Will Custom move sets be allowed at Tournaments?

[smashbro29]

With what info we do have now.

Hell ****ing no.

 

[JOE!]

With what info we do have now.

Hell ****ing no.

What info do we have on it again? Lol

 

[R0Y]

No, definitely not. I doubt it will generate much discussion either. Too many variables.

 

[smashbro29]

What info do we have on it again? Lol

That every move has multiple variations and that is way too much to remember.

 

[-Kagato-]

Many people keep bringing up the whole "can't be used online" thing. You misheard Sakurai. He said it can't be used Online vs Random players. And all online vs random players will be timed matches, no stocks, and strictly FD-style stages for the For Glory mode.

Custom Movesets will be available for offline play or online play vs friends. Both of those is how 99% of us play Smash anyway. Offline or vs Friends online.

Custom movesets are also being looked at incorrectly. People see DK's Hyper Armor on his side-B and get the impression that all characters might have hyper armor options on everything, even though we clearly see that custom movesets seem to affect special moves only and merely alter their properties. Take Mario for example. He had 3 completely different fireball variations as well as a 2nd Super Jump Punch that turned into something similar to Luigi's.

I agree that being able to choose custom moves quickly is ideal, but I highly doubt they'll be some super overpowered broken attacks. Just different versions of attacks. For another example, Bowser's Flying Slam could be replaced with the Melee Koopa Klaw, or his fire breath could change into fireball breath projectiles.

Choosing new moves should really be no different than choosing different assist attacks in Marvel vs Capcom, for example. Different moves allow for complete metagame changes and may help certain characters perform better depending on the matchup involved. These aren't items or Final Smashes. They are the character's own ability. You just get the option to choose which fireball is thrown out. Bounce, straight, or slow multi-hitting.

 

[guedes the brawler]

Yes, too many characters have useless special moves and this could very well save them. Things like the Falcon Punch, Sing and Egg Lay can be replaced by something useful now.

I think that, maybe, there could be research made inot every move and combinations that are too strong could get banned. But it totally should be a side thing.

 

[Downdraft]

The only problem with that is not everyone who is very good/ competitive at the game is following smashboards. They would get really good using the default settings, or custom settings that don't correspond to the tournament standard, and either has to relearn all of their MUs and probably even their own character, or worse show up to a tournament to find out the custom setting are set differently. Or maybe I'm wrong, maybe every worth-while tournament player out there is definitely in touch with the online community and will receive the memo when everyone else does.

Competitors simply need to be in touch with tournaments' demands. These move changes will not be major, so tournaments simply need to give ample notification regarding which customizations will be required in a tournament. I feel that they shouldn't be optional, either a tournament demands a strict list of customized moves or they ban them altogether.

Pretty much there will need to be two things for it to be competitively / tournament viable:

It has to be FAST
In a nutshell, if it takes too long to customize moves (slogging through a menu per player per character), it simply would be banned for ease of use at a large tournament.
If quick and relatively simple (Such as the ability to save it to your tag, then transfer it to the WiiU quickly or even if it is quick in general like choosing "Special 1 vs Special 2" within 2 seconds), it shouldn't be too bad.

It has to be LIMITED
For it to really take off, it cannot be bonkers. So far, what we've seen are limited alterations / variants of a move that keep the original intent and flavor, such as different kinds of fireballs. End of the day, it's still a fireball projectile that Mario can use.
However, what else I mean by this is that it would be best if it were limited to -just- special moves and even better yet presets. Meaning perhaps at character select screen you could choose Mario, then quickly assign "Mario A or Mario B" with altered special moves each.
On top of this, having limitation makes it easier to study for competitive viability, as if we find "Mach Tornado" to be too abusive, we could potentially make him use an alternate B move instead.


That aside, it would definitely make for a fun side event / fun in general.

1. Ideally, players would set up the customized movesets on their Wii U well in advance of the tournament thereby rendering the process's speed irrelevant.
2. I could agree with this.

