What are your opinions on Customs Post-Evo 2015?

[DunnoBro]

Custom villager imo is clearly the dedede of custom smash.

Palutena is pretty much dealt with by any viable character with a usable neutral game. Super speed bair is in every way worse and easier to deal with than spindash.

Custom villager's direct "can't challenge me safely on the ledge? GG" is exactly like Dedede's "lose half your stock or more to my grab? GG"

Yea, lots of characters and top tiers can deal with it. It will never solo win any tournament ever, at least not with that as the main strategy. Others just can't deal with it at all.

And don't even get me started on how utterly impossible they are to play against in doubles (double trip sapling and ALL DEM BALLOONS), and if you want a healthy STANDARD meta, you can't have players using an entirely different cast of characters in your doubles format.

 

[Macchiato]

Custom villager imo is clearly the dedede of custom smash.

Palutena is pretty much dealt with by any viable character with a usable neutral game. Super speed bair is in every way worse and easier to deal with than spindash.

Custom villager's direct "can't challenge me safely on the ledge? GG" is exactly like Dedede's "lose half your stock or more to my grab? GG"

Yea, lots of characters and top tiers can deal with it. It will never solo win any tournament ever, at least not with that as the main strategy. Others just can't deal with it at all.

And don't even get me started on how utterly impossible they are to play against in doubles, and if you want a healthy STANDARD meta, you can't have players using an entirely different cast of characters in your doubles format.

For once in Smash 4, Din's fire the worst projectile, is the answer to an annoying controversial thing in Smash. WOW

 

[DunnoBro]

For once in Smash 4, Din's fire the worst projectile, is the answer to an annoying controversial thing in Smash. WOW

It happens, default trick shot is actually better vs custom villager. Zigzag still works it's just hard cause you have to time it so not to hit the balloons and you don't get too much off it. Default does more percent and can stage spike, along with just being easier to hit with a sourspot reverse shot one (Though I'm still the only dhd can use that tech at high level =p)

 

[Teshie U]

Dragon Rush was 1.04 patch right? I'm honestly skeptical of anything in that patch because its just the "finished" version of the game releasing. But, I'll easily concede that maybe a couple of customs were rebalanced. But its 100% definitely not the broken ones. Smash activation on side B is intentional. When a custom move breaks a basic mechanic of the game, I don't think we should blame the mechanic.

Custom moves are an amazing idea and had so much potential, but its clear that from their birth all the way until the game's release they consistently went in the wrong direction for competitive play and even many patches later they seem to be staying where they are (janksville)

Custom Villager isn't really that oppressive. He just represents a playstyle most people don't want to exist. The universal ledge mechanics mean he is perfectly vulnerable if you are patient and willing to wait for the right moments and make smart trades.

And no, spindash isn't disjointed/invincble or in any way good at beating other ATTACKS. Its only difficult to deal with if you sit in your shield all match.


Also can people stop saying "duck hunt dog" ? Its Duck Hunt, you are playing as all 3 characters in the game. Its a trio of a dog a duck and the gunner.

 

[Macchiato]

It happens, default trick shot is actually better vs custom villager. Zigzag still works it's just hard cause you have to time it so not to hit the balloons and you don't get too much off it. Default does more percent and can stage spike, along with just being easier to hit with a sourspot reverse shot one (Though I'm still the only dhd can use that tech at high level =p)

Still the fact that Din's Fire does something useful is shocking

 

[19_]

I am soooooo happy about where this discussion is going. Banning certain custom moves is something I was always in favor of despite being in favor of customs. I feel like if we can cut out the "jank" we can show them that this meta actually has something to offer. Even though some may say it's a slippery slope it is a slippery slope worth trying to go down to show customs are worth something.

btw thank you @ Electric91 for you hard work. We would wouldn't be having this discussion without you.

 

[ぱみゅ]

And if customs want to survive they need to realise that some moves, even if they aren't "broken", have to go. If Nintendo starts to actually put real effort into balancing customs (they haven't thus far, #pettyshaya, but this is OBJECTIVE) then we'll have a workable future that may start to turn anti opinions back towards pro. Otherwise it's "removing" various customs from the pool, which the average pro-custom person has been staunchly against even humoring the idea (which has gone to alienate the indifferent and anti players from pro-players in communities NOTICEABLY); the pride that can only be verbalised as "if they aren't broken/single handedly winning tournaments it's OKAY" is killing pro-customs chances by the day.

The big problem with banning non-broken stuff is that there is no longer a bar to what is acceptable and what is not.
We might (and if we take that route, eventually WILL) end up banning stuff that is barely a problem, say, Crescent Slash because kills people at low % out of a Grab Release.
It's the Smogon Route, and yes, I'm not going to be diplomatically correct and not call them bad. They just banned Baton Pass, and that is something that NEEDS to be called bad.

 

[◥θ┴θ◤ | JJ]

I think dying at 39% because you went for a not-true combo is kind of extreme: http://gfycat.com/IllImmediateBlackwidowspider

He easily could have waited for that airdodge and punished it, and it's entirely possible that you could have missed the attack. There's also rage, a light character, a low ceiling, and being in the air to factor in. Plus, 39% is what the Greninja had at the start of the attack, not the end. Situational is not extreme.

By the way, is it possible to SDI out of it?

 

[thehard]

It's threads like these that make me realize how high my tolerance is for "broken" or even "annoying" game elements, and help me understand that it's not the norm. People see it as stubborn, but I legitimately never feel like I'm clinging to something out of pride. /notimportant

 

[Jiggly]

The big problem with banning non-broken stuff is that there is no longer a bar to what is acceptable and what is not.
We might (and if we take that route, eventually WILL) end up banning stuff that is barely a problem, say, Crescent Slash because kills people at low % out of a Grab Release.
It's the Smogon Route, and yes, I'm not going to be diplomatically correct and not call them bad. They just banned Baton Pass, and that is something that NEEDS to be called bad.

