Why the Smash Gods gave us EQUIPMENT*

[Purple_Anteater]

Custom move sets, custom stage designer, and EQUIPMENT. I'm not totally sure if the community truly understands what we have in our hands here. Sakurai and the smash development team basically gave us the tools to create and balance our own smash game. Kinda like PM...

People are already talking about implementing custom move sets into competitive smash to expand the metagame. I saw a few threads on these forums talking about competitive stage creation. The one thing that seems to have not been talked about enough is Equipment. Mostly because it gets pretty jank pretty quick. But it can't be overlooked just for that reason. Equipment probably has the most potential for balancing the game for competitive play.

Ganondorf for example, is pretty low tier at the moment. Not considered viable, and not seeing much competitive play. Give him a few custom moves, buff his speed with some equipment, give him the Smooth Lander badge, maybe the Anchor badge. And there you have it, a Ganondorf with combo potential and possibly even competitive potential. Kinda like PM...?

Or maybe even add in some new characters? Take Fox, buff his defense and power, lower his speed, give him the 2333 move set (or maybe 3333) maybe a meteor master badge for the side-B kills? maybe Nerf his running speed with a Stoller badge? And, Hey, you kinda have Wolf in smash 4.

These are just some examples. If the community could agree on some balanced character load outs for each of the fighters, we could have a sort of an ever evolving metagame for competitive smash. I think that Sakurai and the smash team put in these features for THIS REASON. They must be aware of PM. They saw how people took their game and attempted to balance it using mods. Now they're just taking away the need for mods and showing us they can support us competitively as well (note sponsoring apex)

Anyway, it might be too early for all of this. The game is still new and changing. And people are already putting a lot of time into trying to figure out some viable custom move sets for tournaments. But the custom stages and then the equipment could be the next step. It excites me to think of what Smash 4 could look like years from now.

 

[KoM]

Smash 4 is not PM and it never will be.

If Sakurai wanted it to be the competitive standard, equipment would be on For Glory.

 

[Purple_Anteater]

Smash 4 is not PM and it never will be.

If Sakurai wanted it to be the competitive standard, equipment would be on For Glory.

Ok.

 

[Ticker]

Why does it matter what Sakurai wants. In no way do I support equipment, but who cares what Sakurai wants. He honestly doesn't support the competive scene and there is no need to blindly follow Sakurai

 

[Raijinken]

There's a lot of potential, but the sheer volume of effort required to balance a game simply through base stat modifiers and a small handful of other modifiers is far too extensive for the community at large to care.

Custom moves, absolutely. Stages, definitely potential. Equipment just has a far too great cost of time to be practical.

 

[Purple_Anteater]

There's a lot of potential, but the sheer volume of effort required to balance a game simply through base stat modifiers and a small handful of other modifiers is far too extensive for the community at large to care.

Custom moves, absolutely. Stages, definitely potential. Equipment just has a far too great cost of time to be practical.

I understand that it would be a lot of time and work. But I think it would be worth the effort if enough people would care. Seems like a lot of people already like the idea of Smooth Lander with heavy gravity. It seems like it was actually almost a thing, or could be in the future.

But why stop there? Smash Bros games last forever. Smash 64 returning to Apex. SMASH 64. My point is, Smash for Wii U is going to be around a long time. Maybe its only a matter of time before we understand how equipment can be a viable way to balance the game. We don't know how many more updates we will get, how many more balance patches or DLC. Eventually players might want to take matters of balance into their own hands. It has happened before and it is already happening with custom moves.

I really want to believe this is plausible. Its unfortunate that players can be punished simply for wanting to play their favorite character because there's a top tier of characters that get to have their way with them.

 

[RIP_Lucas]

I can certainly see custom gear being competitive, but nothing as elaborate as the op sugar suggested. Like @ Raijinken said, it's too time consuming to expect standard sets or nerfs to be enforced.

Instead, I'd expect an "anything goes" philosophy to be the standard, and then balance. For instance; no Sonics with increased run speed or >80 speed. This would still let you use sonic's custom moves, improve his speed and maybe killing power (moon launcher), but not to unreasonable levels.

Note: 80 was a random number, you'd need to do some extensive testing to say what's balanced.

The biggest problem is that there's 48 characters and you'd have to balance all of them. That means a lot of people and a lot of hours. If anyone wants to do this, I am so in, but good luck getting enough to realistically start an equipment community

 

[Raijinken]

I can certainly see custom gear being competitive, but nothing as elaborate as the op sugar suggested. Like @ Raijinken said, it's too time consuming to expect standard sets or nerfs to be enforced.

Instead, I'd expect an "anything goes" philosophy to be the standard, and then balance. For instance; no Sonics with increased run speed or >80 speed. This would still let you use sonic's custom moves, improve his speed and maybe killing power (moon launcher), but not to unreasonable levels.

Note: 80 was a random number, you'd need to do some extensive testing to say what's balanced.

The biggest problem is that there's 48 characters and you'd have to balance all of them. That means a lot of people and a lot of hours. If anyone wants to do this, I am so in, but good luck getting enough to realistically start an equipment community

51, counting Miis (no reason not to, if we're counting equipment), 52 once Mewtwo hits.

It's a TON of work. There's a reason PM is more than five years into its progress.

 

[Purple_Anteater]

I can certainly see custom gear being competitive, but nothing as elaborate as the op sugar suggested. Like @ Raijinken said, it's too time consuming to expect standard sets or nerfs to be enforced.

Instead, I'd expect an "anything goes" philosophy to be the standard, and then balance. For instance; no Sonics with increased run speed or >80 speed. This would still let you use sonic's custom moves, improve his speed and maybe killing power (moon launcher), but not to unreasonable levels.

Note: 80 was a random number, you'd need to do some extensive testing to say what's balanced.

The biggest problem is that there's 48 characters and you'd have to balance all of them. That means a lot of people and a lot of hours. If anyone wants to do this, I am so in, but good luck getting enough to realistically start an equipment community

Well maybe at first we could just try to give the lower tier characters the tools to be able to compete with the higher tiers. For example, speeding up the slower characters, and giving the weaker ones more kill power. Like you said, setting limits on stats so things don't get out of hand. But we would also need to figure out how much these stat modifiers really effect game play. Boosting Falcon's power AND speed AND giving him smooth lander might be a little bit much.