 

[TreK]

It depends on how the customization is handled :
-There has to be some kind of sacrifice involved. You don't just make your character better, you change the utility of a move from A to B, and lose A in the process. That's why I like the idea of just changing your character's specials.
-There has to be a limitation to how many modifications you can have. One or two moves per character seems about right.
-It must not take more than a couple seconds to have your character ready.
-You must not be able to force your opponent to pick your modifications in the ditto matchup. Customizations should be associated with tags ideally, or it should be possible to customize from the character selection menu.

But on principle, I am totally for customization. Smash's biggest appeal is that it can be customized. this is just taking it one step further. The metagame would be vastly different, but it wouldn't be a bad thing. It would be like in Street Fighter, where they choose one ultra move out of 2 or 3 Or like Pokémon where you know what the opponent's character can do, but not what it will do. Or even like Magic the Gathering to an extent, where you don't play a character, but a more malleable "archetype" that you have to adapt to counter other archetypes and win the matchup.

In the end though, we know next to nothing about how this will actually be handled. Wait and see. Anyone who says this should be forbidden right now should go on your ignore list tbh.

 

[Smash G]

I doubt it.

Seems like something that would probably be too hard to balance.

 

[TreK]

^ yeah, because Brawl, Melee and 64 are so well balanced that we could not settle for a slightly less balanced game whatsoever.
lmfao.

 

[Smash G]

Those games could have been 100x less balanced than they were. You can always get worse.

 

[Downdraft]

Those games could have been 100x less balanced than they were. You can always get worse.

I would trust the tournament scene and professional players to provide objective evidence backing the balance or imbalance of customized movesets. Again, the decisions will fall in the hands of tournament organizers whom should consult the players. I wouldn't imagine customized movesets being featured at tournaments until the default mechanics, moves, tactics, etc. are figured out first, which might take a year or so.

 

[-Kagato-]

ISeems like something that would probably be too hard to balance.

Never seemed to be a problem for other fighting games with similar customization options. These aren't random, OP items. They're a character's attacks.

Like I said earlier, look back at a game like MvC. Characters can customize their assists. Assists allow the point character to do things he normally wouldn't be able to do on his own, be it defensive, offensive, short-ranged or long-ranged. Some assist combinations even allow a character who is typically underpowered on his own to do something incredibly powerful to the point of being a touch of death. This element is what make the MvC games so popular and competitive. No one can properly train against a specific team/assist set-up unless they knew the player they were facing before-hand, and how his set-up will be. Instead they just encourage players to act and react on the fly.

Smash shouldn't have to be any different. These are customizable special attacks only. None of them will be supremely overpowered over another. Mario's fireballs are still fireballs. Super Jump Punch is still Super Jump Punch. Merely the properties have changed, much like how Ryu is still Ryu in MvC, but his assists give him 2 extra attacks that your opponent can use to make it harder to approach, attack, or defend.

Shutting off the ability to customize special attacks just limits the potential metagame to the bare minimum and dooms us all to see the same group of characters show up in tournaments when a low tier character could just so happen to have one altered special move that changes his matchup ability against a high tier character juuuust enough to even the match between them,.

 

[Tybis]

I want to say outright "no", but it really depends on how limited it is.
If it's literally just choosing between type A, B, or C fireball for Mario, then I could see that type of thing having some competitive potential. It kind of reminds me of the three types of assists in MvC, actually. Judging from the Direct though, I'm not holding my breath for it being balanced.

It MIGHT work, but probably not.

*someone gives all of their character's attacks super armor*

No way. No way. No waaay. Too Brawl Minus.

You say that like it's a bad thing!
(Just kidding. Bowser's armor was rebalanced long ago.)

 

[Renji64]

Too soon to say.

 

[Ussi]

Only if you can save the changes to a tag.

Also rules about customizing your moveset between games will have to be addressed.

 

[smashbro29]

Never seemed to be a problem for other fighting games with similar customization options. These aren't random, OP items. They're a character's attacks.

Like I said earlier, look back at a game like MvC. Characters can customize their assists. Assists allow the point character to do things he normally wouldn't be able to do on his own, be it defensive, offensive, short-ranged or long-ranged. Some assist combinations even allow a character who is typically underpowered on his own to do something incredibly powerful to the point of being a touch of death. This element is what make the MvC games so popular and competitive. No one can properly train against a specific team/assist set-up unless they knew the player they were facing before-hand, and how his set-up will be. Instead they just encourage players to act and react on the fly.