They banned the use of more than 1 baton pass pokemon. There were setups for unstoppable baton pass teams, where everything baton passed to everything else and you could have +6 of everything. The meta was on a rampage, and it forced people to have several whirlwind pokemon, which is unhealthy. You obviously didn't experience those strategies.

Now that can be used as an example. Custom villager can force people to use things like Zelda, who is considered to be a low tier character. Forcing methods that arent practical elsewhere is generally unhealthy for a meta, and if that is how villager is in the smash meta, maybe we do need to take a *slight* smogon approach.

 

[Baby_Sneak]

I feel like... Without customs, the game will continue to be super forgiving with lack of any type of real offensive pressure. With customs, we have HSB, helicopter kick, dark fist, etc.. Stuff to kill you quick for making a mistake. With thise type of moves, I think we have something to actually be scared of than in custom less matches where it's like "oh no! Luigi can kill in double digits! Sooooo much reward!" When smash64, melee, street fighter, marvel, tekken, virtua fighter, etc... Deals similar and even more amounts of punishment.
I'm honestly getting sick of so much forgiveness that I'm trying to focus on chess-like positional play and making you move unto the ledge a death sentence with ROB and gyro, but it isn't the same.

 

[DunnoBro]

He easily could have waited for that airdodge and punished it, and it's entirely possible that you could have missed the attack. There's also rage, a light character, a low ceiling, and being in the air to factor in. Plus, 39% is what the Greninja had at the start of the attack, not the end. Situational is not extreme.

By the way, is it possible to SDI out of it?

If he waited for it, I could've called his waiting and did it anyway lol. Yea, he made the wrong call, and he could've called it right. But I'd get WAY more out of calling right then he could. Should he have died because he made one mistake after making so many right ones? I'm not so sure...

And ganon IS ALWAYS IN RAGE. 80% isn't even high for ganon, that's when he starts being able to play the neutral game lol

It IS however possible to DI out of it a bit. Fast fallers can DI down, floaties up. It heavily depends on their, ganons percent, and the overall positioning of them as it hits. With rage ganon though, a fast faller likely isn't getting out of it

 

[Dabuz]

Manny did beat me with customs

Ditto.

 

[Rashyboy05]

The big problem with banning non-broken stuff is that there is no longer a bar to what is acceptable and what is not.
We might (and if we take that route, eventually WILL) end up banning stuff that is barely a problem, say, Crescent Slash because kills people at low % out of a Grab Release.
It's the Smogon Route, and yes, I'm not going to be diplomatically correct and not call them bad. They just banned Baton Pass, and that is something that NEEDS to be called bad.

They didn't ban Baton Pass they just limited it's uses to only one Pokemon and made sure that any stat boosts+Speed will not be passed. There's a reason why Venomoth and Smeargle has been banned from their respective tiers. It's a braindead strat that forces people to bring Pokemon with Roar/Whirlwind. That's unhealthy. Also, people should stop hating on Smogon really. Their metagame doesn't affect other metagames, so why hate?

Pokemon aside, I don't see the problem with "that" route. I think banning some customs that people consider "cancer" will help convince them to accepting the customs metagame. Granted, we shouldn't let the public be ban happy and ban stuff that isn't broken like Crescent Slash or Dark Fists but we do have to ban customs that gave real problems like Extreme Balloon Trip or Hammer Spin Dash or cause infinites like Thunder Wave or Lightning Falcon Kick.(Yes, I know default Peach can do an infinite because My Smash Corner has shown it but it's default so people will overlook that.)

 

[DunnoBro]

I feel like... Without customs, the game will continue to be super forgiving with lack of any type of real offensive pressure. With customs, we have HSB, helicopter kick, dark fist, etc.. Stuff to kill you quick for making a mistake. With thise type of moves, I think we have something to actually be scared of than in custom less matches where it's like "oh no! Luigi can kill in double digits! Sooooo much reward!" When smash64, melee, street fighter, marvel, tekken, virtua fighter, etc... Deals similar and even more amounts of punishment.
I'm honestly getting sick of so much forgiveness that I'm trying to focus on chess-like positional play and making you move unto the ledge a death sentence with ROB and gyro, but it isn't the same.

I don't like the idea of using customs to change the game, just making more characters function better within the game's current environment.

I do like more punishing moves, and wish there were more. But some like HSB and dark fist are to the point they become the more optimal route of play, even if it isn't the characters inherent style.

Also HSB and Helicopter kick aren't really pure punishes... They have true and pretty safe set-ups.

 

[[Deuce]]

A summary so far of the main issues with customs:

Gameplay:

• Slower gameplay: Villager, potentially Wario, Rosalina
• Centralizing matchup over one move (ex. DK)
  
• Infinites: Pikachu, Falcon
• Earlier kills can appear unfair due to less interactions required "skipping the neutral"

Non-Gameplay: these could potentially be worse than the actual gameplay implications as evo showed that there are in fact in-game answers to the "jank"

• Newer characters not receiving custom moves raises questions of fairness
  
• Logistics - unlocking, etc
• Custom moveset project:
  • Lobbying required to make a difference, rulesets defined well in advance, which makes it terribly difficult for international players such as those in Japan
  • Banning specific moves introduces additional subjectivity (making it more unintuitive than currently)
    
  • Not all combinations supported

Some pros:

Gameplay:

• Raises the overall level of all the characters in the game due to simple selection of best options
  
• Additional character diversity/representation in top 32
• Allows for dynamic solutions for each character without having to switch mains
• Raises the bar for minimum knowledge (this is GOOD not bad. Helps separate the good players from the scrubs just like le wavedashingz)
• Earlier kills = faster games, several characters have this ability even without customs (zss, luigi, rosa uair)

Non-Gameplay

• Different viewing experience (good or bad is subjective)

I may have missed some other stuff but yeah.

