What are your opinions on Customs Post-Evo 2015?

[Ansou]

What is the point of an "undecided" option? If someone is "undecided" then just don't vote

Well it's nice to have the statistics to look at. It doesn't hurt to have it there.

 

[DunnoBro]

Last time we gave top players too much say over a ruleset, brawl died.

Hope we try to be a little more objective this time.

 

[SoniCraft]

Last time we gave top players too much say over a ruleset, brawl died.

Hope we try to be a little more objective this time.

Wow. I didn't know it was like that. Could you elaborate more on that please, for the sake of us new-fangled Smash 4 players? :3

 

[wizrad]

By "top players" he probably means "MK abusers".

 

[Steelballray]

If you're trying to win, you use what will give you the best chance. If you're given months of time to practice, theorycraft, and compete, to decide what will give you that chance, then there are two possible results:
1) The top players decided that customs were not good enough to use, and thus were comfortable in their ability to beat this "broken jank" with moves/characters they considered superior, or
2) The top players decided that, rather than use their best options, they would be stubborn and ignore them out of some self-righteous code or principle.

You don't know their arguments and reasons for disliking customs. They had better choices to use and so they did use them. This is not an idealistic world where your morals and values have more importance than what gives you $$$. ZSS's lazer is better than her stun gun against Sheik and so Nairo decided to use it.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but nobody forces anyone to play in any given tournament. If they were so against the ruleset, they could have functionally boycotted it and not competed, and gotten their money elsewhere (or simply later), as they are now doing in the customs-off meta. Clearly despite their objections, they all still competed, not everyone used Sheik, and some people even used customs.

$$$ > morals and values. How much was the price money on Evo? you think ZeRo would mess on that just because of something he disagrees about? Be serious. No one forces them to compete? If they didn't compete because of customs you'd say they are too close minded to even try to go against them. But there you have it, they competed against customs, some of them even used them, and all of them still think they' re bad, whatever their reasons for that might be.

He went from undisputed first to at the very least top fifteen. That is a significant drop in viability. Lancer's claim was that this had not happened, to which Diddy is the counterevidence.

I meant top 15 at the very worst. Sorry.

Didn't ZeRo use Diddy a couple of days ago to beat Vinnie? Diddy is still one of the best characters and has more options and tools to deal with situations that are better than at least 90% of the cast. He is more than just viable, he is one of the best.

(Imo hes top 10, something like 7 or 6. I said he's top 15 at worst is because while some people rate him out of the top 10 no one would rate him out of the top 15)

 

[Raijinken]

Wow. I didn't know it was like that. Could you elaborate more on that please, for the sake of us new-fangled Smash 4 players? :3

While I will leave it to DunnoBro to elaborate, I believe this has something to do with why Smash4 doesn't have a backroom.

 

[DunnoBro]

Wow. I didn't know it was like that. Could you elaborate more on that please, for the sake of us new-fangled Smash 4 players? :3

I wasn't a brawl player so my recollection isn't the most pristine, but essentially top players (not specifically MK/IC abusers) were very critical of the MK ban to the point it caused such tournaments to lose their support. Then, the other tournaments lost support because no one wanted to watch and no one wanted to play.

There was pretty much every justification for a MK/IC Ban, MK/ICs were proven to be highly polarizing and problematic. But self-preservation blinded many players to that at the time. I'm not going to claim the same is happening with top players and customs, but obviously they aren't perfect.

The fact the same players saying "they are polarizing/problematic" are the ones who once said "they aren't polarizing/problematic" in both scenarios benefit from maintaining the status quo makes me wary to just take what they say as doctrine.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

The same sort of self-preservation is absolutely happening, DunnoBro. There's a thread on the Sheik boards pertaining to what nerfs might be needed, and it's straight-up comedy. According to Sheik mains, Sheik can't be nerfed any more, or it will ruin her. According to players who practice with customs off, customs are problematic.

Being able to cut through the bull**** is only half the battle, unfortunately.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Please, allow me to explain Brawl's agony, I'll be glad to!

We'll go back to 2008-2010 where Meta Knight absolutely dominated the metagame.
A character that is not only good, but really easy to use, and just a little practice really helps covering your own weaknesses. On top of that, every single aspect of competitive game favored him, even the whole counterpick system allowed players to abuse him: After losing a game, you can just switch to MK and abuse the next not banned or struck stage (Brinstar>Delfino>Rainbow Cruise>Halberd>Smashville>etc). So he was more than just an issue.

And so 2010-2011 was full of people vocalizing their distaste for him, spreading words of how much he affected the metagame and the overall drive to even play Brawl, to the point some rules were adjusted with the only intent of keeping MK in check (and failing). It was even an official BBR poll to possibly ban him, and it resulted in 75% of the voters agreeing with the idea.

At that point, the existing Brawl Unity Ruleset Committee (a group of like 13 TOs who wanted an unified universal ruleset) opted that for their next version, to fully apply for every Smashboards Tournament starting January 1st 2012 would have Meta Knight effectively banned. So in preparation some tournaments started to ban him, hugely increasing character versatility and usage, some players even returned from their bat-related retirement.
People bursted in joy.

