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Important Official Custom Moveset Project

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erico9001

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Yeah, the thing I don't like about having just 10 pre-sets with no uploading is that we discover things as the game goes along. I kind of run Shulk's customs thread, and well, a lot has changed. I use 2123 in tourny, a set which barely (man, just barely) made it into the first 10 to begin with. Now, I am suggesting we replace two sets with 2122 and 2322! Those sets are really good! However, because my locals use evo rules for customs, I can't use the sets in my bi-weeklies.

So... we can and should update the custom moveset project, but the thing is, this is probably just going to happen again. Shulk boards are going to discover something. I feel like maybe we will have things covered for a while, but then again, maybe we're going to want 3323, 1323, or something like that in the future! This is why it's important to have those 2 slots available.
 
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ぱみゅ

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I can't believe we aren't allowing the occasional fringe case of people making their own custom set and site time as the reason, yet consistently allow people to enter their own name tags. Same thing applies to FLSS and how it 'takes too long', but I digress.
I too support individual/freedom of creation... but logistics is a potential issue, adverted by not allowing to create any more sets. CSM is supposed to present the most common ones so it can be as widely convincing as possible (and as such, constant update is required).

The only alternative I can think of is banning the creation on the spot, and only allowing creation on a 3DS, upload, equipment revision if requested, and then get to play.

:196:
 

Unknownkid

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Yeah, the thing I don't like about having just 10 pre-sets with no uploading is that we discover things as the game goes along. I kind of run Shulk's customs thread, and well, a lot has changed. I use 2123 in tourny, a set which barely (man, just barely) made it into the first 10 to begin with. Now, I am suggesting we replace two sets with 2122 and 2322! Those sets are really good! However, because my locals use evo rules for customs, I can't use the sets in my bi-weeklies.

So... we can and should update the custom moveset project, but the thing is, this is probably just going to happen again. Shulk boards are going to discover something. I feel like maybe we will have things covered for a while, but then again, maybe we're going to want 3323, 1323, or something like that in the future! This is why it's important to have those 2 slots available.
What is the reason for switching Power Vision for Dashing/Leaping Vision (or what it is called)?
 

ParanoidDrone

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Yeah, the thing I don't like about having just 10 pre-sets with no uploading is that we discover things as the game goes along. I kind of run Shulk's customs thread, and well, a lot has changed. I use 2123 in tourny, a set which barely (man, just barely) made it into the first 10 to begin with. Now, I am suggesting we replace two sets with 2122 and 2322! Those sets are really good! However, because my locals use evo rules for customs, I can't use the sets in my bi-weeklies.

So... we can and should update the custom moveset project, but the thing is, this is probably just going to happen again. Shulk boards are going to discover something. I feel like maybe we will have things covered for a while, but then again, maybe we're going to want 3323, 1323, or something like that in the future! This is why it's important to have those 2 slots available.
Two sets with Dash Vision? What? I'm deeply curious about what tech has been discovered to give Shulk a reason to run anything other than Power Vision.
 

MajorMajora

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I too support individual/freedom of creation... but logistics is a potential issue, adverted by not allowing to create any more sets. CSM is supposed to present the most common ones so it can be as widely convincing as possible (and as such, constant update is required).

The only alternative I can think of is banning the creation on the spot, and only allowing creation on a 3DS, upload, equipment revision if requested, and then get to play.

:196:
Or we could, I don't know, get rid of custom tags.
 

erico9001

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What is the reason for switching Power Vision for Dashing/Leaping Vision (or what it is called)?
Two sets with Dash Vision? What? I'm deeply curious about what tech has been discovered to give Shulk a reason to run anything other than Power Vision.
Wow, I wasn't expecting such interest in Shulk's customs! :p Hmm, I cover Dash Vision vs Power Vision here:
Power vision vs Dash Vision

Power vision: due to being slow while having the same slowing effect as the other visions, it is worse against 3 types of things:
1) Projectiles
2) Fast attacks
3) Moving attacks

If the opponent is using an attack with a minimal amount of end-lag, they can dodge before power vision hits. Moving attacks like dash attacks can give power vision trouble as well, since they get out of the way before it hits. Finally, after considering no version of vision triggers a slowing effect onto the opponent, since power vision is so slow, they can actually kind of dance around you for a little bit before punishing you.

Dash vision: Has many uses over power vision.
1) Can work against many projectiles, fast attacks, and moving attacks. It comes out very fast compared to the other two visions, and goes a long distance too.
2) Has less end-lag, which means more maintenance of your stage control.
3) Has a lower knockback angle. In the air, it can gimp people, and on the ground, it can force people to tech (or miss their tech)

Dash vision still does kill nice and early - not as early as power vision - more like regular vision. Compared to regular vision, the main drawback is it has a lesser window of activation, meaning more skill is needed to use it.

They're both good, but like, don't use power vision vs mega man or something. Dash vision is useful. In fact, I say it rounds out many of the issues we Shulks face. Primarily in that we don't have much to do against projectiles. Dash vision is that thing we can do. We also can have issue against people with fast attacks, and it is nice to be able to hit them without chance of them spot dodging and punishing.

Another use dash vision has is it is safer at times where power vision might get punished, like when in buster at low percent, or something.

Dash vision's lower angle gives opponents a harder time recovering after hit away by it. This is nice for us. We might get an Fair on them to finish the job, or whatnot.

Dash vision can be used to intercept off-stage, just like power vision. Works against everybody I posted about here (tested =) ):

(quoted somebody else)
Ah, oh well about Fox and Falco. I tried that with power vision as well, and it did not work. Neither did dash vision. But yeah, it's deadly if you counter the start up of his up B!

Dash Vision doesn't actually send you very far if activated in the air... so it seems viable for this strategy too.
Power Vision is also great.

Something to keep in mind about this strategy is you want to fall into the recovery, or you will miss. You need to be higher up, or you will fall too low below the recovery. Also, be sure to use the move far away from the edge if they snap to it (most do).

I'm testing all of these with power vision.

Works great against Ness. I am sure this kills at incredibly early percents. Even the time when I timed the counter to soon, since he hit the counter, his recovery distance was shortened.

Works deliciously against Donkey Kong. On FD in training mode, it kills him even before 70% damage.

Against Charizard, it can work if he recovers low. You might hit him during his super armor if you activate at the way start of his recovery move. If you activate near the end, you won't hit him, as he will grab the edge. Overall, it can work against Charizard, but it's hard.

It works well against Link if you use it high enough above him, otherwise he will get out of the way of the move. The other option is to use it behind him, as the sword spins around him. You will counter backwards and stage spike him. The same is true for Toon Link, but the lower range on his move makes it a bit harder to run into with the counter.

Works well against Samus if you are far enough from the edge.

I can't get the opportunity to test it against ZSS... Does not work for Marth, and you would want to gimp him with Fair anyways. No for Ike. Apparently he has super armor at the way start of his up B, and that is the only time it would work. It does not slow down Wii Fit Trainer at all. An off-stage counter on her soccer ball might work, though. Does not work on Mario. Does not work on Doctor Mario.

Works really well on Luigi's cyclone down B! Nice way to respond to Luigis recovering low. You might take 1 damage with minimal knockback, which ends the counter immediately after it hits him. This makes it even easier to recover. It works against Luigi's up B only at the top and if he does not snap the edge.

Excellent against Peach's umbrella. You might take 1% damage/tiny knockback.

The move is extremely good against Bowser's up B. When your counter hits him, you will take 3% damage/tiny knockback, like Luigi and Peach.

I am having a hard time testing against both Wario's up B and his bike. No idea. Can't get it to work against Game and Watch too.

Works against Little Mac's up B (he doesn't snap to the edge). Can work on his side B, but why not use Fair instead, as it does not require his hitbox to hit you

Meta Knight does not seem to work. Might work if he activates it at the loop he makes, but GL.

You cannot counter Yoshi's egg mid-air.

This works against Mii Brawler's piston punch. However, I don't feel like testing all the other miis and their recoveries.

So, power vision works against:
:4bowser::4dk::4falco::4fox::4littlemac::4link::4tlink::4luigi::4miibrawl:(piston punch):4ness::4peach::4samus:(probably:4lucas:)
Unsure about: :4zss::4wario2::4miisword::4miigun:

Also, unsure about custom recoveries. Probably works against any slower custom recoveries.

Edit: Also, vision does not slow down horizontal movement as well as I thought it did. Usually best if you jump off the stage.

Recovery is not an issue as long as you have your air jump. I was able to recover with just the first strike of advancing air slash.
Here's the whole post if you want:
Regular Monado Arts

We all know how to use Regular Monado Arts. They're okay, but they lack something important. Power. These are the weakest of the monado arts, and it shows. You will still die when in Monado Shield, and Shield doesn't really get you out of combos. Smash may raise your kill percents, but the payoff can be low. Buster has nice damage, but you still get punished on shield. Speed is fast, but slow enough so that it misses out on combo opportunities, has worse cross-ups, less punish opportunities. etc.

You get safety in that you have access to each different monado art more than both decisive and hyper arts, but as a result, the arts will just have less impact. You get more freedom with what arts you can choose, but they are worth less as a result.

Decisive Monado Arts

These sure have power. All of the arts are more useful than their regular Monado Arts counterparts.

- Decisive Buster deals 1.54x damage rather than 1.4x damage, which means more damage of course (to set up for later knockback) and safer hits on shield. You deal a lot of damage. Do you have trouble evening out the damage you take vs damage you deal while in regular Monado Buster? Well, this should make that difference.

- Decisive Speed has combos which connect much more fluently, and it matters less when the opponent has good DI. You just go faster! It's great. You can feel the speed. Everything you wished worked in regular Monado Speed now works.

- Decisive Shield is totally anti-meta. Gets you out of combos, lets you survive until very late percents.

- Decisive Jump is pretty scary with its faster fall speed, which allows you to take advantage of situations where the opponent is open quicker. The air speed helps you make combos, and helps you to escape combos/follow-ups. And better recovery too.

- Decisive Smash actually gets kills. How's it feel to have a Ness B-throw? Decisive Smash is actually VERY menacing, because it lasts for a long time, meaning you're eventually going to get the kill! All you need is that grab, that dash attack, that frame trap, and the opponent is dead. Having 20 seconds of it, a small break, and then another 20 seconds of it, means you are very likely to get the kill. Stalling out while in decisive smash is not actually hard.

Since all these arts are so nice, you'll want as much time with them that you can get. They are available to you for 20 seconds, and only take 5 seconds to come back once gone.