 

[Thor]

Now that can be used as an example. Custom villager can force people to use things like Zelda, who is considered to be a low tier character. Forcing methods that arent practical elsewhere is generally unhealthy for a meta, and if that is how villager is in the smash meta, maybe we do need to take a *slight* smogon approach.

http://smashboards.com/threads/comm...heiks-needle-camping-customs-palutena.396222/

I'd tell you "Do your homework", but you just have to copy what's here. I encourage everyone against customs due to Villager shenanigans to read the first two posts in the thread I linked above.

There are resources on these boards explicitly for dealing with this strategy, but people would rather pretend you have to switch characters. And the method within works with every character.

As far as character switching goes [which is unnecessary], switching to Zelda is (admittedly effective but) unnecessary. The best counters (as far as I know) are Pikachu with 1311 and Kirby with Meteor stone, because you can choose to not play their game at all (t-jolt has enough range to outrange Villager fair) or have a very strong punish on any ledge regrabs that's relatively easy and safe (the meteor stone). And Pikachu is very much a top tier, while Kirby is not exactly top tier but possessing surprisingly good/doable MUs vs much of the cast, including Sheik.

Banning customs likely leads to a slippery slope, where people ask to ban things that are "too good" when they're just mad they lost. Unless very clear criteria can be laid out for why a move explicitly deserves to be banned, I think it's an all-or-nothing deal.

P.S: For those of you who enjoy irony, go to the very end of this video to listen to Captain Awesum complain he felt "scummed out" by Mike Kirby: (or watch the whole thing to see one character's strategy to dealing with exploding balloons) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QQI1WIV4Bc

 

[Dabuz]

One of the big issues I have with customs is just having standardized sets which have to be agreed upon and ready months in advance for tournies due to how tedious it is to unlock each custom on wiius. It doesn't allow accounting for shifts in the metagame, one of my biggest complains was that none of the Olimar's realized every neutral B custom makes Olimar's dash grab lose all it's range, SIX sets had it on, NONE of the sets had his down-B that creates a whistle hitbox that functions like Mario's cape since I discovered it was really good like 2 weeks after Evo sets were made. I guarantee i'm not the only one with a similar issue.

Another issue I have with customs is even though more characters become "viable", I think it creates a lot more lopsided matchups (at least from a Rosalina and Olimar perspective). As Rosa, the WFT and Sonic MUs are like super bad when played properly with customs. From an Oli persepctive, Sheik becomes even worse, Greninja goes to being really bad. Then I look at DK's customs and it's like, he tends to either steamroll a matchup or have no chance to get his gameplan going. Certain characters can't answer a villager with % lead. Ect. Ect. Obviously this is debatable but I will make a claim that the game is less "balanced" with customs because among the tournament viable characters, more matchups are one sided.

 

[ぱみゅ]

I'll be the first to admit and apologize for being misinformed on the Baton Pass "ban". I don't see it necessary, but whatever.
Still, we all can agree that is not a good move to ban from OU Pokémon that were not too good such as Greninja (I mean, it is great but far from fantastic/centralizing like the Weather Trio are. **** Landorus and Thundurus).

One of the big issues I have with customs is just having standardized sets which have to be agreed upon and ready months in advance for tournies due to how tedious it is to unlock each custom on wiius. It doesn't allow accounting for shifts in the metagame, one of my biggest complains was that none of the Olimar's realized every neutral B custom makes Olimar's dash grab lose all it's range, SIX sets had it on, NONE of the sets had his down-B that creates a whistle hitbox that functions like Mario's cape since I discovered it was really good like 2 weeks after Evo sets were made. I guarantee i'm not the only one with a similar issue.

The Customs Project definitely needs an update, maybe it needs to update at a set amount of time, like 3 months to say something.
Please, let Marth/Lucina use 1113.

 

[DunnoBro]

IMO the easiest and most effective counter to custom villager is mario.

Cape beats trip sapling, and default fireballs are a safe, easy challenge to ledge stall. Mario is also an overall easy character with a lot more competitive applications than kirby. And pikachu imo is a just plain more demanding character who would do poorly as a secondary.

One of the big issues I have with customs is just having standardized sets which have to be agreed upon and ready months in advance for tournies due to how tedious it is to unlock each custom on wiius. It doesn't allow accounting for shifts in the metagame, one of my biggest complains was that none of the Olimar's realized every neutral B custom makes Olimar's dash grab lose all it's range, SIX sets had it on, NONE of the sets had his down-B that creates a whistle hitbox that functions like Mario's cape since I discovered it was really good like 2 weeks after Evo sets were made. I guarantee i'm not the only one with a similar issue.

I actually screwed myself over with the DHD sets, thinking higher speed (frame 1) and hitboxes were sooo much better than recovery distance. In a lot of MUs, it is. It's also an OoS option against sheik, fox, pika, etc... But in MUs the character has ranged gimp or natural horizontal trajectories on their moves, i get forced into situations i need to overshoot and not quite sweetspot the ledge. I also can't mix it up at all to avoid the likes of spring, bowling ball, or certain dropzone aerials.

Hopefully we can avoid these issues if we update.

