What are your opinions on Customs Post-Evo 2015?

[Raijinken]

I have 2 problems with your argument.

1. You comparing the process for banning stages as the same for banning customs. First of all, the banning of stages took place over time and was due to results of experimentation. The ones that were eliminated immediately were eliminated due to objectively possessing qualities that, through previous experimentation, were unfit for competitive play. Either that or they shouldn't have been eliminated at all, but that's a whole other argument.

2. You completely ignoring the evidence. We ran customs. Nothing like you described happened. Villager was annoying but not broken (not to mention he's been nerfed since), WFT was viable-ish, DK was trouble to people who were ignorant, and we saw slightly higher placings for B tier characters overall. There were non of these upsets you described, and even then you've yet to describe how this would be a bad thing necessarily.

My source:http://shoryuken.com/2015/07/19/evo...argest-fighting-game-tournament-in-the-world/

Banning, or not-banning, of stages, sadly, has become very hereditary, so to speak. Early in Smash4 there was a widespread adoptation of Brawl's legal stagelist (including Delfino, Halberd, and Castle Siege), addition of Town and City and Duck Hunt (but some opposition on various grounds), and so on. It's only been over a pretty wide time span that more and more tournaments are cutting Siege and Halberd in the presence of other sufficient options (Dream Land, for instance). Even Delfino gets a lot of flak and gets cut at some events. There are cases where the criteria at issue are what need to be evaluated for the new game being played, for instance. 75M is slightly different from how it was in Brawl (I believe, and could quite likely be wrong, but the top platform can now be dropped through, and the springs are somewhat less powerful), but the critical characteristic of being massive and circle-campable hasn't been changed. Stadium 2, by comparison, had the strength of Electric's conveyors reduced, amongst other tweaks. While eventually people figured Flying makes for a highly polar match phase that can give some characters fresh 0-to-death combos, up until that there was plenty of reason to reconsider its legality. Heck, if items had been reworked to spawn fully predictably, they'd even be worth a reconsideration or selective adoption since that changes a significant minus-point against their use.

Customs are different, though they face some of the same resistances. Customs are fighting a further uphill battle by being a new introduction. Many of them include previously somewhat uncommon, or outright nonexistent, functions to characters. Windboxes and armor are unusual to a lot of specials that get them in a customs environment, and Timber Counter adds an extremely rare trip option that appears to the uninformed to have no counterplay options or drawbacks. Even if you get stubborn players past these, we're fighting a presently and historically conservative community (ruleset wise) to directly add something to the game, and in contrast with balance patches and engine changes, they are given, and arguably even encouraged to use, the option to keep these off and unused. To make matters worse, most pro-customs players are still pretty alright with playing default Smash even if they think it's lacking. By comparison, anti-customs players go out of their way to assault the mere notion of changing your moveset. It's hard to even run both rulesets alongside when the loudest childish screaming suggests that you'll get no attendees if you so much as set a system up for customs-on friendlies. When the very thought of having the opportunity to prevent Counter Timber or Hammer Spin Dash from ever seeing the light of day again was proposed, regardless of the hundreds of other moves, people supported removing things they didn't like, at the "low" cost of other things they disliked, don't know exist, or at best don't care about.

We can't win by being logical or rational, when the rules of the war don't depend on rationality or logic. Anyone can be a textbook scrub about removing something because it's not "fun" or "fair", but as long as it's the scrubs who hold the power, all we can do as pro-customs players is... what, be the quiet minority that still goes to and supports the major competitions because ours doesn't exist? The only way I see customs coming back at this point is if EVO and/or some other major decides "Screw you kids we're still playing customs. Learn them or forfeit our prize money." I wish I saw it otherwise, but having spent the lifespan of the game beating my head against a wall trying to make people see that customs are a good thing by the competition argument, and a good thing by the balance argument, and a good thing by the fun argument (for at least as many players as use them), just to be told "Nuh-uh you're stupid," the future is looking bleak.

 

[MajorMajora]

While I agree with your point 1 I do think the person in question agrees with your point 2 from what I've read, he doesn't seem opposed to customs as long as the available ones are heavily tested. That's just what I understood from his post anyways.

Personally, I'm not even sure if I'd give most of the B tier characters access to more than a single custom move, with some exceptions. (and a regulated ban list for broken sets naturally) or anything higher than B+ to any customs for that matter

I'm mostly in favor of custom moves for the ability to breathe life into currently weak characters, allowing them to compete on a competitive stage.

