What are your opinions on Customs Post-Evo 2015?

[lijero13ss]

I thought we were done with customs now that we got evo out of the way?

 

[p1ay6ack]

to the ppl who say banning some customs is a complicated algorithm......

I bet the entire community agrees that
Tornado Up B, Heavyskull bash, trip sapling, hammer spindash should get banned in the banlist for customs

 

[Swamp Sensei]

to the ppl who say banning some customs is a complicated algorithm......

I bet the entire community agrees that
Tornado Up B, Heavyskull bash, trip sapling, hammer spindash should get banned in the banlist for customs

I'm looking at the poll literally two posts above you.

That's the stupidest bet I've ever seen.



Regardless, not a lot happened with customs.

They weren't the game changer people expected them to be.

They're just kind of there.

We're all giving this more importance than it actually warrants.

 

[Illuminose]

Static Manny placed 9th at CEO (no customs) and 9th at EVO (customs). He camped players out equally effectively in both tournaments, placed exactly the same, and somehow you think that customs are the only reason he was able to place well. You even seem to think that Gravitational Charge is worth complaining about, purely because of the fact that the move was used at all. And your "best proof" is completely incorrect, Manny was actually using customs against FOW, lost, and then switched to default and took a game. There is absolutely zero evidence supporting the statement that customs help Sonic's camping game.

ESAM actually placed worse at EVO than he did at CEO. Saying that he only lost because of "matchup inexperience" is a joke when you can't seem to realize that CaptAwesum was the one who was only winning because of matchup inexperience. And there's absolutely no way of knowing whether or not he would have lost to Regi, if anything he might've had a better chance of winning since ESAM seems to play worse when he uses customs.

Calling Helicopter Kick "broken", while not even knowing the correct NAME of the move, is even more evidence that you don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about.

Missed this post oops.

StaticManny placed the same at both tournaments, but he did not face the same level of competition for his placement at CEO. That's the bottom line. I did misremember which set it was, I just remembered that what I said happened in one set against a really good player. For that I apologize and I'll find it as soon as tourney vods are up, but this definitely did happen. But seriously, there was an obvious difference between when played default and when he played customs in terms of the effectiveness of his camping. He can land so much better and has so many more mixups to avoid getting hit with double spring. He has multiple different trajectories/opportunities to go with spin dash/gravitational charge to mix up his 'spin dash' camping. Customs make Sonic's movements much less predictable and give him more opportunities for mixups, making his camping better. It's pretty objective and was very clear in watching StaticManny's gameplay.

ESAM placed worse at EVO than he did at CEO because he played sloppy. Also, he did seem pretty clueless vs Abadango so I think matchup inexperience is the right choice of words here. I think it's obvious that he would have lost to Regi if you watched the match, unless customs magically make him play like an idiot it's pretty clear that he was saved from sloppy play by broken moves. If customs were off, he would have lost that set. He wasn't keeping up apart from dumb TWave infinite -> HSB kills.

I said the name of the move wrong, big deal. It was (and is) late, I'm tired, and I know what the move is capable of/have studied it so I honestly don't give a **** that I messed up the name. Respond to the point, don't dance around it by calling out a stupid name mess-up.

 

[Shaya]

I'll start slow on things (personally), I know my wording can be iffy on occasion.
There are a large array of negative points towards customs that in a vacuum are mostly minor but in combination lead to the growing sway of tournament active players against them.

Most top players are either indifferent or anti-customs, and many regions which have ran customs legal have their active players against them (*source: potentially biased remembering of facebook [regional groups] / twitter feeds). The point? it seems players don't enjoy them and their TOs hear their calls. This isn't necessarily fair, as many were likely predisposed against customs and never gave them the respect they deserved, and with the average impact of customs overall does not break skill barriers, those players keeping to what they prefer and still gaining their expected result. One could consider it widespread colluding when the honour code is "if you don't use customs I won't either"...

Are any customs broken enough that they are unbeatable? Obviously not. But often the pro-custom side stipulates this as the only point anti-customs are allowed to debate over. But if (m)any custom was broken enough then there would be no debate (as in people would be 100% resolute in their stance rather than being maybe 66% [enough to be 'anti-customs'] overall).
The point those people care for are "balance" and "game play", and when they evaluate their position purely contrasting Customs-On to Customs-off they have justifiable reasons for preferring them off. This point shouldn't invalidate any one game's reason to exist, but it's one of the most important points of perspective for people and are far far far away from being objective or reliably measurable, subjective feels thinly veiling those notions.

And beyond Sonic and some bug fixes, I'm unaware of any custom special being altered without their default also being tinkered with at the same time (from the glance of that helpful link above it seems so?). Ike's quick draw gets a 2-3 frame buff and so does it's customs due to likely sharing animation data; if I were to guess, they didn't feel the need to measure the unknown possible impact of those changes persisting on customs as well. I think it's essentially misleading spin to say "customs are being changed every patch" as a point to why people perceive the primary focus of balance being customs-off.

---

Neutral point:
EVO vs CEO placement argument...
Evo was unequivocally bigger than CEO... by a factor close to 4. Top 8 at Evo means a lot more in my mind than top 8 at CEO, customs or not. It is the biggest smash 4 tournament ever, over twice the size of apex with just about every region in NA and abroad fielding entrants, something CEO lacked.

