The Next Smash Revolution: Custom Fighter System

[Lord_Brand]

On 1/20/2020 at 6:34 AM, Anacybele said:

Seeing as the Mii Fighters are basically this already in some form, I say no.

I think most fans would rather play the actual characters with organic movesets than Miis dressed up in super deformed outfits with generic movesets.

Edited January 22, 2020 by Lord_Brand

[Arcanite]

On 1/18/2020 at 5:35 PM, Etheus said:

And like.. if Soul Calibur, the Diet Mt. Dew of fighting game franchises can have a robust character builder, why not Smash?

Now that you say this

They could add a Soul Calibur character...

Nightmare for smash

[Lord_Brand]

Hey, let's add a Soul Calibur slot too! Soul Calibur...Seeker? Warrior?

And how about Mortal Kombatants? Kano, Liu Kang, Raiden, Johnny Cage, Scorpion, Sub Zero, Sonya...

By the way, since traditional "Character Joins the Battle!" screens would be tricky to pull off with the CFS around, what if you get a "Character Joins the Battle!" Screen every time you complete a Custom Fighter? And you can share your Custom Fighter online as a Guest Fighter who can appear as Challengers in other players' games. If the other player defeats the Challenger, they can "unlock" the Guest Fighter you created, which is then added to their list of Guest Fighters.

So for example, let's say you create a female fox Star Fox Pilot and name her Krystal, representing Krystal from Star Fox. Once you save her to your Fighter List, you get a screen with the message "Krystal Joins the Battle!" Then you opt to share Krystal online. Once you do, other players could encounter Krystal as a challenger, defeat her, and choose to add her to their Guest Fighter roster, recreating the feel of unlockable characters in traditional Smash. You can even create custom "Joins the Battle" messages for other players to see.

Now obviously there are a couple of pitfalls to address here:

1. Player uploads need to be limited in order to avoid spamming. Once per day seems reasonable to me.
2. Many players will likely create similar fighters with the same name. This is why players need to be able to choose whether or not to add a particular fighter to their roster, so they don't end up with a dozen Fighters that have the same name. Players should also be free to delete Fighters from their own lists, both those they have created and those other players have created.

Alternatively, Guest Fighters could be shared primarily with friends, so only your friends will encounter Guest Fighters you created. I feel like there should be incentives to share, add, and play Guest Fighters. Bonus items are the obvious choice, and perhaps there could be customization options unlocked through Sharing.

There could also be a quarterly competition held by Nintendo where fans can each submit one Custom Fighter, from which a handful will be chosen by Nintendo themselves for official distribution to the larger playerbase. And of course the owners of the winning entries will receive both recognition and in-game prizes. Even the mere act of participating will yield reward.

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There are a few characters that cause some snags, like Mr. Game & Watch, Ice Climbers, R.O.B., and Duck Hunt. They either come from series with few or no games (MG&W being the exception), have narrow parameters (how do you customize R.O.B. aside from paint jobs?), low character count to provide customization material (again, barring potentially MG&W, and even then he transforms into different characters as part of his shtick), and basically just don't feel compelling from a customization standpoint. And of course there's the question of the Mii Fighters. The CFS does the job they're designed to do only much better, so what purpose do they have left? In a system that offers tons of customization options, these are among the few fighters I would seriously consider cutting or demoting into ATs.

Thinking back on what I said here, some fighters may simply have to be left out of the customization pool. They could still be playable fighters, they just may not get any templates or other customization options. Can't expect R.O.B. to have as many choices as fighters with storied histories like Mario and Link.

Edited March 3, 2020 by Lord_Brand