Also, This will probably lead to more characters having kill options out of a throw similar to Diddy and his uair. I gave Dr. Mario a double jump boost to help with his recovery and soon realized that i could combo into fair from a down throw at high percents to get the kill.

 

[Muro]

the gods gave us custom equipment so we could play like this. Perfectly doable and a **** ton of fun.

 

[RIP_Lucas]

51, counting Miis (no reason not to, if we're counting equipment), 52 once Mewtwo hits.

It's a TON of work. There's a reason PM is more than five years into its progress.

Right, thanks.

Equipment would have 2 major advantages over PM of decent online so more people can join without having to personally know someone else to play with, and no download necessary, but the issue of not having a Wii U or 3ds, and no major demand like that of PM from the melee/brawl rivalry make it very hard to see a formal community any time soon. I think it's worth it though, so I vote we get started getting as many people involved for testing as possible.

Well maybe at first we could just try to give the lower tier characters the tools to be able to compete with the higher tiers. For example, speeding up the slower characters, and giving the weaker ones more kill power. Like you said, setting limits on stats so things don't get out of hand. But we would also need to figure out how much these stat modifiers really effect game play. Boosting Falcon's power AND speed AND giving him smooth lander might be a little bit much.

Also, This will probably lead to more characters having kill options out of a throw similar to Diddy and his uair. I gave Dr. Mario a double jump boost to help with his recovery and soon realized that i could combo into fair from a down throw at high percents to get the kill.

How exactly do you propose we balance using equipment in this way? Would we only allow equipment to be used on bottom tier characters? That to me seems like an unnecessary hindrance that would just slow innovation and make the game less exciting.

The best way I can think of to reach a balanced meta is to allow anyone to do whatever they want, and then set limits as we see things become too hard to counter with too many characters. The first thing would probably be to set limits to several character's speed stat because even maxed out, slow characters wouldn't be able to counter that approach, but besides that I don't see any obvious breaking elements.

Like you touched on with the Dr Mario example, this meta will be much faster paced. Killing options will be much easier to come by, while defense will be harder to invest in because it risks being easier to combo. I actually think this is a good thing, and will be one of the big appeals. If every character can effectively rack up damage and kill, then you won't be able to complain about bad match ups or anything because if you lose, it's most likely because the other player was just better than you (or you just had a bad build, which is still on you).

In general, I'm against any restrictions in this community. Some things will obviously have to be balanced, but the whole point of customization as far as I can tell is that we can customize the characters to our play styles. If we then go and say "you can't use x, y, and z" without a very good reason, it'd sorta defeat the purpose.

I also believe that with equipment, it'll probably end up balancing itself. If a Ganondorf is annoyed about being too slow, it can fix that on its own. You obviously can't fix your standard attacks, so there won't be perfect balance, but if Sheik + Smooth Lander is too much, we can handle that.

 

[|RK|]

I'd actually like to see a tournament run with all customs and equipment on. Just to see what it's like.

 

[Purple_Anteater]

How exactly do you propose we balance using equipment in this way? Would we only allow equipment to be used on bottom tier characters? That to me seems like an unnecessary hindrance that would just slow innovation and make the game less exciting.

The best way I can think of to reach a balanced meta is to allow anyone to do whatever they want, and then set limits as we see things become too hard to counter with too many characters. The first thing would probably be to set limits to several character's speed stat because even maxed out, slow characters wouldn't be able to counter that approach, but besides that I don't see any obvious breaking elements.

I've been thinking about this and testing more and I think i have an answer to your question.

Lets talk about the Charizard vs. Sheik matchup. In theory one of the worst in the game for Charizard. Now, Charizard is a powerful character that can often live to high percents, and he hits really hard, can get early kills with a good read. And yet he still gets destroyed by a good Sheik player. Why? Because charizard is big (gets combo'd easy) slow, and has no decent approach options.

So, lets give Charizard Smooth Lander, +24 speed, and Dragon rush/other custom moves. Now, in theory Charizard can actually get in on Sheik. But Sheik is a good character, lots of people love to play Sheik, and she probably deserves to be top tier. So, how do we make her better? Well she's already fast, making her more fast might just negate the changes we made to Charizard...She dies kinda early, but that is to be expected of small fast characters. But wait, Sheik has trouble killing. So we give Sheik Smooth Lander, +24 power, and whatever customs she may want. The +24 to power might effect her combo game a little, but it might open up more combos as well. Maybe even earlier kills comboing into bouncing fish or something.

In theory this matchup just went from 7-3 to 6-4. Now Charzard can get in, Now Shiek can kill Charizard earlier. Which also speeds up the game for everybody. Heck, we may even be able to switch it to 3 stock (actually that sounds like more fun now)

Another example i've been thinking about is metaknight. He relies mostly on combos and gimps for kills. But he seems to die too early. So we buff his defense, but we don't want his defense buff to effect his combo game so we also buff his speed in an even 50-50 split. Something like +12 defense +12 Speed (plus customs, smooth lander)

This is also why i think having universal character load outs would be ideal. We buff what these characters need the most and leave what they already have going for them. This keeps the metagame from getting too janky regarding kill percents, combo percents, ect. Yes, everyone would need to kinda re-learn the characters, but most characters remain mostly the same.

There are also other equipment effects probably worth looking into like Anchor Jump, Hard Breaker, and Tough Edge, which could lead to more combos, faster pace, and shorter stocks/more gimps. The only problem is, as soon as you start adding more effects to your equipment it gets harder to balance the base stats.

 

[erico9001]

I think people are much too quick to throw away the idea. You're right. We have the potential; let's not be blind to it. First of all:

Smash 4 is not PM and it never will be.

If Sakurai wanted it to be the competitive standard, equipment would be on For Glory.

OP is not saying Smash 4 has the same extent of freedom as Project M. Furthermore, in one of the trailers it was brought up that custom moves are an alternative to modding. Finally, Sakurai has customs off because if they were on it would really hurt the opportunity for a non-custom game. They balanced the game all they could for that goal. However, they don't have the capability to balance the badges. We, as a community, do. By leaving customs out of online, Sakurai and his team gave us the potential to choose. This is why they are on in friend matches, the channel for actual tournaments.

This is the beautiful thing about it. We don't need to have everybody supporting it. There's the choice to do either. If you don't want to join in, don't. Leave all of the debating and testing up to us. We spend a long time coming up with it, eventually a few tournaments start to try it out, more debating takes place, more testing, eventually we come to somewhat conclusions and more people start to try it out. Meanwhile, it has no effect on you!