 

[Jiggly]

I'm honestly still thinking that the reason people are having issues with customs are due to people not being comfortable around them. People aren't easily able to practice them at home, and you are almost forced to have a 3ds and a powersaves to get all the custom moves. This makes it really hard for many to practice customs, as there is suddenly a money wall to be able to be profeciently practiced in a current meta, which is something we aren't used to as the smash community.

Also people are afraid of jank suddenly taking over the meta, and forcing camping or crazy infinites. We originally had issues with wind kong, which people thought was insane and should be insta banned. But now, people have figured out how it works. Customs like villagers camp, and many characters cant stop it. This hasn't become a crazy thing yet, even players with good fundamentals like Hbox was trying the strategy, and didn't make it out of pools. It is a strategy, but can be broken due to both airdodge and ledge fundamentals of sm4sh. If this was melee, it would be an easy ban. Im not saying that it's perfectly balanced, but I think it can still be dealt with. If it becomes an issue, it can be fixed.

People also brings up that customs just make good characters better, low characters mid tier, and a lot of mid and low tier characters worst. Many characters just get weird bad wind boxes, or slight KB direction change, and adding good specials to other characters just make them better, as some characters still have their normal kit, because that's all they really have. This then widens the tier gap between characters. I feel like just because characters were given bad customs, doesn't mean they should be banned. Banning something for being underwhelming is a bad escuse. I main Jigglypuff, and I know with customs Jigglypuff goes down in the tier list. But I believe that it is biased to think that because a small margin of characters lack good custom moves, they don't deserve to be in the sm4sh metagame.

 

[VodkaHaze]

People also brings up that customs just make good characters better, low characters mid tier, and a lot of mid and low tier characters worst. Many characters just get weird bad wind boxes, or slight KB direction change, and adding good specials to other characters just make them better, as some characters still have their normal kit, because that's all they really have. This then widens the tier gap between characters. I feel like just because characters were given bad customs, doesn't mean they should be banned. Banning something for being underwhelming is a bad escuse. I main Jigglypuff, and I know with customs Jigglypuff goes down in the tier list. But I believe that it is biased to think that because a small margin of characters lack good custom moves, they don't deserve to be in the sm4sh metagame.

I think one way to absolve this problem is to have two separate tier lists -- one for default, and one for customs. That way if someone does organise a tournament with no custom sets allowed, they can have a fairly accurate reflection on how each character will perform. It doesn't seem fair to have a character be higher then they would with their default set just because they have a phenomenal custom set.

 

[Konneh]

Is there really something that speaks against having two separate rulesets for Customs ON and Customs OFF and then letting TOs decide what to host as well as players decide what to attend? I am indifferent to customs balance/gameplay-wise but logistics make me worry.
Does anyone have any info on how the logistics for Customs went in EVO? All we've seen was the tournament setup, but were customs running well and without problems on the other setups, i.e. during pools? I'd really love to know, but I can't find out anything about that.

 

[Jiggly]

Is there really something that speaks against having two separate rulesets for Customs ON and Customs OFF and then letting TOs decide what to host as well as players decide what to attend? I am indifferent to customs balance/gameplay-wise but logistics make me worry.
Does anyone have any info on how the logistics for Customs went in EVO? All we've seen was the tournament setup, but were customs running well and without problems on the other setups, i.e. during pools? I'd really love to know, but I can't find out anything about that.

The only thing with that is it forces people to mainly practice without customs, because no one wants to gets comfortable with customs and then at some tournament not have their preferred way of play. One unified ruleset fixes that fear of putting time into a character you might not ever use.

 

[thehard]

One could consider it widespread colluding when the honour code is "if you don't use customs I won't either"...

The new "Smashville?", then? Just substitute the personal distaste (or inexperience) with temporary walkoffs/hazards for custom move mechanics! Ignorance is bliss.

I'm tired of competitors honor-coding themselves in-game. If no one uses customs, no one learns to deal with them, and Nintendo can't watch them in action to look for balance issues. Not only that, but in the many matchups where Customs improve balance (@ EVO: Had Ally not honor-coded himself, he could have saved us from Manny's runaway with Scalding FLUDD/Nairo's custom neutral-B helped avoid Sheik needle camping), it's a shot in the foot to all involved. I know why it's done, but it all comes out feeling wrong in the end. It just sounds so silly. "If you don't pick Sheik I won't either" "If you don't run the timer I won't either" "If you don't play defensively I won't either" etc. At least be an ESAM and play to win so we can get the full picture.

Also, Dragon Rush was nerfed from 15% damage to 11% in 1.0.4.

To me, EVO should have silenced all those opposed to a custom metagame. Players who didn't use customs were at no unfair disadvantage to those decked out in them. I mean, ESAM's custom Pika ("best character in the game!") was sent to Losers by default Pac-Man, and then eliminated by default Mario. His play was the world's greatest display of why customs don't and can't degenerate the game into a special-spamming fest, with a particularly memorable HSB flub. Everyone who placed earned their placing through practice with customs and against them, solid fundamentals, adaptation, the usual. As expected~

So what are the arguments now?

I'd just like a metagame where every competitor can play who they like. Can we please allow the Sheiks and Wii Fit Trainers to rub elbows in bracket?