What's the catch? Well, it's in the name. You must be decisive. Since you cannot cancel monado arts, you must make a decision and commit to it. What's important in decisions? Knowledge! Have a good idea of which of the arts benefit you, and you should find decisive Monado Arts improve your gameplay, a lot. However, if you do not know what is good to use against an opponent, you will not be able to experiment as much to find out. If you pick the wrong one, you will need to pay for longer. Though, picking 'the wrong one' with decisive monado arts is easier said than done, for again, all arts are excellent.

You do lose some techs, and get to use the others less frequently. Tech is great and all, but being more powerful trumps that. You gain a better neutral, which is more important.

Hyper Arts

These are nice. I actually prefer them to regular arts now! Here is my current overview, and I must remind you that I am not exaggerating.

Hyper Jump: During these 6 seconds, you don't want to be hit. It's easy to avoid attacks with how fast you are in every way via air. On the other hand, you have good offense. The fall speed allows you to more easily punish opponents who commit to attacks, which you may have baited. Then, the air speed allows you to carry that aerial you used into another aerial. In general, for this art, I recommend to be careful and maintain your spacing. Do not use this art if you are not comfortable with it. You slowly work into becoming comfortable with hyper jump.

Hyper Speed: The idea here is to overwhelm the opponent. However, you still do not have good frame data. Still space them out, and don't let them land.

Hyper Shield: Lol @ their attacks. Attacks that would normally kill you now MIGHT send you to the edge of the stage from the middle. Other than that, some uses to this art are making it safe onto land from air, momentary stalls (always a good idea to use as filler for cooldown), and getting out of combos..

Hyper Buster: This is scary. If I'm vs this art, my focus is really brought in. Things become serious. This game can go either way very quickly.. If you have the percent lead and the opponent puts this on, you want to be patient. If you are the person using Hyper Buster, you want to have the positioning advantage before you use this art, so that you get the most from the 6 seconds. This advantage will also prevent you from taking damage yourself.

Hyper Smash: Similar to Hyper Buster in regards to usage. You want to put this on in a time where the opponent is pressured. Gain the advantage first, by using some other arts or even Vanilla, then put it on. While it's not necessary that you have the advantage, without it, you might waste this incredibly useful art or even get yourself killed.

---The Hyper Monado Arts are very centralized around Hyper Buster/Hyper Smash. Those two arts have the most impact.

Now, these Monado Arts are hard to manage at first. My general strategy is to use Shield and Speed as filler arts, as I wait for an opportunity to use Buster or Hyper Smash. I might use Monado Jump, but am still a bit iffy about it in the neutral. I mostly use it for situations like a quick reset, getting some movement in on the opponent before I quickly change to another art, or recovering.

You do have MALLC and other techniques with Hyper Arts. So, good for you if you like those. Still, I personally perform better with Decisive Arts, even though I do use lots of MALLC.

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

Alright, so with that discussed, I will go into combining different customs into sets.

We, rushed, decided on this for EVO:
1113 - bland but needed
2113 - Not too much use over 2123. Might be good to keep, will go into more detail.
3113 - decent, should stay
1123 - a staple
3123 - actually good, will discuss why
3213 - unneeded, especially with regular back slash being buffed now
1122 - Dash vision yay
3122 - Understandable, but I'm iffy about it. I need to test dash vision + hyper arts.

1213 - Unneeded
2123 - So glad this made it in.

Okay, so to get this started, here is just my idea of the sets...

0) Default
1) 1113
2) 1123
3) 1122
4) 2123
5) 2122
6) 3113
7) 3123
8) 3122
-
9) 2112
10) 2322

Sets explained:

1113:
This is just your no customs set with power vision instead of regular vision. Good for people who do not understand much about Shulk's customs. Not bad, either.

1123:
Same as the previous, but with Advancing Air Slash. Advancing Air Slash is a nice move. A lot of people prefer it to regular air slash. Move is described further in the op.

1122: Same as previous, but power vision has been swapped for dash vision. This set will take a bit more skill, for dash vision has a smaller frame to activate. However, the reward of having that extra option against projectiles makes it worth it. Dash Vision still kills, and is actually better for gimps too.

2123:
This set focuses on Decisive Arts with Advancing Air Slash, a combo which allows you to utilize Decisive Shield in order to survive until very late percents. It is a quite potent threat, once you get used to using Decisive Monado Arts and Advancing Air Slash.

2122:
Dash Vision rounds out this set's utility, giving it suitable options against projectiles while in arts other than speed and jump.

3113:
Like the first set, but with hyper arts. Hyper Jump + Regular Air Slash can reach the ledge from the bottom blast zone on FD.

3123:
Advancing Air Slash is actually very useful for hyper arts. With hyper buster, hyper smash, and hyper jump, safety is needed. Advancing Air Slash, due to dealing more damage and being safer, is an excellent choice for the hyper monado arts, which centralize around hyper buster and hyper smash. As for recovery, the height of advancing air slash with hyper jump is 'good enough'. Do treat it like more of a vertical recovery, however.

3122 - All the other arts get dash vision, why not hyper arts? Advancing Air Slash is used over regular air slash when paired with dash vision, because both are good for facing projectile users.

2112:
Seems useless compared to 2122 at first, but it has a distinct role. Some projectiles really stink for advancing air slash. For example, all of Lucario's Neutral B's. Another would be Samus's fully charged shot. Sometimes, Air Slash is just needed. So, even though 2122 is generally better, 2112 needs use in some cases.
As for why dash vision is used instead of power vision, the very reason we are using regular air slash is these annoying projectiles. Projectile -> dash vision.

2322 basically focuses around decisive shield and being anti-meta. Decisive Shield gets you out of combos, Back Slash Charge gets you out of combos (Rob U-throw -> Uair just came to mind as one... Doesn't on this combo, see below for details), and dash vision prevents decisive shield from being zoned out. Back Slash Charge can also be an alternative recovery for decisive shield.

Possible others:

N) 1133 - I've tried mighty air slash in some more matches, and I still do not like it. What gets me now is the ease to which opponents get away from the second hit due to DI. All the other downsides still apply though, don't worry. Before putting mighty air slash into an official set, we need to seriously test this and make sure it deserves it. The spot means a lot. We should not just throw it in for the ideal of having all air slashes available.

N) 3133
This sounds op, but is actually extremely risky with hyper arts. If you miss with mighty air slash in hyper smash, hyper buster, or hyper jump, expect a lot of bad stuff. The only real use is with recovery, but regular air slash already has that more than covered as explained in the description for 3113.

N) 1112 or 3112
I would argue for advancing air slash with dash vision rather than regular air slash with dash vision for a couple reasons. First, both advancing air slash and regular air slash are good against projectiles. They're two options. Then, people who pick dash vision are more likely to actually know about customs, and so more likely to also like advancing air slash. You could say that my reasoning for 2112 could apply again here (like Lucario's neutral B), but since with hyper and regular arts monado jump can be activated from any art, advancing air slash can become that more vertical recovery move which is needed.

Other things worth noting:
Power vision vs Dash Vision

Power vision: due to being slow while having the same slowing effect as the other visions, it is worse against 3 types of things:
1) Projectiles
2) Fast attacks
3) Moving attacks

If the opponent is using an attack with a minimal amount of end-lag, they can air dodge before power vision hits. Moving attacks like dash attacks can give power vision trouble as well, since they get out of the way before it hits. Finally, no vision, including power vision, activates the slowing effect against projectiles. Since power vision is so slow, they can just dance around you before punishing you.

Dash vision: Has many uses over power vision.
1) Can work against many projectiles, fast attacks, and moving attacks.
2) Has less end-lag, which means more maintenance of your stage control.
3) Has a lower knockback angle. In the air, it can gimp people, and on the ground, it can force people to tech (or miss their tech)

Dash vision still does kill nice and early. Not as early as power vision, more like regular vision. Compared to regular vision, the main drawback is it has a lesser window of activation, meaning more skill is needed to use it.

They're both good, but like, don't use power vision vs mega man or something. Dash vision is useful. In fact, I say it rounds out many of the issues we Shulks face. Primarily in that we don't have much to do against projectiles. Dash vision is that thing we can do. We also can have issue against people with fast attacks, and it is nice to be able to hit them without chance of them spot dodging and punishing.

Another use dash vision has is it is safer at times where power vision might get punished, like when in buster at low percent, or something.

Dash vision's lower angle gives opponents a harder time recovering after hit away by it. This is nice for us. We might get an Fair on them to finish the job, or whatnot.

Dash vision can be used to intercept off-stage, just like power vision. Works against everybody I posted about here (tested =) ):

(quoted somebody else)
Ah, oh well about Fox and Falco. I tried that with power vision as well, and it did not work. Neither did dash vision. But yeah, it's deadly if you counter the start up of his up B!

Dash Vision doesn't actually send you very far if activated in the air... so it seems viable for this strategy too.
Power Vision is also great.

Something to keep in mind about this strategy is you want to fall into the recovery, or you will miss. You need to be higher up, or you will fall too low below the recovery. Also, be sure to use the move far away from the edge if they snap to it (most do).

I'm testing all of these with power vision.

Works great against Ness. I am sure this kills at incredibly early percents. Even the time when I timed the counter to soon, since he hit the counter, his recovery distance was shortened.

Works deliciously against Donkey Kong. On FD in training mode, it kills him even before 70% damage.

Against Charizard, it can work if he recovers low. You might hit him during his super armor if you activate at the way start of his recovery move. If you activate near the end, you won't hit him, as he will grab the edge. Overall, it can work against Charizard, but it's hard.

It works well against Link if you use it high enough above him, otherwise he will get out of the way of the move. The other option is to use it behind him, as the sword spins around him. You will counter backwards and stage spike him. The same is true for Toon Link, but the lower range on his move makes it a bit harder to run into with the counter.

Works well against Samus if you are far enough from the edge.

I can't get the opportunity to test it against ZSS... Does not work for Marth, and you would want to gimp him with Fair anyways. No for Ike. Apparently he has super armor at the way start of his up B, and that is the only time it would work. It does not slow down Wii Fit Trainer at all. An off-stage counter on her soccer ball might work, though. Does not work on Mario. Does not work on Doctor Mario.

Works really well on Luigi's cyclone down B! Nice way to respond to Luigis recovering low. You might take 1 damage with minimal knockback, which ends the counter immediately after it hits him. This makes it even easier to recover. It works against Luigi's up B only at the top and if he does not snap the edge.

Excellent against Peach's umbrella. You might take 1% damage/tiny knockback.