Anyways, a great place to look for guidance is Pokémon and Smogon. We familiarize some of Pokémon's and Smogon's restrictions into Smash Bros. For instance, EVs and IVs can relate to a cap we put on the amount of stat boosts a character can have. We ban specific custom effects or custom effect combinations. However, we leave some wiggle room. This wiggle room allows for new sets to come into being, born from creativity. I remember sweeping with my unique espeon set back in Gen 5 pokemon. Great times.

I've been thinking about this and testing more and I think i have an answer to your question.

Lets talk about the Charizard vs. Sheik matchup. In theory one of the worst in the game for Charizard. Now, Charizard is a powerful character that can often live to high percents, and he hits really hard, can get early kills with a good read. And yet he still gets destroyed by a good Sheik player. Why? Because charizard is big (gets combo'd easy) slow, and has no decent approach options.

So, lets give Charizard Smooth Lander, +24 speed, and Dragon rush/other custom moves. Now, in theory Charizard can actually get in on Sheik. But Sheik is a good character, lots of people love to play Sheik, and she probably deserves to be top tier. So, how do we make her better? Well she's already fast, making her more fast might just negate the changes we made to Charizard...She dies kinda early, but that is to be expected of small fast characters. But wait, Sheik has trouble killing. So we give Sheik Smooth Lander, +24 power, and whatever customs she may want. The +24 to power might effect her combo game a little, but it might open up more combos as well. Maybe even earlier kills comboing into bouncing fish or something.

In theory this matchup just went from 7-3 to 6-4. Now Charzard can get in, Now Shiek can kill Charizard earlier. Which also speeds up the game for everybody. Heck, we may even be able to switch it to 3 stock (actually that sounds like more fun now)

Another example i've been thinking about is metaknight. He relies mostly on combos and gimps for kills. But he seems to die too early. So we buff his defense, but we don't want his defense buff to effect his combo game so we also buff his speed in an even 50-50 split. Something like +12 defense +12 Speed (plus customs, smooth lander)

This is also why i think having universal character load outs would be ideal. We buff what these characters need the most and leave what they already have going for them. This keeps the metagame from getting too janky regarding kill percents, combo percents, ect. Yes, everyone would need to kinda re-learn the characters, but most characters remain mostly the same.

There are also other equipment effects probably worth looking into like Anchor Jump, Hard Breaker, and Tough Edge, which could lead to more combos, faster pace, and shorter stocks/more gimps. The only problem is, as soon as you start adding more effects to your equipment it gets harder to balance the base stats.

Well my opinion on this is... well, kind of like how Jolteon is beat by Hippowdon no matter what. My opinion is we need to still have bad match-ups for characters and niches for others. But whatever, I think my point here is more of a debate for when it's already been decided we're going through with it. Maybe the reason I am arguing it with you is I think we are. I think we're going through with this because of this thread. What are we seriously waiting for, somebody's permission or something? If people end up liking it, it will get tried out. It's as simple as that. All we need is an area for our discussion... how about a group? We can create several different topics then, almost like a forum.

I already have a lot of ideas on how we can handle this. ...But it's 3:30 AM.

 

[digiholic]

Since equipment effects are completely random, the chances that someone has the exact set of equipment with the same values on their own machine as well as the tournament machine are nearly zero. This isn't like Pokemon, where someone brings their own save file in to a tournament and uses that, and expecting every single Wii U tournament player to invest hundreds of dollars into a 3DS and another copy of Smash 4 just to store movesets is not reasonable.

Additionally, if there is a set loadout for characters, who decides who gets what? Project M works because it has a team of developers who are the only people who have access to the tools to modify their release. If we try to have some body of people who are going to test every possible combination of the randomly generated equipment on every character in every matchup while still maintaining enough ties to the competitive community to even know what needs to be changed, there's going to be mistakes and imbalances. It's impossible for a game with so many different parts to achieve perfect balance.

It's an extraordinary amount of work for tournament organizers as well. Suppose you've got someone planning a big event with 12 or more setups, and has painstakingly unlocked the proper equipment with the right values to make the new "balanced smash" version of the characters, and a week before the tournament, the Council of Smash decides that Ganondorf should have +46 speed instead of +48. Now this TO has to risk having an incorrect loadout on everything or grind for a speed badge with two less stats than he has on all 12 consoles.

Equipment will not be tournament legal. Ever. It's a problem of scope, there's a theoretically infinite number of equipment, and actually acquiring the proper equipment in a competitive environment is, effectively, impossible. Custom moves are finite, equipment is not.

 

[RIP_Lucas]

I've been thinking about this and testing more and I think i have an answer to your question.

Lets talk about the Charizard vs. Sheik matchup. In theory one of the worst in the game for Charizard. Now, Charizard is a powerful character that can often live to high percents, and he hits really hard, can get early kills with a good read. And yet he still gets destroyed by a good Sheik player. Why? Because charizard is big (gets combo'd easy) slow, and has no decent approach options.

So, lets give Charizard Smooth Lander, +24 speed, and Dragon rush/other custom moves. Now, in theory Charizard can actually get in on Sheik. But Sheik is a good character, lots of people love to play Sheik, and she probably deserves to be top tier. So, how do we make her better? Well she's already fast, making her more fast might just negate the changes we made to Charizard...She dies kinda early, but that is to be expected of small fast characters. But wait, Sheik has trouble killing. So we give Sheik Smooth Lander, +24 power, and whatever customs she may want. The +24 to power might effect her combo game a little, but it might open up more combos as well. Maybe even earlier kills comboing into bouncing fish or something.

In theory this matchup just went from 7-3 to 6-4. Now Charzard can get in, Now Shiek can kill Charizard earlier. Which also speeds up the game for everybody. Heck, we may even be able to switch it to 3 stock (actually that sounds like more fun now)

Another example i've been thinking about is metaknight. He relies mostly on combos and gimps for kills. But he seems to die too early. So we buff his defense, but we don't want his defense buff to effect his combo game so we also buff his speed in an even 50-50 split. Something like +12 defense +12 Speed (plus customs, smooth lander)

This is also why i think having universal character load outs would be ideal. We buff what these characters need the most and leave what they already have going for them. This keeps the metagame from getting too janky regarding kill percents, combo percents, ect. Yes, everyone would need to kinda re-learn the characters, but most characters remain mostly the same.