But then Alex Strife stepped in. For Apex 2012, and under the idea of "compromise" to cater a middle ground between the American and the Japanese Metagame who used Meta Knight and 3 stages total. They'd use a completely different (and pretty bad imo) ruleset, featuring less legal stages, and the presence of Meta Knight. It became a hassle, because Apex 2012 couldn't be featured at this site's Tournament Listings, nor could be any tournament that wanted to use its ruleset, not matter how big. Less and less tournaments used the URC's rules in preparation for Apex, rendering it next to useless. But it was not a long-term problem, after all, once Apex finished, people would have to adopt the URC, right?

I don't remember who exactly did it, but during Apex's conclusion a japanese player (either Ootori, Nietono, or Rain) stated that "if Meta Knight were to be banned in the US, Japanese players would be less likely to attend". It was a cold water bucket. People suddenly supported Apex's ruleset, used it more often, and the URC got effectively ditched and the group got eventually disbanded, the rules were no longer enforced. So Apex was the new meta, even more stages got gradually cut off from the list. The metagame became stale pretty quickly, a lot of players dropped the game entirely, and the only advance the game got from that point was ICs becoming more and more prominent. It was already dying and tournaments slowly became less and less common. The rest is you can figure: Brawl ended up as a hated, unappreciated game with a very shallow meta and obscure competitive use.

Funniest part of this tale is that, while Apex 2013 was the largest event ever featuring TONS of international players, Apex 2014 had like... Two? Japanese players attending, none of them of high caliber, and a very low Brawl overall participation. So even the dream behind the decision ended up being ultimately false in the long run.

 

[Runic_SSB]

I was initially an enthusiastic supporter of customs, but now I'm neutral, if not leaning against it. I kept seeing how the community was torn up by this issue, and I always consoled myself by saying that it was all worth it to make the game better. But then I took a critical look at how customs were effecting the game, and I realized that...they really weren't.

At first I thought that a lot of characters would rise to viability if only there were customs, but then large custom tournaments started happening more and more frequently, and it became clear that the only character who is only viable with customs on is DK (Miis are a separate issue and I'm in full support of them). And when I looked at the OCMP sets for the other viable characters, they were almost always just their default loadout with one or two changed to something slightly better. The only ones (except DK, obviously) that significantly benefit from them are Villager, Sonic, Mario, Pikachu and maybe R.O.B., but even they would barely drop without them, if at all (I know Pikachu and Sonic would still be just as good).

So, no, customs don't make a huge impact on the meta in either direction, aside from making the mid tier a bit bigger. Then I looked back on the carnage and asked myself "is this worth it" again, and that time I said no. In my opinion, one more character being viable, a few other viable characters getting some good tools, and everyone else being slightly better is definitely not worth severing ties with the only other nation that can rival us, making TOs upload each set onto each console, and the overall endless strife in the community. That being said, I don't really have strong feelings one way or the other, just giving my input.

@ DunnoBro The reason the ban didn't hold wasn't just because of top players; the ban also effected thousands upon thousands of other veterans who only knew how to play one character. Remember, this ban took hold in 2012, 4 years into the game's lifespan. That meant that, for many players, years of character-specific skill and knowledge went down the drain. These people were forced to either completely relearn the game with another character, putting themselves at an inherent disadvantage to people with their same general skill level due to them being much more experienced with their main, or just leave entirely. Many opted for the latter, and not wanting to lose a ton of veteran players, the vast majority of TOs just ignored the URC and decided to allow MK. Also because of Apex 2012 when Pearl Harbor got a sequel and we didn't want to scare them away, like @ ぱみゅ said.

Basically, too little too late. If you want to blame someone for MK's dominance, blame the people who voted against the ban in 2009. Also, Brawl died because the community moved on to Smash 4, not because of a controversy 2 and a half years beforehand. The ban got overturned in early 2012, Brawl didn't see a noticeable attendance drop until around 2014 (in the US, at least). The same thing happened to Melee, the only difference being that Melee players decided they didn't like the new game and eventually revived the old one.

As to your point about top level players trying to keep the status quo just because it benefits them; they're really no different than anyone else. In 2009, a lot of people voted to ban MK just because they would benefit from not having to fight MK. A lot of people voted to keep MK because their character was relatively good against him and it would be more beneficial to have him continue to keep other characters down. Even in the 2012 banning, it was a unanimous decision and, coincidentally, no one on the committee mained MK. Now, a lot of people are supporting customs just because their character has good customs, and a lot of people are against it because their character has good defaults, not to mention how 3 stock is an unfortunate impossibility just because the 2 stock format is more convenient for TOs. It's horrible, but unfortunately it's human nature.

Funniest part of this tale is that, while Apex 2013 was the largest event ever featuring TONS of international players, Apex 2014 had like... Two? Japanese players attending, none of them of high caliber, and a very low Brawl overall participation.