If there were any broken sets they sure as hell didn't show their faces at EVO, and given the amount of time we had to experiment with them I feel like we would've found them by now. A Sheik/Diddy main won Evo, after all.

And there is no point in allowing just 1 custom. What are the fundamental differences between customs and defaults, from a gameplay point of view, that makes it so it's okay to have 3-4 default move but only 1 custom move?

Raijinken We can prevail, but it requires 2 things: 1, acknowledging we can prevail, and 2, formulating a plan. I while ago I tried making a group that focused on stuff like this but it didn't take off. Maybe if someone with more influence than I tried doing this we could get a good think tank together?

 

[Lvl99Gamer]

And there is no point in allowing just 1 custom. What are the fundamental differences between customs and defaults, from a gameplay point of view, that makes it so it's okay to have 3-4 default move but only 1 custom move?

Mainly balance reasons, this way there's more of an equal playing field. Sheik and Pikachu don't need to get any stronger but a Bowser with 1311 makes a world of difference.

For me this is the main attraction to customs, if every character could use every custom move all that would accomplish is a different tier list from what we have now with a lot of characters again, considered unusable, while moderating the usable moves/sets allows us to pull the bad characters out of the trash tiers.

 

[san.]

What are the problematic customs nowadays? There are still concerns of customs, but I am confused which specific ones people talk about. The patches have altered how we interact with shield and the reward we are able to get nowadays are noticeably higher than in the past.

Villager's exploding balloons were nerfed, is that still a problem at all? Both tree and trip sapling are good in their own ways.

DK's wind upB already had counterplay before DK's buffs, and it seems like DK has reasons to use his default upB for situationally more damaging punishes.

Pikachu's paralyzing jolt can't infinite anymore to my knowledge. The custom sideB is indeed very strong and very good, but it's still weak after a little bit of distance and it has a lot of endlag.

Rosalina becomes better, but is it really to a level where there's a large concern?

Then there are various good to really good customs, but for most of them, the defaults were also very good or they're not overbearingly good. I still think that some more testing is needed to truly iron out any surprises on many of the less popular customs, if it hasn't been done already. I'm not a fan of the idea that it makes worse characters better. There's no telling who gets worse or better, even Jigglypuff with garbage customs since it may be possible that easier MUs are more commonplace.

 

[Lvl99Gamer]

I'm not a fan of the idea that it makes worse characters better. There's no telling who gets worse or better, even Jigglypuff with garbage customs since it may be possible that easier MUs are more commonplace.

Well they don't HAVE to get better, they just might. Even if someone currently in C tier would get access to their customs do you think they become broken or can challenge Sheik's reign? If something turns out to be highly unfavorable or straight up broken it could always get banned.

 

[MajorMajora]

Mainly balance reasons, this way there's more of an equal playing field. Sheik and Pikachu don't need to get any stronger but a Bowser with 1311 makes a world of difference.

For me this is the main attraction to customs, if every character could use every custom move all that would accomplish is a different tier list from what we have now with a lot of characters again, considered unusable, while moderating the usable moves/sets allows us to pull the bad characters out of the trash tiers.

A: Balance concerns aren't a worry, as I've stated previously.

B: Players don't like feeling constrained. There would probably be a lot of depth to not allowing Sheik, Zamus, or Rosalina t be played, forcing people to get outside their comfort zone. But people don't like not being able to play the things they want to for something as arbitrary as "it might add depth".

 

[Virion Steel]

I'm mostly in favor of custom moves for the ability to breathe life into currently weak characters, allowing them to compete on a competitive stage.

That's exactly it. Thank you.

I have 2 problems with your argument.

1. You comparing the process for banning stages as the same for banning customs. First of all, the banning of stages took place over time and was due to results of experimentation. The ones that were eliminated immediately were eliminated due to objectively possessing qualities that, through previous experimentation, were unfit for competitive play. Either that or they shouldn't have been eliminated at all, but that's a whole other argument.

2. You completely ignoring the evidence. We ran customs. Nothing like you described happened. Villager was annoying but not broken (not to mention he's been nerfed since), WFT was viable-ish, DK was trouble to people who were ignorant, and we saw slightly higher placings for B tier characters overall. There were non of these upsets you described, and even then you've yet to describe how this would be a bad thing necessarily.