There are also other equipment effects probably worth looking into like Anchor Jump, Hard Breaker, and Tough Edge, which could lead to more combos, faster pace, and shorter stocks/more gimps. The only problem is, as soon as you start adding more effects to your equipment it gets harder to balance the base stats.

I think it's perfectly fine if you personally want to do that, but are you suggesting only 1 build per character? That's something that makes no sense to me. What if I don't want my charizard fast? With fireball cannon and Dragon rush, you have all the tools you need to force them to come to you, and therefore probably want to invest in defense. Or on the other end, my personal Charizard set has the moon launcher and +50 speed because it lets me get early KOs with up air. The point is, I don't want someone else telling me what I can and can't use, and I think most people would agree with me. Obviously some things will naturally be unbalanced, I personally would like to never have to go against an easy perfect shield + explosive perfect shield player again because it's very disruptive to the flow of the game without needing much skill to pull off, and in sure other people have similar complaints, but I'd rather get a feel for the community before telling someone they can't use them.

Since equipment effects are completely random, the chances that someone has the exact set of equipment with the same values on their own machine as well as the tournament machine are nearly zero. This isn't like Pokemon, where someone brings their own save file in to a tournament and uses that, and expecting every single Wii U tournament player to invest hundreds of dollars into a 3DS and another copy of Smash 4 just to store movesets is not reasonable.

Additionally, if there is a set loadout for characters, who decides who gets what? Project M works because it has a team of developers who are the only people who have access to the tools to modify their release. If we try to have some body of people who are going to test every possible combination of the randomly generated equipment on every character in every matchup while still maintaining enough ties to the competitive community to even know what needs to be changed, there's going to be mistakes and imbalances. It's impossible for a game with so many different parts to achieve perfect balance.

It's an extraordinary amount of work for tournament organizers as well. Suppose you've got someone planning a big event with 12 or more setups, and has painstakingly unlocked the proper equipment with the right values to make the new "balanced smash" version of the characters, and a week before the tournament, the Council of Smash decides that Ganondorf should have +46 speed instead of +48. Now this TO has to risk having an incorrect loadout on everything or grind for a speed badge with two less stats than he has on all 12 consoles.

Equipment will not be tournament legal. Ever. It's a problem of scope, there's a theoretically infinite number of equipment, and actually acquiring the proper equipment in a competitive environment is, effectively, impossible. Custom moves are finite, equipment is not.

Suggesting that this community would have legit tournaments any time soon is a little premature. More than likely there'd only be online fights for a long time. If it becomes popular enough, there could be in person tournaments eventually, and we could deal with the issue of people not being able to bring their save file by having then tell the hosts their builds when they register and have them make a custom character as close as possible (probably within a few points won't make that much of a difference) and have it waiting for them there

 

[erico9001]

Since equipment effects are completely random, the chances that someone has the exact set of equipment with the same values on their own machine as well as the tournament machine are nearly zero. This isn't like Pokemon, where someone brings their own save file in to a tournament and uses that, and expecting every single Wii U tournament player to invest hundreds of dollars into a 3DS and another copy of Smash 4 just to store movesets is not reasonable.

Additionally, if there is a set loadout for characters, who decides who gets what? Project M works because it has a team of developers who are the only people who have access to the tools to modify their release. If we try to have some body of people who are going to test every possible combination of the randomly generated equipment on every character in every matchup while still maintaining enough ties to the competitive community to even know what needs to be changed, there's going to be mistakes and imbalances. It's impossible for a game with so many different parts to achieve perfect balance.

It's an extraordinary amount of work for tournament organizers as well. Suppose you've got someone planning a big event with 12 or more setups, and has painstakingly unlocked the proper equipment with the right values to make the new "balanced smash" version of the characters, and a week before the tournament, the Council of Smash decides that Ganondorf should have +46 speed instead of +48. Now this TO has to risk having an incorrect loadout on everything or grind for a speed badge with two less stats than he has on all 12 consoles.

Equipment will not be tournament legal. Ever. It's a problem of scope, there's a theoretically infinite number of equipment, and actually acquiring the proper equipment in a competitive environment is, effectively, impossible. Custom moves are finite, equipment is not.

Well...

I think it's perfectly fine if you personally want to do that, but are you suggesting only 1 build per character? That's something that makes no sense to me. What if I don't want my charizard fast? With fireball cannon and Dragon rush, you have all the tools you need to force them to come to you, and therefore probably want to invest in defense. Or on the other end, my personal Charizard set has the moon launcher and +50 speed because it lets me get early KOs with up air. The point is, I don't want someone else telling me what I can and can't use, and I think most people would agree with me. Obviously some things will naturally be unbalanced, I personally would like to never have to go against an easy perfect shield + explosive perfect shield player again because it's very disruptive to the flow of the game without needing much skill to pull off, and in sure other people have similar complaints, but I'd rather get a feel for the community before telling someone they can't use them.


Suggesting that this community would have legit tournaments any time soon is a little premature. More than likely there'd only be online fights for a long time. If it becomes popular enough, there could be in person tournaments eventually, and we could deal with the issue of people not being able to bring their save file by having then tell the hosts their builds when they register and have them make a custom character as close as possible (probably within a few points won't make that much of a difference) and have it waiting for them there

Basically what I was going to say.

First of all, if you think Pokémon is just 'use smogon's set' then you're wrong. Smogon's sets are more of suggestions. They've been tested and found to be reliable. Anyways, it's all about wiggle room. Let's say we have a maximum of +30 boost to a stat (just for explanation's sake) ... +29 is still viable, like a Pokémon that only has 248 EVs rather than 252. +24 is probably still fine.

 

[digiholic]

If we allow everyone to do their own customs, that just makes the problem even greater. What if a tournament console doesn't have the right equipment unlocked that you were expecting to use? If you, at home, have a piece of equipment that's +30/-15 and the closest to it at the tournament is +26/-14, that's still a fairly big difference than what you were expecting. Your combos might not work any more, or you might die a few percent sooner than you were hoping.

If one of the conditions of using equipment is that you're imposing a hard cap on stats below what the game caps, that's pretty good signs that this isn't going to work out. You say that +29 is close enough to +30, but what about +31? It's technically above the limit, but it should be negligible right? What about +32? +33? Where does the wiggle room end? These are questions that a tournament organizer will have to answer, especially if he's got to unlock all of these things. What if someone comes along and wants a really oddball build that they've been practicing, like a minimum speed 'dorf with air attack boost and power-shield bomb and the tournament Wii U doesn't have the equipment? Is he out of luck? It'd be like going to a major tournament after spending months learning R.O.B. only to find that none of the setups have him unlocked.

