So I've been having a discussion about custom moves in Sweden's facebook group for the last week. The first initial reaction to the post I made there was mostly negative, but it appears that most people in Sweden have little to no experience at all with customs. Most people in Stockholm, where we have been using customs for half a year, are fine with customs, but it seems like we're the only scene in the country that has tried them out. Now, the rest of the country feel like they don't want to experiment with customs on any major tournament here as we have quite few of them, but they seem to be okay with having customs as a side event and are willing to enter it as long as they can enter a default tourney as well. This will obviously only happen if we can manage to have both tourneys at the same event. However, I only think that we can start the debate for real when people have actually tried them out thoroughly and therefore I really hope that we can manage to get some customs on events here.
For anyone that supports customs: take the discussion with your TO and community! It's much more important to discuss this with your local scene than with Smashboards. If they refuse to have customs allowed at the main events, at least they can have a customs side event or have half of their weeklies with customs. This debate won't get anywhere unless everyone who's arguing have the experience to back their arguments up.
For the Europe talk, we're not the most notable country here but I'm responsible for the majority of Smash 4 tournaments in Finland which get ~40 participants on average every month. My ruleset has mainly been using customs, 3 stocks and 13 stage FLSS.
Do you have a livestream? I watched some of my friends play in Comeback 2 and I would love to watch more of your tournaments!
the players are either okay with them or actually grown to like them after being "forced" to adapt to customs.
This seems to be true on many occasions. Many people who are against customs have not even tried exploring the customs meta.
WFT was carried by the custom special moves. Jumbo hoops and sweeping saturation are really good. Customs don't buff characters in balanced ways but instead give them powerful specials to rely on. I mean you're right about the apples vs pears comparison but I'd rather have characters be ranked on their fundamentals than how exploitable their customs are.
Customs don't really give characters viable spam buttons as you make it seem like. Even though characters like Wii Fit Trainer become better with their custom specials, they still have to use their options wisely and use mix-ups.
I've been seeing a lot of the "we already have characters that are entirely based around one or two moves, so why not add more?" argument lately. And even though the answer to that question is incredibly simple and obvious and I shouldn't need to explain it, I guess I really have no choice.
If you are asking this, then you have already identified that a lot of people do not like this type of character. Then, what gives you the idea that people are fine with the characters that are like that by default? Simply put; they're not. The difference is that there is nothing we can do about default Quick-Attack and the like (except for complain to Sakurai), but the otherwise mediocre characters that become entirely dependent on spamming OP customs can easily be shut off. Adding in several more characters that people already don't like in the interest of "fairness" and "balance" will solve absolutely nothing and just make existing problems worse.
The concept of special moves is huge in Super Smash Bros. So why isn't it okay if characters rely on them just as much as they rely on their normals?
Those with skill backing it up made it far. "So then what's the point of bothering to allow them?", you ask? Simple: people got to play using their whole character, not just most of their character.
This is exactly what I've been trying to say. It's a part of the game, so why should be remove it without legitimate reasons?
I know this isn't the best possible outcome for a customs meta, but I wonder if their application could be simplified/standardized to a certain degree. Like, every character has 10 slots for custom moves, right? What if they were all the same: For every character there would be 2111, 1211, 1121, 1112, 3111, 1311, 1131, 1113, 2222, and 3333. Or, to decrease the logistics/setup time issue, just 1111/2222/3333? Miis would obviously be the exception, and would either use a "guest miis only but free reign on moves" setup, or we could try to do the size recommendations from the Project on Wii U setups. Having miis made by the Wii Us is important because that way players would be able to alter the special moves on the fly. In a perfect world this means Miis would be identical to how they are now in customs. In addition, since Palutena's moves are all unlocked from the start, we could give her the same luxury.
For the rest of the cast, this would make the barrier to entry from the default meta significantly smaller, as players would only need to worry about one custom move at a time in 8/10 cases. And for a lot of characters, their favored sets would either remain or have to face only some slight alterations. Charizard's 1311, Ike's 2222, Sheik's 1211, Bowser's 1311 etc are all here and accounted for. In the case of my mains, Yoshi's current top 2 sets are 2111 and 3111, and Ganon's are 2121 and 2122, which would be altered into 1121 and 2222. Ike's probably the big winner, as his top custom set IS 2222. Ironically, DK also does well, as his top set is probably 3233, which isn't too far off from 3333.
It adds depth, if not as much as we'd like, and it would eliminate the need to update the Project except for maybe some mii size fluctuations.
This also, oddly enough, addresses one of the arguments against customs, that they make the top tiers more oppressive. Pikachu's Twave - Heavy Bash would be impossible for example, because Twave is neutral 2 and HSB is side special 3. Mario can't use Fastball and Gust cape together, and if he wants to use fastball and scalding fluud, he also has to run shocking cape and super jump. Rosaluma can't use Luma Warp and Shooting Star Bit at the same time, either. The one outlier is Villager, who actually gets all of Garden, EBT, and Timber Counter in his 2222 set, but also would have Liftoff Lloid in that set, and would be stuck with Garden.
I know it isn't optimal, but this might be a way to bring customs back to the main stage where they belong in a form that might be more palatable to the larger community. In addition, if this form of the customs meta becomes widespread, maybe interest would develop for "Free Customs" side events which would give characters free reign on customs. Thoughts?
If this would make people okay with customs, I would be all for it. But the question is: would people actually be more okay with this than allowing all customs? I think the answer is no, because this is still just as troublesome to set up and there are still as many custom moves to learn.