Actually, Apex 2013 had less overall entrants than 2014 ('13 had 338, '14 had 370), and 2014 was the second largest Brawl tournament in history. Also, you forgot to mention that they actually did try to ban MK in mid 2009, but it didn't reach supermajority.

 

[Raijinken]

Now, a lot of people are supporting customs just because their character has good customs, and a lot of people are against it because their character has good defaults, not to mention how 3 stock is an unfortunate impossibility just because the 2 stock format is more convenient for TOs. It's horrible, but unfortunately it's human nature.

And then there are people like me who main custom-less characters and just want them for the potential depth and for equality.

 

[Runic_SSB]

Of course, Roy's my boy as well. I didn't say that no one has actual valid reasons for wanting stuff, just that selfishness and bias isn't exclusive to top players.

 

[Dinoman96]

I was initially an enthusiastic supporter of customs, but now I'm neutral, if not leaning against it. I kept seeing how the community was torn up by this issue, and I always consoled myself by saying that it was all worth it to make the game better. But then I took a critical look at how customs were effecting the game, and I realized that...they really weren't.

At first I thought that a lot of characters would rise to viability if only there were customs, but then large custom tournaments started happening more and more frequently, and it became clear that the only character who is only viable with customs on is DK (Miis are a separate issue and I'm in full support of them). And when I looked at the OCMP sets for the other viable characters, they were almost always just their default loadout with one or two changed to something slightly better. The only ones (except DK, obviously) that significantly benefit from them are Villager, Sonic, Mario, Pikachu and maybe R.O.B., but even they would barely drop without them, if at all (I know Pikachu and Sonic would still be just as good).

?

 

[Runic_SSB]

?

viable

 

[Dinoman96]

I was mainly referring to the "and it became clear that the only character who is only viable with customs on is DK" segment. Most people agree that customs make Palutena jump a bunch of tiers.

 

[DunnoBro]

So while thinking about the "states" I've been thinking a lot about the "but good characters get better too" argument.

There are very specific reasons why top tiers are top tiers, why good characters are GOOD. And that is the total score their neutral, advantage, and disadvantage states come to.

You give pikachu heavy skull bash/paralyzing jolt, his advantage rate goes up from about 3.5/4 to 4.5. It's still not as good as ZSS/Luigi/Ness. And his neutral drops from 4.5 to 4(para jolt is much laggier with less priority. Can be powershielded and pikachu dash grabbed while in endlag. Some characters like fox and yoshi can usmash. Other characters have moves that no longer clank and just plow through to hit pikachu)

And lower tiers like Rosalina, Diddy, and Sonic certainly don't gain anything that lets them have better scores than sheik/zss/pika.

Meanwhile, scores on characters like ganon, duck hunt, palutena, and kirby SKYROCKET.

To me, the idea on both sides that customs should be used to purely bring balance is absurd. We don't know for sure how balanced it is/isn't, what we DO KNOW is that the options of ganon will only EVER come even close to sheiks in customs.

Ganon doesn't just get a LITTLE better. His disadvantage, neutral, and advantage state just get insane.

Darkfist gives him reactive roll/spotdodge/air dodge punishes. It makes his disadvantage WAYYYY better since you can no longer charge/put out hitboxes while he's landing because he can super armor it and kill you. You can't go super ham on him in a non-true combo because he's so big with a crappy air dodge because he will super armor it, and kill you.

His neutral is also vastly superior due to mobility options. Wizard's dropkick is beautifully designed in that it's pseudo-safe on shield, only truly safe when hitting a shield by the ledge. Now, going off the stage is generally not what I'd call safe, but ganon's ledge coverage with choke and dark fist make it very risky for the opponent to try to capitalize off it. (Also, hit confirming from this position also true combos into things due to ledge cancels so it's kind of hard to imagine it wasn't designed this way)

And these are just the most obvious ones. There's way too little experimentation in customs for ANYONE to claim "X doesn't benefit much from customs."

But again, wanting customs shouldn't ever be about "more balance". Deep down, people don't care that much about balance. (Especially not all the brawl mks and ics that want customs banned.) They care about fun, it may sound and is very subjective. But there's an objective criteria for fun. Losing isn't inherently fun, neither is just playing, even winning. Interacting with your opponent is what we find fun about this game at the core level. And the level of interaction in customs gets just so so much deeper, and there's no refuting this. While there may be situations it becomes simpler, there's just more to be afraid of and account for. More to learn to fight, and way more potential all over.

All that said, there's two factors that make customs not competitively viable.

1: Logistics: If customs were accessible to the point of using them on for glory (or tournament mode) without equipment, the CSS, and having them all or otherwise easily unlocked, the anti-customs could be more easily ignored and forced to deal with them when legal.
But as it is: less familiarity = less willingness to participate = less prize support = less players = dead game

2: Player mentality: This is the bigger one though, and it isn't something I think we'll ever overcome. Even if ZeRo, ESAM, Nairo, Ally, Etc all turned emphatically pro customs, the japanese still refuse to play with them. And nintendo bases their balance patches LARGELY on their results/input, not ours.