Another issue I have with customs is even though more characters become "viable", I think it creates a lot more lopsided matchups (at least from a Rosalina and Olimar perspective). As Rosa, the WFT and Sonic MUs are like super close to unwinnable when played properly with customs. From an Oli persepctive, Sheik becomes even worse, Greninja goes to being really bad. Then I look at DK's customs and it's like, he tends to either steamroll a matchup or have no chance to get his gameplan going. Certain characters can't answer a villager with % lead. Ect. Ect. Obviously this is debatable but I will make a claim that the game is less "balanced" with customs because among the tournament viable characters, more matchups are one sided.

I'd say it's more balanced but unbalanced. More "viable" characters, sure. But also more invalidating matchups, actual hard counters. That many hard counters isn't too healthy, I think. It seems like in default, only sheik and sonic have this "invalidation" effect to some extent (maybe rosalina but she has some unwieldly issues of her own)

I'd say around 15 characters become irrefutably viable when they weren't before. But around 5 become sort of like brawl dedede (and I like shaya's useage of him as this kind of example) where they hard counter a certain % of the cast.

Hammer spindash sonic is a rarely talked about one I've thought is easily superior to kong cyclone DK, and even custom villager in it's polarization, since it's an overall easier move on a much better character.

 

[Thor]

Certain characters can't answer a villager with % lead.

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........................................................................

Did you not read the posts I linked above???

Every character has the ability to effectively combat Villager on the ledge, so long as they know what move they should attempt to hit with, and don't approach when the Timber Counter is active [the strategy to beating it in a nutshell]. If you could please name characters that can't answer Villager with the lead, I'd love to hear them, either to help come up with counters to the strategy [it'd be a point more than worth bringing up in that thread, as it means there's work to be done] or to tell you what they do. Some characters lack the decisive answers that characters like Captain Falcon, Ganondorf, and Kirby have [Jigglypuff has to either go out there or land a dsmash], but the tools are there.

I admit I do not know as much about Rosa vs WFT or Sonic (and as such I will refrain from commenting on that for now), but I'd like to hear exactly what characters you think can't answer a Villager who is ledge camping.

[P.S: If you are not talking about ledgecamping (I admit it is an assumption I am making), what exactly do you refer to? Villager being hard to approach with the Timber Counter active, or what?]

 

[Girthquake]

Customs allowed wii fit trainer, charizard and palutena to make it to top 32. (not sure if gyw and rob used them.)

They add tons of new strategies for a lot of characters and that is amazing for itself. Cusstoms make the game deeper, competitive and more enjoyable in the end.

I ll list what each character usually gets from customs, these are only the most common ones and i might miss some.

2333 or 2332. Fast fireball, gust cape, explosive punch, high pressure or scalding flud.
Its a different mario, not insta better or anything, but it spice things up.

1311 or 3311. quick missile adds a better recovery for sure, the power of iceballs still in the air.

2312. Sleepy toad its good unlike regular, flying peach is debatable, and light veggie seems good enough.

3332. Fire Roar, dash slash, sliding fortress and turbulent bombs makes a more mobile and safer bowser allowing him to approach and land better. (this one being super important to him).

3311 seems good enough, little sidegrades but nothing major.

2311 luma warp and shooting star bits makes her just a little better, nothing truly amazing as some people make it out to be.

i actually prefer 1111, but some people claim 1313 grounding dash and big mechakoopa can shine.

1212. Speeding bike and rose scented waft make him slightly better.

3331. short orfer chef and Chain judge are little upgrades but just little. trampoline lunch gives him an amazing OOS kill move.

xx3x sure kong cyclone its very very good, but not gamebreaking as a lot of people believe. practice against it and its a non issue.
1121 rocketbarrel attack is nice to have sometimes, other time not so amazing. just another risky kill move.


1213. a better boomerang and meteor bomb. he gets a little better whirling leap is nice too if you like it.

1311. dins blaze is amazing edgeguarding tool. maybe im missing something about custom phantoms but i dont like them.

1111 or 1211. God save us from the all powered gravity granade not used in the grand finals at EVO. Seriously just stop prettending that customs make top tiers better.

2122. warlock blade, dark fist and wizard dropkick makes ganon more mobile and stronger. amazing upgrade.

2133 (maybe) IMO just sidegrades. fire arrow to camp, flying spin attack hits harder and short fuse bomb actually dont know.

1213 and probably more. relentess missile and mega bomb allow him to keep distance as the zoner she should be. Also can mix things up to trap your opponent which is really nice for her.

blast shot was used at evo, still not convincing. whip lash is ok at best.

guiding bow is ok at best, amplifying orbitars or impact orbitars depends on matchups.

2312. From bottom tier to top 32 EVO. Thank you super speed and lightweight, explosive flame is ok at best.
1123 is the best marth, sadly wasnt used. cresecnt slash makes his OOS and grab game very good, lai counter is the best non shulk counter.

2221. Close combat and aether drive patches his recovery issues. tempest is nice because windboxes. amazing upgrade.

3331. speed thunder and fire wall help a ton against rush down, gliding elwind is faster and less predictable way to recover and easier to spike with. Amazing upgrade.

3x3x. jumping inhale and particulary upper cutter makes kirby faster, safer, stronger. amazing upgrade.

x3xx bouncing gordo is safer to use, harder to bounce and allows traping mix ups.awesome.

1211 high speed drill is ok at best as a sidegrade. The big looser in a custom meta.

im no expert here but grounding blow its very offensive, safer and harder to react too.

xx3x twisting fox kills but it has slower startup and doesnt travel as far. risky.

xx23. fast fire bird makes him faster and allows more combos. reflector void its so good.