My source:http://shoryuken.com/2015/07/19/evo...argest-fighting-game-tournament-in-the-world/

Your first point is my argument precisely. I just have a problem with how you approached it and addressed detractors. To address the second point, no, I'm not ignoring the evidence. I just think that customs should be treated as its own separate ruleset and system independent of vanilla Smash 4 until we truly have an understanding of how they interact with the tentative balance we have currently. I used hyperbole in order to emphasize what I was trying to say and distorted my argument. For that, I apologize.

 

[Raijinken]

That's exactly it. Thank you.



Your first point is my argument precisely. I just have a problem with how you approached it and addressed detractors. To address the second point, no, I'm not ignoring the evidence. I just think that customs should be treated as its own separate ruleset and system independent of vanilla Smash 4 until we truly have an understanding of how they interact with the tentative balance we have currently. I used hyperbole in order to emphasize what I was trying to say and distorted my argument. For that, I apologize.

I'd love for Smash4 in general to be widespread enough to run both rulesets, personally, but it's exceptionally hard to get anyone to run a ruleset that isn't run at a major. There's all of one customs-on tournament in the state of NC, which was averaging about ten entrants bi-weekly, etc, while our major TOs and PR board basically banned discussing customs whatsoever because it was considered flaming. Of course, my experiences are only my own, but it seems like nowhere that has the playerbase to do so is interested, and nobody interested has the players to do so.

 

[Virion Steel]

I'd love for Smash4 in general to be widespread enough to run both rulesets, personally, but it's exceptionally hard to get anyone to run a ruleset that isn't run at a major. There's all of one customs-on tournament in the state of NC, which was averaging about ten entrants bi-weekly, etc, while our major TOs and PR board basically banned discussing customs whatsoever because it was considered flaming. Of course, my experiences are only my own, but it seems like nowhere that has the playerbase to do so is interested, and nobody interested has the players to do so.

I've been trying to grow the local scene here in the Arkansas River Valley and I've discussed customs with players before. Banning the discussion isn't the solution at all and is really extreme IMO. I'm sorry you have to deal with that. I know that I'm going to try to run both rulesets once my local grows.

 

[Lvl99Gamer]

I'd love for Smash4 in general to be widespread enough to run both rulesets, personally, but it's exceptionally hard to get anyone to run a ruleset that isn't run at a major. There's all of one customs-on tournament in the state of NC, which was averaging about ten entrants bi-weekly, etc, while our major TOs and PR board basically banned discussing customs whatsoever because it was considered flaming. Of course, my experiences are only my own, but it seems like nowhere that has the playerbase to do so is interested, and nobody interested has the players to do so.

So where do we need to focus our efforts on then? I'm all for advocating a Custom ruleset but I can do little else aside from trying to convince local players of the benefits. I think a lot of people could be on board if not for the hassle it takes to implement this, I think that's also the reason for the lack of popularity at tourney's at the moment, it's not the "standard" and little money to be made so it doesn't attract the same amount of people yet.

The only other option I can think of is to prove to TO's of the benefits with cold hard data, perhaps a huge smashboards poll or something of the like.

 

[MajorMajora]

That's exactly it. Thank you.



Your first point is my argument precisely. I just have a problem with how you approached it and addressed detractors. To address the second point, no, I'm not ignoring the evidence. I just think that customs should be treated as its own separate ruleset and system independent of vanilla Smash 4 until we truly have an understanding of how they interact with the tentative balance we have currently. I used hyperbole in order to emphasize what I was trying to say and distorted my argument. For that, I apologize.

And my point is that we already have a good enough understanding to have confidence in it until proven otherwise. Though I do agree we should have it as a separate on the simple grounds that it's the only way anyone will ever agree to it.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Re: A plan for customs.

I think the best shot we have is trying to convert some well-known, respected TO of an already-established scene. Someone with the clout necessary to set their own rules and experiment, and visible enough for it to actually be noticed. I have no idea who would fit this criteria.

Re: Good characters getting better, namely Rosalina.

Rosalina is already pretty disliked as a character, let's not pretend otherwise. Giving her a projectile will definitely rub some people the wrong way since she's already a fortress and a projectile will just add to that. (The counterargument is that a projectile gives her something to do instead of just standing there waiting for you to do something. Your mileage may vary regarding which one is preferable.)

 

[Virion Steel]

And my point is that we already have a good enough understanding to have confidence in it until proven otherwise. Though I do agree we should have it as a separate on the simple grounds that it's the only way anyone will ever agree to it.

