I am arguing against Omni's 3 points (and others) made in the video.
1) "Top players are against customs."
Well, of course they are. Not all, but a lot of these top players play specific characters for the movesets and coding, not because of who the characters are. They wouldn't care about whether a specific character has the option to counterpick a customs set which would help the MU, because there is no reason not to just counterpick a character they know is better. Well, a lot of people and I want those options. We don’t all just play characters for their stats. We like them for some reason. I like Shulk. This is why I want to be able to choose to use Dash Vision, which helps in MU's where opponents have projectiles. I know I could just go pick up Sheik. Learning that character would be much easier than learning Shulk. Anyways, because I like Shulk, I want to win tournaments using Shulk. Without customs, well, I don’t have dash vision, so all it takes is, say, one Mega Man player. If we are even in skill and assume nothing extraordinary happens during the match: he wins, because Mega Man has the advantage in the match-up. Now, considering that situation could have been prevented if customs were pressed on, isn't that annoying?
You might think 'I understand, but custom moves don't do anything for my character.' I ask: Are you sure? In the Shulk boards, since the start of the custom moveset project, we have had one of the most active customs discussions. We're on our third thread now! Even then, we're still discovering, to this day. We have gone back and forth since the beginning on the uses of each of the custom moves. It has been quite the adventure. I have had to overcome many beliefs and opinions about certain custom moves. Right now, we’re considering if a previously held to be useless move is actually helpful against Sheik and other combo characters! That would be wondrous. This is what I love about customs. There is much to discover, and potential to make match-ups less polarized/decided before they start.
2) "1 meta > 2 metas"
Maybe, but this is an argument for customs too! Possibly a better one. Anyways, @
Omni I see you are trying to consider the long-term health of Smash 4's future when you argue this. However, the truth is the farther and farther you look into Smash 4's future (I see it!
), the more and more it makes sense to have customs legal.
One of the only remaining arguments against customs is the logistics. 'How can we make this work?' Of course, a lot has already been done here. @
Amazing Ampharos underwent an extraordinary project which organized customs into pre-sets and made them much, much simpler to work into tournaments. From this, many communities have made it standard to be using customs (I think even Qatar is using or considering it now). Very clearly, we saw customs working at EVO. Fortunately, it does not stop there, because customs only will become easier from now on.
Let’s start by pointing out you only need to load customs onto a Wii U once. Once they are on there, they are on there. Therefore, when that Wii U makes it to another event in the future, the customs do not have to be loaded again. What this means is as time goes on, loading customs onto a Wii U will continue to become rarer. For the Wii Us which do need to have customs added to them, there is the wonderful fact that you only need one 3ds which has the customs unlocked. Those can be quickly transferred to the system. Again, more people will come to have all customs unlocked on 3ds’s, giving ample cushion room to the community. As time increases, the effort allocated towards having custom moves will keep decreasing, approaching an irrelevant unit. Though, I repeat, even in the present, there is not as much effort needed towards using customs as you might think.
More future gazing: this game is still a toddler. I can understand if some people see learning about customs as an effort. However, with the coming future, people keep expanding their knowledge of custom moves.
I think a good thing to consider when eyeing up the future of this metagame is the general amount of fun there is to be had in participating in it. Look at Brawl. That meta stagnated. After a while, without customs, this game will probably too. Eventually, you reach a time where you know the players, know the tiers, and know the match-ups. At that point, Sakurai has stopped balancing things. There is less fun due to less exploration. There is not much to be surprised about. The game just gets old. That is when the community starts shrinking. However, we can prevent that future! It does not have to be the case, because we have customs! These add non-random variability which expands the different situations of the game exponentially! You retain the sense of originality and exploration for a much longer time, which in turn makes the game more interesting and more fun. In reference to Omni’s video, Vanilla is alright, but when you eat it over and over it gets repetitive and boring. Toppings are what change that. Customs are what change that.
3) (summarized) "You are playing the same meta as everyone else when buying the game." "YOU must place effort into unlocking all custom moves!"
Whoa, hold on. This argument would only be true if you considered facing CPU’s to be the meta. A person does not need to unlock all customs on their system(s) in order to participate in the customs meta. All you probably want is your main’s customs, and possibly your secondary’s. That allows you to use them and get the hang of them. Any customs of other characters would be on your opponent’s system if playing online or already at your tournament (since, again, all it takes is one person to have them on his 3ds. By no means do all participants have to do this). However, what’s especially glaring about this argument is you don’t even need any customs to participate in a customs-inclusive metagame! As ZeRo and other players proved at EVO, you can succeed using a 1111 moveset. This is a wonderful thing about the ‘customs meta:’ it includes the ‘non-customs meta!’
Customs benefit the Smash metagame. They provide great opportunities to the individual and community level of Sm4sh. However, it should be no surprise that on their first major use there was dissent to them. That's usually the case for any change - good or bad. Other than people whining, customs went pretty well, and we should continue using them in the future! What a waste it would be for all of the discoveries and exploration we have place into these to be useless due to incorrect reasons!
Going back to Omni's point 2, if we are to pick just 1 meta to continue in, we would actually want to pick the 'customs meta.' As I said, the 'customs meta' allows you to play without customs. It is not called the 'only customs meta.' However, the 'no customs meta' totally restricts all of us from using customs. There are no options. So... If we want to avoid upsetting the majority of the community by restricting them unnecessarily, customs ON would be the correct choice.
@
Omni I'm going to tag you again here even though it's pointless since you only get one notification, because I really, really hope you consider these arguments! I've spent several hours thinking and typing, and it only takes a few minutes to read. Please
? It's pretty important I feel that you understand these arguments I make, for your voice reaches more people than my fingers.