The move is extremely good against Bowser's up B. When your counter hits him, you will take 3% damage/tiny knockback, like Luigi and Peach.

I am having a hard time testing against both Wario's up B and his bike. No idea. Can't get it to work against Game and Watch too.

Works against Little Mac's up B (he doesn't snap to the edge). Can work on his side B, but why not use Fair instead, as it does not require his hitbox to hit you

Meta Knight does not seem to work. Might work if he activates it at the loop he makes, but GL.

You cannot counter Yoshi's egg mid-air.

This works against Mii Brawler's piston punch. However, I don't feel like testing all the other miis and their recoveries.

So, power vision works against:
:4bowser::4dk::4falco::4fox::4littlemac::4link::4tlink::4luigi::4miibrawl:(piston punch):4ness::4peach::4samus:(probably:4lucas:)
Unsure about: :4zss::4wario2::4miisword::4miigun:

Also, unsure about custom recoveries. Probably works against any slower custom recoveries.

Edit: Also, vision does not slow down horizontal movement as well as I thought it did. Usually best if you jump off the stage.

Recovery is not an issue as long as you have your air jump. I was able to recover with just the first strike of advancing air slash.
Back Slash Charge
I did some testing today with @Scieric about what back slash charge gets out of.
-Can BSC out of Sheik combos, but the end-lag will make it punishable if you do not use it strategically.
-Cannot BSC out of Rob D-throw -> Uair combo.
-Can BSC out of Luigi down-throw combos, and not get punished unless Luigi sees it coming.
-Cannot BSC out of Mii Brawler up B combo, but monado shield means we don't care about that anyways.
-Can BSC out of Meta Knight D-throw -> Uair -> Uair -> (...) -> Up B and Dash Atack -> Uair -> Uair -> (...) -> Up B

That's what we've tested so far.

So yeah! Ideas for discussion:
-What do you think about the different monado arts, now that time has passed?
-Do you think BSC is useful?
-What do you think about the sets?
etc. Post whatever you want of course :p.
Something I don't say exactly here is that while Power Vision does kill early, it has drawbacks. I don't really go into it here, but Power Vision does drop the amount of frames to which it can be activated with severely after even just one use of it. You can't use Power Vision often. In no way is Power Vision spammable :).

Another thing is while Power Vision does kill early if it activates, it becomes increasingly hard and risky to use versus more skilled players. They aren't as prone to, say, throwing out aerials even though they know it's probably going to hit your shield. They may even be mindful of the counter. This can be seen in the writing of Twilthero, a Shulk who made it out of pools at EVO. "First match was up against a Rosalina player. I won the first match pretty convincingly, but the 2nd match he took me to Lylat where I lost. I believe I took him to Smashville, and well, believe it or not, this was actually the only time I got a really stupid Power Vision kill lol (though I had a 50% lead anyway)." And, if Shulk's counter misses, it is pretty bad because it has so much end-lag. Dash Vision, since it works against projectiles, can find itself being used successfully much more often. You can actually react to projectiles, so the move no longer relies completely on reads.

Though, Power Vision does win in shock value. 'This move kill X at Y percent with Z move! OP!' Still, it's not bad counter, so it's still on at least half the sets. You're probably not going to get killed by it unless you're being too predictable.
 

Unknownkid

Smash Lord
Joined
Oct 4, 2014
Messages
1,073
I actually went to the Shulk Custom thread to read what happen you guys learned. Haha! This information is amazing! I can really see how naive I (perhaps everyone else) was about Shulk customs before the EVO sets were created. Most players saw Power Vision as the truth and little bit broken. I am glad you guys figure out that is not the case.
 

Splash Damage

Smash Journeyman
Joined
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Messages
344
Location
New England
NNID
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What logistical issue, exactly?
Where do I start…
-Less people bringing in their own setups due to the titanic amount of time it takes to unlock, import, & make all the custom sets, which leads to brackets taking longer&less stations for friendlies
-If the customs are unlocked using the best, most optimal, least effort way, it would require a few hundred dollars be spent on turbo controllers for all the setups.
-The Ganon farming method takes 3-5 days per setup, so either shell out a few hundred to have all the setups hooked up at once & pray that the RNG is in your favor, or just buy one turbo controller&have only two or three full setups on tournament day.
-Making and naming every single set for every character would take at least an hour per setup if not twice that. Because there is no reliable, fast, low-effort farming method for 3DS, this would have to be done on every single setup, taking even more time. The tournaments I attend, such as GU or 3SA, average around 12 setups on a bad day, so being generous would mean it takes ~18 hours.
-taking the time to make spreadsheets for customs, laminate them, and explain the new terminology to everyone who shows up.
-Overall decreased player interest&attendance due to the growing distaste of customs
-Dealing with the balance&design issues
-Dealing with public opinion of Miis via vague, poor-exposure FB/SB polls which get answers from less than half of the population
All for them to never be used in grand finals and be used exclusively by mid-level players as a game 3 mixup. I again refer you to this list of the customs i encountered:
1.A Dedede main who, despite picking a set with 2 non-default specials, did not use either of the custom specials once the entire match and switched back to default after game 1. I've never seen him use customs since.
2&3:Two Rosalinas who just used the top set(2211) and who both only used the shooting star bit four times at the start of the match and almost never again after that.
4.A Falcon main who almost always swapped to Windkong after losing a game.
5.In a single elimination $1 entry side bracket, a Dr. Mario, after realizing that Little Mac can counter the cape, switched to a random set featuring Gust Cape. He didn't even know that you can still counter Gust Cape.
6.Myself, and over the entire time the only custom I used was Flaming Straight Lunge, which served as a recovery mixup once a set at most. If I remember correctly I once used Guard Breaker as well, which only helped prevent me from a single edge guard.
All those hours spent getting them to work, all those extra setups that could've been brought in, all for almost nothing.
 

erico9001

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Where do I start…
-Less people bringing in their own setups due to the titanic amount of time it takes to unlock, import, & make all the custom sets, which leads to brackets taking longer&less stations for friendlies
-If the customs are unlocked using the best, most optimal, least effort way, it would require a few hundred dollars be spent on turbo controllers for all the setups.
-The Ganon farming method takes 3-5 days per setup, so either shell out a few hundred to have all the setups hooked up at once & pray that the RNG is in your favor, or just buy one turbo controller&have only two or three full setups on tournament day.
-Making and naming every single set for every character would take at least an hour per setup if not twice that. Because there is no reliable, fast, low-effort farming method for 3DS, this would have to be done on every single setup, taking even more time. The tournaments I attend, such as GU or 3SA, average around 12 setups on a bad day, so being generous would mean it takes ~18 hours.
-taking the time to make spreadsheets for customs, laminate them, and explain the new terminology to everyone who shows up.
-Overall decreased player interest&attendance due to the growing distaste of customs
-Dealing with the balance&design issues
-Dealing with public opinion of Miis via vague, poor-exposure FB/SB polls which get answers from less than half of the population
All for them to never be used in grand finals and be used exclusively by mid-level players as a game 3 mixup. I again refer you to this list of the customs i encountered:
1.A Dedede main who, despite picking a set with 2 non-default specials, did not use either of the custom specials once the entire match and switched back to default after game 1. I've never seen him use customs since.
2&3:Two Rosalinas who just used the top set(2211) and who both only used the shooting star bit four times at the start of the match and almost never again after that.
4.A Falcon main who almost always swapped to Windkong after losing a game.
5.In a single elimination $1 entry side bracket, a Dr. Mario, after realizing that Little Mac can counter the cape, switched to a random set featuring Gust Cape. He didn't even know that you can still counter Gust Cape.
6.Myself, and over the entire time the only custom I used was Flaming Straight Lunge, which served as a recovery mixup once a set at most. If I remember correctly I once used Guard Breaker as well, which only helped prevent me from a single edge guard.
All those hours spent getting them to work, all those extra setups that could've been brought in, all for almost nothing.
The whole point to the custom moveset project (the thread you're in) is it gets rid of the logistic issue, because you just import from a 3ds. This takes 13-14 minutes to load all custom moves onto a clean set-up. From the op:

You actually only need 1 person with a 3ds with this. And as time goes on, less Wii U's will need to have custom moves loaded, since Wii U's get reused.

If you want to be that individual who has the custom moves unlocked on your 3ds but don't want to put in effort...
http://www.amazon.com/Action-Replay...TF8&qid=1412702373&sr=8-2&keywords=powersaves

Not a few hundred dollars and ridiculous amounts of time. 20$ and almost instantaneous.
-Nobody even need to do this method. They can do it completely within the game's bounds. Unlike Project M :p
-Only 1 person needs to do this. This does not have to be you. Get in contact with people attending the tournament to see if somebody already has the custom moves set up. If you want to be nice, or just play it safe, you can unlock all custom moves. But it is not necessary.
-Most places have their venues open far in advance to the Sm4sh tournament. There's plenty of time to get the moves on there. I went to a custom tournament, and most of the Wii U's actually already had customs on them. There was one Wii U that had to be loaded. This was because it was not our first time doing customs on. So, loading all Wii U's is only realistic for the first event!

There is no logistic problem

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

edit: You can actually are able to do the saves for free!
I would like to add that we now have a viable free method to load up 3DS units with all customs.

I think the Youtube App is still up on the eShop (at least, I haven't seen any reports of it being removed) so this can still be done. I've done it myself, it doesn't take very long at all to unlock all the customs and insert the EVO sets onto the unit. If the sets change in the future, one user could build the new sets and extract them from their save to be distributed to other users with homebrew. At least, I think that should be possible.
 
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Scribe

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Timber Counter means giving up two of your few viable kill options on the ground (axe, tree growth). That is kind of a big deal. If you're up against an mostly aerial character (Jiggs, Rosaluma, Lucas, etc.) who's going to mostly be jumping around you/it anyway, there is little reason to give up said ko moves. Until Timber Counter/Exploding Balloon Trip is proven to be dominant (Didnt even make top 8 at EVO), it remains a good sidegrade, no reason to ban.
Now that I've put some thought into it, I'd give one rebuttal to tripping tree's decreased usefulness against mostly-aerial characters: A situation where an option is incredibly useful against a majority of the cast, yet is at a disadvantage against a few others isn't truly balanced in an asymmetrical game like Smash, where both players have a different starting state (that is, the set of "tools" they have available to them) and are locked into that state. It's fine in something like Halo, where each player generally has the same starting state (all players generally have the same choice of starting loadouts), but have the option to change what tools they have available (New weapons spawn throughout the game), or even asymmetrical games like team fighters, where you choose a set of "tools" to switch between, or MOBAs, where you have a team of people with a variety of different sets of tools to fill different roles. In those cases, you could counter something ground-restricted like the tripping tree by switching to something ranged or air-oriented. In Smash, though, if you choose a very ground-oriented character, you're stuck with that character until the end of the match, meaning you're SOL against tripping tree. Likewise, if you use tripping tree villager but your opponent chooses an aerial character, your tripping tree is next to useless.