With only one large tournament and small experiments, I don't believe we comprehend the effects of customs quite yet. I am glad that we were able to discuss this and have a common opinion! Thank you for answering and continuing to post!

 

[MajorMajora]

With only one large tournament and small experiments, I don't believe we comprehend the effects of customs quite yet. I am glad that we were able to discuss this and have a common opinion! Thank you for answering and continuing to post!

Yeah any disagreement between us at this point is one of semantics.

ParanoidDrone I agree with that plan. I had something similar, but yours is what I think we should focus on.

 

[W.A.C.]

Rosalina in customs meta is more polarizing and more versatile, but yet her matchup spread is worse because of how much certain characters benefit from custom moves. While I support seeing customs return, I don't miss fighting custom Rosalina. Luma Warp, Shooting Star Bit, and Guardian Luma made a lot of matchups absolutely obnoxious. But if customs became legal again, I will fully put up with it and do my best to learn the matchup.

 

[Raijinken]

I mean, Rosalina becomes obnoxious, but is that any different from someone just... playing Sheik? Or, depending on your main of choice, Rosalina? Giving her Shooting Star Bit when I'm playing Robin doesn't make my life any worse, because it's basically impossible for it to get worse to begin with.

I do think a fair bit of resistance comes from single-main players and loyalists whose characters are, in a sense, indirectly harmed from the implementation. All I can say to that is get over it like the rest of us non-top-tier mains do.

 

[DunnoBro]

What are the problematic customs nowadays? There are still concerns of customs, but I am confused which specific ones people talk about. The patches have altered how we interact with shield and the reward we are able to get nowadays are noticeably higher than in the past.

Villager's exploding balloons were nerfed, is that still a problem at all? Both tree and trip sapling are good in their own ways.

DK's wind upB already had counterplay before DK's buffs, and it seems like DK has reasons to use his default upB for situationally more damaging punishes.

Pikachu's paralyzing jolt can't infinite anymore to my knowledge. The custom sideB is indeed very strong and very good, but it's still weak after a little bit of distance and it has a lot of endlag.

Rosalina becomes better, but is it really to a level where there's a large concern?

Then there are various good to really good customs, but for most of them, the defaults were also very good or they're not overbearingly good. I still think that some more testing is needed to truly iron out any surprises on many of the less popular customs, if it hasn't been done already. I'm not a fan of the idea that it makes worse characters better. There's no telling who gets worse or better, even Jigglypuff with garbage customs since it may be possible that easier MUs are more commonplace.

Cyclone is still probably the biggest. And no one would use default, while it does add to his combo game, cyclone patches his major issue of returning to neutral/recovering. He'd be extremely hard to kill and pressure. (I wouldn't be surprised if it creates new kill confirms with his buffed throws either)

Stall Villager is completely dead, but still pretty annoying. Not a concern overall.

HSB Pikachu is tolerable now but still pretty imbalanced imo. The endlag isn't really a detriment since it's mobile endlag. If pikachu didn't have a totally free recovery it'd be okay since HSBing offstage/through an air dodge would be a decent risk, but as it is it's something you can throw out. (But it's still better balanced than shoryuken, limit break, and boost kick)

Rosa's an issue due to increased gatekeeper status. She still loses to she loses to but beats who she already does even harder. It's mostly because she has an easy mode reflector and projectile, leaving no holes for characters that can't just get in her face.

They're likely not anything gamebreaking, though. But you can bet people wouldn't deal with finishing touch, shoryuken, ko punch, or similar radical specials if they had a legit john.

 

[ぱみゅ]

At the big streamers thing, VGBC might occasionally run customs for the kicks like they occasionally run different competitions, but the main thing stopping it is a certain very vocal bay bird who dislikes ONE move.

iirc, FL streams also get unconventional rulesets once in a while.

Some midwest streams might too, but they have not a lot of known players.

That's all I can think ATM.

 

[Lvl99Gamer]

At the big streamers thing, VGBC might occasionally run customs for the kicks like they occasionally run different competitions, but the main thing stopping it is a certain very vocal bay bird who dislikes ONE move.

If one move did turn out to be obnoxious what's stopping us from banning it? Plenty of moves and sets are banned in Competitive Pokemon so why not here.