2311 thunder wave and heavy skull bash while good not gamebreaking as people believed.

1313 dragon rush is faster and safer, rock hurl allows him to land with super armor, very important.

1111 or 2111 snaring aura sphere is cool and all but default feels better most of the time.

1312. pound blitz and leaping rest true combos¡¡ yet nobody seems to care o well.

1111 or some custom shurikens tricks. still not impressed.

3x23 Zigzag can along with mega gunmen is the definition of trapping you opponent. duck jump snag is a little upgrade for having hitboxes.

1131 high speed burner allows more combos and safer recovery.
Im no expert but at least xxx2 psi vacuum works on non proyectile users.

2111 falcon dash punch is just a less powerfull but easier to land falcon punch. its ok.

1322. extreme ballon trip and timber counter allows him to camp on the ledge. Very powerfull strategy but no near invencible but you must practice this matchups. powerful but not gamebreaking as some thiought.

nothing truly amazing IMO. might be wrong.

2321 from zero to hero top 32 EVO. enriched sun, weighted header and jumbo hoop makes a low tier to very good character.

2332. Soaring tornado fixes his recovery issues, old one two killing move.

2123 or 3123 or 1123. As a shulk main i can tell you that advancing air slash is even more important than power vision. Regular, decesive or hyper arts seems to be player preference but each of them completely changes his gameplan. Huge benefit of customs but non shulk mains will not understand why and believe its for power vision, geez.

freaky fruit seems useful, as meteor trampoline but im no expert here.

so many options and almost all seems useful. danger wrap seems a nice upgrade in every case.

1211 hammer spindahs makes an already good move even better but just as campy. Good but not a problem.

Customs allows them to exist and be played. 3 more characters spicing things up.


Before saying that customs are cheap or anything like that inform yourself about what they bring to the table and only then open your mouth. Customs are not cheap, they help tons of character and allows them to fight face to face against top tiers, or to at least, have a chance.

Bouncing Gordo is something you'd use in only a few match ups, and even then you're cutting out a HUGE effective killing option for DDD. Default is also infinitely better for setting up Gordo traps. Other than taste test just about every customs for DDD is pure trash, and even then with taste test you lose the ability to turn and spit gaining stage control.

I'm all for customs, especially after seeing how little they truly effected the outcome of EVO. But it's unfortunate for me because D3 is a character that's not so hot in the competitive scene and customs make him even worse. Harder match ups and his customs bring next to nothing to the table. So while it adds diversity without a doubt, there are a few of us that just get straight shafted from it.

 

[Pazx]

Dabuz's claim that customs make matchups more one-sided is reasonable but I can't say I have much sympathy for Rosalina having a rough matchup with a mid tier character.

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

Red is disagree, yellow is undecided (aka "no, but if we do decide to ban certain customs these should be looked at first").

Kong Cyclone isn't that good and I'd much rather play against a trip sapling villager than an exploding balloon trip villager. FWIW EBT would be yellow probably.

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

I'm not really sure why you would think that.

https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/3drw2g/evo_2015_the_turning_point_for_sm4sh/ct84luw
actual tournament players don't like customs

If you're implying that people who support customs aren't "actual tournament players" then you're mistaken.

Honestly maybe pro-custom people should try to gain more attention for the broken stuff rather than downplaying it. Maybe then it will get fixed. A headline like "10 SPECIFIC CUSTOM MOVES RUINING COMPETITIVE SMASH" might be what it takes to force the patch team to address it.

This is actually a very clever idea and I'd like to see someone go with it. The title would be better as "X SPECIAL MOVES THAT NEED TO BE FIXED(/patched)" or "X SPECIAL MOVES THAT RUIN SMASH". I'd imagine the moves would be Hammer Spin Dash, Heavy Skull Bash, Kong Cyclone (it's... not that good), Explosive Balloon Trip and Sheik's default Needles.

 

[DunnoBro]

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........................................................................

Did you not read the posts I linked above???

Every character has the ability to effectively combat Villager on the ledge, so long as they know what move they should attempt to hit with, and don't approach when the Timber Counter is active [the strategy to beating it in a nutshell]. If you could please name characters that can't answer Villager with the lead, I'd love to hear them, either to help come up with counters to the strategy [it'd be a point more than worth bringing up in that thread, as it means there's work to be done] or to tell you what they do. Some characters lack the decisive answers that characters like Captain Falcon, Ganondorf, and Kirby have [Jigglypuff has to either go out there or land a dsmash], but the tools are there.

I admit I do not know as much about Rosa vs WFT or Sonic (and as such I will refrain from commenting on that for now), but I'd like to hear exactly what characters you think can't answer a Villager who is ledge camping.

[P.S: If you are not talking about ledgecamping (I admit it is an assumption I am making), what exactly do you refer to? Villager being hard to approach with the Timber Counter active, or what?]

The thing is some characters may be able to answer it SOMETIMES, but they have to keep answering correctly multiple times. Guessing wrong (and some DO have to just guess) can lead to them taking big damage.

It's very akin to brawl mk. Yea, there were characters that could challenge it. He still had the advantage against most of them and the risk/reward was heavily skewed in his favor. While it's not as safe as MK, custom villager's damage output by the ledge is overall higher and more varied.

 

[Dabuz]

Stuff

Don't cherrypick. I brought up Villager as a simple example to represent a concept of what customs sometimes do, create very lopsided matchups, you just said yourself falcon, jiggz, and ganon don't have "decisive" answers to villager, this isn't exclusive at all.