These continue to be the only valid arguments against customs. Only until one of these factors change can customs have a truly solid future. Until then...

 

[Runic_SSB]

I was mainly referring to the "and it became clear that the only character who is only viable with customs on is DK" segment. Most people agree that customs make Palutena jump a bunch of tiers.

Okay, but she still isn't realistically going to consistently place in tournaments either way, which is why I didn't mention her. Ganon, Ike, Kirby and a ton of other low tiers also get a huge boost from customs as well, but my point was that they still wouldn't impact the meta at all.

 

[Raijinken]

Okay, but she still isn't realistically going to consistently place in tournaments either way, which is why I didn't mention her. Ganon, Ike, Kirby and a ton of other low tiers also get a huge boost from customs as well, but my point was that they still wouldn't impact the meta at all.

This goes back to the contest of subjective goals. If that, to you, means "why bother", it means equally to me "then there's no reason not to bother."

Then again, I'm the psycho who manually Trophy Rushed both systems to full unlock status (bar two hats on the 3DS version that I may some day pursue. I am positive I underestimate how little people actually want to ask a friend with a 3DS to upload some sets for them to use.

So while thinking about the "states" I've been thinking a lot about the "but good characters get better too" argument.

There are very specific reasons why top tiers are top tiers, why good characters are GOOD. And that is the total score their neutral, advantage, and disadvantage states come to.

You give pikachu heavy skull bash/paralyzing jolt, his advantage rate goes up from about 3.5/4 to 4.5. It's still not as good as ZSS/Luigi/Ness. And his neutral drops from 4.5 to 4(para jolt is much laggier with less priority. Can be powershielded and pikachu dash grabbed while in endlag. Some characters like fox and yoshi can usmash. Other characters have moves that no longer clank and just plow through to hit pikachu)

And lower tiers like Rosalina, Diddy, and Sonic certainly don't gain anything that lets them have better scores than sheik/zss/pika.

Meanwhile, scores on characters like ganon, duck hunt, palutena, and kirby SKYROCKET.

To me, the idea on both sides that customs should be used to purely bring balance is absurd. We don't know for sure how balanced it is/isn't, what we DO KNOW is that the options of ganon will only EVER come even close to sheiks in customs.

Ganon doesn't just get a LITTLE better. His disadvantage, neutral, and advantage state just get insane.

Darkfist gives him reactive roll/spotdodge/air dodge punishes. It makes his disadvantage WAYYYY better since you can no longer charge/put out hitboxes while he's landing because he can super armor it and kill you. You can't go super ham on him in a non-true combo because he's so big with a crappy air dodge because he will super armor it, and kill you.

His neutral is also vastly superior due to mobility options. Wizard's dropkick is beautifully designed in that it's pseudo-safe on shield, only truly safe when hitting a shield by the ledge. Now, going off the stage is generally not what I'd call safe, but ganon's ledge coverage with choke and dark fist make it very risky for the opponent to try to capitalize off it. (Also, hit confirming from this position also true combos into things due to ledge cancels so it's kind of hard to imagine it wasn't designed this way)

And these are just the most obvious ones. There's way too little experimentation in customs for ANYONE to claim "X doesn't benefit much from customs."

But again, wanting customs shouldn't ever be about "more balance". Deep down, people don't care that much about balance. (Especially not all the brawl mks and ics that want customs banned.) They care about fun, it may sound and is very subjective. But there's an objective criteria for fun. Losing isn't inherently fun, neither is just playing, even winning. Interacting with your opponent is what we find fun about this game at the core level. And the level of interaction in customs gets just so so much deeper, and there's no refuting this. While there may be situations it becomes simpler, there's just more to be afraid of and account for. More to learn to fight, and way more potential all over.

All that said, there's two factors that make customs not competitively viable.

1: Logistics: If customs were accessible to the point of using them on for glory (or tournament mode) without equipment, the CSS, and having them all or otherwise easily unlocked, the anti-customs could be more easily ignored and forced to deal with them when legal.
But as it is: less familiarity = less willingness to participate = less prize support = less players = dead game

2: Player mentality: This is the bigger one though, and it isn't something I think we'll ever overcome. Even if ZeRo, ESAM, Nairo, Ally, Etc all turned emphatically pro customs, the japanese still refuse to play with them. And nintendo bases their balance patches LARGELY on their results/input, not ours.

These continue to be the only valid arguments against customs. Only until one of these factors change can customs have a truly solid future. Until then...

I can't mash the like button hard enough.

 

[DunnoBro]

Also people who say "X still wouldn't be meta in customs" should really refrain from doing so. You don't play those characters, that meta, and there's nowhere NEAR enough data or experimentation to know how viable custom characters are/aren't.

Not to mention custom characters in general were grossly underrepresented due to inability to practice them, lack of reasons to, and general dislike of customs.