From what I'm reading here in this thread it seems most people are more in favor of just letting everyone use their customs and let nature take it's course.
Personally I am hoping for more of a Hybrid approach and use customs as a way to artificially balance the game, allowing weaker characters to have presence competitively or even find a niche in tournament play.

 

[Raijinken]

If one move did turn out to be obnoxious what's stopping us from banning it? Plenty of moves and sets are banned in Competitive Pokemon so why not here.

From what I'm reading here in this thread it seems most people are more in favor of just letting everyone use their customs and let nature take it's course.
Personally I am hoping for more of a Hybrid approach and use customs as a way to artificially balance the game, allowing weaker characters to have presence competitively or even find a niche in tournament play.

Objectivity is stopping us from banning it. People can hate whichever moves, characters, stages, or whatevers they want, but hatred is not grounds for a ban. Nor is "obnoxiousness", for that matter. Only something obscenely imbalanced (MORE than something in defaults, I must emphasize the metric must be fairly applied), exceptionally buggy (for fair metrics, I think it should have to rival Infinite Dimensional Cape), or similarly objectively unhealthy for competitive play (and no, campy Villager and campy Sonic are not objectively unhealthy so long as our ruleset explicitly allows victory via time-out/stalling strategies). But nobody in this community is objective, and that's why we're having the issue in the first place.

Pokemon moves are banned for introducing extra RNG into a game which already has an amusing amount of RNG. Their ban rules never made sense to me in the first place, but I can somewhat grasp the idea of trying to prevent their game from turning almost purely into luck (unless, y'know, run some of the stat-change-reset moves that exist specifically for this situation like Rapid Spin exists to get rid of entry hazards). So unless we're actually willing to remove things like stalling from our possible win choices, there's no reason to ban things that enable stalling.

 

[Lvl99Gamer]

Objectivity is stopping us from banning it. People can hate whichever moves, characters, stages, or whatevers they want, but hatred is not grounds for a ban. Nor is "obnoxiousness", for that matter. Only something obscenely imbalanced (MORE than something in defaults, I must emphasize the metric must be fairly applied), exceptionally buggy (for fair metrics, I think it should have to rival Infinite Dimensional Cape), or similarly objectively unhealthy for competitive play (and no, campy Villager and campy Sonic are not objectively unhealthy so long as our ruleset explicitly allows victory via time-out/stalling strategies). But nobody in this community is objective, and that's why we're having the issue in the first place.

Pokemon moves are banned for introducing extra RNG into a game which already has an amusing amount of RNG. Their ban rules never made sense to me in the first place, but I can somewhat grasp the idea of trying to prevent their game from turning almost purely into luck (unless, y'know, run some of the stat-change-reset moves that exist specifically for this situation like Rapid Spin exists to get rid of entry hazards). So unless we're actually willing to remove things like stalling from our possible win choices, there's no reason to ban things that enable stalling.

I suppose you do raise a valid point on Objectivity. I assumed the community could collectively agree on which characters need the most help to stay relevant to competitive play.

A situation where we as community could objectively decide on a case by case basis on usable sets for currently unviable characters, basically increasing the amount of characters in high level play was perhaps too optimistic of me as we are, as a whole divided, biased and perhaps even a bit jealous as current high and high mid tiers wouldn't benefit from this approach. I still think it would be healthy for the metagame and worth fighting for but maybe it's too ambitious in it's current form.

Perhaps I've gotten too emotionally invested as well, I just feel plain sorry for the characters who got screwed over by daddy Sakurai, despite me not playing any of them.

 

[DunnoBro]

At the big streamers thing, VGBC might occasionally run customs for the kicks like they occasionally run different competitions, but the main thing stopping it is a certain very vocal bay bird who dislikes ONE move.

The Glitch regional at Xanadu will be having customs as a side event.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I suppose you do raise a valid point on Objectivity. I assumed the community could collectively agree on which characters need the most help to stay relevant to competitive play.

A situation where we as community could objectively decide on a case by case basis on usable sets for currently unviable characters, basically increasing the amount of characters in high level play was perhaps too optimistic of me as we are, as a whole divided, biased and perhaps even a bit jealous as current high and high mid tiers wouldn't benefit from this approach. I still think it would be healthy for the metagame and worth fighting for but maybe it's too ambitious in it's current form.

Perhaps I've gotten too emotionally invested as well, I just feel plain sorry for the characters who got screwed over by daddy Sakurai, despite me not playing any of them.

