Important Official Custom Moveset Project

[thehard]

I'll always be 100% pro-customs, but lately all the immature tweets and FB posts by certain top players that favor the poster's personal feelings over logic is kind of crushing my enthusiasm for them. I guess it's a natural backlash to when seemingly everyone wanted to try them out post-APEX, but I hope it levels out soon.

Fine if you don't like them, but I'm seeing some real babytalk spoken by players who I expect a lot more from. It doesn't feel like there's any sense of unity, just **** flinging and strawmanning

The game is amazing either way...I wish people could realize this

 

[b2jammer]

Overall, these are the arguments I see from custom moves:

Pros of Customs:

• Increase diversity and options in a character's moveset.
• Makes certain characters viable who otherwise wouldn't be.
• Lends itself naturally to competitive Miis.
• Mostly leaves other aspects of play intact.

Cons of Customs:

• Can be overcentralizing, reducing strategic focus to a small moveset.
• Tedious to set up and maintain, especially at larger events.
• Custom moves are not adjusted in balance patches as much as other aspects of characters.
• As of now, not a single DLC character has custom moves, leaving them somewhat in the dark.

As a low-to-mid-level player, I'm anti-customs myself, but here's my attempt at an unbiased overview.

 

[kid craft 24/sonic master]

My personal view on the customs situation is that given how liberal we are as far as the way we handle making sets it allows someone to create the "ideal" custom set and thus the rest don't matter. Villager is the perfect example due to the fact that 80% if villagers who attend custom legal events opt to just use the set that including exploding balloons trip sapling and the pushy loid.

Also while it may not be a huge issue now I feel it will become one alter is DLC characters. They have at this current point in time no custom moves and thus essentially are given less tools to work wit compared to every other cast member. Even if some characters customs are near useless and are never utilized it the ability to have access to those extra set of moves that I personally feel is unfair to people who are trying to use these DLC characters.

Many have thrown around the idea of simply banning the usage of specific customs due to how "strong" they are but if we end up doing this then all things will turn into is people just going out of their way to complain about customs they find to be "strong" until they are banned. And even then sometimes it may not be one specific custom but the combination of multiple customs that contribute to making a character seem to some people as "Overpowered".

I've thrown around the idea of either reducing the number of sets to a much more reasonable number to those I play with or simply forcing players to utilize sets of 2222 and 3333. The way I see it if we were to restrict players to using only sets made as 2222 or 3333 not only would it immediately make getting these setup on systems much less of a hassle but also could potentially help alleviate some of the backlash people have given those who use customs. I understand by restricting it to just these sets you remove the customization nature heavily but at the same time your also forcing each player to have to give up strong special moves for weaker ones and vise versa.

For example I'm a sonic main who prefers using 1311 because it allows me to keep all of my previously good specials and replace one with something more useful. but if we forced players to use just 2222 and 3333 sets if I wanted to utilize the 3rd variant for my Side B I would also have to trade my better Homing Attack for Surprise attack which is my 3rd variant for my neutral special which is arguably much worse. Now I can't say for sure that this would help balance out customs for every character but I do feel it would help alleviate players over reliance on customs. And instead of them becoming some sort of crutch for players they would become much more of an alternate load out for a specific character in the same vein that previously before customs were legal people allowed the Mii's to run either 1111, 2222. or 3333 sets.

 

[MajorMajora]

Look, we have no reason to cater to the DLC characters by limiting the rest. People who wanted to main Roy are no worse off than they were before he was released, it's not suddenly that the rest have some huge advantage over him. Not to mention that the argument generally comes down to "it's unfair to the DLC characters", but there are characters who are customs reliant who would get the short end of the stick too.

There is no good reason to change our rules to cater to DLC characters.

 

[Illuminose]

Look, we have no reason to cater to the DLC characters by limiting the rest. People who wanted to main Roy are no worse off than they were before he was released, it's not suddenly that the rest have some huge advantage over him. Not to mention that the argument generally comes down to "it's unfair to the DLC characters", but there are characters who are customs reliant who would get the short end of the stick too.

There is no good reason to change our rules to cater to DLC characters.

See here's the thing: there's also no reason to change our rules to cater to customs-reliant characters. I hate that term btw -- there is no such thing as a 'customs-reliant character'. Characters are only reliant on customs if you let them be reliant on customs. The metagames of more obscure characters especially are nowhere near developed enough for us to make a reliable assessment that they are actually customs-reliant. Instead, by allowing customs, we immediately simplify this and give characters strong tools. These strong tools are not balanced in regards to the rest of the characters' tools, so these characters actually have simplified options and less overall depth. A really good example of this is Donkey Kong, whose custom Up B gives him a fast OOS option with super armor that autocancels on platforms, sucks the opponents, and deals pretty high damage with the ability to kill at higher percents. This move on its own simplifies DK's game enormously by giving him a ridiculously good all-purpose option in neutral. The allowance of custom moves inhibits the development of the default characters, which is especially significant because there are still a lot of default tournaments, especially ones coming after EVO.