People say that customs take too much effort to learn and unlock, and you can look at these statements from one angle and say these people are lazy, but the point that you all would be missing then is that the reason they are lazy about them is solely because they think they're unenjoyable for whatever reason they have.
Then perhaps people should not use the argument that there is too much to unlock?
Grind notwithstanding, I actually really like customs in theory since one would assume having more options for character movesets would lead to greater creativity and diversity in the metagame, which is what I feel Smash (especially Smash 4) is all about. However, I abhor customs in practice because what inevitably happens is that after maybe a week or so of collective deliberation the community decides on an objective best loadout for customs and most (so, for spectators, effectively all) custom-users opt for that specific loadout. It's boring, dude. It's the same reason I audibly groan at the popularity of Shiek in the metagame-- there's little originality to it, which in my mind is the bread and butter of interesting-to-watch gameplay.
Probably more of a complaint about players than customs in a vacuum, however.
EDIT: This is more of a personal complaint, but I should also point out that customs being banned on For Glory also dampens my spirits about them since I use For Glory as part of my practice regimen due to not really having a nearby local scene apart from a circle of friends who play Smash. I can't practice with customs, nor can I practice against customs, so I'm more comfortable just ignoring them.
We shouldn't let people being unoriginal be a reason to ban customs. Like with everything in this game, some options will just be bad, but there is still room for experimentation and originality. Also, For Glory shouldn't really be a reason either, as the only stages there are omega stages. It shouldn't define which rules we use in tournaments.
The thing about customs is that even if it might be good for the meta, it won't be good for the competitive scene as a whole. Like I said before, the grind of collecting customs would be one of the biggest things keeping people from wanting to play the game competitively. Personally, I have things like school and playing other video games besides Smash and if customs were the meta and I didn't already have the 3DS version since the day it was released (still don't have all the customs, though I never really went out of my way to grind for customs unless it was for characters I used) I am pretty sure I wouldn't be the only one who would just pass on trying to get into the competitive scene. If all customs were unlocked from the start I would still be against customs, but maybe my mind could be changed much easier than it would with all the grinding involved. I highly doubt I am the only one who thinks this way.
To you guys who are pro customs here: In a world where customs are the meta for this game and you just got the game yesterday already wanting to get into the competitive scene, would you really want to bother grinding for what could end up being either a short or a very long amount of time (thanks to RNG) just to get all the custom moves?
From seeing other people arguing against customs here, a lot of the responses they get make it look like arguing with some of you guys is like arguing with a wall. It isn't like the "status quo" really needs to be changed by customs, since it is already changing on it's own due to players discovering new things about the game and sharing it with others, and patches. My justification is that customs will ultimately stunt the competitive scene's growth and that whether or not customs will make the game more balanced, a lot of people (including me) just won't find playing against certain custom sets fun, even if they can be beaten and are not as unbalanced as some of us say. There are a lot of people who hate to play against or watch Rosalina. Whether or not she is a balanced character, there will be a lot of people don't enjoy playing against her or watching people play her. Outside of for glory I think she is the only character that a very large amount of people that dislike her, with customs on there are a lot more characters that people just don't like to play against or watch. If people find competitive Smash 4 with customs on to not be fun it will definitely effect the growth of the scene. With customs on the competitive scene is far more likely to die from a lack of people supporting than in vanilla.
You don't have to unlock custom moves to get into the competitive scene. Perhaps it is a good idea to unlock them for your main (which doesn't take a long time), but to learn the meta you just have to play against other players who are using them.
The problem with that logic is you think anti-customs cares.
Are customs fun? They could be.
Are customs workable? Of course.
Can the customs meta be good? Obviously.
Do I want to run customs? No, and I play 2122 Small Brawler and I was winning against almost everybody down here for free.
Why? Because I don't want to, and I don't need logic to stick with my opinion.
Then I guess that it would be legitimate if I said that Mewtwo and Sonic should be banned because I don't want them to be legal.
Some characters are helped with moveset usefulness, most of what matters I'd say are hurt. Replacing a useless move with a one-size-fits-all move is just moving it to the opposite side of the spectrum, and pretty clearly worse. Without HSB Pika's other kill options are important, with, they don't matter as much. And again, dealing with a move that fits every situation is a pain. Fighters are based on a core rock-paper-scissors system, so when one move does everything it removes depth.
HSB definitely doesn't work in every situation. In most situations, it does not.
I plan to start attending a weekly local in my area and try to persuade folks that customs don't have cooties. Any suggestions for a specific course of action? I was thinking some labbing in training mode with stuff like Flying Peach Bomber.
To be honest, what I did to persuade my local scene to allow customs was just to ask why they didn't allow customs. The answer was "we just don't". I then said why customs should be allowed and told them that I could transfer movesets from my 3DS, which resulted in them being okay with it. Obviously, not all TOs are as logical, so maybe just having a setup with customs is a good idea. Just make sure that they don't just say "this is jank" and switch to another setup.
My scene just doesn't like customs... it's not about them being controversial, it's about customs not being what we want to play... it's not that hard.
So if you allowed customs, would that mean that no one would use them? In that case it's just fine. But otherwise, you are essentially banning an integral part of the game. If you are banning something that someone wants to use, you need some good reasoning for it.
Well I say that because I don't really enjoy playing against or watching people who win by out janking the opponent with all their downright over powered customs. The age of Diddy is over, bringing a lot more diversity to the meta, but Sakurai said he won't be changing customs in balance patches so things like custom Villager and Donkey Kong's custom up b won't ever get nerfed.
After some practice with and against customs, you realise that they aren't actually OP. At that point, trying to "out jank" someone won't work. If you haven't already, I suggest that you
take a look at this.