We can't even agree on who the top 5 are beyond that Sheik and ZSS are 1 and 2. And even then I think there are people who believe ZSS is 1 and Sheik is 2 after the shield changes.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Adding to the Pokémon bans thing: Assuming you mean Smogon, they are plain bad.
They usually ban a lot of stuff out of pure hatred. Aegislash, Greninja, Mawilite, all of them did not hurt the metagame (not sure about Aegis, still very very good, but anyway), and despite they all were tested, most of the time a "suspect test" basically meant it was going to get banned anyway.
That's the reason I spent the whole 2014 playing VG, at least until ORAS came out and VG was all about the Weather Trio. UGH.


ANYWAY. My point is that specific bans like those are not optimal and will eventually lead to poor results, we'd end up banning stuff that does not deserve it, and at the end of the day we'd have a ruleset made out of mere sentiment.

 

[FallenHero]

Adding to the Pokémon bans thing: Assuming you mean Smogon, they are plain bad.
They usually ban a lot of stuff out of pure hatred. Aegislash, Greninja, Mawilite, all of them did not hurt the metagame (not sure about Aegis, still very very good, but anyway), and despite they all were tested, most of the time a "suspect test" basically meant it was going to get banned anyway.
That's the reason I spent the whole 2014 playing VG, at least until ORAS came out and VG was all about the Weather Trio. UGH.


ANYWAY. My point is that specific bans like those are not optimal and will eventually lead to poor results, we'd end up banning stuff that does not deserve it, and at the end of the day we'd have a ruleset made out of mere sentiment.

lol finally someone who agrees with me about smogon and how they ban so many things just because they can't even deal with it. But that is for another topic.

 

[Steelballray]

So with the customs being changed in that patch or something. Should the evo customs sets be altered? Negated completely? Or were the changes too small for that to happen?

 

[Rashyboy05]

Adding to the Pokémon bans thing: Assuming you mean Smogon, they are plain bad.
They usually ban a lot of stuff out of pure hatred.

lol finally someone who agrees with me about smogon and how they ban so many things just because they can't even deal with it. But that is for another topic.

Oh look. More of these people. yaaaaaayy
I would go on and explain why I disagree with those but this is a Competitive Smash thread, not a competitive Pokemon thread.

Anyway, any reason on why we can't ban some customs? If we want to make customs appeal to the public then some things must be sacrificed for that to happen. Hell, we can't even get the public to allow Mii legality.

 

[FallenHero]

Oh look. More of these people. yaaaaaayy
I would go on and explain why I disagree with those but this is a Competitive Smash thread, not a competitive Pokemon thread.

Anyway, any reason on why we can't ban some customs? If we want to make customs appeal to the public then some things must be sacrificed for that to happen. Hell, we can't even get the public to allow Mii legality.

Well I did say "But that is for another topic". If I wanted to completely go off topic I would write a larger post about it and the other guy (I am not even going to bother trying to tag their name) used that example to make a point about banning customs, I swear every time I say one thing negative about the smogon meta, there is always someone who can't seem to stand seeing anyone disagree with it's meta. I think the main problem with banning customs is that even if it makes it more appealing to the public, a ton of people who already supported customs would not be happy knowing that specific customs are being banned because I have seen many that just have an all or nothing mindset when it comes to custom moves.

 

[Lvl99Gamer]

Well I did say "But that is for another topic". If I wanted to completely go off topic I would write a larger post about it and the other guy (I am not even going to bother trying to tag their name) used that example to make a point about banning customs, I swear every time I say one thing negative about the smogon meta, there is always someone who can't seem to stand seeing anyone disagree with it's meta. I think the main problem with banning customs is that even if it makes it more appealing to the public, a ton of people who already supported customs would not be happy knowing that specific customs are being banned because I have seen many that just have an all or nothing mindset when it comes to custom moves.

I really don't like the all or nothing approach to customs though as in my eyes, all that would accomplish in my eyes is a tier list that's just "different" from the one we have now with again, characters in trash tiers etc.
Now some people in this thread already raised a few good points against this hybrid approach but then again, mostly that people won't be able to agree on anything, there's tons of points for and against both customs on and off or hybrid though.

Maybe we should start small and try to get Mii and Paluteno customs legal and work our way from there.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Trying to separate tiers between defaults only and customizations can require a lot of studying for the customs department. Some characters don't receive any benefits from their custom specials, while others may receive too much benefit from them.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

So with the customs being changed in that patch or something. Should the evo customs sets be altered? Negated completely? Or were the changes too small for that to happen?