Smash shouldn't have to be any different. These are customizable special attacks only. None of them will be supremely overpowered over another. Mario's fireballs are still fireballs. Super Jump Punch is still Super Jump Punch. Merely the properties have changed, much like how Ryu is still Ryu in MvC, but his assists give him 2 extra attacks that your opponent can use to make it harder to approach, attack, or defend.

Shutting off the ability to customize special attacks just limits the potential metagame to the bare minimum and dooms us all to see the same group of characters show up in tournaments when a low tier character could just so happen to have one altered special move that changes his matchup ability against a high tier character juuuust enough to even the match between them,.

In MvC2 and 3 there are 3 assist variants per character. You can't customize hadoken and berserker barrage 3 different ways, it's apples and oranges.

 

[Pazzo.]

Too soon... but it looks freakin' fun!

 

[1MachGO]

Like some people have been saying, if it can be selected quickly and has specific alterations on just special moves, it'd be silly to ban it. It'd be like if MvC3 banned the ability to pick an assist type.

It does make me curious to see the extent of it though or if there will be other forms of customization (namely types of air dodging). It also makes me wonder if Fox can customize his lasers to be like Falco's and what that means for Falco if he is still in this game.

 

[R0Y]

You all know the answer is NO!

 

[Fuqua]

And all online vs random players will be timed matches, no stocks, and strictly FD-style stages for the For Glory mode.

I dont think that is confirmed is it? I mean we didnt see stocks in the footage but we didnt see a timer either so...

 

[Plain Yogurt]

If it can be saved to a tag or is like choosing assists in MvC then I suppose it could be possible. If not, or if the changes make moves super exploitable, then absolutely not.

 

[Ravio_Yo]

I think there should be some sort of side tournament scene for custom movesets.

 

[GamerGuy09]

I completely agree with everything he says.

What I hope comes from this is that characters who are bad in the metagame can get buffs if it is allowed, and maybe Sakurai makes one of the alternate special moves default. This would be essentially a patch.

Zodiac gives a lot of really neat ideas like with Samus and Mario, and with Greninja and Pikachu. I hope that these custom movesets are not banned for competitive play because they add so much to the game. I just hope there is an easy way to switch between them on the fly.

 

[BigHairyFart]

My thoughts exactly, there is literally no telling until we see the specifics of how it works, how limited/expansive it is, and how it affects gameplay at high levels.

 

[TL?]

Obviously it shouldn't be banned until it proves it needs to be, but my guess is that will happen fairly quickly after release.

 

[chaosmasterro]

I don't think custom movesets should be banned before they're even explored. From the look at the trailer I see nothing OP about Mario's fireball, but seeing DK's SA headbash may be a bit unfair(just looking at the startup on it, it doesn't even look that bad). I would say limit the banning to the specific custom move not the entire idea.

 

[MAtgSy]

Customizations would be great for counterpicks I think. Seems wrong to dismiss it outright.

Or maybe it can limited to low tiers while high tiers are restricted to default settings.

 

[210stuna]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but did Sakurai say during the direct that "Custom movesets are like custom taunts" ?

Oh boy, this would be like a Reggie to a Shelby.
My body would not be ready for this.

 

[chaosmasterro]

Depending on the speed and flexibility of the function should be the factor whether it should be used or not.
Having little information on the idea I think a specific custom move should be banned before banning the entire idea.

 

[BaPr]

I just want it to be a side event. People make their own custom sets and fight others with them. I am not expecting it to take over the normal competitions we have.

 

[GamerGuy09]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but did Sakurai say during the direct that "Custom movesets are like custom taunts" ?

Oh boy, this would be like a Reggie to a Shelby.
My body would not be ready for this.

I don't think he did, and if so what are Custom Taunts even? You couldn't customize taunts before so what are you talking about?

What I'm assuming is that there is maybe 3 options per special move. Mario's fireballs have three versions: normal, fast and light, big and heavy.

Mario FLUDD for example would have somethinga along these lines: normal, shorter range an have more knockback, have farther range and have less knockback.

I'm assuming this would be the same with everyone's special moves.