 

[Purple_Anteater]

I think people are much too quick to throw away the idea. You're right. We have the potential; let's not be blind to it. First of all:
OP is not saying Smash 4 has the same extent of freedom as Project M. Furthermore, in one of the trailers it was brought up that custom moves are an alternative to modding. Finally, Sakurai has customs off because if they were on it would really hurt the opportunity for a non-custom game. They balanced the game all they could for that goal. However, they don't have the capability to balance the badges. We, as a community, do. By leaving customs out of online, Sakurai and his team gave us the potential to choose. This is why they are on in friend matches, the channel for actual tournaments.

This is the beautiful thing about it. We don't need to have everybody supporting it. There's the choice to do either. If you don't want to join in, don't. Leave all of the debating and testing up to us. We spend a long time coming up with it, eventually a few tournaments start to try it out, more debating takes place, more testing, eventually we come to somewhat conclusions and more people start to try it out. Meanwhile, it has no effect on you!

Anyways, a great place to look for guidance is Pokémon and Smogon. We familiarize some of Pokémon's and Smogon's restrictions into Smash Bros. For instance, EVs and IVs can relate to a cap we put on the amount of stat boosts a character can have. We ban specific custom effects or custom effect combinations. However, we leave some wiggle room. This wiggle room allows for new sets to come into being, born from creativity. I remember sweeping with my unique espeon set back in Gen 5 pokemon. Great times.

Well my opinion on this is... well, kind of like how Jolteon is beat by Hippowdon no matter what. My opinion is we need to still have bad match-ups for characters and niches for others. But whatever, I think my point here is more of a debate for when it's already been decided we're going through with it. Maybe the reason I am arguing it with you is I think we are. I think we're going through with this because of this thread. What are we seriously waiting for, somebody's permission or something? If people end up liking it, it will get tried out. It's as simple as that. All we need is an area for our discussion... how about a group? We can create several different topics then, almost like a forum.

I already have a lot of ideas on how we can handle this. ...But it's 3:30 AM.

I just want to make it clear that we should not have any intention of making a PERFECTLY BALANCED ROSTER. That is never going to happen. There will always be bad matchups, there will always be top tier characters. There will always be bottom tier characters. That is just how fighting games work. It would be boring if the game was perfectly balanced. But, what i want to see is more viability in the characters that you don't normally see succeeding in the competitive scene. If a top tier character beats a bottom tier character 7-3 in matchups, that is not fair as long as we can do something about it. If we can make that matchup closer to 6-4, (which is still NOT A GOOD MATCHUP. 6-4 by nature is a BAD MATCHUP) its not as hopeless as a 7-3. Now Charizard, or Falco, or whoever wont be totally free to the top 5-10 characters. If somebody wants to win with Falco, THEY CAN, yes its still going to be harder for them, but it won't be impossible. Thats the beauty of it.

If the top tier always beats the bottom tier free, no one will play bottom tier. It makes it seem like this roster of 50something characters is more like a roster of 10.

I like your suggestion of a group. That would probably be helpful, as i now realize there are too many things to discuss in just one thread.

If we allow everyone to do their own customs, that just makes the problem even greater. What if a tournament console doesn't have the right equipment unlocked that you were expecting to use? If you, at home, have a piece of equipment that's +30/-15 and the closest to it at the tournament is +26/-14, that's still a fairly big difference than what you were expecting. Your combos might not work any more, or you might die a few percent sooner than you were hoping.

If one of the conditions of using equipment is that you're imposing a hard cap on stats below what the game caps, that's pretty good signs that this isn't going to work out. You say that +29 is close enough to +30, but what about +31? It's technically above the limit, but it should be negligible right? What about +32? +33? Where does the wiggle room end? These are questions that a tournament organizer will have to answer, especially if he's got to unlock all of these things. What if someone comes along and wants a really oddball build that they've been practicing, like a minimum speed 'dorf with air attack boost and power-shield bomb and the tournament Wii U doesn't have the equipment? Is he out of luck? It'd be like going to a major tournament after spending months learning R.O.B. only to find that none of the setups have him unlocked.

This is why we don't just set limits on the stats, we create balanced builds for each character to make them more ideal for competitive play.

People won't be able to play their own home brewed build. That is just not going to happen for all of the reasons you stated above. But if they want to help balance the game with us, they will get to have a say in what they want to see in the build of their favorite characters.

 

[RIP_Lucas]

If we allow everyone to do their own customs, that just makes the problem even greater. What if a tournament console doesn't have the right equipment unlocked that you were expecting to use? If you, at home, have a piece of equipment that's +30/-15 and the closest to it at the tournament is +26/-14, that's still a fairly big difference than what you were expecting. Your combos might not work any more, or you might die a few percent sooner than you were hoping.

If one of the conditions of using equipment is that you're imposing a hard cap on stats below what the game caps, that's pretty good signs that this isn't going to work out. You say that +29 is close enough to +30, but what about +31? It's technically above the limit, but it should be negligible right? What about +32? +33? Where does the wiggle room end? These are questions that a tournament organizer will have to answer, especially if he's got to unlock all of these things. What if someone comes along and wants a really oddball build that they've been practicing, like a minimum speed 'dorf with air attack boost and power-shield bomb and the tournament Wii U doesn't have the equipment? Is he out of luck? It'd be like going to a major tournament after spending months learning R.O.B. only to find that none of the setups have him unlocked.

You're making problems where there aren't any. There are not going to be any real tournaments for this for months, if that and that's plenty of time for anyone wanting to host a tournament with things to hit the classic mode and get thousands of equipment to choose from that will at least be close.

If you're done making a big deal out of nothing, we've got real problems we have do deal with now.

I just want to make it clear that we should not have any intention of making a PERFECTLY BALANCED ROSTER. That is never going to happen. There will always be bad matchups, there will always be top tier characters. There will always be bottom tier characters. That is just how fighting games work. It would be boring if the game was perfectly balanced. But, what i want to see is more viability in the characters that you don't normally see succeeding in the competitive scene. If a top tier character beats a bottom tier character 7-3 in matchups, that is not fair as long as we can do something about it. If we can make that matchup closer to 6-4, (which is still NOT A GOOD MATCHUP. 6-4 by nature is a BAD MATCHUP) its not as hopeless as a 7-3. Now Charizard, or Falco, or whoever wont be totally free to the top 5-10 characters. If somebody wants to win with Falco, THEY CAN, yes its still going to be harder for them, but it won't be impossible. Thats the beauty of it.

