Custom Special Categories

[Lord_Brand]

Because Custom Specials are unlikely to return in SSBU (though it would be incredibly awesome if they did), this will apply more to speculation for SSB6.

When Custom Specials return, what if next time they're sorted into categories? In SSB, each fighter's specials generally serve one of the following purposes:

• Power - A powerful attack designed to deal big damage and/or launch opponents. These are most frequently N or D Specials, and may involve charging or windups.
• Range - A longer-range and usually projectile-based attack designed for area control. You often see these in the N, S, and D Special Slots, rarely in the U Special Slot.
• Defense - A move designed to protect you from attacks, such as by reflecting or absorbing them. Most often these apply to projectiles, but counters are particularly effective against physical attacks. Defense can also cover status effect moves like Jigglypuff's Sing. These are most common in N and D, less so in S, and practically unheard of in U.
• Mobility - A move designed to help you cover distance quickly, such as by dashing or jumping high. These tend to be S or U specials, as you're already pressing in the directions you want to go, but there are examples in N and D as well.
• Alteration - A move that allows you to tweak some aspect of your fighter, such as by changing which stat buff they're using, which weapon they're using, or even transforming or switching the fighter altogether. This is almost always a D Special, but a few N Specials fit here too.

The idea is to standardize Special functions across fighters for more practical customization. For example, let's say every fighter has Power, Range, and Defense N Specials. Mario's Fireball is obviously his Range N Special. What if his Cape became his Defense N Special, and his Power N Special was a Hammer attack or the Squirt Nozzle? Link has the Boomerang as a Range S Special. Maybe a Hammer could be his Power S Special?

Obviously, there are overlaps in function. Samus' Charge Beam could be interpreted as both a Power Special and a Range Special. But which function does it fit better in regards to Samus? Could it be considered her Power N in contrast to, say, Wave Beam being her Range N? Or could Super Missile be Samus' Power Special while Charge Beam is her Range N? There's some flexibility in how Specials can be categorized.

By choosing, say, 3 categories for each Special Slot, we can then build fighters and their Custom Specials around these categories. This should also aid in coming up with Special options for prospective fighters by providing design directions for their Special options.

• N Specials: Power, Range, Defense
• S Specials: Power, Range, Mobility
• U Specials: Power, Range, Mobility
• D Specials: Power, Defense, Alteration

Here are a couple samples.

 

Link

• N Specials: Urbosa's Fury, Bow, Daruk's Protection
• S Specials: Hammer, Boomerang, Pegasus Boots
• U Specials: Spin Attack, Whip, Revali's Gale
• D Specials: Remote Bomb, Parry, Equip Claymore/Spear/Sword & Shield

Captain Falcon

• N Specials: Falcon Punch, Hotshot Blaster, Falcon Shield
• S Specials: Power, Ankle Snare, Raptor Boost
• U Specials: Falcon Upper, Grapple Wire, Falcon Dive
• D Specials: Falcon Kick, Track Mine, Boost Power

This would of course lead to some Specials moving around. Jigglypuff's Sing would become its default N Special, taking the Defense slot, while Rollout could be its Power N or Mobility S. Shulk's Monado Arts and Vision would switch places, with Vision becoming his Defense N and Arts being his Alteration D. Pokemon Trainer would be tricky, but the best options are either a) give Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard a Power and Defense D Special each but prevent them from using their Alteration D Special unless all three use it thereby locking the player to one of the three during battle; or b) not give Power or Defense D Specials to the starters and simply lock them to the Alteration D Special. This could also work for, say, Sonic, Tails, & Knuckles as Team Sonic. They can share an Alteration D Special, or each use a Power or Defense D Special. To simplify customization, team fighters could simply all use the same type for their respective slots. So, if Squirtle uses its Power N, Ivysaur and Charizard will also use their Power N.

So, what do you all think? Got any ideas of your own for Special sets using the categories I laid out?

[Light Strategist]

40 minutes ago, Lord_Brand said:

Because Custom Specials are unlikely to return in SSBU (though it would be incredibly awesome if they did), this will apply more to speculation for SSB6.

When Custom Specials return, what if next time they're sorted into categories? In SSB, each fighter's specials generally serve one of the following purposes:

• Power - A powerful attack designed to deal big damage and/or launch opponents. These are most frequently N or D Specials, and may involve charging or windups.
• Range - A longer-range and usually projectile-based attack designed for area control. You often see these in the N, S, and D Special Slots, rarely in the U Special Slot.
• Defense - A move designed to protect you from attacks, such as by reflecting or absorbing them. Most often these apply to projectiles, but counters are particularly effective against physical attacks. Defense can also cover status effect moves like Jigglypuff's Sing. These are most common in N and D, less so in S, and practically unheard of in U.
• Mobility - A move designed to help you cover distance quickly, such as by dashing or jumping high. These tend to be S or U specials, as you're already pressing in the directions you want to go, but there are examples in N and D as well.
• Alteration - A move that allows you to tweak some aspect of your fighter, such as by changing which stat buff they're using, which weapon they're using, or even transforming or switching the fighter altogether. This is almost always a D Special, but a few N Specials fit here too.

