Should 2 stocks, 5 minutes be better than 3 stocks, 8 minutes?

[RanserSSF4]

Earlier, I saw HungryBox and xD1x tweeting that they believe if 3 stocks, 8 minutes won't work for Smash 4, they may try 2 stocks, 5 minutes to see if it works better. This is mostly because of one major problem the gameplay has: Blastzones being too huge. This results in most characters surviving at 200%.

Do you think if 3 stock, 8 minutes won't work, will 2 stock, 5 minutes work better?

To me, I agree with xD1x, we should start off with 3 stock, 8 minutes as a test for the game as it just came out in Japan.

 

[KlefkiHolder]

I think for the 3DS version, after seeing it in action, 2 is the best for a start. The blast zones are just huge, we don't know how to exploit characters yet, and also (most importantly imo) the 3DS will take some time getting used to as a controller (seriously its kinda unwieldy for Smash). Once the meta speeds up and we get the Wii U version, I can see 3 being the norm, but for now I think 2 is a great start.

 

[Raijinken]

I plan to do most of my personal playing in 3 stock without a timer, but for competition I still think 3 stock 8 min will be fine. The 8-minute cap means the games can't go any longer than any game of PM or Melee anyway.

 

[RanserSSF4]

I think for the 3DS version, after seeing it in action, 2 is the best for a start. The blast zones are just huge, we don't know how to exploit characters yet, and also (most importantly imo) the 3DS will take some time getting used to as a controller (seriously its kinda unwieldy for Smash). Once the meta speeds up and we get the Wii U version, I can see 3 being the norm, but for now I think 2 is a great start.

2 stocks would definitly, I think, make the matches really interesting, but I still think 3 stocks is good to start out with as we get more used to the 3DS version and it's controls!

 

[AlexAnthonyD]

I typically prefer longer matches so I wouldn't mind 3 stock. The longer the match the more room for skill, so if you think you have an advantage against your opponent you would want more time on the clock not less. The ledge guarding aspect of this game may end up being quite deep once we get it figured out, meaning one slip and you could drop a stock at low% going for a good kill. The difference between having 1 stock left after an error and 2 is massive, I prefer to have more room for error and more room for skill.

 

[RanserSSF4]

If you all remember in the SDCC Smash 3DS tournament (E3/early build of the game), the 1v1 matches were set to 4 stock, 6 minutes (Correct me if I'm wrong). Most of the matches were fast-paced and ended WAY before timer went out. The only one that went time out was the Luigi vs. Toon Link.

 

[Untouch]

Just watched a game that was 2v2, and it took 3 minutes. (3 kills)
That's on the 3DS version, on day 1.

3 stock 8 minutes should be fine, but 2 stock 5 minutes is alright if it needs to be.

 

[Renji64]

Yeah 2 stock and whatever time limit is the way to go. People live way too long for anything higher than 3.

 

[RanserSSF4]

Just watched a game that was 2v2, and it took 3 minutes. (3 kills)
That's on the 3DS version, on day 1.

3 stock 8 minutes should be fine, but 2 stock 5 minutes is alright if it needs to be.

that's for doubles though. 1v1 is a different story, but 3 stock 8 minues is good enough in my opinion!

 

[RanserSSF4]

Yeah 2 stock and whatever time limit is the way to go. People live way too long for anything higher than 3.

While that sounds good to me, I still prefer 3 stock 8 minutes and keep in mind, outside of blastzones being too huge, this may only happen on certain matchups. In the SDCC, the 1v1 matches were 4 stock 6 minutes (I could be wrong), and they were fast-paced and entertaining to watch. The only match that went time out was the luigi and Toon Link match!

 

[Trickerhere]

Yeah 2 minute 5 stock matches feel really good in my opinion and really excited to test it out on For Glory Mode! Btw this about Brawl but what do you think the Apex ruleset for Brawl will be 1 stock or 2 stock because the Brawl community is going to be officially dead when Smash U comes out.

 

[RanserSSF4]

Yeah 2 minute 5 stock matches feel really good in my opinion and really excited to test it out on For Glory Mode! Btw this about Brawl but what do you think the Apex ruleset for Brawl will be 1 stock or 2 stock because the Brawl community is going to be officially dead when Smash U comes out.