 

[MajorMajora]

See here's the thing: there's also no reason to change our rules to cater to customs-reliant characters. I hate that term btw -- there is no such thing as a 'customs-reliant character'. Characters are only reliant on customs if you let them be reliant on customs. The metagames of more obscure characters especially are nowhere near developed enough for us to make a reliable assessment that they are actually customs-reliant. Instead, by allowing customs, we immediately simplify this and give characters strong tools. These strong tools are not balanced in regards to the rest of the characters' tools, so these characters actually have simplified options and less overall depth. A really good example of this is Donkey Kong, whose custom Up B gives him a fast OOS option with super armor that autocancels on platforms, sucks the opponents, and deals pretty high damage with the ability to kill at higher percents. This move on its own simplifies DK's game enormously by giving him a ridiculously good all-purpose option in neutral. The allowance of custom moves inhibits the development of the default characters, which is especially significant because there are still a lot of default tournaments, especially ones coming after EVO.

We don't just add customs in order to make certain characters better, though, that's the thing. I suppose I should add an amendment to what I said.

There is no need to cater to DLC characters if it means experiencing comparatively greater losses.

Yeah, it'd be good to have the DLC characters viable, but allowing customs makes it so:
-Vastly increased character diversity (more than if customs were unallowed)
-Increased diversity of play styles due to the switching of custom sets (most characters do not have a single ideal set)
-More tools to experiment in the meta with
-Another way to make Smash 4 unique as a competitive game, giving it a strengthened identity.

This is not even mentioning
-Ryu (and maybe roy/lucas) will be viable anyways
-If the DLC characters end up getting customs and we have to reimplement them all over again after we got rid of them we'll just end up feeling like idiots.

In short: We don't lose anything by not getting rid of customs. This will be true no matter how many DLC characters we get, because they will do nothing but add to the customs on meta, or at the very least be benign as long as they aren't overpowering, in which case a customs off meta will just be worse. No matter how many are added, they will not take away. There will have to be
A: A lot of DLC characters
B: None of them ever getting customs
C: All of them being unviable without customs
D: Them becoming perfectly viable with customs
for getting rid of customs to be anything but harmful. None of these conditions have been met (except for B, but there's evidence pointing towards the possibility of customs for them).

Damned if you get rid of them, not damned if you don't. Therefore, keep customs.

 

[Blobface]

Snip

We really need to stop saying "so-and-so gets better in customs". I can only think of a few moves that are "strict upgrades", and most of those are moves that replace otherwise useless moves.
: Dark Fists, replaces a crappy Up-B
: Kong Cyclone, replaces a crappy Up-B
: Jumbo Hoops, replaces a crappy Up-B
: Upper Cutter, replaces a crappy Up-B
: HSB, replaces a pointless Side-B (also silly charging mechanics)
The goal of using customs is not to simply "upgrade" low-tier/nonviable characters. It's to provide every character with increased options. Generally, lower-tier characters have worse default specials so they do tend to have "better" customs, but this whole "is it an upgrade or a downgrade?" idea has caused loads of potential to go wasted because nobody has properly tested what their customs can do. Most people looked at a custom, looked at the default, and decided the custom was useless unless it was a screen-filling laser that killed at 20%, failing to actually think about how the custom (or combination of customs) impacts the entire character.

Bottom line, Customs change how a character plays. The new gameplan in question may coincidentally be more tournament viable, but that is merely a result of the differences.

Also:

See here's the thing: there's also no reason to change our rules to cater to customs-reliant characters. I hate that term btw -- there is no such thing as a 'customs-reliant character'. Characters are only reliant on customs if you let them be reliant on customs. The metagames of more obscure characters especially are nowhere near developed enough for us to make a reliable assessment that they are actually customs-reliant.The allowance of custom moves inhibits the development of the default characters, which is especially significant because there are still a lot of default tournaments, especially ones coming after EVO.

,, and are all sobbing bitter tears right now.

 

[NeroChaos]

What happened to the EVO customs spreadsheet? It's telling me I need permission to view it, and it didn't ask for this before.

 

[Kofu]

: Kong Cyclone, replaces a crappy Up-B
: Jumbo Hoops, replaces a crappy Up-B

Spinning Kong is a pretty decent move by itself, and Super Hoop is a far superior recovery move compared to Jumbo Hoop (you lose significant vertical recovery).

 

[Blobface]

Spinning Kong is a pretty decent move by itself, and Super Hoop is a far superior recovery move compared to Jumbo Hoop (you lose significant vertical recovery).