 

[Shaya]

I don't think all "anti-customs" are opposed to a custom metagame. But it's likely going to need a lot of help to keep going without major events giving reason for tournament players to continue advancing it... (at this moment no other big custom events are planned). And from there it comes down to numbers that support each one in tournament attendance... I think many regions TOs will be switching them off if they had them on before (or having events for both).

 

[Rashyboy05]

So what are the arguments now?

Well.. shofu has one.
https://twitter.com/OfficialShofu/status/622521088497487873.
Yeah....

 

[shane3x]

Nintendo just needs to release a $5 unlock all customs DLC, Takes ages to unlock them and cant be bothered doing the 3DS hack stuff. Any nonsense that occurs because of customs can always be ideally tweaked with a patch if needed or as a last resort banned.

Although even then limiting customs to certain approved sets doesn't really sit right but allowing everything will take a while to get set up.

Ideally we'd just have customs and non-custom tourneys.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

Based on the general sentiments of the vast majority of the players I've talked to, I think customs are dead in the water. The only possible chance customs have rely on Amazing Ampharos' set list doing one of two things: 1) Simply don't have sets with "OP" custom moves OR 2) Any time an "OP" custom is used, a lesser custom to weaken the character must also be used in the set.

I personally think #1 is the only real chance customs have... and even then its just a chance.

 

[**Gilgamesh**]

@ Shaya I have a question; With DLC characters apparently not getting customs, how does this effect game balance? I always wondered about that and it seems that no one has given that thought. Would it be considered unbalanced or unfair if only 9/10 has access to customs? I feel like if your playing a DLC character in a custom meta, you are at a disadvantage due to the rest of the cast having more options against you. I am curious as to how you feel about that's all.

 

[Shaya]

It's one of those negatives I would've eventually brought up.
People are responding to no customs on DLC characters as a mixture of "unfair for those DLC characters" or "proof the game is intended to play without it".

My personal hopes in customs revolved around "single" (in most cases) optimal sets for maximising character potential. The whole 'additive counterpicking point and tons of alternative sets' always irked me.
So, it isn't something I personally rated... other than it giving some sort of indication of post-release development focus...

 

[Hippieslayer]

Top plagers want to win. With customs on they have to learn a lot more stuff in order to not win. Of course they are going to oppose them. this is why people oppose customs in general too. Until you learn them they are jank, and few have bothered to learn them since they are hanging loose. Thus they continue to be jank. Since there was never a time when it seemed definite enough that customs where going to be the thing they've never been given a fair chance by top players and most other people opposing them. They keep hoping they end up banned rather than master them.

 

[Tinkerer]

ok

Dabuz has repeatedly expressed that he's against customs as of recent weeks. Don't call people out if you don't know what you're talking about.

OP =/= easy, and I didn't say they weren't tournament viable with customs. That's just being facetious and ignoring the point. Maybe I messed up the wording, but I think it's very clear that I think Palutena and Mii Brawler are tournament viable with customs. Perhaps a wording misstep (that I don't think exists), but it doesn't justify this rant in your post. That's just a distraction from the point. You don't have to win the tournament for a custom move to be broken or overcentralizing. Broken tactics do not ensure success in any game. Broken tactics increase the chance of success greatly, but they do not ensure success. If winning the tournament is your only metric of a tactic being broken, you're looking at it the wrong way. Also, Luigi can't kill with a grab at 80%. Maybe on Jigglypuff? Sheik killing with a grab at 80%? Maybe on the middle platform on Halberd. Apart from that? Please. You're gonna need some rage to be killing any earlier than like 110%, and it's a 50/50 mixup regardless as in it isn't guaranteed. Zero Suit Samus has grab confirms at that percent, this is true, but at the same time she's working with a tether grab. The balance difference is pretty obviously skewed between Palutena and these 3 characters. You have a character that gets the best mobility in the game, of any character, with a normal grab that true combos into a kill at 80%. Nothing like this exists in the game. It would all be fine if infinite Lightweight didn't exist because there would be actual drawbacks, but it does and there's literally nothing you can do about Lightweight because they can just ban Final Destination and have a field day.

Did you watch ESAM play? He used the Thunder Wave infinite a lot. It wasn't technically the infinite setup (no Meteor Quick Attack), sure, but that's not the point because it's inescapable and means automatic death. Did you watch ESAM vs Regi? It's pretty damn clear that the only reason ESAM won that set was because he was able to land Thunder Waves and get the easy Heavy Skull Bash confirm. Outside of those dumb early kills, Regi was mopping the floor with him. There's no tourney vods up yet afaik and if you haven't watched it you'll have to take my word for it, but anyone could see it. ESAM was playing sloppy the whole tournament and barely made Top 8 with the help of Pikachu's janky customs. He's capable of it without customs, but he wasn't playing up to par at EVO in such a way to deserve it.

Not specifically directed at you, but this is the general argument I see against customs. It boils down to "there's characters that get strong(er) with customs and in a way I think is unfair". That's fine, that's your prerogative. It is not, however, what anyone should be arguing about. I don't think there's anyone out there who will deny that with customs, tier lists will shuffle a bit and the meta changes - characters get better or get relatively worse (if they just stay the same). They have been given extra tools in this ruleset that they otherwise - that isn't "jank" and it isn't "broken", it's a given. Maybe HSB Pikachu will end up being the very best character in the game! If so, we damn well deal with it, because that's the ruleset we adopted. You're using the default moveset as a base to judge the character strength changes with customs, while you should be looking at it from a completely clean slate.