Tl;dr the hard counter approach to balance works in shooters, team fighters, and MOBAs, but not as much in 1v1 fighters like Smash, as you're locked into the whatever "tools" you have immediately available to you at the start of the match, and don't have backup sets to switch to or teammates to cover your weaknesses.
 
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Splash Damage

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So what you're saying is that the only way to reliably, quickly, and efficiently get all the customs on your 3DS is to buy something to hack the customs on with, meaning that no matter what method you want to use, there is a paywall behind it. And that the one 3DS that has done that must be there at the event every week for any new player to bring a setup and have it be legal, meaning that if they forgot the 3DS at home, got sick, or any number of other occurrences, there will be less legal setups and a less efficient bracket. And that's not even beginning to address the other issues there are that I brought up, and I'm pretty sure that a 3-hour set making binge is far and away from "instantaneous". That and the aforementioned terminology concerns, ridiculous situation with Miis, and overall decreasing player interest leading to smaller attendance&pool size, all so three randoms can still only go 2-2 but with a faster fireball instead of a bouncing one. Which is yet another thing that nobody has made a solid defense for and most have gone out of their way to prove:Absolutely nobody at a high level consistently uses them or supports them. We're doing all this, spending hundreds of hours labbing and arguing over what 10 limited sets to use for all 52 characters-or rather about 48 as the DLC characters get none, another issue-and rushing to get them to work logistically, all for what? Customs have brought almost nothing to the table when it comes down to top level play. The best example I've seen so far is Johnnumbers, and that's just one person. I can't see how the overall use of customs can defend all the work that they need.
 

Pazx

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Yeah, the thing I don't like about having just 10 pre-sets with no uploading is that we discover things as the game goes along. I kind of run Shulk's customs thread, and well, a lot has changed. I use 2123 in tourny, a set which barely (man, just barely) made it into the first 10 to begin with. Now, I am suggesting we replace two sets with 2122 and 2322! Those sets are really good! However, because my locals use evo rules for customs, I can't use the sets in my bi-weeklies.

So... we can and should update the custom moveset project, but the thing is, this is probably just going to happen again. Shulk boards are going to discover something. I feel like maybe we will have things covered for a while, but then again, maybe we're going to want 3323, 1323, or something like that in the future! This is why it's important to have those 2 slots available.
This has been said to a million people a million times but it's worth stressing: If your locals run customs-on (which is cool) you should talk to your TO and get him to allow players to import custom sets in slots 9 and 10 as that was the intention of the custom moveset project.
 

erico9001

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This has been said to a million people a million times but it's worth stressing: If your locals run customs-on (which is cool) you should talk to your TO and get him to allow players to import custom sets in slots 9 and 10 as that was the intention of the custom moveset project.
gahhh customs were just banned anyways. That hurts. I would claim this to be the work of the ignorant masses, but isn't the popular opinion still to have them legal? Well, I will see if I can do anything to reverse that tomorrow. Probably can't though. I'm not the type to bark loudly.

*sigh*

It has been about a month since EVO. That's really not much time, when you look at how long this game's scene is going to last. Custom moves ran into a window, but they are not dead. Still, they need some attention if they are going to get running again any time soon.
 

LanceKing2200

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I would claim this to be the work of the ignorant masses, but isn't the popular opinion still to have them legal?
No, it isn't. Polls on Smashboards and Reddit and other places are meaningless because 75% - 90% of posters don't actually attend or play in tournaments, they just post about it online, play in online brackets, and watch twitch streams. The last time Reddit did a poll on event attendance about 75% of respondents had never even been to a single in-person event.

I'm the TO for the largest venue in MA, we regularly get 65+ people at our Tuesday weeklies, and as far as customs (which I still personally support) go there's only 2 things I care about:

1) The opinions of my regular players (like SplashDamage)

2) The rulesets of upcoming major events (like EVO and APEX) that my players need to practice for.

The majority opinion of players who regularly attend in-person events is that they don't like customs. When we announced at one of our events that we would be dropping customs after EVO it was met with literal cheers.
 

MajorMajora

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Our polls don't represent a perfect vertical slice of people who play smash. It is a good representation of people on the forums, who tend to be more educated on the topic due to actively discussing/reading multiple opinions on it, but not for people who just play the game and get annoyed when they lose to someone who's using customs and blames customs.
 

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@ Splash Damage Splash Damage , Dude, you're overthinking it.

If you depend on a single anchor when someone brings a new setup, you're prone to screw up if that anchor is not there.
Anyways, I think you can transfer sets from the Wii U to the 3DS (I need a double check for this), and that would help with the whole process (specially on a series of events).
The decreasing interest from the players is a direct result of the TOs not trying, and people still spreading misinformation, like the logistics one we're addressing.
As for the "new terminology", dude, new players are taught stuff all the time, many still don't even know what Stage Striking is and just select FD/Random Omegas, so a spreadsheet and a collective teaching is not really necessary. Sure, it's good to educate people, but I'd rather do it on advance of the tournament than spend a lot of venue time on it. Again, is far easier when you have a series of tournaments.

What I really mean is, seriously, give it a shot, I *BET* that it's not as difficult as you're making it sound like, and once is settled down, you don't even need to worry about it again.
:196:
 
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LanceKing2200

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@ Splash Damage Splash Damage , Dude, you're overthinking it.

If you depend on a single anchor when someone brings a new setup, you're prone to screw up if that anchor is not there.
Anyways, I think you can transfer sets from the Wii U to the 3DS (I need a double check for this), and that would help with the whole process (specially on a series of events).
The decreasing interest from the players is a direct result of the TOs not trying, and people still spreading misinformation, like the logistics one we're addressing.
As for the "new terminology", dude, new players are taught stuff all the time, many still don't even know what Stage Striking is and just select FD/Random Omegas, so a spreadsheet and a collective teaching is not really necessary. Sure, it's good to educate people, but I'd rather do it on advance of the tournament than spend a lot of venue time on it. Again, is far easier when you have a series of tournaments.

What I really mean is, seriously, give it a shot, I *BET* that it's not as difficult as you're making it sound like, and once is settled down, you don't even need to worry about it again.
:196:
1) No, you can't. You can transfer sets from WiiU to 3DS only if they were made on that WiiU. You can't "chain transfer" sets in order to make more setup 3DS's.

2) No, it isn't TO laziness. I and many other TOs worked our asses off to get customs working, and we played with them for 6 months (Feb till EVO). It IS more work than people here make it out to be, especially when players who have been regularly attending these events for those 6 months and have been playing in a customs meta during that time are at best apathetic toward and at worst actively despise custom moves.

For example, people really underestimate setting up new consoles. Yes, on paper it's only 15 minutes, but when you're also trying to sign people up, set up/run a stream, get a bracket running, and a million other things that TOs are doing, those 15 minutes can literally be the difference between starting on time or not. And when people have limited time on weeknights they depend on you to keep events timely.
 

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Lance took the words out of my mouth, essentially everything I was to say was already said. People belittling and ignoring the logistical concerns is one of the biggest problems I've seen from the pro-customs standpoint. Even if they were all unlocked from the start, that still leaves setting up all the 450+ custom sets, a strenuous task that I guarantee would lead to a lessened amount of community-provided setups.
Not to mention that on top of manually&actively importing sets if they even managed to get a fully unlocked 3DS they also have to manage signup money, a challonge bracket, test&run the stream, ensure all setups/monitors are up and working, ensure the commentators' mics are working&headsets are at good volume, attend to any bracket debates/rule inquiries, and likely double check everything. It's not as simple as being able to take out 15 minutes of time to get one setup working, which likely won't even see any customs be used.
 
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ぱみゅ

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So it can't be done, rough start.

Dude, I TO'd a couple Customs events myself and didn't run into any of the problems you are mentioning.
I actually spend more time asking players to unlock Smashville and other stages that needed to get legal.
And still finished the tournaments.
:196:


Gotta admit that probably the biggest advantage I got is that the Master 3DS transferring the sets was mine.
 
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DunnoBro

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I think I'll wait till next patch to finalize my opinion on customs. (The alleged one on monday or whichever real one next)

Considering how japan-centric the updates seem to be, and how the japanese don't use customs... It seems likely that customs won't be balanced as efficiently and quickly as default. I'm confident if japan used them, they'd get patches but of course that isn't the case.

Only hope is data taken from custom tournaments, though with equipment a variable I doubt they'll take it too seriously...

While I think the only palpable hope for some characters is customs (Duck hunt, ganon, dr. mario) and are actually patching problematic customs(the pika infinite removal is an irrefutable nod to customs balance) it's clear they are grinding out lower tiers by how they function in default.

Kong cyclone only began to make sense because of DK's horrid neutral, but these new buffs (which imo are about as potent as kong cyclone as a whole, maybe more) also reflect that. It's unfortunate that the less played and tested meta is the one defining it as a whole in the eyes of nintendo, but I don't think fighting that would be in our best interest.
 
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Raijinken

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1) No, you can't. You can transfer sets from WiiU to 3DS only if they were made on that WiiU. You can't "chain transfer" sets in order to make more setup 3DS's.

2) No, it isn't TO laziness. I and many other TOs worked our ***** off to get customs working, and we played with them for 6 months (Feb till EVO). It IS more work than people here make it out to be, especially when players who have been regularly attending these events for those 6 months and have been playing in a customs meta during that time are at best apathetic toward and at worst actively despise custom moves.

For example, people really underestimate setting up new consoles. Yes, on paper it's only 15 minutes, but when you're also trying to sign people up, set up/run a stream, get a bracket running, and a million other things that TOs are doing, those 15 minutes can literally be the difference between starting on time or not. And when people have limited time on weeknights they depend on you to keep events timely.
Get a Co-TO? Or just a non-TO trusted volunteer? It's really not hard at all to parallel-process the setup with other TOing tasks.
On top of that, especially if you know the over-all customs usage at your event will be low, or if you have a large ratio of regular attendees on a narrow range of characters, you can essentially cheat and only load the necessary sets. I did this in my own tournament (loaded Palutena, Lucario, Lucina, and Ganondorf because I asked everyone on arrival what characters they would need sets for, added the rest when we were far enough along to not be using every setup). Full "sufficient" setup was done in fifteen minutes for all consoles (only my own had all relevant sets at the start of the event), everyone was happy, and the only delay the event suffered was my inexperience causing me to delay a match for a purported "late" arrival who never showed up, entirely unrelated to customs. We were running FLSS on eleven stages, too. No operational issues.