They should be changed, yes, but the problem is motivating people to care enough.

Even without the patch, the meta has advanced enough for some sets to fall out of favor. Pac-Man players aren't on a honeymoon with Meteor Trampoline anymore, for instance.

 

[Lvl99Gamer]

Trying to separate tiers between defaults only and customizations can require a lot of studying for the customs department. Some characters don't receive any benefits from their custom specials, while others may receive too much benefit from them.

Well, I doubt a lot of characters can receive "too much" benefit, most characters with customs still can't challenge a vanilla Sheik and while it's true poor old Zelda will still be sad, some customs might be enough to pull some of the "trash" into a semi-viable state.

 

[ぱみゅ]

The bottom line of why we don't ban specific customs is that, since no one of them is broken and there is no ban criteria or guidelines, once we ban one nothing is stopping from banning 2, or 5, or 10, or 50.
It would eventually become a mess, just like Smogon did.

And, yes, the Custom Moveset Project was supposed to be updated, it's just that very few people ever bother with it. As it stands right now, some specific characters might not get enough data for a revision.

 

[Mario & Sonic Guy]

Well, I doubt a lot of characters can receive "too much" benefit, most characters with customs still can't challenge a vanilla Sheik and while it's true poor old Zelda will still be sad, some customs might be enough to pull some of the "trash" into a semi-viable state.

Ganondorf definitely does get a lot of benefit out of Dark Fists and Wizard's Dropkick. It's too bad that some of the other lower ranked fighters are not so fortunate with their custom special options.

 

[Lvl99Gamer]

The bottom line of why we don't ban specific customs is that, since no one of them is broken and there is no ban criteria or guidelines, once we ban one nothing is stopping from banning 2, or 5, or 10, or 50.
It would eventually become a mess, just like Smogon did.

And, yes, the Custom Moveset Project was supposed to be updated, it's just that very few people ever bother with it. As it stands right now, some specific characters might not get enough data for a revision.

You're right on that I suppose, especially since there is no single authority who gets to decide on these customs. I guess it IS too easy to say "This character is currently doing rather poorly, let's give him access to a custom move" as there is no clear definition of what a bad character actually is, would that be decided by community tier lists? tournament results? all of those options would be arbitrary and awkward, a contrast from my previous (perhaps too naive) mindset.

Papa Sakurai didn't make this easy on us... With the Mii fighters and Palutena drawing especially short sticks.

To make everything worse, someone earlier in this thread had a very good point that, while a lot of people are in favor of legalizing customs, all of them are pretty ok with standard smash as well and the people against it are incredibly vocal. I wish I was charismatic enough to rile up the giant smash movement to make stuff a reality though, it feels like we're all just splashing around in a pool while what we need is a tidal wave to sweep everyone along you know what I'm saying?

 

[Raijinken]

You're right on that I suppose, especially since there is no single authority who gets to decide on these customs. I guess it IS too easy to say "This character is currently doing rather poorly, let's give him access to a custom move" as there is no clear definition of what a bad character actually is, would that be decided by community tier lists? tournament results? all of those options would be arbitrary and awkward, a contrast from my previous (perhaps too naive) mindset.

Papa Sakurai didn't make this easy on us... With the Mii fighters and Palutena drawing especially short sticks.

To make everything worse, someone earlier in this thread had a very good point that, while a lot of people are in favor of legalizing customs, all of them are pretty ok with standard smash as well and the people against it are incredibly vocal. I wish I was charismatic enough to rile up the giant smash movement to make stuff a reality though, it feels like we're all just splashing around in a pool while what we need is a tidal wave to sweep everyone along you know what I'm saying?

As someone who doesn't like standard competitive smash rulesets, is exceptionally doubtful of my own skill, and has friends of comparable skill who also don't like standard tournaments, I managed to swing it that any time I host a Smash event of any kind, customs are legal. Of course, my brother sits there being salty about how unfamiliar he is with a fourth of any given character's moveset because he apparently can't bother remembering numbers, and a few other friends just don't bother with the moves in general, but the rest of us have a blast with our improved characters and variety. I even deleted all equipment from my system (cleared the challenge grid, don't need that any more) so we can random character or moveset just to see what happens.

But yeah, that can sum it up pretty well. Pro customs players just want to play Smash and would like for it to be a bit better. Anti-customs players are commendable in their will to actually refuse to support rulesets they disagree with, even if their disagreement is mostly irrational at this point.