Here's the thing: there still haven't been any customs proven to be actually broken in a way that sees a single move win entire tournaments, and there seems to be little danger that that will happen - compare that to the doubles combo of G&W and Sheik, say, where it's instantly easy to tell that yes, this looks pretty broken. Customs allow three additional, interesting characters to be played. Customs allow more characters to be viable at the moment, but as the meta progresseses, I'm sure it will get to a similar consensus high tier as any game would. It's a creative time with an insane amount of options to choose from and experiment with, so why not embrace that? An unjustified fear of "jank"? What a waste.

 

[Damandatwin]

Based on the general sentiments of the vast majority of the players I've talked to, I think customs are dead in the water. The only possible chance customs have rely on Amazing Ampharos' set list doing one of two things: 1) Simply don't have sets with "OP" custom moves OR 2) Any time an "OP" custom is used, a lesser custom to weaken the character must also be used in the set.

I personally think #1 is the only real chance customs have... and even then its just a chance.

I wouldn't really be happy with #1 either, just because it gives the people deciding the legal custom sets too much power. You could try to be democratic about it but I really, really don't want to entrust the responsibility of balancing this game to the online community.

 

[blinkingpigs]

either we have a full on debate about which customs are ok -- or we don't use them. I think it's pretty simple and I don't think the slippery slope thing is worrying. we would just ask ourselves "which custom combos break the meta / make for campy playstyles."

the argument that "EVO proves customs are ok because vanilla characters won" makes absolutely no sense.

 

[Tinkerer]

either we have a full on debate about which customs are ok -- or we don't use them. I think it's pretty simple and I don't think the slippery slope thing is worrying. we would just ask ourselves "which custom combos break the meta / make for campy playstyles."

Rosalina does. Ban her.

 

[blinkingpigs]

lol she doesn't really break the metagame, is light as a feather, and has some bad MUs

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Based on the general sentiments of the vast majority of the players I've talked to, I think customs are dead in the water. The only possible chance customs have rely on Amazing Ampharos' set list doing one of two things: 1) Simply don't have sets with "OP" custom moves OR 2) Any time an "OP" custom is used, a lesser custom to weaken the character must also be used in the set.

I personally think #1 is the only real chance customs have... and even then its just a chance.

It's a shame.

Customs have great success and no one cares... T.T

What were some of the reasons everyone said?

 

[Terotrous]

Okay, first of all I'm going to say that I think the pro-customs people are making a horrible argument for customs in this thread. Saying "look, Customs didn't break EVO" or "look, Customs didn't change the outcome at all" doesn't make a strong argument for Customs, it sounds like you already know that Customs are jank and you're desperately trying to prove that they aren't TOO jank. Where's the "Customs made X match much more interesting" or what not?

Anyway, as you can probably already tell, I'm not really in favour of them. It's not so much that they break the game, but I feel that they make the game less interesting by shifting the focus away from fundamentals to more runaway and spam. Admittedly, I didn't watch all of EVO, only a handful of matches, but every one I saw that involved customs was basically one player spamming 1-2 custom moves ad nauseum while the other player tried to find a way around it. Whether they found a way around it or not, it was still kind of tiresome to watch.

I do agree that there are some custom moves that make the game better, but unfortunately there's at least as many that make the game worse, and the ones that make it worse tend to have more of an effect on the metagame since broken stuff tends to be what wins. I wish they had just taken some of the good customs and made them the defaults instead.

Incidentally, my preferred ruleset would be Mii Fighters can use all Customs, no one else can use any. Excluding the Mii Fighters from the customs-off environment even though the game doesn't prohibit them from being used is just dumb.

 

[CursedJay]

Not to repost what I said, but I guess my idea could go here too.

Well, EVO is said and done, and we are to look towards the future. Many seem impressed with the way customs went; I for one expected it to put the nail in the Custom coffin, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Some who were against customs have warmed up to them, others who were for customs were put off by EVO (I was on the fence, but I have always preferred the Vanilla moveset for competitive play). For two months prior to EVO, I've seen intense debate for and against customs, and with events such as Paragon and The Big House 5 quickly approaching, we have to make a final decision on the matter. I hope to add a sort of compromise that stabilizes the standard, Non- Custom meta while adding the variety that many enjoy in the Custom meta. I call it the Optimal Set Project.

So what is it?
The Optimal Set Project seeks to create the best possible custom moveset for every character in the game. This optimal set would become the standard custom set for tournament use, accompanying the standard moveset. I know, this sounds way more restricting than what is currently available. The pretty unfortunate truth behind custom sets is that some of them....Just aren't used in top play. Higher custom players have already found the "Best" moveset in the pool of 10 allowed for EVO, only deviating from said sets for one or two moves unavailable in that set. The Optimal Set Project aims to fix this by providing the best possible moves in ONE set, rather than sprawling them across sets that don't fit as well. (Quick note: I know I've been saying one set, but If there 1-2 sets that are considered optimal for a character, it's no big deal to add both. The end goal here is streamlining the custom meta so that it becomes more tangible and can merge with the Non Custom meta in a fashion that doesn't make the other obsolete.)