I made it a point to win one xanadu with custom duck hunt for this reason. Every top player I asked said his customs were non-viable, and I didn't believe them. I thought they were at least sidegrades... Then after practicing I found them to be vastly superior.

(I also got third with a week 1 custom ganon)

Now, I KNEW practicing custom duck hunt would cripple me if customs didn't stick around. Since then, I've made way more money practicing and playing default. If I just wanted to win and didn't care about having the best future for the game I love, I wouldn't have tried so hard to make an example of myself.

So anyone who talks about a custom meta in any kind of absolutes needs to either acknowledge that "hey, maybe the meta with only like a dozen toppish players over the course of 3 months didn't get to develop enough for me to make armchair remarks about" or money match my custom duck hunt.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Agreed entirely with @ DunnoBro

While I think some customs are silly (don't we all? I think MARIO'S are the most absurd, personally!) and skew the balance, I'd be okay with them as the main metagame.....but unfortunately, it's not that simple.

The largest reasons for me seem to correlate. It's not easy to access all custom moves and practice vs. them, it's really hard to garner MU experience vs. every optimal custom (especially if they're like Mario where those change depending on the MU quite frequently.) and while it's not HARD to UNLOCK them all, to understand how they work in depth all individually is very, very hard. We spend a lot of time figuring out the default moves alone, now add a varying amount of other viable choices and it can get muddy, especially when it's not the main event.

The other big issue is as stated before, the game's patches aren't being balanced specifically around them. I think chars like Marth and Ike exemplify this the most, mostly Marth. Marth has gotten a lot of really stellar buffs, and now Crescent Slash Marth is legitimately CRAZY because of it, whereas before it was described as "one of the only ways to use the character" by a few. Stuff like this kind of makes it clear that Customs were always meant to be a side feature (for side events, espec.)

Also I'm going to bring up the DLC characters because I know we're getting at least one or two more of them, who also will not likely have custom moves. It wasn't so bad when it was just Mewtwo and Lucas not getting them (just 2 chars), but that number has doubled into 4, and may go into 5 or 6, or perhaps larger portions of the roster, who knows? But it kind of excludes them feature-wise, maybe not so much Ryu, but Lucas, Roy, and ESPECIALLY Mewtwo don't get much aid from them at all (Roy loses his early % grab game because Marth can do that now, and I shouldn't even have to explain Mewtwo vs. a lot of crazier kill setups, especially on chars like Mario who already bopped him hard.)

It's not even logistics that make me think they should not be the MAIN focus of the metagame, it's just how the game balance is being handled and how many DLC chars there are probably going to be in the future, plus the accessibility of the meta for new players and the ease of practice against chars in this meta. I think Customs as a side-event is the alternative that people should explore.

 

[MrGame&Rock]

So now that I'm back in college, I've been playing customs matches against an actual opponent, which is really nice when my options were either play against CPUs or For Glory. He likes the idea of customs and is curious as to where they'll go in the future, but he is both wary of certain custom characters like DK and Villager and also hasn't used any customs himself yet. I'm going to try to warm him up to using them (because it's not fair if I'm the only one ) and I'm also going to use most of the cast with them and see what I find. Neither of us are great players, but I figure this experience might help the overall discussion just a little bit.

 

[Raijinken]

Agreed entirely with @ DunnoBro

While I think some customs are silly (don't we all? I think MARIO'S are the most absurd, personally!) and skew the balance, I'd be okay with them as the main metagame.....but unfortunately, it's not that simple.

The largest reasons for me seem to correlate. It's not easy to access all custom moves and practice vs. them, it's really hard to garner MU experience vs. every optimal custom (especially if they're like Mario where those change depending on the MU quite frequently.) and while it's not HARD to UNLOCK them all, to understand how they work in depth all individually is very, very hard. We spend a lot of time figuring out the default moves alone, now add a varying amount of other viable choices and it can get muddy, especially when it's not the main event.

The other big issue is as stated before, the game's patches aren't being balanced specifically around them. I think chars like Marth and Ike exemplify this the most, mostly Marth. Marth has gotten a lot of really stellar buffs, and now Crescent Slash Marth is legitimately CRAZY because of it, whereas before it was described as "one of the only ways to use the character" by a few. Stuff like this kind of makes it clear that Customs were always meant to be a side feature (for side events, espec.)

Also I'm going to bring up the DLC characters because I know we're getting at least one or two more of them, who also will not likely have custom moves. It wasn't so bad when it was just Mewtwo and Lucas not getting them (just 2 chars), but that number has doubled into 4, and may go into 5 or 6, or perhaps larger portions of the roster, who knows? But it kind of excludes them feature-wise, maybe not so much Ryu, but Lucas, Roy, and ESPECIALLY Mewtwo don't get much aid from them at all (Roy loses his early % grab game because Marth can do that now, and I shouldn't even have to explain Mewtwo vs. a lot of crazier kill setups, especially on chars like Mario who already bopped him hard.)