"Crappy" probably wasn't the best choice of words, but what I meant was that the Up-B lacked any significant use besides recovery. Boost kick, for example, is both a recovery and an amazing kill move.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

Nothing useless about a command grab up-B, either. It just so happens that dark fists is absolutely bananas.

 

[Ryusei the Falling Star]

What happened to the EVO customs spreadsheet? It's telling me I need permission to view it, and it didn't ask for this before.

Getting the same thing. Wanted to start training with my group. Thank goodness Amazing Amapharos posted it in the OP.

 

[itrombe]

Any chance Mii Gunner will get an official 3112 set? It's one of his best loadouts IMO :C

 

[GS3K]

Any chance Mii Gunner will get an official 3112 set? It's one of his best loadouts IMO :C

3112 is already listed on there.

 

[WarioManX]

What happened to the EVO customs spreadsheet? It's telling me I need permission to view it, and it didn't ask for this before.

Is it possible it's hidden so it can be updated? Maybe to take into account Captain Falcon's custom infinite?

Spoiler

Either way I love custom movesets. Adds so much more variety to smash, which makes it more fun to play and more exciting to watch.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

See here's the thing: there's also no reason to change our rules to cater to customs-reliant characters. I hate that term btw -- there is no such thing as a 'customs-reliant character'. Characters are only reliant on customs if you let them be reliant on customs. The metagames of more obscure characters especially are nowhere near developed enough for us to make a reliable assessment that they are actually customs-reliant. Instead, by allowing customs, we immediately simplify this and give characters strong tools. These strong tools are not balanced in regards to the rest of the characters' tools, so these characters actually have simplified options and less overall depth. A really good example of this is Donkey Kong, whose custom Up B gives him a fast OOS option with super armor that autocancels on platforms, sucks the opponents, and deals pretty high damage with the ability to kill at higher percents. This move on its own simplifies DK's game enormously by giving him a ridiculously good all-purpose option in neutral. The allowance of custom moves inhibits the development of the default characters, which is especially significant because there are still a lot of default tournaments, especially ones coming after EVO.

I'm late to the party on this argument, but this is the source of this slow burn. This argument doesn't make sense. If you want to play an artificially limited version of a character, you can do so with customs legal or not. Having better options doesn't limit how any character plays. Let's really dive into your example of Donkey Kong.

With customs banned, DK is a pretty bad character. Like all heavies, he's pretty slow and pretty unsafe. He doesen't have disjoints like Shulk or Ike, he doesn't have Bowser's raw power, and he doesn't have Charizard's versatility. This makes him a sort of "worst of all worlds" in the heavy archetype which isn't even a very good archetype to begin with. He is probably better than King Dedede, but that's only a statement of how bad King Dedede is and is not an endorsement of Donkey Kong. DK has several clearly just awful match-ups in a customs banned metagame; it's unclear what he's supposed to do about Villager other than just lose and lose hard. DK does have some decent normals and still hits pretty hard (even if underwhelmingly so for a heavy) so he has some merits, but they're just nowhere near enough. This character is distinctly not viable in customs banned, and his expected metagame growth in customs banned is zero since no one should play him.

In customs legal, every one of DK's special moves is improved. He gets a selection of three interesting niche neutral specials instead of being locked into one that wasn't even the general purpose best of the three, his otherwise mostly useless side special becomes a ledge snap mix-up, he gets a similar good selection of niches on down-B instead of being locked into one that is again not the general purpose best, and for his up special he gets a move that every character actually has to respect which is a big change from the status quo before where there wasn't much about DK you needed to respect. Kong Cyclone is distinctly non-broken; people aren't winning tournaments with it (DK has won 14 smashboards ranked tournaments in the past 6 months, an equal number to Jigglypuff), and it has been thoroughly demonstrated that overuse of it can be punished very, very hard by players who are experts at the game (a huge gap in the middle where it doesn't hit, actually very realistic to landing trap when he goes for "lagless" landings, actually really bad OoS since the grounded version is a huge risk to use basically all of the time and there's a big hittable window at the start if you jump OoS and try to use it as soon as you leave the ground). It's just something that makes people look out, and it's a reason someone might want to use DK. Being able to represent real threats gives the character a purpose, and then it turns out the rest of his otherwise mediocre but serviceable toolset comes in and makes him a complete and functional character. DK is a big success story about how custom moves just make the game better by making characters who otherwise would justify zero use have substantial use. DK's meta has gone way further with customs legal precisely because people are using DK, thinking about DK, dealing with DK, and generally exploring in depth how DK works in this game since now DK matters.