How do you expect to decide on an optimal set for each character? Pretty sure you don't main everyone.
....Me? I'm no deciding on anything. Here at SmashBoards, there are character discussion boards, brimming with a main for every character in the game. I don't have a team or a partner for this. The community is my team. In order to make this a reality, I'm going to need the help of all of the character boards. You know your character better than anyone else. and I feel like the decision on the best custom set for your character should be yours. Some of the boards for characters are pretty bone dry, so this may also serve to revitalize the discussion for some lower tier characters, making SmashBoards even more appealing to newcomers. Of course, I'll do my best to pop in on all the boards of characters I play and try to add something to the discussion, but you're all the real MVP for this one.

When do you expect something like this to be done?
This isn't something that can be done in a day or a week, not even a month. However, by splitting up the workload and putting a lot of effort into this, I feel like we can be done before The Big House 5. Granted, not every character has the same amount of people playing it, so some conversations will be sloppier than others. If we don't finish before BH5, no bug deal. We can be up and running by Apex, guaranteed.

Closing thoughts

I cannot stress this enough; I need your help on this. This straight up is not possible without the help of the players, whether they be top or casual. To those of you that are against customs: I hope that you can find it in you to help up with this. I really want everyone's opinion t be heard, and sitting idly by isn't going to help anyone. Hell, it might make the situation worse. To the custom supporters: I'm not a Custom guy, but I do feel like there is a lot to be explored with customs. It's a meta that can't and should not be ignored, and EVO is a prime example of that. Guys like Dapuffster and CaptAwesum arguably made it as far as they did because they understand how to use them, and as annoying as it was at times, it really was interesting to watch.

This argument's gotta end, people.

 

[Kaladin]

Okay, first of all I'm going to say that I think the pro-customs people are making a horrible argument for customs in this thread. Saying "look, Customs didn't break EVO" or "look, Customs didn't change the outcome at all" doesn't make a strong argument for Customs, it sounds like you already know that Customs are jank and you're desperately trying to prove that they aren't TOO jank. Where's the "Customs made X match much more interesting" or what not?

Anyway, as you can probably already tell, I'm not really in favour of them. It's not so much that they break the game, but I feel that they make the game less interesting by shifting the focus away from fundamentals to more runaway and spam. Admittedly, I didn't watch all of EVO, only a handful of matches, but every one I saw that involved customs was basically one player spamming 1-2 custom moves ad nauseum while the other player tried to find a way around it. Whether they found a way around it or not, it was still kind of tiresome to watch.

I do agree that there are some custom moves that make the game better, but unfortunately there's at least as many that make the game worse, and the ones that make it worse tend to have more of an effect on the metagame since broken stuff tends to be what wins. I wish they had just taken some of the good customs and made them the defaults instead.

Incidentally, my preferred ruleset would be Mii Fighters can use all Customs, no one else can use any. Excluding the Mii Fighters from the customs-off environment even though the game doesn't prohibit them from being used is just dumb.

...So, you only watched Cap. Awesum play then? Watch Nairo vs any Sheik, ESAM vs Abadango/Ally/Reggi, and Abadango's Wario vs Mr. R. You really aren't gettinn the whole story.

 

[Terotrous]

...So, you only watched Cap. Awesum play then? Watch Nairo vs any Sheik, ESAM vs Abadango/Ally/Reggi, and Abadango's Wario vs Mr. R. You really aren't gettinn the whole story.

I mostly watched on Friday, which was earlier in the tournament where there were more customs. I saw Manny, ESAM, some villagers, and a few others.

I actually feel ESAM's Pikachu is probably the "lamest" customs character out there. Dude does basically nothing at neutral except spam neutral B, but it still wins because HSB is so broken.

 

[p1ay6ack]

I'm looking at the poll literally two posts above you.

That's the stupidest bet I've ever seen.



Regardless, not a lot happened with customs.

They weren't the game changer people expected them to be.

They're just kind of there.

We're all giving this more importance than it actually warrants.

the poll isnt the entire community. and the poll has limited options to choose from. so this result youre basing on isnt 100% accurate. ive heard top players even say while these custom moves are beatable, and i agree they are there. they require a drastic change in a playstyle to deal with them.

these moves overcentralize a chachter's moveset too, example ESAM and DKWill. ESAM's match versus abandango, and DKWill using tornado up B in every situation at the pace of a match. these are good examples why these specific moves should be banned.

also, these moves kill at ridiculous percents, and have little risk, high reward.

 

[Infinite901]

Okay, first of all I'm going to say that I think the pro-customs people are making a horrible argument for customs in this thread. Saying "look, Customs didn't break EVO" or "look, Customs didn't change the outcome at all" doesn't make a strong argument for Customs, it sounds like you already know that Customs are jank and you're desperately trying to prove that they aren't TOO jank. Where's the "Customs made X match much more interesting" or what not?