It's not even logistics that make me think they should not be the MAIN focus of the metagame, it's just how the game balance is being handled and how many DLC chars there are probably going to be in the future, plus the accessibility of the meta for new players and the ease of practice against chars in this meta. I think Customs as a side-event is the alternative that people should explore.

Matchup practice always has, and will, depend far more on having players in your area who are actually good at the characters in question, than on unlockability, because even with equal access unlocks (which is the case, though some like to think slow means impossible), there's no way I can practice against Olimar against anybody I know, because he is unrepresented. On the flip side, being the main coordinator of Smash sessions amongst my friends, everyone got pretty familiar with a good number of customs, because I had them all and demonstrated their pros and cons.

It's not an unreasonable point, but it's not a unique point. Inability to practice a matchup is not a reason to ban that character/moveset.

I still dream of the DLC characters getting customs some day, but until then, as a DLC main, I'd still rather other characters be able to use customs. Every character should have access to their best moves, it's simply unfortunate that afterthought characters have fewer to pick from.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Matchup practice always has, and will, depend far more on having players in your area who are actually good at the characters in question, than on unlockability, because even with equal access unlocks (which is the case, though some like to think slow means impossible), there's no way I can practice against Olimar against anybody I know, because he is unrepresented. On the flip side, being the main coordinator of Smash sessions amongst my friends, everyone got pretty familiar with a good number of customs, because I had them all and demonstrated their pros and cons.

It's not an unreasonable point, but it's not a unique point. Inability to practice a matchup is not a reason to ban that character/moveset.

I still dream of the DLC characters getting customs some day, but until then, as a DLC main, I'd still rather other characters be able to use customs. Every character should have access to their best moves, it's simply unfortunate that afterthought characters have fewer to pick from.

It's not inability TO practice, it's said practice being unintuitive to acquire based on the region you're in, who you play against, whether your friends or fellow players even RUN customs, etc.

Looking at the big picture, when you have large areas that are ANTI CUSTOMS where people can just....NOT access easy practice against stuff, should it really be the standard? Especially when it comes to holding worldwide events, because Japan doesn't even use customs ANYWHERE in its top level/notable events, which severely, SEVERELY disadvantages Japanese players coming into an event like EVO, or maybe a large event like Apex. I can't ignore that it's an issue.

It's not banning it because people don't WANT to deal with them, it's because some people, namely players, can NOT feasibly or reliably practice against them.

 

[DunnoBro]

DLC characters just being top tier/viable via buffs is more important and feasible than customs for them imo.

It'd be good to stuff the "muh dlc" arguments but wouldn't accomplish any real goal as efficiently as straight buffs.

 

[Raijinken]

It's not inability TO practice, it's said practice being unintuitive to acquire based on the region you're in, who you play against, whether your friends or fellow players even RUN customs, etc.

Looking at the big picture, when you have large areas that are ANTI CUSTOMS where people can just....NOT access easy practice against stuff, should it really be the standard? Especially when it comes to holding worldwide events, because Japan doesn't even use customs ANYWHERE in its top level/notable events, which severely, SEVERELY disadvantages Japanese players coming into an event like EVO, or maybe a large event like Apex. I can't ignore that it's an issue.

It's not banning it because people don't WANT to deal with them, it's because some people, namely players, can NOT feasibly or reliably practice against them.

Abadango still placed 4th and used custom Wario with excellent proficiency. Playing against customs is the parallel, playing with customs is a non-issue.

Trust me. I live in a state that has essentially collectively decided that customs and Miis are done for good. I still use 'em all the time (when not playing Roy obviously) because I at least have a decent online connection to people who don't oppose them even while they don't use them.

In short, you can always practice with customs (especially if you only use a character or two, getting so few customs is cake). Practicing against them is no different from lacking character representation in a region.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Abadango placed really well but we can always look at other fringe examples that totally messed with the placings of other really good players.

I believe Rain (it was a really good Japanese sheik, I REALLY can't recall the name 100% but I'm p. sure it was Rain) lost to Capt Awesum's Villager strat at some point. I'm not going to discredit Awesum, he won, that's that, but it makes me wonder how would Rain (or whoever it was) go about preparing for that coming out of Japan? Abadango used Speeding Bike, a pretty self-explanatory good Custom move. But when you go from Japan to USA and see the kind of stuff they literally could NOT have prepared for, you realize it's really, really, REALLY skewed as a standard method of play and practice.

I love playing with Customs, they're a lot of fun, but I can in no way see them as healthy for the main metagame at large.

 

[Rikkhan]

@ DunnoBro this also apply to custom pikachu, you said he was sligthy better but would it be? to begin pikachu is an underplayed character with only esam as a great player, pikachu custom on is even less developed. In my opinion custom pikachu has the tools to became the gatekeeper of high tiers, HSB and paralyzing jolt are very potent punish moves, if your character can't deal with them well enjoy your B tier. And this is not counting that they develop a reliable true combo HSB or a 50/50 setup.