Now that I've put some thought into it, I'd give one rebuttal to tripping tree's decreased usefulness against mostly-aerial characters: A situation where an option is incredibly useful against a majority of the cast, yet is at a disadvantage against a few others isn't truly balanced in an asymmetrical game like Smash, where both players have a different starting state (that is, the set of "tools" they have available to them) and are locked into that state. It's fine in something like Halo, where each player generally has the same starting state (all players generally have the same choice of starting loadouts), but have the option to change what tools they have available (New weapons spawn throughout the game), or even asymmetrical games like team fighters, where you choose a set of "tools" to switch between, or MOBAs, where you have a team of people with a variety of different sets of tools to fill different roles. In those cases, you could counter something ground-restricted like the tripping tree by switching to something ranged or air-oriented. In Smash, though, if you choose a very ground-oriented character, you're stuck with that character until the end of the match, meaning you're SOL against tripping tree. Likewise, if you use tripping tree villager but your opponent chooses an aerial character, your tripping tree is next to useless.

Tl;dr the hard counter approach to balance works in shooters, team fighters, and MOBAs, but not as much in 1v1 fighters like Smash, as you're locked into the whatever "tools" you have immediately available to you at the start of the match, and don't have backup sets to switch to or teammates to cover your weaknesses.
Fun fact: Little Mac, indisputably the most grounded of characters, can super-armor smash through the sapling without tripping (at least until after the hit lands), bopping that arrogant Villager in the face with relatively little threat of counterplay unless the villager shields (even then knockback or a low-swing's shield damage threat make this less unfavorable for Mac than it sounds). Similarly (more relevant to extreme balloon trip) you can contest the plank with armor from down-smash. If he's got the sapling that close to the edge it's harder, but unless he has the percent lead, you're fully capable of just walking to the other end of the stage and spamming taunt for all his fortress will do to hurt you.

The sapling becomes less useful against aerial characters, but even against grounded characters, it's still an indisputable loss of three potential kill moves, one of which is very quick. If your opponent's character is not one of those who are utterly shut down by the sapling's mere existence, you are relying heavily on gaining that percent lead and then abusing time-out rulings to win by stalling. If you fail to gain that advantage, you've given up a powerful tool, and as EVO showed for both Sonic and Villager, even characters not generally designed to camp can turn the tables and time you out, so weak are your remaining aggressive options.

So what you're saying is that the only way to reliably, quickly, and efficiently get all the customs on your 3DS is to buy something to hack the customs on with, meaning that no matter what method you want to use, there is a paywall behind it. And that the one 3DS that has done that must be there at the event every week for any new player to bring a setup and have it be legal, meaning that if they forgot the 3DS at home, got sick, or any number of other occurrences, there will be less legal setups and a less efficient bracket. And that's not even beginning to address the other issues there are that I brought up, and I'm pretty sure that a 3-hour set making binge is far and away from "instantaneous". That and the aforementioned terminology concerns, ridiculous situation with Miis, and overall decreasing player interest leading to smaller attendance&pool size, all so three randoms can still only go 2-2 but with a faster fireball instead of a bouncing one. Which is yet another thing that nobody has made a solid defense for and most have gone out of their way to prove:Absolutely nobody at a high level consistently uses them or supports them. We're doing all this, spending hundreds of hours labbing and arguing over what 10 limited sets to use for all 52 characters-or rather about 48 as the DLC characters get none, another issue-and rushing to get them to work logistically, all for what? Customs have brought almost nothing to the table when it comes down to top level play. The best example I've seen so far is Johnnumbers, and that's just one person. I can't see how the overall use of customs can defend all the work that they need.
Here's a thought, and another bit from personal experience. If, as you say, customs are so narrowly used, a setup need not have all, or even ANY, customs to be legal. Good TOing and match assigning allows you to know (or ask) if players need customs (you imply most won't), and if so, send them to a customs-ready console. If not, they can use any other console.

Alternately, as mentioned above, if it's the TO's 3DS that has things unlocked, then I sincerely hope you have a backup plan in case your TO is sick. If your tournament setups are that weakly reinforced, then I worry for your other necessary setup components.

The top players can ignore them all they want. They ignore most of the roster and most stages, too. That doesn't make them right. That's an appeal to authority fallacy in logic terms. Would you blame someone for avoiding practice with something that the apparent majority of the community literally only grudgingly ran because EVO said so? It doesn't make sense, but it also doesn't mean the moves themselves are to blame.
 
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Splash Damage

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Here's a thought, and another bit from personal experience. If, as you say, customs are so narrowly used, a setup need not have all, or even ANY, customs to be legal. Good TOing and match assigning allows you to know (or ask) if players need customs (you imply most won't), and if so, send them to a customs-ready console. If not, they can use any other console.
There's roughly 60+ players that show up to our weeklies, and only about half at most are consistent regulars, so it's very impractical to know exactly who's gonna be using customs and all the special cases(Someone uses customs for one of their mains but not the other and they don't know which one they'll pick/someone occasionally uses customs on their one main for certain MUs and default for the others). Even if we somehow managed to create and constantly reference a list of "Who uses and doesn't use customs," only having 3 or so setups with them available out of 12 means that we'll always have to keep three setups completely open and unused just in case a custom user's match is called, wasting time and essentially turning 12 consistant monitors into 9.
Here's what I mean, imagine this exchange:
TO:Alright, you're up against Jacques now, but you'll have to wait a bit.
Player:What? What about those two setups over there? They're empty.
TO:Sorry, we have to keep those reserved in case this guy who uses customs on their pocket Wario has his match called, you'll just have to wait for one of the other setups.
 

Raijinken

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There's roughly 60+ players that show up to our weeklies, and only about half at most are consistent regulars, so it's very impractical to know exactly who's gonna be using customs and all the special cases(Someone uses customs for one of their mains but not the other and they don't know which one they'll pick/someone occasionally uses customs on their one main for certain MUs and default for the others). Even if we somehow managed to create and constantly reference a list of "Who uses and doesn't use customs," only having 3 or so setups with them available out of 12 means that we'll always have to keep three setups completely open and unused just in case a custom user's match is called, wasting time and essentially turning 12 consistant monitors into 9.
Here's what I mean, imagine this exchange:
TO:Alright, you're up against Jacques now, but you'll have to wait a bit.
Player:What? What about those two setups over there? They're empty.
TO:Sorry, we have to keep those reserved in case this guy who uses customs on their pocket Wario has his match called, you'll just have to wait for one of the other setups.
Obviously at worst, especially in this pocket case, you only need to save one setup at most.
But even so. If you can only find the time to have set up one fourth of your setups, you really need to find some way to allocate an extra hour ahead of the tournament for setup. Do all of these fresh untouched consoles have all the stages unlocked in case someone wants to CP a specific Omega, or are those out of your ruleset due to inconvenience as well?

Or, while you're in between rounds, do partial uploads to the idle systems. Two sets worth of downtime and you have a whole extra "complete" setup. Maybe infeasible at the start of the tournament, but completely reasonable as the number of active matches drops below the number of consoles present.

It's not that your hypothetical situation is unrealistic, but frankly if that one guy has a pocket custom Wario, he should have been assigned a custom setup to begin with. I primarily play Roy in non-customs but on the off chance I wanted to swap to basically any other character I play regularly, putting me on a non-custom console in this sort of scenario would have been a result of terrible planning.

At some point, with the customs themselves logistically solved, it really does just come down to lazy/bad TOing and not allocating enough time before or during an event for setup.
 
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Fun fact: Little Mac, indisputably the most grounded of characters, can super-armor smash through the sapling without tripping (at least until after the hit lands), bopping that arrogant Villager in the face with relatively little threat of counterplay unless the villager shields (even then knockback or a low-swing's shield damage threat make this less unfavorable for Mac than it sounds). Similarly (more relevant to extreme balloon trip) you can contest the plank with armor from down-smash. If he's got the sapling that close to the edge it's harder, but unless he has the percent lead, you're fully capable of just walking to the other end of the stage and spamming taunt for all his fortress will do to hurt you.

The sapling becomes less useful against aerial characters, but even against grounded characters, it's still an indisputable loss of three potential kill moves, one of which is very quick. If your opponent's character is not one of those who are utterly shut down by the sapling's mere existence, you are relying heavily on gaining that percent lead and then abusing time-out rulings to win by stalling. If you fail to gain that advantage, you've given up a powerful tool, and as EVO showed for both Sonic and Villager, even characters not generally designed to camp can turn the tables and time you out, so weak are your remaining aggressive options.
Here's the thing, though. Even though there are characters that are not utterly shut down by the move, the fact that can completely shut down certain characters at all still a problem. Whether it's five characters or the entire cast, the fact that a single move can completely shut down any character is a problem when trying to create a balanced game or metagame. The same issue is present when it comes to moves that can be utter garbage, whether it's against certain characters or the entire cast. Even with customs tournaments, that specific move needs to be dealt with, because, simply put, matches based on gimmicky matchups (Situations where Option X completely dominates characters A, B, C, and D, but is useless against characters E, F, G, and H) are boring and one-sided.

Options that dominate one part of the cast but are garbage against the rest are just as bad as options that dominate the whole cast and those that are garbage against the whole cast. The only real difference is that the match isn't decided by the player who chooses it, it's decided by their opponent. Like I said before, in a game like MvC or Skullgirls, where your opponent can counter a bad matchup by switching to one of your backup characters mid-match, or like League of Legends where they have a teammate to cover their weaknesses, the counterpick approach to balance would be fine. Hell, even though you bring up the fact that it removes one of your kill options, this doesn't balance out the fact that it balances out some characters. Rather, it worsens the fact that it's useless against others. Like, let's just break down the three main issues.
  1. It utterly dominates certain characters - Simple as that. It results in matches that are one-sided in favor of the player who uses it.
  2. It is utterly garbage against certain other characters - The flip side of issue 1. If your opponent decides to whip out a character that's mostly unaffected by the tripping tree, it's no longer effective. If it still had its killing potential (which would make just issue 1 even worse), you'd have something to fall back on, but...
  3. It loses its kill potential - It removes one of Villager's kill options, meaning that if someone does bring out a character that can easily work around the Tripping Tree, then you have fewer options to fall back on.
If the whole point of CMP is to eliminate both broken and garbage special moves by providing a tournament ruleset that bans said moves, then using moves that are broken in certain matchups but garbage in others is missing the point. If an option is broken in certain matchups but garbage in others, that doesn't mean that, for balance purposes, you should consider it neither. Rather, it means that, when it comes to creating a level playing field, you have to consider it both broken and garbage.