I also don't see how any of this is us giving DK tools. DK has always had these tools. As the head of this custom move project, I can verify that I did not design or implement Kong Cyclone. It was always a part of the game. To me it seems profoundly unfair to take Donkey Kong, a character who is decent but not spectacular, and artificially ban his best special moves to make him into a "worst of all worlds" heavyweight. Your argument seems to be that having powerful tools makes it harder to learn how to use other tools so we should ban custom moves that are important to several more obscure characters having powerful tools. It not only seems arbitrary (a very similar argument could be made for banning Sheik, to facilitate the exploration of more obscure characters), but it ignores the most critical point that powerful tools are why characters are played moreso than a driver of how they are played.

 

[itrombe]

Whoops my bad.

Welp, switching mains :D

 

[Illuminose]

I'm late to the party on this argument, but this is the source of this slow burn. This argument doesn't make sense. If you want to play an artificially limited version of a character, you can do so with customs legal or not. Having better options doesn't limit how any character plays. Let's really dive into your example of Donkey Kong.

With customs banned, DK is a pretty bad character. Like all heavies, he's pretty slow and pretty unsafe. He doesen't have disjoints like Shulk or Ike, he doesn't have Bowser's raw power, and he doesn't have Charizard's versatility. This makes him a sort of "worst of all worlds" in the heavy archetype which isn't even a very good archetype to begin with. He is probably better than King Dedede, but that's only a statement of how bad King Dedede is and is not an endorsement of Donkey Kong. DK has several clearly just awful match-ups in a customs banned metagame; it's unclear what he's supposed to do about Villager other than just lose and lose hard. DK does have some decent normals and still hits pretty hard (even if underwhelmingly so for a heavy) so he has some merits, but they're just nowhere near enough. This character is distinctly not viable in customs banned, and his expected metagame growth in customs banned is zero since no one should play him.

In customs legal, every one of DK's special moves is improved. He gets a selection of three interesting niche neutral specials instead of being locked into one that wasn't even the general purpose best of the three, his otherwise mostly useless side special becomes a ledge snap mix-up, he gets a similar good selection of niches on down-B instead of being locked into one that is again not the general purpose best, and for his up special he gets a move that every character actually has to respect which is a big change from the status quo before where there wasn't much about DK you needed to respect. Kong Cyclone is distinctly non-broken; people aren't winning tournaments with it (DK has won 14 smashboards ranked tournaments in the past 6 months, an equal number to Jigglypuff), and it has been thoroughly demonstrated that overuse of it can be punished very, very hard by players who are experts at the game (a huge gap in the middle where it doesn't hit, actually very realistic to landing trap when he goes for "lagless" landings, actually really bad OoS since the grounded version is a huge risk to use basically all of the time and there's a big hittable window at the start if you jump OoS and try to use it as soon as you leave the ground). It's just something that makes people look out, and it's a reason someone might want to use DK. Being able to represent real threats gives the character a purpose, and then it turns out the rest of his otherwise mediocre but serviceable toolset comes in and makes him a complete and functional character. DK is a big success story about how custom moves just make the game better by making characters who otherwise would justify zero use have substantial use. DK's meta has gone way further with customs legal precisely because people are using DK, thinking about DK, dealing with DK, and generally exploring in depth how DK works in this game since now DK matters.

I also don't see how any of this is us giving DK tools. DK has always had these tools. As the head of this custom move project, I can verify that I did not design or implement Kong Cyclone. It was always a part of the game. To me it seems profoundly unfair to take Donkey Kong, a character who is decent but not spectacular, and artificially ban his best special moves to make him into a "worst of all worlds" heavyweight. Your argument seems to be that having powerful tools makes it harder to learn how to use other tools so we should ban custom moves that are important to several more obscure characters having powerful tools. It not only seems arbitrary (a very similar argument could be made for banning Sheik, to facilitate the exploration of more obscure characters), but it ignores the most critical point that powerful tools are why characters are played moreso than a driver of how they are played.

First off, I don't really see where this idea that DK is a bad character with customs off is coming from. He's not as good (braindead) as he is with customs, but he still has good tools. Above-average run speed, excellent platform pressure tools in UTilt and USmash, reliable throw confirms, solid juggling tools in UTilt + UAir, bair with a huge hitbox that autocancels and is crazy powerful, powerful fsmash with solid shield pushback, an excellent vertical kill option in uair, a really powerful spike, great range on the whole, and a powerful kill throw are all tools that Donkey Kong has. What do customs do? They make him easier to use and simplify these tools because he can literally win most parts of neutral by spamming Up B. This isn't even remotely an exaggeration. Sure you can 'punish the landing' but most of the time you just have to respect it and not be in the air next to DK or not in shield. This is exacerbated by the fact that Kong Cyclone DK currently has 3-4 broken counterpicks (Battlefield, DL, Halberd, Delfino) under a 2 ban ruleset. This move would be much more acceptable if they weren't guaranteed a counterpick where they can basically spam Up B, autocancel anywhere, and win (yes of course you can still beat DK but these counterpicks give him an overt advantage, that's the point). Just saying it's really not hard to do OoS so long as you do the input just slow enough such that you don't jump cancel the grounded version, which still leaves a small window to actually hurt DK.