Anyway, as you can probably already tell, I'm not really in favour of them. It's not so much that they break the game, but I feel that they make the game less interesting by shifting the focus away from fundamentals to more runaway and spam. Admittedly, I didn't watch all of EVO, only a handful of matches, but every one I saw that involved customs was basically one player spamming 1-2 custom moves ad nauseum while the other player tried to find a way around it. Whether they found a way around it or not, it was still kind of tiresome to watch.

I do agree that there are some custom moves that make the game better, but unfortunately there's at least as many that make the game worse, and the ones that make it worse tend to have more of an effect on the metagame since broken stuff tends to be what wins. I wish they had just taken some of the good customs and made them the defaults instead.

Incidentally, my preferred ruleset would be Mii Fighters can use all Customs, no one else can use any. Excluding the Mii Fighters from the customs-off environment even though the game doesn't prohibit them from being used is just dumb.

Abadango used Speedy Bike very interestingly in a non-spammy way.

 

[shinyskarmory]

I think the biggest takeaway from EVO is that custom moves on does not cause players of lesser skill to win matches they don't deserve to, nor does it cause so much jank that the game becomes unplayable or over centralize the metagame around a few broken characters. Indeed, the top two characters were default Diddy and default Sheik.

Sure, some people camped with Villager or Sonic or Rosaluma. It wasn't effective, though. Custom Villagers got eliminated fairly early on, custom Rosaluma seemed to enable more aggressive play from her, and custom Sonic got the same placing as at CEO, so customs didn't make StaticManny's start any more effective.

I think that maintaining a customs/no customs split in the community is inevitable, given that there will always be a crowd of people who think they're uncompetitive jank. But the evidence suggests that customs do not enable players of lesser skill to cheese out matches, maintaining the most important factor for competitiveness.

TL;DR I support customs on but people have the right to host what they want to host and play what they want to play.

 

[Terotrous]

Abadango used Speedy Bike very interestingly in a non-spammy way.

Like I said, the tragedy of Custom Moves is that there's a few custom moves that are really cool, but they get overshadowed by the janky ones. I think the concept has potential, it's just not implemented very well. Too many custom moves are just straight up superior to their defaults, which tends to result in those moves centralizing the character's movesets. I wish Sakurai had a bit more of an eye for balance when designing these things.

 

[Damandatwin]

I think the biggest takeaway from EVO is that custom moves on does not cause players of lesser skill to win matches they don't deserve to, nor does it cause so much jank that the game becomes unplayable or over centralize the metagame around a few broken characters. Indeed, the top two characters were default Diddy and default Sheik.

I think you might be over-extrapolating. Customs aren't so jank that the best players in the world can't beat them, but the fact remains that CaptainAwesum, a player who apparently doesn't even win his own locals, got to top 32 at EVO purely because of custom villager.

Maybe the strategies for beating that custom set will trickle down from the top and it will become less of a problem in the future, or maybe it'll stick around and wipe out low and mid level players forever. Who knows.

 

[Tinkerer]

lol she doesn't really break the metagame, is light as a feather, and has some bad MUs

That's good then, because neither do those customs.

 

[Raijinken]

Well.. shofu has one.
https://twitter.com/OfficialShofu/status/622521088497487873.
Yeah....

He's obviously talking about Sheik.

Oh, and Sonic, but Sonic's stupid regardless.

Okay, first of all I'm going to say that I think the pro-customs people are making a horrible argument for customs in this thread. Saying "look, Customs didn't break EVO" or "look, Customs didn't change the outcome at all" doesn't make a strong argument for Customs, it sounds like you already know that Customs are jank and you're desperately trying to prove that they aren't TOO jank. Where's the "Customs made X match much more interesting" or what not?

Anyway, as you can probably already tell, I'm not really in favour of them. It's not so much that they break the game, but I feel that they make the game less interesting by shifting the focus away from fundamentals to more runaway and spam. Admittedly, I didn't watch all of EVO, only a handful of matches, but every one I saw that involved customs was basically one player spamming 1-2 custom moves ad nauseum while the other player tried to find a way around it. Whether they found a way around it or not, it was still kind of tiresome to watch.

I do agree that there are some custom moves that make the game better, but unfortunately there's at least as many that make the game worse, and the ones that make it worse tend to have more of an effect on the metagame since broken stuff tends to be what wins. I wish they had just taken some of the good customs and made them the defaults instead.

Incidentally, my preferred ruleset would be Mii Fighters can use all Customs, no one else can use any. Excluding the Mii Fighters from the customs-off environment even though the game doesn't prohibit them from being used is just dumb.

As a Customs player who's literally been using them since the 3DS launched (and even moreso once the moveset project was under way), I must disagree. Others may be doing exactly what you're saying ("No look it's not THAT jank!"), but quite frankly, if pro-customs players become broken records about that, it's because very vocal anti-customs players are broken records that they ARE jank. If we say anything BUT "No, they aren't jank, and EVO proved it," then anti-customs players will keep spouting "ban cyclone too janky" and "ban counter timber too janky," even though both of these strategies flopped. The point is to prove that those claims are incorrect, and no amount of other valid points have seemed to get it through some people's thick skulls that Kong Cyclone is, at best, weird, and not actually good.

As for where's the "Customs made X match much more interesting", I saw excellent Custom Wario from Abadango, some actually-interesting Sheik use of a Gravity grenade for a stagespike, Wii Fit Trainer and Palutena both made top 32, and quite frankly, watching a Sheik not just faceroll the controller to beat Villager was entertaining enough for me to not care that 2/3 of the set's matches went to time.