While my design experience is mainly with Tabletop RPGs, certain design principles are universal, and one thing that I've learned is that a single character doesn't have to invalidate the rest of the roster to be overpowered. If a single move in their arsenal is capable of completely shutting down or overpowering even one other character, then it's broken, and needs to be fixed.
 

Raijinken

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Here's the thing, though. Even though there are characters that are not utterly shut down by the move, the fact that can completely shut down certain characters at all still a problem. Whether it's five characters or the entire cast, the fact that a single move can completely shut down any character is a problem when trying to create a balanced game or metagame. The same issue is present when it comes to moves that can be utter garbage, whether it's against certain characters or the entire cast. Even with customs tournaments, that specific move needs to be dealt with, because, simply put, matches based on gimmicky matchups (Situations where Option X completely dominates characters A, B, C, and D, but is useless against characters E, F, G, and H) are boring and one-sided.

Options that dominate one part of the cast but are garbage against the rest are just as bad as options that dominate the whole cast and those that are garbage against the whole cast. The only real difference is that the match isn't decided by the player who chooses it, it's decided by their opponent. Like I said before, in a game like MvC or Skullgirls, where your opponent can counter a bad matchup by switching to one of your backup characters mid-match, or like League of Legends where they have a teammate to cover their weaknesses, the counterpick approach to balance would be fine. Hell, even though you bring up the fact that it removes one of your kill options, this doesn't balance out the fact that it balances out some characters. Rather, it worsens the fact that it's useless against others. Like, let's just break down the three main issues.
  1. It utterly dominates certain characters - Simple as that. It results in matches that are one-sided in favor of the player who uses it.
  2. It is utterly garbage against certain other characters - The flip side of issue 1. If your opponent decides to whip out a character that's mostly unaffected by the tripping tree, it's no longer effective. If it still had its killing potential (which would make just issue 1 even worse), you'd have something to fall back on, but...
  3. It loses its kill potential - It removes one of Villager's kill options, meaning that if someone does bring out a character that can easily work around the Tripping Tree, then you have fewer options to fall back on.
If the whole point of CMP is to eliminate both broken and garbage special moves by providing a tournament ruleset that bans said moves, then using moves that are broken in certain matchups but garbage in others is missing the point. If an option is broken in certain matchups but garbage in others, that doesn't mean that, for balance purposes, you should consider it neither. Rather, it means that, when it comes to creating a level playing field, you have to consider it both broken and garbage.

While my design experience is mainly with Tabletop RPGs, certain design principles are universal, and one thing that I've learned is that a single character doesn't have to invalidate the rest of the roster to be overpowered. If a single move in their arsenal is capable of completely shutting down or overpowering even one other character, then it's broken, and needs to be fixed.
So.... Needle Storm? Dominates essentially every neutral, sets up from diagonal throw into Bouncing Fish, and is low enough lag to follow up against a shield or reflector.

I would support ruleset considerations for counterpicking processes with customs. Theoretically (I've always been a bit stretched to find actual examples here), if there was a matchup where favor was determined entirely by some rock-paper-scissors-esque triangle of counter-movesets, I could see reasons to blind pick loadouts as well as characters, or something like that.

But when it comes to picking between an Impact Orbitar or a reflection-capable one for certain matchups, well, just because Amplifying Orbitars are worthless if the enemy doesn't use their projectile doesn't make the move choice invalid. It's only invalid if the player picked it knowingly into an opponent with no projectile. That equates to mistaken player knowledge, not unlike letting Sheik go to Smashville or stall-mode Sonic go to Duck Hunt.

It comes down to weighing options. If every character has counterplay options (which, if we assume Needle Storm has counterplay options, then I think it fair to say every other move does), then it's up to me as the player to pick what I think will have the best chance of working. If I make a mistaken decision, it's no different from making a poor play in-game or choosing a bad stage.

I like your theory a lot, I just don't think it's completely accurate of Smash if we assume the current defaults set the standards of "this is not considered complete domination."
 

ParanoidDrone

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So.... Needle Storm? Dominates essentially every neutral, sets up from diagonal throw into Bouncing Fish, and is low enough lag to follow up against a shield or reflector.

I would support ruleset considerations for counterpicking processes with customs. Theoretically (I've always been a bit stretched to find actual examples here), if there was a matchup where favor was determined entirely by some rock-paper-scissors-esque triangle of counter-movesets, I could see reasons to blind pick loadouts as well as characters, or something like that.

But when it comes to picking between an Impact Orbitar or a reflection-capable one for certain matchups, well, just because Amplifying Orbitars are worthless if the enemy doesn't use their projectile doesn't make the move choice invalid. It's only invalid if the player picked it knowingly into an opponent with no projectile. That equates to mistaken player knowledge, not unlike letting Sheik go to Smashville or stall-mode Sonic go to Duck Hunt.

It comes down to weighing options. If every character has counterplay options (which, if we assume Needle Storm has counterplay options, then I think it fair to say every other move does), then it's up to me as the player to pick what I think will have the best chance of working. If I make a mistaken decision, it's no different from making a poor play in-game or choosing a bad stage.

I like your theory a lot, I just don't think it's completely accurate of Smash if we assume the current defaults set the standards of "this is not considered complete domination."
I'd also consider throwing Luigi's Fireball into that group. Unless I'm mistaken (I may be, I don't use Luigi), can't he wall out the fatty-class characters basically ad nauseum with it?

But yeah, Needle Storm is all kinds of silly.
 

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So.... Needle Storm? Dominates essentially every neutral, sets up from diagonal throw into Bouncing Fish, and is low enough lag to follow up against a shield or reflector.

I would support ruleset considerations for counterpicking processes with customs. Theoretically (I've always been a bit stretched to find actual examples here), if there was a matchup where favor was determined entirely by some rock-paper-scissors-esque triangle of counter-movesets, I could see reasons to blind pick loadouts as well as characters, or something like that.

But when it comes to picking between an Impact Orbitar or a reflection-capable one for certain matchups, well, just because Amplifying Orbitars are worthless if the enemy doesn't use their projectile doesn't make the move choice invalid. It's only invalid if the player picked it knowingly into an opponent with no projectile. That equates to mistaken player knowledge, not unlike letting Sheik go to Smashville or stall-mode Sonic go to Duck Hunt.

It comes down to weighing options. If every character has counterplay options (which, if we assume Needle Storm has counterplay options, then I think it fair to say every other move does), then it's up to me as the player to pick what I think will have the best chance of working. If I make a mistaken decision, it's no different from making a poor play in-game or choosing a bad stage.

I like your theory a lot, I just don't think it's completely accurate of Smash if we assume the current defaults set the standards of "this is not considered complete domination."
Those are all very good points (Except maybe the bit about the default state potentially being complete domination, because most characters have viable options against Sheik in the hands of a competent player, but then again, the Smash series as a whole has had a history of poor design choices), but I'm not talking about custom moves in general being banned (And I actually practiced a bit with Impact Orbitars back when I mained Pit and Dark Pit), I'm talking about Timber Counter being removed from the list of legal custom moves, unless it gets a nerf that causes the sapling to automatically wither when someone trips over it or something, because with the current state of things, its hitbox is large enough for a character to trip three times in a row before escaping it. As-is, it provides a very safe, easy, and honestly very cheap way to win at tournaments, a scenario where money is often on the line. In other words, it's easy money. Likewise, Pikachu has custom options that can produce infinite combos.

However, on the flip side, customs do give characters like Charizard and Palutena, who would otherwise be forgettable outside of teams, a better chance in a 1v1 environment. But, unfortunately, there's a lot of effort that would go into ensuring that some characters, such as Villager or Pikachu, don't get cheap, easy-win strategies.
 

Myed

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I'm talking about Timber Counter being removed from the list of legal custom moves,
If we're going to be talking about banning Timber Counter, than Banana would have to go as well. Why?
  • Diddy can throw Banana OOS, making for easy punishes
  • Diddy has followups/kill setups out of a trip
  • Diddy can move the banana at any time without having to go through the water/chop sequence that Villy has to
  • Aerial trips
the Sapling does none of these. If we're banning Timber Counter because 'its jank n i dun liek it', then it only makes sense we ban Banana because its just much better Timber Counter.
This isnt even getting into banning actually dominating moves like Needles, as thats a whole other can of worms.

unless it gets a nerf that causes the sapling to automatically wither when someone trips over it or something, because with the current state of things, its hitbox is large enough for a character to trip three times in a row before escaping it.
Planting it directly under their feet has it trip twice before they are pushed out. Windboxing them into it with the can has it trip twice (only while perfectly spaced) before they are pushed out. Jumping directly in the exact center of it has it trip twice. I cannot recreate any scenario where it trips thrice. Where did you get that from?
As-is, it provides a very safe, easy, and honestly very cheap way to win at tournaments, a scenario where money is often on the line. In other words, it's easy money.
Then why wasn't it winning at EVO? In top 32:
Yes Villager was PICKED a lot, but she only took a quarter of the games she was picked in, making for the second worst win-rate in the bracket. If it was so much of a 'ez money win button', it surely would have dominated, no?
Likewise, Pikachu has custom options that can produce infinite combos.
That infinite was patched out a looooooong time ago. (Mewtwo patch iirc).
 
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MajorMajora

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Here's the thing, though. Even though there are characters that are not utterly shut down by the move, the fact that can completely shut down certain characters at all still a problem. Whether it's five characters or the entire cast, the fact that a single move can completely shut down any character is a problem when trying to create a balanced game or metagame. The same issue is present when it comes to moves that can be utter garbage, whether it's against certain characters or the entire cast. Even with customs tournaments, that specific move needs to be dealt with, because, simply put, matches based on gimmicky matchups (Situations where Option X completely dominates characters A, B, C, and D, but is useless against characters E, F, G, and H) are boring and one-sided.