Oh and please don't try this last argument, lol. This isn't artificially banning his best special moves. Custom moves are off by default and not unlocked by default. Furthermore, since when have we cared about things being an 'inherent part of the game'? We're already using house rules: stock over time, 2 stocks over any other amount, 6 minute timer, items off, and a limited stage list. By your logic, we've also artificially banned equipment, but no one wants equipment legal. Equipment is inherently a part of the game and available to characters, so why don't we make equipment legal (because I know some people will take this the wrong, yes, this is sarcasm)? The point is that we have full control over our ruleset and how we play the game. Sure, we could technically ban Sheik if we wanted to (see though that there is no following for this and actually is a significant following for banning customs).

My primary issue with customs will always be though how they disproprotionately benefit top tier characters. If we can actually figure out a way to ban/limit customs from good characters that benefit unduly from them while letting bad characters keep their customs, I'm all for it! I definitely don't support the current environment of custom moves, though.

 

[deepseadiva]

For the sake of discussion it might make more sense to refer to banning customs as banning clone characters.

Kong Cyclone DK is an alternate version of DK in the same sense Lucina is a version of Marth.

We don't ban Lucina just because we don't like her.

 

[ARGHETH]

Oh and please don't try this last argument, lol. This isn't artificially banning his best special moves. Custom moves are off by default and not unlocked by default. Furthermore, since when have we cared about things being an 'inherent part of the game'? We're already using house rules: stock over time, 2 stocks over any other amount, 6 minute timer, items off, and a limited stage list. By your logic, we've also artificially banned equipment, but no one wants equipment legal. Equipment is inherently a part of the game and available to characters, so why don't we make equipment legal (because I know some people will take this the wrong, yes, this is sarcasm)?

...you realize that logic also applies to characters not unlocked by default, right? Should we be allowed to ban them because we don't like them?

My primary issue with customs will always be though how they disproprotionately benefit top tier characters. If we can actually figure out a way to ban/limit customs from good characters that benefit unduly from them while letting bad characters keep their customs, I'm all for it! I definitely don't support the current environment of custom moves, though.

I thought most top/high tiers don't get anything any more significant than the rest of the characters. Heck, Diddy gets arguably nothing from customs, from what I've heard at least. The only ones that get proportionally more of a benefit are, like, Pikachu (HSB), Rosalina (questionable, though there are complaints of Luma Warp and stuff like that) and Villager (Counter Timber/EBT, though it has been nerfed).

 

[ParanoidDrone]

...you realize that logic also applies to characters not unlocked by default, right? Should we be allowed to ban them because we don't like them?

I thought most top/high tiers don't get anything any more significant than the rest of the characters. Heck, Diddy gets arguably nothing from customs, from what I've heard at least. The only ones that get proportionally more of a benefit are, like, Pikachu (HSB), Rosalina (questionable, though there are complaints of Luma Warp and stuff like that) and Villager (Counter Timber/EBT, though it has been nerfed).

Sheik has Gravity Grenade, which turns a mostly-useless move into a slightly-less-useless move since it at least sets up sweetspot usmash hits. Rosalina also gets Shooting Star Bit which people hate even though it means she can do something at range other than jab at thin air with Luma. Sonic has Hammer/Burning Spin Dash, which IIRC are seen rather favorably but I don't know any real details beyond that. And I'm not sure Villager counts as high tier, lol.

There's also not-top-tiers like Meta Knight, Jigglypuff, and Dedede that don't get anything really spectacular, which is unfortunate.

 

[Illuminose]

...you realize that logic also applies to characters not unlocked by default, right? Should we be allowed to ban them because we don't like them?

Same logic does not apply, customs take much, much, much more effort to unlock than characters. There's also no linear path to unlocking specific customs and it is an arduous process for anyone without the 3DS version.

I thought most top/high tiers don't get anything any more significant than the rest of the characters. Heck, Diddy gets arguably nothing from customs, from what I've heard at least. The only ones that get proportionally more of a benefit are, like, Pikachu (HSB), Rosalina (questionable, though there are complaints of Luma Warp and stuff like that) and Villager (Counter Timber/EBT, though it has been nerfed).

Heavy Skull Bash alone is a pretty absurd example, having a move that true combos into it (rar uair) and killing ridiculously early off simple punishes for no reason at all. Diddy isn't as good now but still...his custom Up B is actually pretty dumb, coming out really fast, killing pretty early, and being strong for the entire duration of the move. Rosalina & Luma gets a much easier way of controlling Luma that is more convenient and less telegraphed as well as a projectile that gives her control over basically the whole stage. Luigi gets a custom Side B that goes so far without charging that it almost (almost) negates one of Luigi's main weaknesses, which is recovery. Sonic gets Hammer Spin Dash, which is a pretty ridiculous move in terms of the confirms it gives Sonic. Villager's Trip Sapling is really, really good, even with his ledge stall nerfed. Fox gets a custom Up B that pulls opponents in and kills kinda crazy early.