Stuff

The more annoying sonic custom is double up-B TBH, some characters rely on punishing his landing, and double spring makes that leagues harder.

 

[DunnoBro]

The more annoying sonic custom is double up-B TBH, some characters rely on punishing his landing, and double spring makes that leagues harder.

I always thought that custom was good, but most others kept telling me it was bad... Most sonics thought so too, hence why it only got one set.

Though, if the intention is timeouts/safety, I guess it would help that.

Again though, seems like the more problematic custom is an upspecial.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Most Sonics will attempt timeouts anyway, they've been doing it SINCE BRAWL.

Customs just give him tools that make it more annoying.

 

[Thor]

Don't cherrypick. I brought up Villager as a simple example to represent a concept of what customs sometimes do, create very lopsided matchups, you just said yourself falcon, jiggz, and ganon don't have "decisive" answers to villager, this isn't exclusive at all.

The more annoying sonic custom is double up-B TBH, some characters rely on punishing his landing, and double spring makes that leagues harder.

... Falcon and Ganondorf have decidedly decisive answers, which is what I said (utilt as Falcon and dair as either character is devastating, and dtilt as both characters works fine]. Jigglypuff doesn't, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have tools that don't get the job done just fine, it's just that she can't threaten an OHKO to stop the strategy the way those with strong meteors can.

The thing is some characters may be able to answer it SOMETIMES, but they have to keep answering correctly multiple times. Guessing wrong (and some DO have to just guess) can lead to them taking big damage.
It's very akin to brawl mk. Yea, there were characters that could challenge it. He still had the advantage against most of them and the risk/reward was heavily skewed in his favor. While it's not as safe as MK, custom villager's damage output by the ledge is overall higher and more varied.

You should really watch Mike Kirby fight Captain Awesum - he guesses wrong [as you'd put it] multiple times, but he gets his decisive blow and the strategy is decimated, rendered unusable for the remainder of the match. And he does this twice, for a clean 2-0 [the whole set is less than 6 minutes of in-game time].

I'm still unclear who is forced to "guess", and what precisely must be guessed. It's possible I'm oversimplifying things in my head based on my experience with combating Villagers using this strategy and how it seems to go down, so some examples would help me out.

 

[DunnoBro]

Ganon has to space too far away to hit with dtilt, he's very likely to get hit or hit a balloon before he gets villager with it. It's also just plain impossible with trip sapling out... Ganon can't really stop him from setting them up either, only way he's winning this MU is because a ledge campy villager is ledge-canceled dropkick food for ganon at low percents.

 

[Dabuz]

... Falcon and Ganondorf have decidedly decisive answers, which is what I said (utilt as Falcon and dair as either character is devastating, and dtilt as both characters works fine]. Jigglypuff doesn't, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have tools that don't get the job done just fine, it's just that she can't threaten an OHKO to stop the strategy the way those with strong meteors can.

Every character has the ability to effectively combat Villager on the ledge, so long as they know what move they should attempt to hit with, and don't approach when the Timber Counter is active [the strategy to beating it in a nutshell]. If you could please name characters that can't answer Villager with the lead, I'd love to hear them, either to help come up with counters to the strategy [it'd be a point more than worth bringing up in that thread, as it means there's work to be done] or to tell you what they do. Some characters lack the decisive answers that characters like Captain Falcon, Ganondorf, and Kirby have [Jigglypuff has to either go out there or land a dsmash], but the tools are there.

That was a weird way to phrase it initially, oh well, misread it but my point still stands.

 

[Thor]

Ganon has to space too far away to hit with dtilt, he's very likely to get hit or hit a balloon before he gets villager with it. It's also just plain impossible with trip sapling out... Ganon can't really stop him from setting them up either, only way he's winning this MU is because a ledge campy villager is ledge-canceled dropkick food for ganon at low percents.

You literally didn't read the thread.

Bolded point number two in the thread is "Don't approach with the trip seed out" [or rather, wait it out and punish Villager on the ledge].

If you're attempting to interact in any offensive manner while the trip seed is out, you're either gutsy with a hard read or doing it wrong.

And dair is truly his strongest punish, and that's done by SH dairing onstage to hit Villager regrabbing the ledge... and you can jump over the seed [although that's ill-advised].

 

[Girthquake]

By dedede, I meant brawl dedede.

K that makes complete sense then. I just assumed Smash 4 given the context of the subject at hand.

 

[DunnoBro]

K that makes complete sense then. I just assumed Smash 4 given the context of the subject at hand.

Jdawg would do a little better than top 32 with brawl dedede lool

You literally didn't read the thread.

Bolded point number two in the thread is "Don't approach with the trip seed out" [or rather, wait it out and punish Villager on the ledge].

If you're attempting to interact in any offensive manner while the trip seed is out, you're either gutsy with a hard read or doing it wrong.

And dair is truly his strongest punish, and that's done by SH dairing onstage to hit Villager regrabbing the ledge... and you can jump over the seed [although that's ill-advised].

But this takes an obscene amount of time. 15 seconds to run out the sapling, another 5-10 to properly position yourself while avoiding balloons... Then guess the release/regrab right or take damage, lose more time, and go through it again.

Villager can also mix you up with ledge jump fair or gyroids, you can't even really get default villager ledge camping too hard due to these. I just don't see it, I think a visual aid is very much needed.

One thing I'd like to note about ganon though, dropkick goes over trip seed, and gyroid (pushy lloid needs more precise spacing I think) so it can punish him in the endlag pretty good, and it's safe on shield since ganon will go off-stage. Falcon actually has a much worse time, imo.

 

[Thor]

The misunderstanding and spite-flinging got real, real fast.