Options that dominate one part of the cast but are garbage against the rest are just as bad as options that dominate the whole cast and those that are garbage against the whole cast. The only real difference is that the match isn't decided by the player who chooses it, it's decided by their opponent. Like I said before, in a game like MvC or Skullgirls, where your opponent can counter a bad matchup by switching to one of your backup characters mid-match, or like League of Legends where they have a teammate to cover their weaknesses, the counterpick approach to balance would be fine. Hell, even though you bring up the fact that it removes one of your kill options, this doesn't balance out the fact that it balances out some characters. Rather, it worsens the fact that it's useless against others. Like, let's just break down the three main issues.
  1. It utterly dominates certain characters - Simple as that. It results in matches that are one-sided in favor of the player who uses it.
  2. It is utterly garbage against certain other characters - The flip side of issue 1. If your opponent decides to whip out a character that's mostly unaffected by the tripping tree, it's no longer effective. If it still had its killing potential (which would make just issue 1 even worse), you'd have something to fall back on, but...
  3. It loses its kill potential - It removes one of Villager's kill options, meaning that if someone does bring out a character that can easily work around the Tripping Tree, then you have fewer options to fall back on.
If the whole point of CMP is to eliminate both broken and garbage special moves by providing a tournament ruleset that bans said moves, then using moves that are broken in certain matchups but garbage in others is missing the point. If an option is broken in certain matchups but garbage in others, that doesn't mean that, for balance purposes, you should consider it neither. Rather, it means that, when it comes to creating a level playing field, you have to consider it both broken and garbage.

While my design experience is mainly with Tabletop RPGs, certain design principles are universal, and one thing that I've learned is that a single character doesn't have to invalidate the rest of the roster to be overpowered. If a single move in their arsenal is capable of completely shutting down or overpowering even one other character, then it's broken, and needs to be fixed.
Okay, first of all, CMP was made for logistics, it was never made for the purpose of banning certain moves.

Second, characters getting shut down on certain matches is something that happens. Seriously, just look at little mac. And like, half the melee cast. Sure, it's not as big of a thing in smash 4, but there's another problem you make about it: You assume that strong matchup disadvantage is a thing that ruins the game. It obviously isn't, as there are games that are successful without them being "perfectly balanced". It straight up will not ruin the game. You could make claims about that it would make it worse to a manageable, but undesirable degree, but let me throw 2 things at you:
1. The one major where custom villager was present, he did not have a significant effect on results, nor was there a significant decrease in diversity in character selection noticed due to his presence.
2. I could just as easily say that custom villager would be good for the metagame.

I know, crazy, but here me out. Ask yourself, what is the metagame? Seriously, try to define it. Here's what it is in the most basic form: The metagame is the game surrounding the game. It is how, when someone picks sonic, I know to strike FD. It's the countering of other strategies, along with the exploitation of various strategies found in the game, to unlock your full potential within the game.

Lets think about what makes a healthy metagame. It sure as hell isn't a world where every character is equal, because then the metagame becomes stagnant and boring. It's one with imbalances, rock paper scissor interactions, and noticeable outliers that old strategic niches. Lets think about custom villager in these regards.

1. Custom villager causes people to play around him with their stage picks and character picks. He causes people to metagame at a higher level than before.
2. Custom villager causes people to think at a higher level when developing strategies, making the game deeper.
3. Custom villager holds a unique position of power that is useful in different situations than other top tiers, letting hold a unique strategic niche, and adds a higher skill cap to the game: learning to play as or around custom villager (and both of them take skill) lets you increase how effective you are at Sm4sh's metagame.

And to stretch once again, you are outright assuming that villager will lessen character diversity. You have no numbers to back yourself up, your just fear mongering (unless you have some data I haven't seen, of course).

For the love of god, we don't even know if we can find a way to beat him. That's part of the fun of the metagame. Or, you know, we could create a stage list that doesn't favor him extremely. I swear, ban culture will be the end of smash 4. Every time something interesting shows up we yell jank and smush it out, content to forever wallow in melee's shadow as the little brother who never did anything different but still didn't have wave dashing.
 

Raijinken

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Those are all very good points (Except maybe the bit about the default state potentially being complete domination, because most characters have viable options against Sheik in the hands of a competent player, but then again, the Smash series as a whole has had a history of poor design choices), but I'm not talking about custom moves in general being banned (And I actually practiced a bit with Impact Orbitars back when I mained Pit and Dark Pit), I'm talking about Timber Counter being removed from the list of legal custom moves, unless it gets a nerf that causes the sapling to automatically wither when someone trips over it or something, because with the current state of things, its hitbox is large enough for a character to trip three times in a row before escaping it. As-is, it provides a very safe, easy, and honestly very cheap way to win at tournaments, a scenario where money is often on the line. In other words, it's easy money. Likewise, Pikachu has custom options that can produce infinite combos.

However, on the flip side, customs do give characters like Charizard and Palutena, who would otherwise be forgettable outside of teams, a better chance in a 1v1 environment. But, unfortunately, there's a lot of effort that would go into ensuring that some characters, such as Villager or Pikachu, don't get cheap, easy-win strategies.
I, personally, support the banning of specific specials (note: not customs, all specials are subject) if they are decidedly over-centralizing or broken. In Villager's case in particular, my own feelings are that Counter Timber itself isn't the issue, only when it's paired with Extreme Balloon Trip to give him planking that is very hard for many characters to contest, if possible at all. I'm personally more inclined to blame EBT for the degeneracy of that setup, but that's just my opinion, I never see Villager planking with default balloons, regardless of the sapling.
 

Scribe

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I, personally, support the banning of specific specials (note: not customs, all specials are subject) if they are decidedly over-centralizing or broken. In Villager's case in particular, my own feelings are that Counter Timber itself isn't the issue, only when it's paired with Extreme Balloon Trip to give him planking that is very hard for many characters to contest, if possible at all. I'm personally more inclined to blame EBT for the degeneracy of that setup, but that's just my opinion, I never see Villager planking with default balloons, regardless of the sapling.
That sort of customs-only requirement for some characters could be interesting, but with the only character that comes to mind that might really need it is Sheik, and her needle storm customs seem to be an even tradeoff. Compare:
  • Needle Storm - 5 needles, normal hitstun, normal end lag.
  • Electric Needles - 3 needles, increased hitstun. I don't know how end lag is affected.
  • Paralyzing Needle - 1 needle, paralyzes, increased endlag.
Each custom is effectively just trading damage for hitstun. Honestly, the biggest issue with Sheik's needle storm is how spammable it is due to its low end lag. A small increase to that (and a slight decrease in her f-air's range) would probably be a sufficient nerf to make her manageable without absolutely nerfing her to oblivion. She's in a place where she's overwhelming for many players, but not absolutely God-Tier like Meta Knight was in Brawl. The slightest buff would put her up there, but a nerf in the wrong place could absolutely destroy her.

As for Myed's point about it not dominating the top 32 at Evo, that's because it's the Top 32 at Evo. These people are the best of the best. Of course they're going to be able to deal with it. It would be more accurate to look at how it did in smaller regional and local tournaments. And admittedly, the three trips thing was a one-off incident at Evo, but even then, being able to get tripped twice from the same move creates issues with the fact that you can just shut someone down for a few seconds. And for MajorMajora's point about CMP mainly existing for the purpose of logistics, that is true, but the goal was also to narrow down the most tournament-viable options. When you get something as dominant as Tripping Tree + Exploding Balloons, that means other options are, if not no longer viable, then less viable than they'd otherwise be. And with 8 out of 10 sets using at least one of the two, Villager's current setups need a complete overhaul.
 

MajorMajora

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That sort of customs-only requirement for some characters could be interesting, but with the only character that comes to mind that might really need it is Sheik, and her needle storm customs seem to be an even tradeoff. Compare:
  • Needle Storm - 5 needles, normal hitstun, normal end lag.
  • Electric Needles - 3 needles, increased hitstun. I don't know how end lag is affected.
  • Paralyzing Needle - 1 needle, paralyzes, increased endlag.
Each custom is effectively just trading damage for hitstun. Honestly, the biggest issue with Sheik's needle storm is how spammable it is due to its low end lag. A small increase to that (and a slight decrease in her f-air's range) would probably be a sufficient nerf to make her manageable without absolutely nerfing her to oblivion. She's in a place where she's overwhelming for many players, but not absolutely God-Tier like Meta Knight was in Brawl. The slightest buff would put her up there, but a nerf in the wrong place could absolutely destroy her.

As for Myed's point about it not dominating the top 32 at Evo, that's because it's the Top 32 at Evo. These people are the best of the best. Of course they're going to be able to deal with it. It would be more accurate to look at how it did in smaller regional and local tournaments. And admittedly, the three trips thing was a one-off incident at Evo, but even then, being able to get tripped twice from the same move creates issues with the fact that you can just shut someone down for a few seconds. And for MajorMajora's point about CMP mainly existing for the purpose of logistics, that is true, but the goal was also to narrow down the most tournament-viable options. When you get something as dominant as Tripping Tree + Exploding Balloons, that means other options are, if not no longer viable, then less viable than they'd otherwise be. And with 8 out of 10 sets using at least one of the two, Villager's current setups need a complete overhaul.
Oh and god forbid we mess up the sacred level of balance we have in the current meta by adding something that *gasp* makes certain options less viable.

Seriously if people can deal with it if they're good, then if you want to deal with it get good. Did you think that playing a game competitively would be easy? That you wouldn't have to put in work? I hate dealing with Sonic. All he has to do is hit side B and he instantly puts himself out of neutral and into a position of advantage. So what should I do? Whine about it? No, I learn to play against it. I ask my friends to play sonic and, when I lose, I play again.
 
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Scribe

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Oh and god forbid we mess up the sacred level of balance we have in the current meta by adding something that *gasp* makes certain options less viable.

Seriously if people can deal with it if they're good, then if you want to deal with it get good. Did you think that playing a game competitively would be easy? That you wouldn't have to put in work? I hate dealing with Sonic. All he has to do is hit side B and he instantly puts himself out of neutral and into a position of advantage. So what should I do? Whine about it? No, I learn to play against it. I ask my friends to play sonic and, when I lose, I play again.
There's a difference between "Some moves are less viable against certain characters" and "Unless you're a top professional, Character A is useless if your opponent has Move B"

I suggest you read up on the works of Dave Sirlin, or someone else who has actually worked on fighting games, before you go on about this sort of thing.

Now I know where Sakurai was coming from when he asked "Have you ever made a game?"
 
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KeithTheGeek

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You actually only need 1 person with a 3ds with this. And as time goes on, less Wii U's will need to have custom moves loaded, since Wii U's get reused.

