legality discussion" is limiting to one standard layout per class of Mii. I'm not that big of a fan of that. The point of a Mii is to try and incorporate a more personalized playstyle, and to limit that simply because its "too much to account for" seems like a cop out. The way I see it, custom move alteration doesn't have to be limited to Mii's. As far as I've heard all the standard characters can have custom movesets as well. As player of competitive RPG's such as the Diablo series, I feel certain character 'builds' will find their way out of the woodwork. It could then be the communities job to ban specific builds that are broken, and to select viable legal builds. To me it seems like a waste to simply limit these options for new characters essentially, especially when we're given such a great tool to expand the way smash is played.

Edit: A possible way of integrating custom movesets into tournament play is to require every special to be shown during handwarmers. If you take out the specials variable (which essentially every character has the option of) you're looking at 3 class types x 3 weight classes (hopefully) x 3 height classes (again, hopefully). that's adding 27 new characters, all of which I feel are not going to be that difficult for those who play smash to adapt to, especially because I'm pretty sure that the weight/height classes could very easily (HOPEFULLY!!) be uniform across the different class types, resulting in 9 different weight/height variables. Lets face it, smash demands a ton from a smasher, I really don't think this is such a big hurtle to overcome.

Fair enough, but isn't demonstrating specials during handwarmers a little tedious? Why not do specials on a similar pick / counterpick basis to character picks?

 

[タオー]

Fair enough, but isn't demonstrating specials during handwarmers a little tedious? Why not do specials on a similar pick / counterpick basis to character picks?

Yea, I could see that taking a bit of time, but essentially it would take 4 moves, not too bad. I'm hoping there's a graphic that shows the applied specials on the mii. Once again, hoping. If you could expand on that specials pick/counterpick idea?

 

[Book Jacket]

Yea, I could see that taking a bit of time, but essentially it would take 4 moves, not too bad. I'm hoping there's a graphic that shows the applied specials on the mii. Once again, hoping. If you could expand on that specials pick/counterpick idea?

Well, as you pointed out, part of the strength of miis is their customization. People wouldn't want to have the same specials throughout a set, by that token.

So, after character repick / counterpick, winner would choose custom specials, then loser would chose custom specials, though obviously neither is obligated to change anything. It would work, I think, just like character picking, and would just be an added step between character choice and stage choice.

 

[タオー]

Well, as you pointed out, part of the strength of miis is their customization. People wouldn't want to have the same specials throughout a set, by that token.

So, after character repick / counterpick, winner would choose custom specials, then loser would chose custom specials, though obviously neither is obligated to change anything. It would work, I think, just like character picking, and would just be an added step between character choice and stage choice.

Yea I could see that. I don't see myself doing that really, except to improve/augment their mobility for a given match up. As a Falcon main I know all too well the pain associated with gimping.

 

[PingPongCop]

Long time no see, oh reverse avatar of mine!

@ Book Jacket Dude, this is perhaps one of the most interesting threads I've seen so far on the topic of Competitive Smash 4. And the points you made were really astounding. I believe custom moves do definitely add another level of play, but at the same time they can get tedious. If your system seems to work, however, I see no reason in banning Custom Moves or Miis.

 

[Book Jacket]

Long time no see, oh reverse avatar of mine!

@ Book Jacket Dude, this is perhaps one of the most interesting threads I've seen so far on the topic of Competitive Smash 4. And the points you made were really astounding. I believe custom moves do definitely add another level of play, but at the same time they can get tedious. If your system seems to work, however, I see no reason in banning Custom Moves or Miis.

One thing I've realized since making this thread is that everyone seems to be (with some exceptions) on the same page: if it's a simple process, we'll try it out. Thing is, we still don't know how easy the custom moves will be as a process, or how many different mii sizes there are, etc. So at this point, it seems to just be hopeful speculation.