Smash Bros. With Friends (3DS)

[Lord Raven]

That just sounds like a lot of "I refuse to adapt."

Part of mind games should be "which custom is he using?"  And on top of that if Custom moves get fleshed out into the metagame more it should be clearer what custom moves are most likely to be used character through character.  Sometimes you'll be caught off guard but c'est la vie, it'll only be for a moment.

I think a lot of competitive standards have little against custom moves of any kind.  I'm not going to spring out a Pokemon comparison right now because Pokemon is probably the most atypical example of a metagame that works despite its flaws, but the custom moves are easily attainable and there is no variance between them.  It's not like custom equipment.  "It's too much to remember or keep track of" is a very flawed excuse in terms of competitive play.

[Richard and Blaziken]

Aside from not wanting or needing to memorize all the specials, my other point in that many of them are unbalanced is very valid. Yoshi in a nutshell is literally broken with certain specials and needs a patch to be fixed. Link's Meteor Bomb puts a stop to recovery at all. Not all customs are unbalanced, but enough of them are that it's not worth the hassle when I don't need custom moves to be good at the game and have fun, regardless of what it sounds like.

Further, I do play customs every time we've ever fought in Smash, and I think you can attest that I'm very capable of adapting.

[Lord Raven]

When I said "adapt" I didn't mean in-game adaptation.  I meant in terms of changes to the metagame.  There is a difference.

Your point of surprises is mitigated by forcing players in tournaments and whatnot to reveal the custom moveset they will be using.  But the moves themselves have a description of what they do so again, "it's too much to remember" can't be a valid argument.

Yoshi in a nutshell is literally broken with certain specials and needs a patch to be fixed. Link's Meteor Bomb puts a stop to recovery at all. Not all customs are unbalanced, but enough of them are that it's not worth the hassle

Your view sounds very reactionary.  In terms of tournaments, these things may seem broken now but the metagame will evolve.  If you begin to see more and more of these sets, then the idea is that you will approach characters like link and Yoshi differently than before if they are using these customs, and using regulations to have players reveal their custom movesets while picking the character will mitigate many of these issues.  2 is also not a lot.  Bans on those are easily enforceable.

Let the metagame run its course.  It's only been what, three weeks since the western release?

when I don't need custom moves to be good at the game and have fun, regardless of what it sounds like.

What does this mean?

Further, I do play customs every time we've ever fought in Smash, and I think you can attest that I'm very capable of adapting.

Then I don't see the issue?  This idea seems to contradict the fact that you've said this:

Adding in unknowns in a fighting game makes it more random, so rather than anticipating each other's moves and reacting accordingly, you're caught off-guard by something you couldn't possibly see coming unless you learn the specifics about every single custom move of every single character.

Just because you're not willing to put the time and effort to understand how every character's customs work doesn't make it a bad or unknown feature.  Competitive play is thrown off when there's elements of randomness, not things that are unknown.  If it were more like Pokemon or Brawl w/ tripping then it would be an issue but it's very very very different in concept to those.  In this case you get a result that's consistent from match to match.

Many of them are just faster/slower/non damaging versions of the same custom, you're not deal with 384 different characters with Palutena levels of variance.  If you request to see the effects and whatnot, then you get a feel for what the custom does and you can get a feel for how it'll be played.  Too much information does not detract from competitive play.

[Richard and Blaziken]

I stated why I don't play with customs, and why I think there's no online competitive mode that allows them. The customs aren't too much to remember in theory, I could memorize all of them, but what I'm saying is that no online competitive format requires me to do so, so I don't, and that's why most people don't play with them. If there was an online competitive format that used them, I'd have memorized more of them by now. I don't have to adapt to a custom metagame because you're the only friend I play in Smash (out of about 30) that uses customs.

I still think that too many of the customs are unblanced for me to enjoy playing with them, and so I don't, but I'm sure people will work a metagame around it if they're dedicated enough. I just prefer playing in an environment with no variation to movesets so that both players are on equal grounds in terms of knowing what the opponent can do. This can work if, like you said, both players show/tell their custom moves before the match starts, but not everyone is willing to do that. It's not a huge deal overall, and even in fighting matches with you, the different customs you used never bothered me too much, I was more saying why I think people aren't fans of them.

[Lord Raven]

I think the only reason that customs aren't played with in For Glory has to do with custom items more than custom movesets.  Custom Items are a definite ban because that gets into a lot of luck based things, but in general I think it's too early to stay that some customs are too powerful.  Remember when Ike and/or Toon Link were considered really good characters at the start of Brawl?

[Richard and Blaziken]

You may be right about that, and I think it will have its own metagame if people desire it, but it's not something I particularly enjoy, and from what I've seen, that's the popular opinion. I will say that it can be fun, so people should try it out before making up their mind, but it's not for me.

[E.C.A.M.B.S.]

I hate customs for more than just interpersonal (inter-player?) reasons and the different experience of the match. I hate customs because it's uncharted terrority. I prefer to use the familiar attacks of the character I use. I don't want to have to learn or try out my character's other special moves. I think it taints the character, that it's pure in its original form. My character's original attacks work well for me. I don't see the need for a change.

