If we can change Melee's default rules for competitive play, why not Sm4sh's?

[TigerRage]

This is a post I found elsewhere. It isn't mine, but I agree with it. Made an account pretty much just so that I could share it.

DullahansXMark posted...

Just to make an opening point, has anyone taken a look at tournament Melee rules? Because they're a HUGE deviation from the default setup (which isn't inherently a bad thing, so bear with me). Let's take a look at some of them:
-Stock Battle (default is Time)
-4 stocks (default is 3)
-No Items (default is Yes Items)
-only certain stages (selecting random is unacceptable since you might land on a bad stage)

So I suppose my question is, why are we allowed to change Melee's rules to make it better, yet we have to play Sm4sh by its own default rules? There are plenty of tools within the game itself that can help make it "better", and I'm not talking about using equipment. I mean, let's take a look.

"The game plays too slowly, and it's too easy to recover."

Then I propose that Heavy Special Smash become the new standard. Here are the benefits of this:

-you move about in midair much faster. No more floating around up high for seven centuries!
-because there's more weight on you it's much harder to recover. MUCH harder. Thus, kills happen much more frequently and matches don't drag on as long.

"But it's still too hard/too easy to launch people even with that change."

Then play around with the Launch Rate. Make launches that much more punishing or forgiving. Whatever you find works.

Or, maybe try something else. I don't know. But considering how far we had to stretch our imaginations to make Melee work (let's be honest, we did, but it was worth it), I fail to see how anything I've listed so far could be "stretching it", as some would put it.

Just to diffuse any possible arguments, I think the game is mostly fine as-is. I do think there's too much emphasis on defense, but overall I REALLY like the game a LOT and I've been having fun with it since it came out. I think Sakurai really outdid himself with this one. With that said, no game is flawless and I'm simply proposing options that could maybe make it better. Not saying they will, just that maybe they could, and if these aren't the right changes, maybe at least these could inspire some people to experiment further and find what works.

He (or she, I don't know) makes a very good point. If we can change Melee's rules a bunch to better suit competitive play, why can't we do the same for other Smash games?

 

[webbedspace]

Smash 4 is already played with Stock, no items, 9 to 13 stages, customs sometimes on, and Sudden Death is ignored.

"The game plays too slowly, and it's too easy to recover."

I'm pretty sure next to nobody thinks "too easy to recover" is a legitimate negative - everyone seems glad ledge trumping has replaced ledge hogging, ledge sweetspots are bigger, teching is easy, and Lylat's edges are now "nerfed". Strong recovery means stronger off-stage games for the majority of the cast.

 

[PUK]

Recovery is easy as long as the opponent doesn't try to kill you, then it's start to be sick. That's actually pretty normal i believe.

 

[BestTeaMaker]

Uh, have you been paying attention to rulesets? I can't think of anyone who's playing with the default settings at all.

 

[LuLLo]

That post is pretty stupid, calling Melee's ruleset "stretchig our imaginations". Threads that wish to alter the game as it is with surgical adjustments already exist, look up those threads first.

 

[Raijinken]

Heavy screws heavily with several recoveries, especially Megaman's (which can become infinite) and Sonic's (which becomes trash). Aside from general fall speed (which also doesn't influence your aerial horizontal control at all), most other recoveries don't change at all, so instead of an over-all faster stock decrease, you just end up specifically gimping certain characters.

But if that idea floats your boat, go find the Heavy Smooth Lander club and join them.

I prefer the game as-is (counting customs).

 

[digiholic]

Heavy Gravity makes some characters literally unplayable and gives other characters near-infinites. It's not the way to go about changing something that's not really a big deal. It's like swatting a fly with a howitzer.

 

[Muro]

If we can change Melee's rules a bunch to better suit competitive play, why can't we do the same for other Smash games?

what for? the game suits the casual audience it's catering to.

 

[Indigo Jeans]

You mean we've been playing 2-minute 0-stock items-on customs-off matches this whole time in Smash 4? This is news to me.

 

[chainmaillekid]

There is one good reason not to stray too far from default rules in smash 4, that hasn't applied to other smash games.

Balance updates are likely to be far more relevant. Sakurai isn't going to cater his patches to the moving target of competitive rule sets, he's going to focus on balance of default game modes.

 

[Purin a.k.a. José]

We will need to study every character again at HFSSmash, since the character movement and the frame data changes entirely. It's better to leave things with Default settings. Recovering is hard as heck in this mode too, not even Melee/ PM are like that. Maybe even the balance would change with that.

 

[Alus]

Remember. A rule set is a agreement between the players that are playing. If you can find players that agree with you, you can have whatever rules you like.

So the answer is that you CAN have your rule set.

Hell I remember being in a small smash group where I'm not allowed to use the C-stick.

The question then becomes "why don't players agree with me?"

Edit:
Also don't act like melee didn't go through hell to get a "competitive rule set".

 

[LunarWingCloud]

At first I thought this was meant to question why we are not being more flexible with rulesets where Melee experimented more with what works.

Then I opened the thread and was disappointed.

 

[T0MMY]

I am going to wager a guess that the original (quoted) poster didn't fathom the amount of verification the change in rules went through in Melee.
When an assertion is made in a rule change the one making an assertion has burden of proof. It must be proven beyond reasonable doubt that the change in rules is both beneficial AND even necessary for the community to adopt.

Needless to say it was rather simple to show that Items: OFF and Stock instead of Time was more competitive (getting camped out while stars and hammers spawned randomly is OBVIOUS). But as a personal opinion, and not one I care to defend, debate, or discuss, is that I do not believe the change from 3 stock to 4 stock was necessitated. Either stock count works for competitive play, but I don't feel 4 stocks is superior to 3 stocks and find myself supporting 3 stocks more and more over the past decade. Just an IMHO there to throw out there

Any proposed change to default rules in SSBU should be met with considerable review and ok'd with wise and decisive discourse, definitely not by demanding it with shallow claims of "more competitive"/"deeper"/"better" rhetoric like we see chanted by every scrub looking to change the rules to fit their subjective views of how the game should be played before they eject themselves from the community as quickly as they came.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

I'm all for experimentation. I think Smash 4 tournaments could stand to be more flexible with rulesets in general (experimenting with more stages, re-evaluating holdover rules from previous games that may no longer be justified, etc). But in general, I think you should learn to appreciate the game that you have instead of forcing it into the mold of the game that you want it to be. And if you can't do that, then just find a game that you like better. That's not meant to be dismissive, either; I actually think that it's pretty incredible that the Smash scene can simultaneously support at least 2 significantly different games well enough to make any other fighting game scene jealous besides Street Fighter.

The rules proposed in the OP set out to "fix" something that isn't broken.