In custom on enviroment I'm more concerned about pikachu customs than any other custom, villager customs come close but they just look lame but not meta defining like could be pikachu's.

Obviously this is just my opinion I dont have hard facts to prove this.

 

[DunnoBro]

@ DunnoBro HSB and paralyzing jolt are very potent punish moves, if your character can't deal with them well enjoy your B tier.

This can be said about literally every high tier lol

"Can't deal with mario grabs and fireballs? Enjoy b tier"

HSB is a punish move that isn't too particular about who it kills, and everyone has a shield for wave. Also ZSS has true combos/set-ups into boost kick too, and more/more reliable ones.

Yea, pikachu gets better and HSB is ridiculous and really should be nerfed. It will win games it shouldn't. But it doesn't seem enough of a factor to severely skew matchups in a gatekeeper fashion. Generally dominating neutrals and dumb chain grabs/combos/edgeguards do that. Not setups that work on everyone.

Pikachu's customs are poorly designed in the way NTSC Fox is. He has moves that are way stronger than they need to be, but nerfing their strength in PAL doesn't greatly effect how good he is.

 

[Runic_SSB]

This goes back to the contest of subjective goals. If that, to you, means "why bother", it means equally to me "then there's no reason not to bother."

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you. Like I said, I'm neutral. My position is more "this isn't as big of a deal as people are making it out to be."

@ DunnoBro Raijinken said it better than I can:

Abadango still placed 4th and used custom Wario with excellent proficiency. Playing against customs is the parallel, playing with customs is a non-issue.

Trust me. I live in a state that has essentially collectively decided that customs and Miis are done for good. I still use 'em all the time (when not playing Roy obviously) because I at least have a decent online connection to people who don't oppose them even while they don't use them.

In short, you can always practice with customs (especially if you only use a character or two, getting so few customs is cake). Practicing against them is no different from lacking character representation in a region.

Basically, there is absolutely nothing stopping you or anyone else from practicing with customs, but practicing against them is definitely inhibited by not allowing them at tournaments. Because of that, I'm really not buying the excuse that lower tier characters that get boosted by customs only look unviable because the meta is too new. If anything, they should be at a heavy advantage, because no one knows how to fight them yet (see: Captain Awesum's Enragement Child set at EVO).

 

[DunnoBro]

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you. Like I said, I'm neutral. My position is more "this isn't as big of a deal as people are making it out to be."

@ DunnoBro Raijinken said it better than I can:

Basically, there is absolutely nothing stopping you or anyone else from practicing with customs, but practicing against them is definitely inhibited by not allowing them at tournaments. Because of that, I'm really not buying the excuse that lower tier characters that get boosted by customs only look unviable because the meta is too new. If anything, they should be at a heavy advantage, because no one knows how to fight them yet (see: Captain Awesum's Enragement Child set at EVO).

That's a fair point, but people aren't exactly familiar with default duck hunt either.

Edit: Misread. Yes, people most certainly benefit from unfamiliarity. But they also suffer from lack of practice in tournaments(and incentive to practice for said tournaments)... There are irrefutably less avenues of practice for customs.

This coupled with a lack of interest/acceptance of customs in general makes the data collected so far very much inadequate.

 

[blackghost]

@ DunnoBro
Have come accross any custom moves that you felt have no downsides? You are a well respected player just wanted your input. Also what do you think the future of smash 4 will look like?

 

[DunnoBro]

@ DunnoBro
Have come accross any custom moves that you felt have no downsides? You are a well respected player just wanted your input. Also what do you think the future of smash 4 will look like?

I mean yea, HSB essentially has no downside. Just like default moves have no downside because they actually have a use in comparison to some meh customs.

The future will be default unless a major change occurs.

 

[wizrad]

Abadango placed really well but we can always look at other fringe examples that totally messed with the placings of other really good players.

I believe Rain (it was a really good Japanese sheik, I REALLY can't recall the name 100% but I'm p. sure it was Rain) lost to Capt Awesum's Villager strat at some point. I'm not going to discredit Awesum, he won, that's that, but it makes me wonder how would Rain (or whoever it was) go about preparing for that coming out of Japan? Abadango used Speeding Bike, a pretty self-explanatory good Custom move. But when you go from Japan to USA and see the kind of stuff they literally could NOT have prepared for, you realize it's really, really, REALLY skewed as a standard method of play and practice.

I love playing with Customs, they're a lot of fun, but I can in no way see them as healthy for the main metagame at large.

Rain's example doesn't really mean anything. He lost because he couldn't practice against a good custom Villager. That doesn't mean we should ban customs. I don't know a Rosalina I can practice with, but I don't think anyone would consider banning her.

 

[TTTTTsd]

Rain's example doesn't really mean anything. He lost because he couldn't practice against a good custom Villager. That doesn't mean we should ban customs. I don't know a Rosalina I can practice with, but I don't think anyone would consider banning her.

Is Rosalina entirely banned in your country and like, actually virtually impossible to play against in tournament like, period? Because Japan does not use Customs at all, of course he can't find a good Customs Villager that plays in tournament there!