I also don't want to see people writing up competitive articles that dictate which sets are best for the character, which equipment, etc. like in Pokemon. Most of the time, you just need to use the character well and make the right calls. That's why the SSB "metagame" is less of a metagame than Pokemon. It's not as step-by-step or number-based. And getting KO'd isn't as inevitable in SSB as it is in Pokemon. You can sidestep attacks till the world ends. Calling it a metagame disgusts me, honestly. You can correct me, but those are just my views.

...Phew, that was long. I normally don't go off like that.

Anyway, on-topic with the actual discussion here, I was only wondering if anyone is available for a battle right now, at 1:00 in the morning?

[Richard and Blaziken]

I'm down for some matches, EKANS. I'll host the game

[Lord Raven]

I hate customs for more than just interpersonal (inter-player?) reasons and the different experience of the match. I hate customs because it's uncharted terrority. I prefer to use the familiar attacks of the character I use. I don't want to have to learn or try out my character's other special moves. I think it taints the character, that it's pure in its original form. My character's original attacks work well for me. I don't see the need for a change.

That's fair enough I guess...

I also don't want to see people writing up competitive articles that dictate which sets are best for the character, which equipment, etc. like in Pokemon. Most of the time, you just need to use the character well and make the right calls. That's why the SSB "metagame" is less of a metagame than Pokemon. It's not as step-by-step or number-based. And getting KO'd isn't as inevitable in SSB as it is in Pokemon. You can sidestep attacks till the world ends. Calling it a metagame disgusts me, honestly. You can correct me, but those are just my views.

There is a competitive scene in Smash, therefore you call it a metagame.  There's no spectrum of metagaming; it either is or it isn't.  At any rate I have a lot of issues with competitive Pokemon but if you want to argue that we can do it in another thread, since I feel like this thread is more of an all-encompassing smash thread...

btw Rich I have seen more towards allowing customs run their course, then splitting off Smash than people outright disallowing customs.  That's based on smashboards and serenes forest (though the latter is a fire emblem fansite so i won't get too carried away there).  A lot of opinion is to watch everything unfold; knee jerk banning of things is the wrong way to go about things in infancy at any rate.

The most legitimate argument I've seen is for tournament hosts being required to unlock everything on the WiiU smash.  I've spent 130 hours trying to unlock everything in smash 3DS (although maybe 40 of that has been spent online) and I still have like 40 customs left.  3DS smash tournaments aren't as big an issue because there are ways to make things go faster for the particular player you want, but tournament hosts won't have everything unlocked as easily.  Here's hoping there are faster ways to unlock things in the WiiU smash.


At any rate I was thinking philosophically for the moment and I'm praying that Mr. Burns makes it into WiiU Smash.

[Richard and Blaziken]

I'm not saying they should be banned, I was mostly just arguing about why I don't like them. I'm sure there will be a metagame for them, and when I said competitive standard, I meant online modes, so that's my mistake there. It's a preference thing, and I prefer standard movesets. I'm honestly not in a mood to debate this any further since I don't actually disagree with most of what you're saying and I think you took a lot of what I was saying the wrong way, partly to do with my wording, for which I apologize.

Edit: Good games, EKANS!

[E.C.A.M.B.S.]

I agree, nice battles. Even though I didn't land a single kill (couldn't even Destiny Bond ya), I enjoyed how you evaded my grabs and had a consistent strategy going. Every time you took damage, you instantly learned how to prevent the same thing from happening again. Not to mention Greninja is top tier, whereas Ganondorf is low tier.

It's a shame that Nasty CPU Greninja isn't as formidable... I really wish CPU's could go higher than level 9

Oh ya, I edited my rules. It's best 2/3 now. I don't want to play too many matches. Otherwise I keep on playing matches with the same person again and again worrying that if I stop playing, they'll think I'm a coward.

[Lord Raven]

I'm not saying they should be banned, I was mostly just arguing about why I don't like them. I'm sure there will be a metagame for them, and when I said competitive standard, I meant online modes, so that's my mistake there. It's a preference thing, and I prefer standard movesets. I'm honestly not in a mood to debate this any further since I don't actually disagree with most of what you're saying and I think you took a lot of what I was saying the wrong way, partly to do with my wording, for which I apologize.

For what it's worth, most of the points I quoted were @EKANS, I was just telling you what I've seen.

EKANS you wanna go at it?  I can turn off customs but I don't use anything earth shattering (just a Marth regular B change and an Up+B with more height and no damage, and I change Ike's Eruption to Tempest and Quick Draw to Close Combat).

[Richard and Blaziken]

Update 1.0.4 is out and it ruins Greninja, along with "balancing" (nerfing) many others. Done with competitive Smash, but it was a fun month.

1v1 For Glory: 1613/1777 - 90.77% Win Rate

[Hahex and Oshawott]

Update 1.0.4 is out and it ruins Greninja, along with "balancing" (nerfing) many others. Done with competitive Smash, but it was a fun month.

1v1 For Glory: 1613/1777 - 90.77% Win Rate

what did they do to him?

[Richard and Blaziken]

Down-Air can no longer be cancelled and has bad end lag
Up-B windbox severely nerfed
Up-Smash now has horrible end lag

The Up-Smash nerf is the one that really matters to me. While the other two are somewhat annoying, I don't think they ruined the character, just made him harder to use. The Up-Smash nerf, however, is horrible. It was his best kill move and only good Smash attack.

For a full list of changes, read here