If the top tier always beats the bottom tier free, no one will play bottom tier. It makes it seem like this roster of 50something characters is more like a roster of 10.

I like your suggestion of a group. That would probably be helpful, as i now realize there are too many things to discuss in just one thread.

This is why we don't just set limits on the stats, we create balanced builds for each character to make them more ideal for competitive play.

Sorry, this is in no way a slam at you, but your insistence that equipment be used to try to balance the tiers is kinda stupid. Just the option to use equipment will automatically do that to an extent because if a character has trouble overcoming a certain character, you can just adjust your stats or moves to compensate.

I mean, yes, eventually sets that stand out for their effectiveness will stand out and we'll need a place to catalogue these and discuss how to use/counter them, but our priority right now should just to be to get as many people interested in this as possible so we can start research and generate hype.

The point of equipment was not to balance the tiers, it was to let people customize their characters how they like, and dictating what sets people can use defeats that purpose.

The sheer number of combinations of moves, stat distributions, and bonuses means there's no way we could do justice to every single player's preferences, so I vote we don't even try and let them do it themselves

 

[Purple_Anteater]

@ RIP_Lucas Clearly we have different ideas on how equipment should be used competitively. You think that the competition should be "who can put together the best build without it being broken". I see equipment more as a way to refine the game without the use of modds.

 

[RIP_Lucas]

@ RIP_Lucas Clearly we have different ideas on how equipment should be used competitively. You think that the competition should be "who can put together the best build without it being broken". I see equipment more as a way to refine the game without the use of modds.

I'll take that maybe I misunderstood the point of this thread, but frankly, the things you describe just sound boring. Why would I want to use sets dictated to me by other people when I can do that with a much larger community just playing normal?

I just don't see any value in enforcing things on other people without good reason. They'll say, just like I'm saying, "that's stupid, I want to use my hyper smasher, no flinch smasher, +50 atk olimar, and you don't have it, so **** you!" You can't have a community without people

Anything trying to use equipment to buff low tier characters would be done just as well, or honestly probably better, by just letting people do whatever they want, so whatever grand plan you have in your head, I'm obviously not seeing it

 

[Purple_Anteater]

I'll take that maybe I misunderstood the point of this thread, but frankly, the things you describe just sound boring. Why would I want to use sets dictated to me by other people when I can do that with a much larger community just playing normal?

I just don't see any value in enforcing things on other people without good reason. They'll say, just like I'm saying, "that's stupid, I want to use my hyper smasher, no flinch smasher, +50 atk olimar, and you don't have it, so **** you!" You can't have a community without people

Anything that trying to use equipment to buff low tier characters would be done just as well, or honestly probably better, by just letting people do whatever they want, so whatever grand plan you have in your head, I'm obviously not seeing it

Personally, I'm not against what you're suggesting for customs. I think that would be a fun way to play the game. But in terms of balance, its all over the place. It might as well be a different game entirely, with its own competitive scene. I don't mean to sound rude or anything, but what you are suggesting is basically the reason why so many people think that equipment is totally nonviable for competitive play.

 

[RIP_Lucas]

Personally, I'm not against what you're suggesting for customs. I think that would be a fun way to play the game. But in terms of balance, its all over the place. It might as well be a different game entirely, with its own competitive scene. I don't mean to sound rude or anything, but what you are suggesting is basically the reason why so many people that equipment is totally nonviable for competitive play.

I'm just going to leave you to whatever crazy shenanigans you're trying to do.

Just make sure to ask who your target audience is, and if your product really speaks to them more than just the standard game. If all you offer its a slightly more balanced game, I'm willing to bet the answer is no. I could be wrong though, so good luck

 

[JmacAttack]

the gods gave us custom equipment so we could play like this. Perfectly doable and a **** ton of fun.

Thing is, that match in the OP doesn't really look any faster than a Sheik-Fox match would usually go. The main factors in SSB4's pacing are shields and rolls being as good as they are, not fall speed and landing lag, especially since most characters have either low-lag aerials or very forgiving autocancel windows. That video, if anything, makes that fact painfully clear.

I'd rather play regular SSB4. Especially since I can practice that on my 3DS.

 

[erico9001]

Personally, I'm not against what you're suggesting for customs. I think that would be a fun way to play the game. But in terms of balance, its all over the place. It might as well be a different game entirely, with its own competitive scene. I don't mean to sound rude or anything, but what you are suggesting is basically the reason why so many people think that equipment is totally nonviable for competitive play.

I'll take that maybe I misunderstood the point of this thread, but frankly, the things you describe just sound boring. Why would I want to use sets dictated to me by other people when I can do that with a much larger community just playing normal?

I just don't see any value in enforcing things on other people without good reason. They'll say, just like I'm saying, "that's stupid, I want to use my hyper smasher, no flinch smasher, +50 atk olimar, and you don't have it, so **** you!" You can't have a community without people

Anything trying to use equipment to buff low tier characters would be done just as well, or honestly probably better, by just letting people do whatever they want, so whatever grand plan you have in your head, I'm obviously not seeing it

@ Purple_Anteater your vision is to have a single set of badges/customs for each character? That seems like a lot of work, and not fun either. I also think this game is too early for such a thing. We don't have a tier list, and have not seen everything that characters have to offer. What I believe is the better option is to take a more fluid approach. We create a system where people do battles under a set guidelines of what is allowed in battles, restricting the amount of stat boosts, the amount of bonus effects, and the type of bonus effects from the start. People have fun trying things out under such rules. When we run into something that is overpowered, we balance by banning that thing. Through the system, there will naturally come about certain sets with each character that will prove consistent. People will come to adopt this once it has been made known to them, but they can continue to toy with various other setups. They may find something nice and start to use it. This may bump up the viability of a certain character in a certain match. It's a dynamic and fun m.

@ RIP_Lucas you're more on board with what I'm thinking. Although, I think +50 atk and two bonus effects is too much, because it's equivalent to 1.4× damage. That's like having the damage output of monado buster all the time, but dealing more knockback too (as damage done is a part of the knockback calculation). It's surprising how a small amount of stat boosts actually makes a huge difference.