My obnoxious comments about the "Dealing with jank" thread aside, I'm strongly convinced that if one actually understands how to combat custom villager, it is much less of a problem than people make it out to be [and that several characters have particularly powerful answers]. I still encourage people frustrated by custom villager to read that thread, for their own benefit.

With that, I'll take my leave unless someone wants me in here for something.

Jdawg would do a little better than top 32 with brawl dedede lool



But this takes an obscene amount of time. 15 seconds to run out the sapling, another 5-10 to properly position yourself while avoiding balloons... Then guess the release/regrab right or take damage, lose more time, and go through it again.

Villager can also mix you up with ledge jump fair or gyroids, you can't even really get default villager ledge camping too hard due to these. I just don't see it, I think a visual aid is very much needed.

One thing I'd like to note about ganon though, dropkick goes over trip seed, and gyroid (pushy lloid needs more precise spacing I think) so it can punish him in the endlag pretty good, and it's safe on shield since ganon will go off-stage. Falcon actually has a much worse time, imo.

I guess part of the problem was some assumptions I made - my areas usually use 8 minute, 3 stock, so 15 seconds is usually trivial, but 15 seconds of 5 minutes is roughly 5% of the game (math?), which is definitely relevant, as messing up two times leaves you with likely over a whole minute gone, and that makes the time pressure very relevant.

Villager's mixups are almost entirely shieldable on reaction/prediction combination, especially if you aren't directly on top of the ledge (if you see him drop and double jump, immediately hold shield), and gyroid is definitely punishable on reaction [you should always be able to at least trade with it, and while a trade isn't great, it'll do like 10%, and you should be aiming to trade with something stronger] (edit: Pushy Lloid trades are riskier because eating the whole thing does more damage and lets them re-set up the seed - but you can still often force a trade by making Lloid explode outright with a strong move or get there before the hitbox is active).

I see it because I've done it once, but I can tell WHY you can't, because until I read the thread and didn't, it was hard for me to see earlier. Should've thought of that first. If I ever get the chance to play a Villager with customs on some recording stuff [which is rare because tournaments are infrequent and we don't have many Villagers] I'll ask them to record some friendlies with them trying to time out so I can try to demonstrate what I mean with a variety of characters.

The stuff about Ganondorf is interesting - that's not how I'd approach things, but I'll keep it in mind in case I ever see a Ganondorf main struggling with it.

 

[Hippieslayer]

I'm probably within 1-5% difference of opinion to DunnoBro.. perhaps we're both centre aligned with him slightly left and me slightly right.
My long-term analogy of "customs can be good, look how much better these characters are in a great way", "wait... they add a pseudo brawl dedede? uhhhh not interested" is probably the most simplified base logic or perspective that active tournament players are aligning themselves with.

And if customs want to survive they need to realise that some moves, even if they aren't "broken", have to go. If Nintendo starts to actually put real effort into balancing customs (they haven't thus far, #pettyshaya, but this is OBJECTIVE) then we'll have a workable future that may start to turn anti opinions back towards pro. Otherwise it's "removing" various customs from the pool, which the average pro-custom person has been staunchly against even humoring the idea (which has gone to alienate the indifferent and anti players from pro-players in communities NOTICEABLY); the pride that can only be verbalised as "if they aren't broken/single handedly winning tournaments it's OKAY" is killing pro-customs chances by the day.

^I think this is a good solution too. Villager might not be broken, but with customs he's bad for he scene. I'm off the opinion that we really don't know what customs might add in terms of diversity yet, they simply haven't been used enough. I like seeing little stuff like how Nairo switched blasters vs Sheik to be able to handle needles pressure better, I think there's a lot more stuff like that to be had and I don't really give 2 ****s about skillager. Selective banning on a subjective basis might not be the most competitive thing to do, but imo its more within the boundaries of the principles which govern competitive gaming than simply banning all customs.

 

[FSLink]

One of the big issues I have with customs is just having standardized sets which have to be agreed upon and ready months in advance for tournies due to how tedious it is to unlock each custom on wiius. It doesn't allow accounting for shifts in the metagame, one of my biggest complains was that none of the Olimar's realized every neutral B custom makes Olimar's dash grab lose all it's range, SIX sets had it on, NONE of the sets had his down-B that creates a whistle hitbox that functions like Mario's cape since I discovered it was really good like 2 weeks after Evo sets were made. I guarantee i'm not the only one with a similar issue.

The unfortunate consequence about EVO not allowing imports of custom moves made tons of customs tourneys in other regions also disallow it, either due to logistical and/or accessibility reasons just to copy EVO.

This makes it more difficult to experiment with other custom moves well after being decided (and issues with default moves becoming better than customs and vice versa with balance patches), and discourages one of the more interesting aspects of custom moves, to choose a set fitting to your playstyle.

 

[Skarfelt]

I feel like discussion here is still going in totally the wrong direction. Customs are obviously not game breaking cuz if they were there'd be no advocates for it. The problem is that balance and being good/bad for the game is subjective so we're just going to go round in a circle.

I don't agree with the "legal until proven broken" concept regarding Customs. It ignores several points against Customs in favour of focusing entirely on game balance - a subject which, as I've clarified, is subjective. In seven pages of this thread, I don't think I've seen any discussions relating to the alienation of new players, the shutting down of travel between Europe/Japan to America. There's also the fact that it's much easier to destroy a new player with some cheesy custom strategy than with customs off assuming they don't know the matchups which wouldn't be a problem... if custom matchups weren't so damned hard for your average Joe to practice. It'd be like if Sheik in Melee took hours upon hours to unlock so this guy never did then gets chaingrabbed for the whole tournament as he has no idea what to do - in our example, Villager is Sheik.