Anyways, when a purely default Sheik or Mario was able to beat the premier "run away and spam" strats with their own versions of the strategy, it's really stopped being a relevant argument. Spammy runaway players will spam and runaway. Sonic and Villager are literally designed and played that way regardless of customs. For every Villager that spammed Lloid and Timber Counter, there were two Sheiks spamming fair and dthrow-uair 50/50, or camping needles. It's part of the game. Heck, Melee even had Hbox spamming the ledge and Fox retaliating with laser spam. It has nothing to do with customs, and everything to do with the characters and players.

In short, "broken stuff tends to be what wins," and default Sheik beat everything but Zero's Diddy. The anti-custom fear can only be attributed to a fear of more variables and required learning.

I'm glad you're reasonable about Miis though.

 

[ToadsterOven]

Really? Top sm4sh players are still going at it with their anti customs tweets? Whatever happened to top players just adapting to new features in fighting games rather than waste time and energy telling the rest of us how much they don't like it? Customs have proven to be a harmless threat and in some characters cases enriched their metagame. Also, any players that tried spamming Kong Cyclone or Villager's customs were quickly dealt with in pools by players with good fundamentals.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

Now that we've had some time to play with them and learn what's what, I think it's time to start narrowing our custom sets down to maybe 2 or 3 legal sets. There are already 55 different (and more or less viable) characters in this game, and with even just 2 custom sets, that turns into an amount of matchups that is virtually impossible to prepare for, regardless of how much time you spend in the lab. People are still trying to negotiate the Melee matchups, and there are only about 10 viable characters in that game.

Not only that, but I think we need to start reevaluating custom sets from the lens of overall balance and quality of play instead of optimization. For instance, Pikachu, Rosalina and Sheik don't need optimal sets. They are extremely good characters with enough versatility built into their core designs to handle virtually any MU. There's just no reason to make these characters any better than they already are, from a balance perspective. I'm not opposed to giving them tools to handle certain scenarios differently, but HSB and the custom star bits are just straight upgrades for top tier characters, and that's just not a great idea.

On the other side of things, Static Manny is tragic enough to watch in a no-customs environment, we don't need to add to the pile of spectator-garbage with the combination of trip sapling and explosive balloons. Unless you want to start keeping tabs on ledge grabs again like we did in Brawl (and you don't). Honestly, I'm not even opposed to trip sapling, since it helps keep villager from getting absolutely steamrolled by rushdown. The exploding balloons, though, are just a ridiculous move by design. Some people scoff at the notion that we should appeal to casual spectators, but this is how a game survives (and prize pools grow) in the competitive scene, ultimately. It has to be just as watchable as it is playable.

Kong Cyclone and the big-ass hula-hoops are great, but they're not killing the community's hard-on instantly or winning any major events as far as I can tell, so no harm, no foul.

 

[Raijinken]

Now that we've had some time to play with them and learn what's what, I think it's time to start narrowing our custom sets down to maybe 2 or 3 legal sets. There are already 55 different (and more or less viable) characters in this game, and with even just 2 custom sets, that turns into an amount of matchups that is virtually impossible to prepare for, regardless of how much time you spend in the lab. People are still trying to negotiate the Melee matchups, and there are only about 10 viable characters in that game.

Not only that, but I think we need to start reevaluating custom sets from the lens of overall balance and quality of play instead of optimization. For instance, Pikachu, Rosalina and Sheik don't need optimal sets. They are extremely good characters with enough versatility built into their core designs to handle virtually any MU. There's just no reason to make these characters any better than they already are, from a balance perspective. I'm not opposed to giving them tools to handle certain scenarios differently, but HSB and the custom star bits are just straight upgrades for top tier characters, and that's just not a great idea.

On the other side of things, Static Manny is tragic enough to watch in a no-customs environment, we don't need to add to the pile of spectator-garbage with the combination of trip sapling and explosive balloons. Unless you want to start keeping tabs on ledge grabs again like we did in Brawl (and you don't). Honestly, I'm not even opposed to trip sapling, since it helps keep villager from getting absolutely steamrolled by rushdown. The exploding balloons, though, are just a ridiculous move by design. Some people scoff at the notion that we should appeal to casual spectators, but this is how a game survives (and prize pools grow) in the competitive scene, ultimately. It has to be just as watchable as it is playable.

Kong Cyclone and the big-*** hula-hoops are great, but they're not killing the community's hard-on instantly or winning any major events as far as I can tell, so no harm, no foul.

What're your thoughts on using customs to directly nerf, say, Sheik, for instance by requiring her to use Paralyzing Needles?

Really? Top sm4sh players are still going at it with their anti customs tweets? Whatever happened to top players just adapting to new features in fighting games rather than waste time and energy telling the rest of us how much they don't like it? Customs have proven to be a harmless threat and in some characters cases enriched their metagame. Also, any players that tried spamming Kong Cyclone or Villager's customs were quickly dealt with in pools by players with good fundamentals.

Sometimes they DO adapt. Zero was pretty vocal about Sheik being nonsense up until he won almost all of EVO with her.