I don't pay much attention too much to Brawl or Apex. Sorry man!

 

[Gidy]

No I feel like 3 stocks should even if there are far blast zones. With 2 stocks it's gonna be hard and intimidating to comeback.

 

[Raider 88]

I feel like 2 stocks are not enough. In that case, an SD or something is just devastating

 

[HeavyLobster]

2 stocks are simply too few for players to be able to properly adjust to their opponents. Besides, damage racking combos look much easier to pull off, and the high landing lag from airdodging into the ground makes it significantly harder to get back to the ground than it was in Brawl. 3 stocks will be fine based on what I've seen so far from this game.

 

[RanserSSF4]

2 stocks are simply too few for players to be able to properly adjust to their opponents. Besides, damage racking combos look much easier to pull off, and the high landing lag from airdodging into the ground makes it significantly harder to get back to the ground than it was in Brawl. 3 stocks will be fine based on what I've seen so far from this game.

Same here!

 

[Hank Scorpio]

2 stocks are simply too few for players to be able to properly adjust to their opponents. Besides, damage racking combos look much easier to pull off, and the high landing lag from airdodging into the ground makes it significantly harder to get back to the ground than it was in Brawl. 3 stocks will be fine based on what I've seen so far from this game.

I definitely agree with you. You would want time to figure out your opponent's weaknesses and 5 mins/2 stocks just wouldn't cut it imo.

 

[Insolitus]

It would make sense since For Glory mode is 2 stock, 5 min.

 

[hotdogturtle]

Do you think if 3 stock, 8 minutes won't work, will 2 stock, 5 minutes work better?

If 3 stocks doesn't work, then yes, 2 stocks will certainly be suitable for this game, and will be a much less controversial ruleset than Brawl.

But on this point I'm still sort of hopeful that the game will pick up its pace once people learn how to play (remember that this is literally day 1). The blastzones are by far the biggest problem with prolonging matches, but if the gameplay gets more offensive at a higher skill level, it may quicken the stocks to make up for the high survival rate. I wouldn't get too hasty about pushing the 2 stock ruleset from the start.

 

[Overclocked]

I think we should start with 3 stocks, 8 minutes and then move to 2 stocks, 5 minutes if need be. I would rather have 3 stocks just to get used to opponents and to make matches a decent length instead of being over too quickly.

 

[JCOnyx]

I actually think this game will end up being either 3 or 4 stocks to tell you the truth, but I'm okay with 2 stocks. General safety when going offstage for kills actually leads to some really early gimp kills and every character worth mentioning seems to have a godly Bair or Fair to help accomplish this. Only time will tell though.

 

[UltiMario]

Honestly, we have an opportunity to standardize our ruleset compared to the normal playing experience of the game. I know "For Glory" being 2 Stock 5 Minute is a bad reason to change to it, but standardizing our competitive Ruleset with Nintendo's gives the community a better chance at collab events. On top of that, we can actually standardize having 3/5 for sets for as large as like top 32 in a tournament, since 3/5 5 minute sets is, at worst, a minute longer than 2/3 8 minute-sets, and very very frequently, much faster. It also lowers the importance of game 1, something that's always been an issue in smash.

I do think this could be good for the game if we switched to this. We don't HAVE to adhere to the tradition of balancing each Smash games to the 8 minute match, and we need to get it out of our heads that we need to do this. We can significantly speed up tournaments (that will be bogged down by tons of new players) and reduce the difficulty of new players transitioning from the game into competitive by having the same stock/time rules as "For Glory". Theres just so much to gain from doing this transition I think we really should consider this first and then look back at 3 stock 8 minute if this ruleset is disliked.

 

[Big-Cat]

Earlier, I saw HungryBox and xD1x tweeting that they believe if 3 stocks, 8 minutes won't work for Smash 4, they may try 2 stocks, 5 minutes to see if it works better. This is mostly because of one major problem the gameplay has: Blastzones being too huge. This results in most characters surviving at 200%.

Whether or not that's really an issue will depend on the edgeguarding game. It's going to take time for people to determine what's best though.