If you want to be that individual who has the custom moves unlocked on your 3ds but don't want to put in effort...

http://www.amazon.com/Action-Replay...TF8&qid=1412702373&sr=8-2&keywords=powersaves

Not a few hundred dollars and ridiculous amounts of time. 20$ and almost instantaneous.
-Nobody even need to do this method. They can do it completely within the game's bounds. Unlike Project M :p
-Only 1 person needs to do this. This does not have to be you. Get in contact with people attending the tournament to see if somebody already has the custom moves set up. If you want to be nice, or just play it safe, you can unlock all custom moves. But it is not necessary.
-Most places have their venues open far in advance to the Sm4sh tournament. There's plenty of time to get the moves on there. I went to a custom tournament, and most of the Wii U's actually already had customs on them. There was one Wii U that had to be loaded. This was because it was not our first time doing customs on. So, loading all Wii U's is only realistic for the first event!
I would like to add that we now have a viable free method to load up 3DS units with all customs.

I think the Youtube App is still up on the eShop (at least, I haven't seen any reports of it being removed) so this can still be done. I've done it myself, it doesn't take very long at all to unlock all the customs and insert the EVO sets onto the unit. If the sets change in the future, one user could build the new sets and extract them from their save to be distributed to other users with homebrew. At least, I think that should be possible.
 

Raijinken

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There's a difference between "Some moves are less viable against certain characters" and "Unless you're a top professional, Character A is useless if your opponent has Move B"

I suggest you read up on the works of Dave Sirlin, or someone else who has actually worked on fighting games, before you go on about this sort of thing.

Now I know where Sakurai was coming from when he asked "Have you ever made a game?"
Having read up on those works, the impression I got was that bannable things have to be identifiable, enforceable, and justifiable. And for a side note, I have made a game.

If my understanding of "Playing to win" is correct (it may not be, I've only read summaries by others who were invariably trying to use it to prove their own point), then if something is within the rules of the game (i.e. any custom or move), then it is fair game, and unless it is actually game-breaking in a literal sense, banning it is a scrub tactic used in place of swapping to a character who can better handle the situation.

Smash's rulesets aren't made to 100% competitive spec. Nor are they to 100% casual spec. We're awkwardly in the middle, and that's why we have these arguments. We have to decide how much we care about "fun" versus "pure competition", and for that matter, we have to decide what our competition should be. If our competition "should" be a test of character skill with the moves assigned a numerical "1" value on the specials screen, then so be it. If our competition "should" measure a player's ability to manipulate stage selection into an in-match advantage, then so be it. But we can scarcely all agree on what actually belongs in the competition, and what just makes it more interesting. Are confounding variables worth it? Most people (self-included) seem to think so.


(Also has anyone besides Dave Sirlin written about competitive theory to such a pointed extent? Is his writing just taken as competitive biblical truth? I'm interested to hear what other competitive theorists say, and if they all say the same thing.)
 
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Myed

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As for Myed's point about it not dominating the top 32 at Evo, that's because it's the Top 32 at Evo. These people are the best of the best. Of course they're going to be able to deal with it. It would be more accurate to look at how it did in smaller regional and local tournaments.
Thats not how a metagame works. You always, ALWAYS, ban according to top play. Just because Little Mac's super armour dominates players who dont know how to deal with it doesnt make him broken. Just because there are people have no idea how to play anti-grab doesnt make Brawler broken.

The top players have proven that she is, in fact, a VERY beatable character, and as such, any player thinkin shes impossible to beat should
1. Take a deep breath
2. Watch some matches of ZeRo or Mr R or whoever the hell dominating Villager
3. Gleam some counterplay from them
And they will learn that she is, in fact, NOT broken, and is, as many top players have already found out, easy to beat.
Same with Mac.
Same with Brawler.


And admittedly, the three trips thing was a one-off incident at Evo, but even then, being able to get tripped twice from the same move creates issues with the fact that you can just shut someone down for a few seconds.
Any instance of it tripping twice happens when you touch the sprout part. The sprout pushes you back to the leaves, causing a double trip. This is very rare and will only realistically happen in one of three situations:
* She plants it under you (this is if you let her get that close to you AND dont punish her planting)
* She perfectly spaces a windbox to push you into it (Too far away to get a confirm, punishable, much better options from that range anyway)
* You jump/roll into it (this one is just you being a dingus, not the fault of the move)


You will rarely ever see this happen in match, for the reasons stated above.

And for MajorMajora's point about CMP mainly existing for the purpose of logistics, that is true, but the goal was also to narrow down the most tournament-viable options. When you get something as dominant as Tripping Tree + Exploding Balloons, that means other options are, if not no longer viable, then less viable than they'd otherwise be. And with 8 out of 10 sets using at least one of the two, Villager's current setups need a complete overhaul.
Same could be said for:
Luma's Luma Warp
Peach's Sleepy Toad
G&Ws Chain Judge
Ganon's Warlock Dive
Mega Mans Danger Wrap
Brawlers Helicopter Kick/Feint Jump
Shulk's Power Vision

etc. (Trust me when I say its a third of the cast with at least one move taking up 8 or more sets, and about two thirds with 8 sets with at least one of any two moves)
We're not talking about the Miis here, with every move completely different, and therefore every set being truly unique. Customs are just for the most part +stat -stat. As with this, there will always be moves that are straight up worse than default (**** upside or overcompensating downside), and moves that are straight up better. Moves will become more common the more options they give. As stated above, two moves 'dominating' sets is not a Villager-exclusive thing, nor is it a bad thing. The fact that there do exist sets without Counter/EBT will tell you that there are, believe it or not, Villagers out there who prefer the default over the downsides of Counter/EBT and still have their unorthodox preferences catered to. (The fact that there exists two slots specifically for people transferring anything not listed only furthers this.
 

Raijinken

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Thats not how a metagame works. You always, ALWAYS, ban according to top play. Just because Little Mac's super armour dominates players who dont know how to deal with it doesnt make him broken. Just because there are people have no idea how to play anti-grab doesnt make Brawler broken.

The top players have proven that she is, in fact, a VERY beatable character, and as such, any player thinkin shes impossible to beat should
1. Take a deep breath
2. Watch some matches of ZeRo or Mr R or whoever the hell dominating Villager
3. Gleam some counterplay from them
And they will learn that she is, in fact, NOT broken, and is, as many top players have already found out, easy to beat.
Same with Mac.
Same with Brawler.



Any instance of it tripping twice happens when you touch the sprout part. The sprout pushes you back to the leaves, causing a double trip. This is very rare and will only realistically happen in one of three situations:
* She plants it under you (this is if you let her get that close to you AND dont punish her planting)
* She perfectly spaces a windbox to push you into it (Too far away to get a confirm, punishable, much better options from that range anyway)
* You jump/roll into it (this one is just you being a dingus, not the fault of the move)


You will rarely ever see this happen in match, for the reasons stated above.


Same could be said for:
Luma's Luma Warp
Peach's Sleepy Toad
G&Ws Chain Judge
Ganon's Warlock Dive
Mega Mans Danger Wrap
Brawlers Helicopter Kick/Feint Jump
Shulk's Power Vision
etc. (Trust me when I say its a third of the cast with at least one move taking up 8 or more sets, and about two thirds with 8 sets with at least one of any two moves)
We're not talking about the Miis here, with every move completely different, and therefore every set being truly unique. Customs are just for the most part +stat -stat. As with this, there will always be moves that are straight up worse than default (**** upside or overcompensating downside), and moves that are straight up better. Moves will become more common the more options they give. As stated above, two moves 'dominating' sets is not a Villager-exclusive thing, nor is it a bad thing. The fact that there do exist sets without Counter/EBT will tell you that there are, believe it or not, Villagers out there who prefer the default over the downsides of Counter/EBT and still have their unorthodox preferences catered to. (The fact that there exists two slots specifically for people transferring anything not listed only furthers this.
Precisely this. And whenever we get a new version of the moveset list, I'm sure we'll see a lot of them moving over for the ones that were discovered to be less pure-upgrade than previously thought (including Power Vision).

It's an evolving system that evolves as slow as bottom-tier characters' metagames due to an even more-widespread lack of usage.
 

Scribe

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Thats not how a metagame works. You always, ALWAYS, ban according to top play. Just because Little Mac's super armour dominates players who dont know how to deal with it doesnt make him broken. Just because there are people have no idea how to play anti-grab doesnt make Brawler broken.

The top players have proven that she is, in fact, a VERY beatable character, and as such, any player thinkin shes impossible to beat should
1. Take a deep breath
2. Watch some matches of ZeRo or Mr R or whoever the hell dominating Villager
3. Gleam some counterplay from them
And they will learn that she is, in fact, NOT broken, and is, as many top players have already found out, easy to beat.
Same with Mac.
Same with Brawler.



Any instance of it tripping twice happens when you touch the sprout part. The sprout pushes you back to the leaves, causing a double trip. This is very rare and will only realistically happen in one of three situations:
* She plants it under you (this is if you let her get that close to you AND dont punish her planting)
* She perfectly spaces a windbox to push you into it (Too far away to get a confirm, punishable, much better options from that range anyway)
* You jump/roll into it (this one is just you being a dingus, not the fault of the move)


You will rarely ever see this happen in match, for the reasons stated above.


Same could be said for:
Luma's Luma Warp
Peach's Sleepy Toad
G&Ws Chain Judge
Ganon's Warlock Dive
Mega Mans Danger Wrap
Brawlers Helicopter Kick/Feint Jump
Shulk's Power Vision
etc. (Trust me when I say its a third of the cast with at least one move taking up 8 or more sets, and about two thirds with 8 sets with at least one of any two moves)
We're not talking about the Miis here, with every move completely different, and therefore every set being truly unique. Customs are just for the most part +stat -stat. As with this, there will always be moves that are straight up worse than default (**** upside or overcompensating downside), and moves that are straight up better. Moves will become more common the more options they give. As stated above, two moves 'dominating' sets is not a Villager-exclusive thing, nor is it a bad thing. The fact that there do exist sets without Counter/EBT will tell you that there are, believe it or not, Villagers out there who prefer the default over the downsides of Counter/EBT and still have their unorthodox preferences catered to. (The fact that there exists two slots specifically for people transferring anything not listed only furthers this.
That's not what I meant by dominant. I meant moves that are strictly better than the character's other options to the point that players can rely primarily on just that move, and expect to do well against all but the most skilled of players. Like I said before, stuff like Tripping Tree + Exploding Balloons creates a situation where you can just plank for easy money without having to actually hone your skill at the game.
 
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