 

[FallenHero]

I was against customs and I still am now to an extent, but I feel that if some customs are banned and they are smart on what they ban instead of banning things because a lot of players complain about it and can't figure out how to beat it, I would not really be that angry about it (though I would be worried about what they would ban and what they wouldn't). My problem with customs was never that customs were not balanced (though some of them probably are unbalanced or op), it was that I just don't have any fun playing against certain custom moves/sets. Don't get me wrong, I can play custom Doc dittos all day and still have fun, but then things like custom villager are just so boring for me to fight or watch. I'm not saying they should ban anything specific, I'm just stating why I personally am against customs.

The bottom line of why we don't ban specific customs is that, since no one of them is broken and there is no ban criteria or guidelines, once we ban one nothing is stopping from banning 2, or 5, or 10, or 50.
It would eventually become a mess, just like Smogon did.

And, yes, the Custom Moveset Project was supposed to be updated, it's just that very few people ever bother with it. As it stands right now, some specific characters might not get enough data for a revision.

Well there is something stopping them from doing that, and that is people who are smart enough to decide that and a community that won't ban something just because they can't deal with it. I have faith that this community will not ban something they don't want to just adapt to and realize they just need to use their heads and use the right tools.

P.S. Don't take me saying that I find custom villager not fun to fight as me saying I can't deal with it.

 

[nebulark]

In my opinion no custom should be banned, unless it is clearly proven to be broken. This means that move has to be so good, that it dominates at least as hard as Meta Knight in Brawl. It has to be so good that Pro players switch their characters just to use it. If it doesn't make the character better than Sheik (or whatever is 1st on the Tier list), you can't even consider banning it.

My ban criteria for a custom move would have to be the following:

Complete domination of the metagame for at least one month or strongly warping the Metagame for 3 Months.

Complete domitation - Worse than Metaknight in Brawl. Although he was nearly banned, it was only after a very long time, much more than a month. Players had time to adapt.
Strongly warping - Only 3 viable Archetypes: The broken char, the counter to that, the counter to the counter. Everything else not viable. Character Matchups mostly decide who wins (Primarily 7:3 Matchups or worse). Only the same 3-5 characters in top 32 consistently.

Most of the time people will adapt and something is only strong for a short while. It is important to not ban to hastily, because it's almost impossible to unban a wrongly banned move. Once banned you can't prove its innocence, unless some TO takes a risk. Banning is easy, unbanning is not. That's why we have to be extremly conservative with banning.

 

[FallenHero]

In my opinion no custom should be banned, unless it is clearly proven to be broken. This means that move has to be so good, that it dominates at least as hard as Meta Knight in Brawl. It has to be so good that Pro players switch their characters just to use it. If it doesn't make the character better than Sheik (or whatever is 1st on the Tier list), you can't even consider banning it.

My ban criteria for a custom move would have to be the following:

Complete domination of the metagame for at least one month or strongly warping the Metagame for 3 Months.

Complete domitation - Worse than Metaknight in Brawl. Although he was nearly banned, it was only after a very long time, much more than a month. Players had time to adapt.
Strongly warping - Only 3 viable Archetypes: The broken char, the counter to that, the counter to the counter. Everything else not viable. Character Matchups mostly decide who wins (Primarily 7:3 Matchups or worse). Only the same 3-5 characters in top 32 consistently.

Most of the time people will adapt and something is only strong for a short while. It is important to not ban to hastily, because it's almost impossible to unban a wrongly banned move. Once banned you can't prove its innocence, unless some TO takes a risk. Banning is easy, unbanning is not. That's why we have to be extremly conservative with banning.

I don't agree that it should be as broken as brawl MK since something could still end up being very overpowered and clearly broken without being better than brawl MK. I feel that nothing should be banned after just a month, I feel that the complete domination part should be up to 3 months at least, preferably 6 months to see if things change within that time. I agree with everything else though.

 

[nebulark]

Although I agree that I might be wrong about the timespans, I want to explain my self here.
I don't think that even my 3 month criteria is realistic, that why it's only 3 months. If its that bad, I would be against a ban, but probably not pushing for it. Also something doesn't have to be as broken as Metaknight to be banned. It only has to, if you want to ban it after only one month. Anything less and it should be given more time, less than shiek and isn't banworthy IMO.