I also think...that customs are fine to buff mid and low tiers, but some of the custom move options they have available to them are kinda absurd. I don't really mind any of DK's customs aside from his Up B. Yes, I know it's punishable, but the fact that it's so good OoS and gives him such a ridiculous all-purpose option in neutral with janky windboxes. No, I'm not just saying janky windboxes for the sake of it; DK's windboxes can send you in really weird directions/trajectories. Also as DunnoBro has discussed there are heavy issues in doubles regarding this move. Wario (an already likely high tier, just putting him here for completeness) gets a bike that true confirms into fart. Dr. Mario's Soaring Tornado is actually a stupid move...the disjoint on the hitbox is huge and the percents at which it kills are just absurd. Mii Brawler's ability to get super early kill confirms with Hurricane Kick combined with his crazy mobility and wealth of options is very over the top. The issue I have with Palutena is infinite Lightweight, if it was actually restricted I wouldn't care but the fact that it's infinite with platforms is pretty absurd.

I don't really think customs have to make a character broken for the move itself to be broken and/or silly and/or janky. It comes down to how early/easily a lot of custom moves kill...I don't think ANY character deserves some of the absurdly early kill options that certain customs provide. Part of the reason we don't see some of these customs is that a lot of the more obscure characters aren't used regardless of customs because players simply don't pick them up. The issue I tend to have with viability arguments in general is that there's a lot of these obscure characters that aren't really played or explored to the fullest extent with or without customs, which makes it really difficult to make reliable assessments. We haven't pushed the potential of these various characters yet, so it's hard to say what these characters can or can't do without customs outside of theory and limited interactions.

Also @ ParanoidDrone Burst Grenade is probably as good as or better than Gravity Grenade (i.e. both Mr R and False both use default Sheik nowadays). It true combos into bouncing fish, has great edgeguarding utility, and provides an excellent ledge getup trap. Villager definitely counts as a high tier, don't really see why he wouldn't.

 

[ARGHETH]

Same logic does not apply, customs take much, much, much more effort to unlock than characters. There's also no linear path to unlocking specific customs and it is an arduous process for anyone without the 3DS version.

I get your point, but your original argument (for this part, at least) was that customs need to be unlocked instead of being there to begin with and that being "an 'inherent part of the game'" doesn't matter.

Heavy Skull Bash alone is a pretty absurd example, having a move that true combos into it (rar uair) and killing ridiculously early off simple punishes for no reason at all. Diddy isn't as good now but still...his custom Up B is actually pretty dumb, coming out really fast, killing pretty early, and being strong for the entire duration of the move. Rosalina & Luma gets a much easier way of controlling Luma that is more convenient and less telegraphed as well as a projectile that gives her control over basically the whole stage. Luigi gets a custom Side B that goes so far without charging that it almost (almost) negates one of Luigi's main weaknesses, which is recovery. Sonic gets Hammer Spin Dash, which is a pretty ridiculous move in terms of the confirms it gives Sonic. Villager's Trip Sapling is really, really good, even with his ledge stall nerfed. Fox gets a custom Up B that pulls opponents in and kills kinda crazy early.

I'm not extremely familiar with those customs so I went on the character boards for reference. While I think almost everyone agrees HSB is ridiculous, The Luigi, Sonic, and Fox boards seem to think of their respective customs as good, but not too good. According to them, each of them has a downside/works in specific situations, so while they may be better than default, they honestly don't seem too much better than what the rest of the cast gets from customs.

 

[Big O]

While I can understand the appeal of customs off for it's simplicity, I don't see why people feel the need to actively discredit and downplay customs. Whether or not the game balance is better or worse overall is largely besides the point and is subject to change based on future patches. What should determine whether or not customs are allowed is whether or not the player base wants to use them, the only reason that actually matters. If the community at large doesn't like customs, they will go back to vanilla.

There are more "broken" moves that aren't customs than there are "broken" moves that are customs. As much as people like to harp on customs like Kong Cyclone, Dark Fists, and Villager's everything for being "broken", these characters are not winning tourneys or dominating the meta. Banning these "problematic" moves when they aren't even on characters who win goes against the very reason why bans were introduced in fighting games. Only Pikachu and Mii Brawler have any real shot of being top tier "custom abusers" and Mii Brawler doesn't even exist in (most) customs off tourneys.