 

[Silic0n]

I'm indifferent either way. If they are allowed then that's cool, but if they aren't, then that's fine too. I doubt major tourneys like Apex would allow them, but at least some tournaments on a smaller scale will probably utilize custom movesets.

 

[Aduross]

Way too early to tell. Depending on how they're implemented, the extent to which they change things, and how selecting them works, we'll see. They look like minor alternative Special moves you can choose between to me. Personally, I'm hoping they're viable because I think it could add a lot of interesting variety to characters that are otherwise very limited in what they can do.

I have some trepidation on "balancing" characters with "standard" movesets however. Sounds like it's opening a huge can of worms to me. I'd prefer either going full default or full customization, but we just don't know enough about it at the moment.

 

[DakotaBonez]

Nintendo has made it very clear that these are not for competition by banning the customizations from online play.

Nintendo also thinks that competitive smash means timed matches on final destination.
Let's not let nintendo decide whats competitive -_-

 

[210stuna]

You couldn't customize taunts before so what are you talking about?

You could have custom taunts in Brawl online in the sense that you could have a custom phrase displayed over your head for each one, essentially having 4 different 'custom taunts'.

 

[GamerGuy09]

You could have custom taunts in Brawl online in the sense that you could have a custom phrase displayed over your head for each one, essentially having 4 different 'custom taunts'.

Those aren't really "Custom Taunts", Custom Taunts would being able to swap out different taunts with completely different animations. That is more like adding text over it, it really isn't custom.

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

I don't think custom movesets should be banned before they're even explored. From the look at the trailer I see nothing OP about Mario's fireball, but seeing DK's SA headbash may be a bit unfair(just looking at the startup on it, it doesn't even look that bad). I would say limit the banning to the specific custom move not the entire idea.

We're talking about custom move sets, not a single custom move. This raises even more issues:

• What's the rubric for banning a single ability?
• How many custom abilities should we allow to a single character?
• What if it has large implications for the character's net strength? For example, what if there is a move so significantly powerful that it would single-handedly place the character into much higher tiers, but because of its abusive power it was banned, leaving the otherwise strong character very underplayed? How do you make that kind of judgement call?
• What if a character has at least two strong abilities that are individually acceptable, but together make the character too powerful?
• What if the alternative versions of abilities are just more useful and that there are the only meaningful abilities to keep? What kind of depth does that add when there is only one meaningful choice?
• If we are banning to prevent abuse, should we be forcing strong characters to use weaker abilities?

These are not simple issues. Allowing abilities opens up very broad avenues of discussions that may not see resolution because it not only based largely on a preference for them, but it also leads to even further debate based on whatever else you might prefer, such as using the abilities as a means for keeping the cast as balanced as possible. It's a ruleset nightmare. It's okay to want custom abilities purely because you like the, but if you want to allow abilities because you believe they add competitive depth, the onus is on you to show it that it would be meaningful and, just as importantly, manageable.

I'm not against even innately against custom moves, but while there may be reasons to including them, there are still compelling reasons not to yet.

The meaningful depth in a competitive game is partially gauged by the players options for play and counterplay. The way I see that custom moves could add meaning is as part of the counterpick system, where the defeated player is allowed to forego picking a counterpick stage and instead allowed to choose a custom ability and deferring the stage pick or picking a second starter stage. I think that would be a fairly interesting way to handle the custom abilities,

Obviously it shouldn't be banned until it proves it needs to be, but my guess is that will happen fairly quickly after release.

Obviously? What makes it so obvious? Should we obviously automatically include items until we remember why we banned them in the first place?

 

[ImaClubYou]

Naturally I'd agree but if this metagame relies heavily on nerfing or buffing characters it would be devestating to the games publicity.

Most of the time, fighting games are based on how well they are done without tweaking. Even if changing moves are in the game and encouraged, I feel it will have a negative effect towards us as a fighting game community like we've been for many years.

 

[210stuna]

Naturally I'd agree but if this metagame relies heavily on nerfing or buffing characters it would be devestating to the games publicity.

Most of the time, fighting games are based on how well they are done without tweaking. Even if changing moves are in the game and encouraged, I feel it will have a negative effect towards us as a fighting game community like we've been for many years.

This times 10.

I feel like the ability for many to "report" stuff online doesn't help either.