Smash 4 has the unrivalled ability in the Smash series to grow as a competitive scene with elements built into the game. There are several reasons that it's currently the biggest Smash game competitively (although I sincerely doubt that will last more than a year) and while a few of those reasons are marketing, social media, eSports being mainstream, another reason is that it's sooo easy for a player to go from For Fun, to For Glory, to tournaments.

So. Instead of focusing on what negatives having Customs on is bringing us, let's instead look at positives. More viable characters? I've said before I don't feel any character in this game is truly unviable below the top level but, yes, a few characters do get much better. Let's ignore Jigglypuff and Zelda for a sec as they're garbage in Customs - we saw Palutena/WFT in Top 32 and characters like them and Ganondorf get much stronger with Customs on. This is definitely a good thing IMO - while some characters definitely go from bad to good for stupid reasons like DK and some characters are trash in that ruleset, it's generally a fine tradeoff.

Aside from that, though, I'm just seeing a lot of opinions, mud slinging and everybody choosing to ignore the fundamental negatives that adding customs to our ruleset brings about - that is, again, alienation of new players, segregation between scenes along with a few points I didn't touch on like unnecessary ruleset complexity, new characters not getting any and so on.


Anyway, gonna weigh in on the subject of balance regarding Villager. Strategies being beatable is also not an indication of their balance - imagine there was, for some ungodly reason, a move that came out frame 1 and killed at 0%... but had tons of endlag. It's beatable as you can bait and punish it but is that move balanced? Of course not. A countermeasure for a move existing does not balance that move. Going back to the Pokemon example, in Gen 4, Cloyster was the best counter to Garchomp in the game but sucked at basically everything else. Was Garchomp balanced as a result? Again, of course not.

So yeah basically Villager has to go for balance reasons but also timing reasons. If I'm running a tournament, I do not ever want to support a ruleset which allows a character to play their optimal strategy of timing out the clock. If I'm running it alongside Melee and Smash 4 is taking ages because some Villager wants to be a ****, that just slows the whole thing down to a crawl. Even if my arguments against customs fall on deaf ears, Villager just has to go.

 

[Electric91]

btw thank you @ Electric91 for you hard work. We would wouldn't be having this discussion without you.

Thank you!

To be honest customs are still a work in progress - The way it needs to get unlocked, the way they're being used. I've had a lot of projects for them, finding new ways to unlock, actually, the biggest problem at a point was "finding out who was using equips" since we're mostly an online tournament group - Although we went overboard to host locals in NC and Belgium.

Europe is very anti custom it seems - So I don't know what it'll take to convince them if Evo wasn't a good enough show to prove that customs aren't toxic or would ensure quality tournament play.

We're seeing a lot of committed people to custom making guides, writing about it, and a lot of ones uncommitted to them to disable them.

We're going to, once again, have to push a mile harder to make sure that customs CAN be controlled and be an easy shot for other TO's to work with (which is the biggest downside right now).

Nintendo really did not help in this regard either. Instead money should of been used to unlock customs than assist tropheys.



About banning certain moves, I'm afraid this might have to be the way to go one day, only, WHY would we ban a certain move against another?

Doing that will be way more a hassle to determine which custom "deserves" to be in than not. Why would a TO take out tripagers seed?

Maybe a certain combo because it could stall a game, or has too much potential?

Top players have proved effective against any customs i could know about.

Banning customs also means, once again, controlling the meta, and putting sticks into it and saying "hold up, that's enough now, we don't want you to grow bigger" which is a wrong side of seeing things.

What if you ban a custom (say tripagger) and one day, someone comes up, and says "hold up, if DK uses UP B custom, he doesn't get tripped with his super armor! why isn't it legal?"

We'll be **** on A LOT for that. And i honestly don't think TO's have qualifications to say "this should be banned or not" as this will result in way too many conflicts between every region and majors.


I don't see any character "bad for a scene", they exist, so they have a right to be used the way a player wants to. It also takes skill and mind game to play a character the way a player wants to. Viewers don't like it? Too bad. Smash is a fighting game, but not a wrestling game. And not a styling game as well.

 

[Electric91]

So yeah basically Villager has to go for balance reasons but also timing reasons. If I'm running a tournament, I do not ever want to support a ruleset which allows a character to play their optimal strategy of timing out the clock. If I'm running it alongside Melee and Smash 4 is taking ages because some Villager wants to be a ****, that just slows the whole thing down to a crawl. Even if my arguments against customs fall on deaf ears, Villager just has to go.

This would have a strong negative impact over smash in general.

There are some people I know who play ONLY villager. It's all of a sudden saying "your character can't be in because campy".

By doing that, you're also potentially banning Sonic, since you're killing off a character JUST because of a style of play to which you don't approve of.

You would end up killing all characters that would camp ledge / fall down come back up until time out. You could do the same with Dedede if you want, I think the games mechanism allow for enough punish on the ledge to beat villager.


The game is also meant to play with 3 stocks, only, after my understanding and research, TO's use 2 stocks to win more time. That is why, characters such as villager were OK - 6 minutes of camping instead of 8, didn't make the event go 5 hours longer or anything.

 

[Skarfelt]

If there are genuinely people who literally just play custom Villger then consider me floored. Shoulda clarified that custom Villager has to go, not just Villager.

Where is the assessment that the game is "meant" to be played with 3 stocks coming from? o.O

Causing six minute timeouts at every round is not and will never be okay. It might not happen EVERY game they play but every game taking the max time would 100% make the bracket take hours longer... just imagine if there were multiple Villagers in top 32.