 

[KurashiDragon]

After watching VG all day and their take on lives and minutes, I honestly think it should be 2 lives 6 minutes. It usually takes about a minute before lives start getting taken and about 4 minutes for their matches to end. I think 2 lives is fine. It's really had to kill people in this game between the large blast zones and general lack of strong knockback. 6 minutes is a happy medium between 5 and 8 minutes. I personally think 5 minutes is to short for when those campy matches happen but 8 minutes might force campy styles so 6 minutes is the way to go imho.

 

[JCOnyx]

I know we don't know exactly who ZeRo was playing since they're random For Glory matches, but his games were ending in like... 2-3 minutes, sometimes even less. Honestly, he seems to be the only one taking advantage of this games amazing offstage game atm which I think is what Sm4sh is going to eventually evolve into, early percent combos and quick offstage gimp kills.

VGBC still looks a little uncomfortable with the controls and general feel of the new mechanics, which is completely understandable since its a new game and all, but they might not be the best to base assumptions off of. The same thing could be said for me and my judgements based off of ZeRo's gameplay as well though, so take everything I just said with a grain of salt lol.

 

[Kidney Thief]

I think 3 stock 7 minutes would be ideal

 

[Bladeviper]

I think it is too early to judge, from watching all the streams it seems most people dont want to follow people off stage for a kill which seems to be encouraged in this game.

 

[25%Cotton]

i'm not so sure. i think we should maybe try 3 and then see from there? i feel like people just haven't gotten a hang of the completely rehauled off-stage mechanics.

 

[Mithost]

Honestly, we have an opportunity to standardize our ruleset compared to the normal playing experience of the game. I know "For Glory" being 2 Stock 5 Minute is a bad reason to change to it, but standardizing our competitive Ruleset with Nintendo's gives the community a better chance at collab events. On top of that, we can actually standardize having 3/5 for sets for as large as like top 32 in a tournament, since 3/5 5 minute sets is, at worst, a minute longer than 2/3 8 minute-sets, and very very frequently, much faster. It also lowers the importance of game 1, something that's always been an issue in smash.

I do think this could be good for the game if we switched to this. We don't HAVE to adhere to the tradition of balancing each Smash games to the 8 minute match, and we need to get it out of our heads that we need to do this. We can significantly speed up tournaments (that will be bogged down by tons of new players) and reduce the difficulty of new players transitioning from the game into competitive by having the same stock/time rules as "For Glory". Theres just so much to gain from doing this transition I think we really should consider this first and then look back at 3 stock 8 minute if this ruleset is disliked.

This 10000x. Lots of people are basing this off of how long past smash games took, but you guys don't have to look far to realize that smash tournaments running too long is one of the biggest problems in our community due to it's increased size. Like UltiMario said, there are so many benefits both in and out of the game that come from having the ruleset at 2 stock 5 minutes. Let's do some math real quick.

Keep in mind that this is looking at the maximum amount of time a round takes (what TO's are forced to schedule around) instead of a guessed "how long games are taking" value.

3 Stocks 8 Minutes (Standard Ruleset)

Best of 1: 8 minutes
Best of 2: 16 minutes
Best of 3: 24 minutes
Best of 4: 32 minutes
Best of 5: 40 minutes
Best of 6: 48 minutes
Best of 7: 56 minutes

2 Stocks 5 Minutes (Smash 4 Ruleset)

Best of 1: 5 minutes
Best of 2: 10 minutes
Best of 3: 15 minutes
Best of 4: 20 minutes
Best of 5: 25 minutes
Best of 6: 30 minutes
Best of 7: 35 minutes

So let's make a reasonable assumption that in a 64 person tournament, at least one of the matches each round goes to time, and we have our relative round lengths for each game. Times that by the number of rounds you have (and add in any extra matchmaking times or breaks), and you have yourself a framework for a tournament schedule. Assuming there's around 15 rounds in a 64 man double elimination bracket plus 4 for pools (total of 19 rounds), our tournaments start to look something like this.

3 Stock 8 Minutes (Full Bo3): 7 Hours, 12 Minutes (456 Minutes)
3 Stock 8 Minutes (Bo5 Semis to Finals): 8 Hours, 40 Minutes (520 Minutes)
2 Stock 5 Minutes (Full Bo3): 4 Hours, 45 Minutes (285 Minutes)
2 Stock 5 Minutes (Bo5 Semis to Finals): 5 Hours, 25 Minutes (325 Minutes)

This is all without adding on the independent time additions such as lunch breaks, bracket delays, etc. that would happen regardless of game or ruleset.