I mean, we could go for something like Brawl Minus.

I just think people would rather use things that are more similar to what they are already used to. They can apply what they already know rather than having to learn like a totally new character.

 

[Sleek Media]

I'd like to see equipment used in tournaments. Start simple and let people use whatever they have on their 3DS. If broken modifiers are found, just ban them. If stats become too extreme, put a +/-X limit for each. I think this could be a nice way to bridge the speed gap that is holding certain characters back. I'm also curious to see what kind of strategies players could build around some of the normally undesirable custom moves with equipment support.

 

[Muro]

Thing is, that match in the OP doesn't really look any faster than a Sheik-Fox match would usually go. The main factors in SSB4's pacing are shields and rolls being as good as they are, not fall speed and landing lag, especially since most characters have either low-lag aerials or very forgiving autocancel windows. That video, if anything, makes that fact painfully clear.

I'd rather play regular SSB4. Especially since I can practice that on my 3DS.

That's just an example. It feels a lot better than the regular game. It still suffers from shields and rolls being too good, but now there's followups edgeguards and gimps. And your well spaced aerials don't get punished, or at least not as hard. Spend a day or 2 playing that way and see for yourself.

 

[David Viran]

That's just an example. It feels a lot better than the regular game. It still suffers from shields and rolls being too good, but now there's followups edgeguards and gimps. And your well spaced aerials don't get punished, or at least not as hard. Spend a day or 2 playing that way and see for yourself.

Sheilds and rolls aren't too good because rolls are definitly still punishable offline and sheild gets beaten by doing nothing.

 

[RIP_Lucas]

All right, I'm going to stay out of the major decision making process, I promise, but I do have some things to say

@ RIP_Lucas you're more on board with what I'm thinking. Although, I think +50 atk and two bonus effects is too much, because it's equivalent to 1.4× damage. That's like having the damage output of monado buster all the time, but dealing more knockback too (as damage done is a part of the knockback calculation). It's surprising how a small amount of stat boosts actually makes a huge difference.

That was mostly just to make a point, but I strongly believe that we won't know for sure what's broken until we test everything.

That said, every character is probably going to need a cap on attack. Stocks just go way too fast without it. For instance, here's my Bowser build that I've been using against my friends.

Bowser
2322
Attack +56
Defense +30
Speed -31
No Flinch Smasher
Moon Launcher

1 smash attack deals >40 damage, and with moon launcher, 40 is high enough to KO some of the time, so I get kills after just two hits. I'm in favor of a fast pace, but that's too much.

Sheilds and rolls aren't too good because rolls are definitly still punishable offline and sheild gets beaten by doing nothing.

That's just an example. It feels a lot better than the regular game. It still suffers from shields and rolls being too good, but now there's followups edgeguards and gimps. And your well spaced aerials don't get punished, or at least not as hard. Spend a day or 2 playing that way and see for yourself.

Please don't make this another place to complain about defensive options. I really thought we were done with that.

 

[Sleek Media]

All right, I'm going to stay out of the major decision making process, I promise, but I do have some things to say

That was mostly just to make a point, but I strongly believe that we won't know for sure what's broken until we test everything.

That said, every character is probably going to need a cap on attack. Stocks just go way too fast without it. For instance, here's my Bowser build that I've been using against my friends.

Bowser
2322
Attack +56
Defense +30
Speed -31
No Flinch Smasher
Moon Launcher

1 smash attack deals >40 damage, and with moon launcher, 40 is high enough to KO some of the time, so I get kills after just two hits. I'm in favor of a fast pace, but that's too much.

That's what defensive equipment is for. If everyone boosts offense more than defense, yeah matches will end quickly.

 

[RIP_Lucas]

That's what defensive equipment is for. If everyone boosts offense more than defense, yeah matches will end quickly.

That is a valid point, but even with defensive sets, damage still racks up incredibly fast. If you're not fast enough to avoid their attacks, you'll see yourself in the 200% range very quickly. This is very early speculation, but characters like Bowser will likely not be allowed to have very high damage boosts.

Anyway, might as well start discussion somewhat formally. Whatever we decide the final version of this will look like, we'll need to have very deep discussions of what makes characters good and what needs to be improved on them to make them viable.

I don't see a better candidate to start with than

Mii Swordfighter

Mii Swordfighter is often called the worst character. I don't think that's fair, he's my personal favorite of the miis and I love using him just for fun, but it's clear he (or she, but I'm a guy so I'll call it a he) is far from top tier and has some of the most room to improve with equipment. I'm going to list some strengths and weaknesses I think he has, and I hope some people disagree.

Strengths
-Useful aerials (specifically Nair, Fair, and Bair, though Up and D air have uses too)
-3 projectile options (none are that unbelievably good, but you have options to maintain pressure and force approaches)

Weaknesses
-Too slow for his size and attacks. He is rarely able to effectively counter opponent's approaches or punish mistakes without near perfect prediction.
-Not a lot of mix up options
-Meh recovery.

It's a little more complicated, but I want to focus on those.

Here's the build I use. The numbers aren't exact because I don't have my 3DS with me and I'm away from home, but you get the point. (Edit: Got home, found numbers)

Mii Swordfighter
1231
+24 attack
+14 defense
+29 speed

Smooth Lander
Air Attacker

With +30 speed, you can more easily approach from the ground and punish missed techs with a Dash Attack or wait and grab. Without it they would see the approach coming a mile away, dodge, and punish the just-a-little-too-long dash attack. More importantly though, you can intercept aerial approaches with a short hop Fair so easy now, and with Air Attacker it packs a decent punch. If you don't trust your short hop, just counter, but that doesn't work quite as well. The biggest thing of course is Smooth Lander to allow Nair to smoothly combo into ground attacks for a more useful aerial approach.

Also, I chose Hero's Spin to cover for the mediocre Down Smash. It's less versatile than Skyward Dash Slash, but is less gimpable and works well enough and can double as a kill move with proper set up.

I don't see any Swordfighter set having a ton of success without at least a mild boost to speed, but I see potential in defensive builds. Switch the Air Attacker to Air Defender, invest in Defense, and with Counter and Nair you could do okay. It doesn't fit my playstyle that well, so I haven't tried it, but I think it's worth trying.

