There's literally no excuse to not use customs.
All that needs to be done is to make a little unique symbol for each special move. Players are able to see what customs have been selected at the versus screen and the symbols would be underneath the stamina bar during the match. All of the moves can be labbed just by going into the training mode. It's no different than Tekken players labbing the cast or a Starcraft 2 player researching on units.
NRS can create a Tournament mode that allows tournament organizers to easily set up. The options for players on the UI would be like a single screen, where once you pick an option, that same space is used for the next option in ascending order:
- Pick a character
- Pick a basic skin and color
- Pick custom moves
- Controller configuration
- Stage is locked on random select
- Pause is disabled until after the winner of the match is announced
With a 20 second time limit, that's plenty of time once people are familiar with their preferences. If the time expires, the game will automatically pick a preset randomly.
In Marvel, they go through similar:
- Choose a mode
- Pick three characters
- Choose a color for each character
- Choose an assist type for each character
- Choose a stage
If you watch pros play, they get through that process in less than 12 seconds.
If hundreds of people can sit down and watch a single game of Starcraft 2 for 15-40 minutes, what is 20 seconds for selection options? These other esport games aren't having any time issues with way more to consider.
To avoid any counter-picking nonsense, just provide the option for blind picking at the start. That way, only the versus screen and actual match will show what is selected. It's like a very brief version of the fog of war.
This game was obviously rushed out for Evo and to avoid bumping into other games releasing. What I don't understand is the logic of thinking NRS can balance customs faster than tens of thousands of people with a ridiculously large amount of communication tools.
It's currently slightly more than three months before Evo and it's the perfect time to iron out all the presentation and gameplay issues as a community. They have here a revolutionary system that will put their game in the front row easily, but are going to waste it and potentially stagnate the game faster than any MK game before it. Everything advertised was all about "play how you want" from the kombat kast to the betas, but now they're flip-flopping like Mitt Romney. When it comes to match-ups, a player may need a specific tool or combination of, but can't because they are handcuffed with presets. Never has there been a fighting game where you can tweak gameplay on a micro level. It's already here, but just needs some adjustments for convenience.
Why split up the the community's pro standard way of playing? More people, more competition. Most stat issues can be handled with a hotfix.