The idea is to standardize Special functions across fighters for more practical customization. For example, let's say every fighter has Power, Range, and Defense N Specials. Mario's Fireball is obviously his Range N Special. What if his Cape became his Defense N Special, and his Power N Special was a Hammer attack or the Squirt Nozzle? Link has the Boomerang as a Range S Special. Maybe a Hammer could be his Power S Special?

Obviously, there are overlaps in function. Samus' Charge Beam could be interpreted as both a Power Special and a Range Special. But which function does it fit better in regards to Samus? Could it be considered her Power N in contrast to, say, Wave Beam being her Range N? Or could Super Missile be Samus' Power Special while Charge Beam is her Range N? There's some flexibility in how Specials can be categorized.

By choosing, say, 3 categories for each Special Slot, we can then build fighters and their Custom Specials around these categories. This should also aid in coming up with Special options for prospective fighters by providing design directions for their Special options.

• N Specials: Power, Range, Defense
• S Specials: Power, Range, Mobility
• U Specials: Power, Range, Mobility
• D Specials: Power, Defense, Alteration

Here are a couple samples.

  Reveal hidden contents

Link

• N Specials: Urbosa's Fury, Bow, Daruk's Protection
• S Specials: Hammer, Boomerang, Pegasus Boots
• U Specials: Spin Attack, Whip, Revali's Gale
• D Specials: Remote Bomb, Parry, Equip Claymore/Spear/Sword & Shield

Captain Falcon

• N Specials: Falcon Punch, Hotshot Blaster, Falcon Shield
• S Specials: Power, Ankle Snare, Raptor Boost
• U Specials: Falcon Upper, Grapple Wire, Falcon Dive
• D Specials: Falcon Kick, Track Mine, Boost Power

This would of course lead to some Specials moving around. Jigglypuff's Sing would become its default N Special, taking the Defense slot, while Rollout could be its Power N or Mobility S. Shulk's Monado Arts and Vision would switch places, with Vision becoming his Defense N and Arts being his Alteration D. Pokemon Trainer would be tricky, but the best options are either a) give Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard a Power and Defense D Special each but prevent them from using their Alteration D Special unless all three use it thereby locking the player to one of the three during battle; or b) not give Power or Defense D Specials to the starters and simply lock them to the Alteration D Special. This could also work for, say, Sonic, Tails, & Knuckles as Team Sonic. They can share an Alteration D Special, or each use a Power or Defense D Special. To simplify customization, team fighters could simply all use the same type for their respective slots. So, if Squirtle uses its Power N, Ivysaur and Charizard will also use their Power N.

So, what do you all think? Got any ideas of your own for Special sets using the categories I laid out?

This post just gave me a random idea of Mario's Fireball being changed to something like Pac-Man's Neutral Special where he charges and it cycles through a bunch of items.

The items would only be used to transform Mario, give him different properties and maybe giving him different Specials based on the powerup given if applicable.

Super Mushroom: Mario grows to half the size of the actual in-game item's size. Meteoring opponent into the ground buries them.
Mini Mushroom: Mario becomes smaller than with the Poison Mushroom's shrinkage. Mario's jumps are floatier, he takes more damage and his attacks are weaker.
Fire Flower: Mario's Neutral Special becomes a Fire Ball that works like his main series games with them coming out quickly. However they don't cause the opponent tp flinch.
Ice Flower: Mario's Neutral Special becomes an Ice Ball that works like an opposite to the Fire Flower however it's slower and can freeze enemies at high damage.
Bee Mushroom: Mario's Up Special becomes Bee Flight and carries him higher than his regular Up Special. If he gets hit by water from something like Greninja's Hydro Pump, he drops.