It's not the only reason we should (I've listed plenty above) but it's one of them because it is inherently disadvantageous, whether I like it or not.

(If there are any Customs tournaments in Japan I'd love to know, haven't seen any!)

 

[Pippin (Peregrin Took)]

Just curious, have Japanese players given any reason why they play without customs?

 

[Raijinken]

Just curious, have Japanese players given any reason why they play without customs?

They've always had notably conservative rulesets in each game.

That said, it's not like our communities are exactly intertwined. Bigger language barrier than to most others.

 

[MrGame&Rock]

I quickly learned today what my sparring buddy's views on customs are, and honestly how the entirety of the customs debate might be shaped. I decided to play some DK, and I started out with default because of how jank Kong Cyclone is. After the first match, he says something along the lines of "you can use that move, I don't mind" because (and I'm paraphrasing) "It may be jank but it's part of the game, and I'll find a way to play against it." After all the time I spent putting custom characters into my setup from the Project, that made me really, really happy. I also used custom villager, but I'm more inclined toward offensive play and he used puff so even that wasn't so bad.

Yeah, Kong Cyclone's windboxes and EBT can be stupid and janky and weird. But when we laughed at it (and we did, a lot) it was less "customs are strange" and more "Smash 4 is strange." I know the "it's part of the game so we should use it" argument isn't a be all, end all for customs, But it's also kind of refreshing seeing Windkong and Killager and HSBChu etc treated with the same attitude as Boost Kick ZSS and sheik with needles and Diddy Kong. And I'm hopeful that as we allow the custom meta to develop and we learn how to handle them, that attitude toward these moves will become more commonplace.

The next step, of course, is to get him to experiment with customs during our play sessions

 

[Raijinken]

I quickly learned today what my sparring buddy's views on customs are, and honestly how the entirety of the customs debate might be shaped. I decided to play some DK, and I started out with default because of how jank Kong Cyclone is. After the first match, he says something along the lines of "you can use that move, I don't mind" because (and I'm paraphrasing) "It may be jank but it's part of the game, and I'll find a way to play against it." After all the time I spent putting custom characters into my setup from the Project, that made me really, really happy. I also used custom villager, but I'm more inclined toward offensive play and he used puff so even that wasn't so bad.

Yeah, Kong Cyclone's windboxes and EBT can be stupid and janky and weird. But when we laughed at it (and we did, a lot) it was less "customs are strange" and more "Smash 4 is strange." I know the "it's part of the game so we should use it" argument isn't a be all, end all for customs, But it's also kind of refreshing seeing Windkong and Killager and HSBChu etc treated with the same attitude as Boost Kick ZSS and sheik with needles and Diddy Kong. And I'm hopeful that as we allow the custom meta to develop and we learn how to handle them, that attitude toward these moves will become more commonplace.

The next step, of course, is to get him to experiment with customs during our play sessions

I have a similar situation. My brother refuses to use customs (as does another friend of mine), but they don't mind that I do. Unfortunately I haven't quite managed to find one that gives them the hype factor that it'd take to get them to use 'em, but it's better than nothing.

 

[MrGame&Rock]

I have a similar situation. My brother refuses to use customs (as does another friend of mine), but they don't mind that I do. Unfortunately I haven't quite managed to find one that gives them the hype factor that it'd take to get them to use 'em, but it's better than nothing.

Part of it is that he hasnt played Smash 4 all summer so he needs to relearn stuff. Hopefully as he becomes more familiar with the game he'll start using more customs

Edit: for a hype custome move, maybe try Bowser's dadh slash? It's an airdash, and shorthop dash slash has no landing lag so it can go into a ftilt or jab or grab etc. it gives bowser much needed mobility and is not only a very obvious, flashy improvement, but lacks any brokenness or jank that might turn someone off of customs. But it really depends on who your friends like to use so idk

 

[wizrad]

Is Rosalina entirely banned in your country and like, actually virtually impossible to play against in tournament like, period? Because Japan does not use Customs at all, of course he can't find a good Customs Villager that plays in tournament there!

It's not the only reason we should (I've listed plenty above) but it's one of them because it is inherently disadvantageous, whether I like it or not.

(If there are any Customs tournaments in Japan I'd love to know, haven't seen any!)

I don't think there are any in Japan. I only picked out that point because it was right in front of me. I also disagree with everything else, though. Not that your statements are incorrect, just that they don't mean anything against customs.

Hard to learn? Good. That means you have to be better and smarter to win.
Not patched? They have been patched, just minorly or in the same way as the other specials in the slot. But who cares anyways? It's not like we pay any attention to what Sakurai thinks of the game.
DLC characters are hard to approach. They have no custom moves. Banning customs for them would essentially be catering the entire meta game towards them, something that has never been done before. Do these few outweigh the many? Probably not, but I'd like to at least see how they fare in a customs meta. Hell, I'd like to see how everyone fares in a custom meta!