If we really needed to go down the path of banning individual custom moves, it would have to start with (and be restricted to) moves belonging to characters that are actually over-centralizing the meta to a significant degree. We really don't need to be banning things that are "too good", but ultimately aren't actually good enough to win anything. Otherwise, we'd end up banning things just because we don't like playing against them (please ban Sonic and Olimar).

On that note, I'm not sure why anyone would mention any move being problematic in doubles/teams before Pocket and Oil Panic (and both happen to not be custom moves).

 

[b2jammer]

What I want to know is how other competitive fighting games with customization handle using it in tournaments. Granted, the custom systems themselves are usually built completely differently from Smash 4's, but it would give us another perspective, helpful or not.
The only example I can think of, though, is SoulCalibur V, which has banned customs from what I've read.

 

[Pazx]

I don't really mind any of DK's customs aside from his Up B. Yes, I know it's punishable, but the fact that it's so good OoS

Kong Cyclone OoS is pretty terrible.

I don't think customs can be said to disproportionately favour high tier characters when these guys arguably get the most from customs:

and then all these not-top tier characters who get something very positive out of customs:


Top and high tiers who like customs:

 

[Piford]

What I want to know is how other competitive fighting games with customization handle using it in tournaments. Granted, the custom systems themselves are usually built completely differently from Smash 4's, but it would give us another perspective, helpful or not.
The only example I can think of, though, is SoulCalibur V, which has banned customs from what I've read.

I'm pretty sure customization in SCV was only cosmetic version of the already unlocked characters. I think there were hitbox changes too, but I'm not sure.

MKX has custom moves and they are unobjectionally legal. They are all unlocked from the start and are put on the CSS, but the concept of custom special moves are still the same. If one was broken or stupid or something, no one would consider banning every variation and force you to pick the one in the middle. There's nothing inherently wrong with custom moves. If a move is broken, that's the moves fault, and moves shouldn't get special privileges because they are default. I mean what if Kong Cyclone, Heavy Skull Bash, and Exploding Balloon Trip were default moves, what would you do then? Would you ban DK, Pikachu, and Villager? Smash 4 does have the logistical issues, but I think the fact that we managed to have all these custom tournaments already proves that we can overcome these issues.

 

[Pippin (Peregrin Took)]

Smash 4 does have the logistical issues, but I think the fact that we managed to have all these custom tournaments already proves that we can overcome these issues.

And that's the point of this whole thread. Between the community's work to make preselectable sets and at least one person in the area having them all (for us it's @DunnoBro), there's no excuse.

 

[Unknownkid]

So... with all the complaints on customs - Can we ban Default Sonic as well?

The game is boring for the spectators
Bring the fight into a baby crawl
He is annoying to fight
Spam Specials all day
Ignore Neutral State
Reset the Neutral State.

What else am I missing? Oh... he actually wins tournaments. Just saying....

 

[Zzuxon]

If default monkey flip were a custom, people would be calling for all customs to be banned becaus eof it.

 

[Thinkaman]

If default monkey flip were a custom, people would be calling for all customs to be banned becaus eof it.

The following moves would be insta-banned as "jank" if they were customs:

• Boost Kick
• Monkey Flip
• Banana Toss
• Needles
• Vanish
• Oil Panic (teams)
• Pocket (teams)
• Sheik fair
• The entire characters of Sonic and Rosalina

 

[thehard]

@ Thinkaman Add Gale Boomerang to that, it has a windbox!!

 

[Teshie U]

Honestly, I agreed with the whole "not as broken as defaults" point of view, but there is one key (and tragic) difference between default and custom abilities.

Default stuff is actually getting patched.

Sure we can say "DK is terrible, he needs this" right now, but he did just get a handful of buffs as did many other characters. If Palutena or Mii Brawler get a diverse set of improvements to their regular movesets are you still going to be okay with them killing you at 50% when they dash grab you in the middle of the stage?

Sakurai's team has shown so far that they care about fixing glaring issues in default (like Diddy Uair) and that they do not care about abusive strategies with customs (Infinite Lightweight never fixed, Cyclone and other spammy powerful customs unaltered).

Customs are an amazing idea for competition that were not optimized, executed or maintained with competition in mind at any level of play.

Top offenders in default play have been tweaked and likely will be altered more in the future.

Default is unbalanced and is becoming more balanced every patch.

Customs are unbalanced and are becoming more unbalanced every patch as weak characters reliant on an overpowered custom are becoming not so weak.

 

[PUK]

Come on, most weak character don't become top tier because of the patch.
The only one who could fit the description is marth i guess, and that's really pushing it

 

[Deleted member]

I don't know if this idea has ever been brought up before but I think it could help with the overall balance of the game.

It's been said often that customs are not balanced, and were clearly not balanced from the start of the game. From what I have seen from tournaments, customs can take a mid or low tier, and put them on the level of high tiers like Sheik, but what if we as a community decided on one custom set for characters that actually NEED them.