Alternatively, some might find my build too passive and want moves like Slash Launcher or Power Thrust along with even more speed or attack. That's fine, and since the only melee attack for the standard special is irrelevant with f smash and d tilt for ko and edge purposes, you'll still easily be able to fit a projectile to apply ranged pressure.

Edit: did some testing with a friend, switching the moves to 2231 allows an incredibly aggressive play with little cost to defenses. I'll post more later

I'm also currently testing a ground based set involving sprinter and hard breaker, but I think that'll be better done by the Brawler.

Thoughts? I'm still not satisfied with the recovery, but this is the best I could do with my limited opportunity to test against real people

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

The issue is lack of consistency.

That can't be solved and fixed easily without requiring a 3DS for each individual. Which I would like to avoid if possible.

Customs are consistent, equipment are not.

 

[RIP_Lucas]

The issue is lack of consistency.

That can't be solved and fixed easily without requiring a 3DS for each individual. Which I would like to avoid if possible.

Customs are consistent, equipment are not.

I'm sorry, I can think of a lot of issues with trying to build a community around equipment, but I can't think of one that fits your description. What exactly isn't consistent?

Is it that there's no guarantee that people will have the sane equipment? That's a fair judgment, but I don't see how it justifies not letting people have fun with what they do have. Plus, I don't see how that'd be fixed by everyone getting a 3ds.

Is it that people on the wii U can't pay people on the 3ds, and vise versa? That'd be fixed by everyone getting a 3ds, but it's also true of the entire community, and therefore not a real issue.

I just don't understand what the specific issue is here. All the ones I can think of can be worked around.

 

[Sleek Media]

The issue is lack of consistency.

That can't be solved and fixed easily without requiring a 3DS for each individual. Which I would like to avoid if possible.

Customs are consistent, equipment are not.

That's a non-issue. Lots of games have RNG-influenced drops that are used in competitive environments. Smash isn't chess; stop with the misinformation already.

This isn't complicated. Let people experiment with whatever they like. Equipment isn't a replacement for regular tournaments - it is a different type of tournament. You switch between them or have both, same way you do with doubles. It's been very disappointing to see how reluctant the community has been to embrace customs, equipment, and 3/4 man teams. Why did you even buy this game if you only care about character rebalancing? You already had that with various Brawl mods.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I'm sorry, I can think of a lot of issues with trying to build a community around equipment, but I can't think of one that fits your description. What exactly isn't consistent?

Is it that there's no guarantee that people will have the sane equipment? That's a fair judgment, but I don't see how it justifies not letting people have fun with what they do have. Plus, I don't see how that'd be fixed by everyone getting a 3ds.

Is it that people on the wii U can't pay people on the 3ds, and vise versa? That'd be fixed by everyone getting a 3ds, but it's also true of the entire community, and therefore not a real issue.

I just don't understand what the specific issue is here. All the ones I can think of can be worked around.

The issue is the fact equipment and WiiUs won't carry over to other ones, a few points difference. There is nothing wrong with people doing this to have fun but at the same time while we are discussing this in the competitive boards we are talking about competing with them.

I only see this feesably working online with WiiUs unless people restrict it to one WiiU/require a 3DS to play in that format.

That's a non-issue. Lots of games have RNG-influenced drops that are used in competitive environments. Smash isn't chess; stop with the misinformation already.

This isn't complicated. Let people experiment with whatever they like. Equipment isn't a replacement for regular tournaments - it is a different type of tournament. You switch between them or have both, same way you do with doubles. It's been very disappointing to see how reluctant the community has been to embrace customs, equipment, and 3/4 man teams. Why did you even buy this game if you only care about character rebalancing? You already had that with various Brawl mods.

The issue is equipment isn't consistent in what it's effects will be on each WiiU and why if someone wanted to do this they would need a 3DS to make sure it was. And even then, how will people know they will be consistent and will have what they want?

What if I want the vampire equipment but one WiiU doesn't have it? I'm not resistant to change, I'm resistant to a format that could be unfair to players depending on which WiiU they are playing on.

 

[Sleek Media]

The issue is equipment isn't consistent in what it's effects will be on each WiiU and why if someone wanted to do this they would need a 3DS to make sure it was. And even then, how will people know they will be consistent and will have what they want?

What if I want the vampire equipment but one WiiU doesn't have it? I'm not resistant to change, I'm resistant to a format that could be unfair to players depending on which WiiU they are playing on.

Like I said, non-issue. If you want to use a pro controller, you bring a pro controller. If you want a certain character build, you bring it. Not complicated, and nothing unfair about it. Are you planning to make an argument against using Mewtwo in tournaments, since it might not be "fair" to the people who don't have both versions and can't practice him at home?

 

[Big-Cat]

Don't compare it to Mewtwo.

It's one thing to have all the characters available. It's a different thing entirely to have all rng variats of every equipment piece available at a tournament.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Like I said, non-issue. If you want to use a pro controller, you bring a pro controller. If you want a certain character build, you bring it. Not complicated, and nothing unfair about it. Are you planning to make an argument against using Mewtwo in tournaments, since it might not be "fair" to the people who don't have both versions and can't practice him at home?

Mewtwo is DLC and consistent in moveset on every WiiU.

Custom moves are consistent on every WiiU.

All controllers but ones with turbo or input saving capabilities are fair place.

The issue with customs is that unless every system has the exact same ones the results and issues from each one will be huge.

If multiple set-ups are running around should I expect every wii to have all the equipment ready or everyone to own a 3DS and grind it out?

Results in a tournament need to be consistent with the options available. Equipment does not do this in it's current state.

 

[RIP_Lucas]

The issue is the fact equipment and WiiUs won't carry over to other ones, a few points difference. There is nothing wrong with people doing this to have fun but at the same time while we are discussing this in the competitive boards we are talking about competing with them.

I only see this feesably working online with WiiUs unless people restrict it to one WiiU/require a 3DS to play in that format.



The issue is equipment isn't consistent in what it's effects will be on each WiiU and why if someone wanted to do this they would need a 3DS to make sure it was. And even then, how will people know they will be consistent and will have what they want?

What if I want the vampire equipment but one WiiU doesn't have it? I'm not resistant to change, I'm resistant to a format that could be unfair to players depending on which WiiU they are playing on.

I disagree with your choice of the word consistent, but you're probably right that this is the wrong forum to talk about this. Equipment just doesn't work across Wii us, so I'm going to the 3DS forum.

I do think there can be a competitive scene around equipment, even given its problems, but this is not the time or way to start it.