All of these effects would wear off after sustaining a certain amount of damage.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

I did enjoy custom special moves a good deal in Smash 4. And I understand the critique that their "cheapness" made them pretty un-engaging. But I think it was necessary in order to have options at all for a massive roster (at the time,  51 characters, counting the three clones. And currently is 76, not double counting echo fighters). Custom moves in Smash 4, with the exception of Miis and Palutena, used the same animation and most of the same aesthetics. Special moves are the most development intensive part of a character. They're what make that character unique in a gameplay sense, and a lot of that character's balancing depends on those special moves before anything else. If you take them away and add new things, the balance gets thrown out the window. Characters like Ike and Ganondorf put out insane damage because they're slow and lack a projectile. Give them a projectile special move and suddenly they can play the camping game in addition to very dangerous melee attacks. There's a dozen other, crucial balance concerns to raise with custom moves in a competitive setting, but I'd rather not go into detail if we're talking about a hypothetical in a game that's not even announced

But more than anything the concern is development time. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that developing twenty new special moves for existing fighters equates to how much time it takes to make an entirely new character from scratch. Especially if the new ones are on the highest end of mechanical depth (for example, Corrin's Dragon Lunge, Wario's Bike, Diddy's Monkey Flip,). If some moves have more mechanical depth than others, then the others will be pointed out as "cheap". Ditto if they're too similar to other moves. Sakurai has been fighting the idea of "clone characters" for decades, I'm sure he doesn't want to hear about "clone moves" as well. "Oh, Ness gets Lucas' PK Freeze now? Lazy. Link's gust bellows is just a copycat of Mario's FLUDD? Boring. Ganondorf can charge and store his warlock punch? Now it's just DK's punch *Slow clap* Toon Link can use his grappling hook to recover? Oh boy another tether recovery Up B." 

And my final concern is moveset potential within the roster. With Mario and Link, you can come up with eight new special moves in minutes. There's so much source material to draw from. But what does the brainstorm session look like for Little Mac? ROB? Zero Suit Samus? Characters with extremely little source material, or are not typically characterized as fighters in their series. I think we already complain about in-authentic or bland movesets in Smash, this would only exasperate the issue. We have three Links and Two Marios, spread the new moves between them if you're going to that effort. And other characters like Ryu, are you really going to make the quarter circle motion do something other than a Hadoken? Taking that out of Ryu's moveset at all is blasphemy.

TL;DR, being over-designed is a problem for all of Smash bros, not just the special moves themselves. I'd rather they re-double their efforts with the mii fighters so that we can create our own awesome character rather than bastardizing great characters. 

[Lord_Brand]

[spoiler:] @Glennstavos I think you misunderstand. These categories don't define the specific function of a special, just the general purpose. DK's Giant Punch, Captain Falcon's Falcon Punch, and Ike's Eruption are all examples of Power Specials that behave a little differently from each other. I'm not suggesting changing the Warlock Punch to a Giant Punch clone, just suggesting that they both be considered Power-type specials for the purposes of customization.

As for moveset potential, that's actually something the Special Categories can help with, by providing a guide to build Specials around. Like, how does Little Mac do a Range Special? Perhaps he throws a boxing glove a la Aran Ryan? Or maybe he throws some kind of energy punch? Or he could even "summon" another boxer such as Bald Bull or Great Tiger. R.O.B.'s Power N or D Special could be Dynamite from Gyromite (guess where the "mite" in Gyromite's name comes from?), its Defense D Special could involve blocks from Stack-Up. Zero Suit Samus' Paralyzer could be considered her Power N Special since it can be charged to deal more damage, so her Range NS could be, say, a Freezer that shoots ice rather than electricity. Or the Paralyzer could be counted as Range while ZSS' Power NS is maybe a Stun Grenade Launcher.

Let us not forget that Captain Falcon's moveset is completely made up, as are ZSS' beam whip and rocket heels, and R.O.B.'s Robo Burner. The Range Specials I gave Falcon were based on his role as a bounty hunter, while the Mines are based on a hazard found within the F-Zero games. If Duck Hunt's moveset teaches us anything, it's that a little creativity goes a long way.

Since Ryu and Ken's QFCP Hadoken is unique to them, I'd argue changing the Neutral Special doesn't have to alter or remove it (same goes for the FDF Shoryuken and the FBF Senpuukyaku). The Hadoken itself has variations, so it wouldn't be a stretch to have, say, a slower but stronger Hadoken be Ryu and Ken's Power N Special, while their Defense N Special could be some kind of counterattack.

I seem to recall that custom moves were banned from tournament play during Smash 4, so if the same applies to SSB6, metagame balance will be less of a concern for custom specials as fighters will just be locked to their default Specials anyway.

I'll thank you not to refer to this idea as "bastardizing great characters", that is rude and uncalled for. This is just a creativity topic, after all.[/spoiler]

As an aside, I want to clarify a couple things about these categories:

1. Just because a U Special is Power or Range-type doesn't mean it can't still be used as a recovery, it's just that the Mobility-type choice will obviously be the best of the three at recovering due to the focus being on greater height and/or aerial control.
2. A Range-type U Special's range doesn't have to be upward. Yoshi's Egg Throw certainly is, as are tethers assigned to the U Special slot, but Robin's Elwind shoots downward. I'd even go so far as to class Sonic's Spring Jump as Range-type because the Spring does function as a projectile.

Edited September 16, 2020 by Lord_Brand