Picking the customs should also take the current game's balance into consideration as well. Giving a high tier character customs to make them better doesn't make sense when they already don't need to necessarily get better.

This is just my thoughts on customs. I like them, but a lot of characters can break the games balance when they are being used, while other characters can actually fix the balance. If we can use them to fix this game and see more character diversity, and maybe a few more making it to top 8's and finals more often, I think this game could survive for a long time.

 

[Quickhero]

I don't know if this idea has ever been brought up before but I think it could help with the overall balance of the game.

It's been said often that customs are not balanced, and were clearly not balanced from the start of the game. From what I have seen from tournaments, customs can take a mid or low tier, and put them on the level of high tiers like Sheik, but what if we as a community decided on one custom set for characters that actually NEED them.

Picking the customs should also take the current game's balance into consideration as well. Giving a high tier character customs to make them better doesn't make sense when they already don't need to necessarily get better.

This is just my thoughts on customs. I like them, but a lot of characters can break the games balance when they are being used, while other characters can actually fix the balance. If we can use them to fix this game and see more character diversity, and maybe a few more making it to top 8's and finals more often, I think this game could survive for a long time.

It's a good idea on paper, but the problem is is that it can become too confusing and can lead to an even more banhappy community because if one character isn't allowed to use customs, then why not another character? and so on and so forth. A goal of a fighting game is to create a stable game with the least amount of forced rules (as in only possible to make outside of the game; i.e: ledge grab limit) as possible; that's why customs is an all or nothing game.

 

[Deleted member]

It's a good idea on paper, but the problem is is that it can become too confusing and can lead to an even more banhappy community because if one character isn't allowed to use customs, then why not another character? and so on and so forth. A goal of a fighting game is to create a stable game with the least amount of forced rules (as in only possible to make outside of the game; i.e: ledge grab limit) as possible; that's why customs is an all or nothing game.

I think we can at least limit them, we have a lot of custom move sets for every character, and that creates to many unforced rules that can create an unstable game. Most fighting games have had only one move set per character, and in the few like MKX where they have more, they are balanced with the rest of the game. If we choose customs that can manage to better balance characters instead of allowing people to make sets they are comfortable with that can be argued as being broken or lead to stalling tactics, we might be able to make this smash balanced with this new concept of custom moves

 

[b2jammer]

I think we can at least limit them, we have a lot of custom move sets for every character, and that creates to many unforced rules that can create an unstable game. Most fighting games have had only one move set per character, and in the few like MKX where they have more, they are balanced with the rest of the game. If we choose customs that can manage to better balance characters instead of allowing people to make sets they are comfortable with that can be argued as being broken or lead to stalling tactics, we might be able to make this smash balanced with this new concept of custom moves

I was thinking of your idea too, but I would have only applied the rule to the Mii fighters rather than the entire cast, as their 1111 setup isn't necessarily their default, at least IMO.

Like Quickhero stated, though (please correct if I'm wrong), deciding who gets what customs is an extremely delicate and unstable process, and with certain characters like Rosaluma and Shiek being just fine without customs, it can cause major conflict in terms of bans, especially with how balance seems so subjective in the Customs department; while there are some moves that are unquestionably overpowered (Heavy Skull Bash and Kong Cyclone are the first that come to mind), others are much more dubious and have valid arguments for being good, really good, or just plain bad, so choosing a single setup can be a nightmare when there are several arguably equivalent ones.

 

[Deleted member]

I was thinking of your idea too, but I would have only applied the rule to the Mii fighters rather than the entire cast, as their 1111 setup isn't necessarily their default, at least IMO.

Like Quickhero stated, though (please correct if I'm wrong), deciding who gets what customs is an extremely delicate and unstable process, and with certain characters like Rosaluma and Shiek being just fine without customs, it can cause major conflict in terms of bans, especially with how balance seems so subjective in the Customs department; while there are some moves that are unquestionably overpowered (Heavy Skull Bash and Kong Cyclone are the first that come to mind), others are much more dubious and have valid arguments for being good, really good, or just plain bad, so choosing a single setup can be a nightmare when there are several arguably equivalent ones.

never said it would be easy, and definitely only top level players and other players who will be reliable at making a few balanced custom sets, but right now there is way too much freedom with the custom sets and there should be some balance against non customs taken into the equation

 

[b2jammer]

never said it would be easy, and definitely only top level players and other players who will be reliable at making a few balanced custom sets, but right now there is way too much freedom with the custom sets and there should be some balance against non customs taken into the equation

Fair enough. I'm anti-customs completely, but mostly for logistical reasons (par the course for me: 1.5 hours to setup, run, and clean up an entire tournament with only 1 Wii U available, and I don't own a cheat device for Powersaves).