 

[Terotrous]

if pro-customs players become broken records about that, it's because very vocal anti-customs players are broken records that they ARE jank. If we say anything BUT "No, they aren't jank, and EVO proved it," then anti-customs players will keep spouting "ban cyclone too janky" and "ban counter timber too janky," even though both of these strategies flopped. The point is to prove that those claims are incorrect, and no amount of other valid points have seemed to get it through some people's thick skulls that Kong Cyclone is, at best, weird, and not actually good.

At this point, I'm much less concerned about jankiness and much more about centralization. What I really don't like seeing is matches where the neutral is reduced to basically one or two moves (regardless of whether there's anything strange about those moves), and a lot of Customs matches have a tendency to go this way.

Early on in the customs debate, there was a common argument that "custom moves make characters stronger, and stronger characters only leads to a more dynamic game", but I think it's becoming increasingly clear that this is flawed reasoning. If characters become too strong, the game actually starts to become less dynamic, because you can simply autopilot certain aspects of your offense without considering what the opponent is doing. The whole aspect that makes fighting games interesting is risk vs reward, if you skew this balance too much the game starts to lose depth. Just take a look at Marvel 3 vs Street Fighter 4. The characters in Marvel 3 can run circles around the SF4 characters, but SF4 is a much deeper game specifically because of these limitations.

Right now, Customs Smash is looking too much like Marvel for my tastes.

As for where's the "Customs made X match much more interesting", I saw excellent Custom Wario from Abadango, some actually-interesting Sheik use of a Gravity grenade for a stagespike, Wii Fit Trainer and Palutena both made top 32, and quite frankly, watching a Sheik not just faceroll the controller to beat Villager was entertaining enough for me to not care that 2/3 of the set's matches went to time.

There was honestly quite a lot of spam of that Speedy Bike in the Wario match. While it was nice to see Wario and WFT, I can't say I enjoyed watching their gameplay as much as I would have if it was customs off.

Spammy runaway players will spam and runaway. Sonic and Villager are literally designed and played that way regardless of customs.

IMO it's a much more nuanced camp though. Watch Manny's matches before and after he switches to customs. He mixes it up much more with the default set and actually goes in for attacks more often, whereas once he turns on Hammer Spindash it's just that one move ad nauseum.

Not only that, but I think we need to start reevaluating custom sets from the lens of overall balance and quality of play instead of optimization. For instance, Pikachu, Rosalina and Sheik don't need optimal sets.

Honestly, I feel like this is the best approach, but it will never work. Who gets to be the authority to say "Pikachu and Rosalina only get these customs but Luigi gets all of his" for example? Selectively banning moves is just never going to find acceptance.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

What're your thoughts on using customs to directly nerf, say, Sheik, for instance by requiring her to use Paralyzing Needles?

Honestly, I'm in favor of it, but like the person who posted just after you implied, it will be very difficult to develop a consensus around what characters don't get access to direct upgrades, nevermind which characters merit a direct downgrade.

So speaking realistically, it makes more sense to me to try and find consensus for which moves are considered direct upgrades and which characters (maybe tier-based) shouldn't have access to those upgrades.

 

[Skarfelt]

Top plagers want to win. With customs on they have to learn a lot more stuff in order to not win. Of course they are going to oppose them. this is why people oppose customs in general too. Until you learn them they are jank, and few have bothered to learn them since they are hanging loose. Thus they continue to be jank. Since there was never a time when it seemed definite enough that customs where going to be the thing they've never been given a fair chance by top players and most other people opposing them. They keep hoping they end up banned rather than master them.

I cannot fathom this argument. Top players are continuing to win. Results did not change in top 8 due to customs being on and screwing them over or something. It's not like every top player is against customs due to this selfish desire to remain at the top or something...

Optimal sets seems really counterproductive. We already see arguments over what the best sets are, people not having their set available, customs on, customs off, some customs banned and so on. Adding yet another faction that will only cause more arguments is just... no.

I'm also confused at the current "customs didn't break EVO so they're fine" argument going on right now. Like, did anybody really believe some DK was going to win the tournament? Of course not, if customs were truly that broken then this wouldn't even be a discussion.

This is a circular argument due to the subjective nature of the custom metagame. Being "more interesting", "more jank" or whatever else is all subjective. The only objective comparisons that can be made are results - I can't find the top 32 results right now but I'm seeing characters' placements being chalked up to customs allowing them to place well which is an insult to the players along with a weird argument in general. Customs were on and Palutena did well. Customs were off at CEO and Mii Swordsman did well. Are you going to tell me that Swordsman was only there because of Customs off? Of course not, we all know he's better with Customs - he was there because Trela is really good at this game. Palutena becomes better with Customs - that much is pretty obvious. I just don't think there are characters that are straight up unviable without Customs before, just take more work. Much more work, granted.

So yeah basically what I'm saying is comparing results is also pretty hard to do objectively - if a Zelda does well in Customs off, it's just as easy to say "LOOK AT THIS DIVERSITY FROM CUSTOMS OFF". I'm just not seeing this crazy new diversity EVO was apparently supposed to bring. Nothing changed and I don't see how that makes the argument go "yeah kay customs can stay then as nothing went wrong" but nothing going wrong doesn't mean there are literally only positives.