Now let's look at the game itself. While we shouldn't base our ruleset off of past games, for stock/time purposes we can make an exception.

The main push for 3 Stock 8 Minutes is the idea that characters in Smash 4 can rack up damage and combo more efficiently than in Brawl, implying that stocks will be taken faster and 3 stocks will be timely enough. While it appears to be true that characters have an easier time dealing damage, Smash 4's stage boundaries are almost universally huge, causing most characters to live anywhere from 150% to 200+% on a regular basis. With the limited amount of data we have of Smash 4 matches (we still haven't seen two proficient Smash 4 players playing for money in a tournament), we can't say for sure yet if these two factors balance each other out entirely.

Is 3 stock the way to go? If stocks start being taken at 64 level speeds, then yes. If it's any slower than that, we should really consider making some changes for the reasons both UltiMario and I have highlighted. Using Brawl's ruleset as a base when it's considered the slowest (and arguably the worst) ruleset in the series' history just doesn't make coherent sense in the long run.

 

[ferioku]

3 Stocks 6 minutes sounds OK.

 

[MattTheGameFreak]

Personally, from the demo, I'd say if you're active in pursuing opponents off-stage, no one should live too close to 200%. This game seems to be much more aggressive off-stage, and people will die to aggressive off-stage game before they hit 200%. Therefore, 3-stock, 8 minutes will work just fine.

 

[Tristan_win]

I agree with @ UltiMario and @ Mithost . Thinking back it seems like almost every tournament I ever watch or attended has run on past midnight and as our community grows this is only becoming a bigger and bigger problem. There's been finals that been partly decided because of people were having trouble staying awake! It also greatly hurts the hype when finals are happening past 2am when you been smashing since 11am OR worst yet when everyone gets kick out into the street and finals have to be done in someone bedroom where there's no streaming and everyone unable to watch.

So even if we find out people can be kill just as fast as in melee we should stick to the 2 stock 5 minute rule just to improve our tournament experience and hype. Doing this at the beginning of Smash4 give us a wonderful opportunity to make this rule a standard.

 

[Jerm]

As I watched Zero getting completely outzoned by a DHD, it took almost 5 min for a stock, and I think one of the games Zero didn't even take a stock so it took 5 minutes for no stocks. For 3DS I think 2 stock 5 min is best compared to 3 stock 8 min.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

I'll be honest, the gigantic blast zones made me uncomfortable. I mentioned it in my notes and I positively knew everyone else would notice it.

My initial reaction was that 2 stocks could actually be a thing. In traditional fighters you have to kill your opponent twice (best 2 of 3), and in a way that would put it more in line with that style if you think about it.

However I am also of the belief that the game is quiet young and for the most part people aren't nearly as comfortable taking huge risks off-stage as this game hopes to promote with it's completely intricate redesign of the off-stage play.

I think we should go forth with 3 stocks at first, for the sake of open-mindedness. Down the line, if that turns about to be a recipe for disaster we can just shave a stock off of that.

 

[Boss N]

I'm really loving watching the thought & reasoning being put this debate guys, really solid points on both parties. With that said I think @ Mithost & @ UltiMario give the strongest evidence and reasoning behind 2 stock 6mins, not a lot of people are taking into account our growing size in venues and some solid mathematical evidence has been provided in it's favor. I think it's reasonable to start with 2stocks and 6 or 5 mins, if tournaments down the line start going way ahead of schedule then we'll just modify it to the 3:8 ruleset.

Not only that but this is a pretty radical departure from the formula everyone's familiar with, but I think that's great as it puts people in the correct mindset early that with this game we should be more flexible with our rules than with previous games

 

[KingBroly]

I could seet 2-stock/5-minutes being the Tournament standard because that's what Nintendo set. I know Smash is most community-driven competitively, but at least Nintendo's giving it the good old college try.

 

[Kerreb17]

Don't you think it's a little too early to tell? We can theorize all we want about the NA scene, but we simply won't know for sure (and even then we might not be sure) until we have a competitive scene. Same logic as there is behind early tier lists.

Mithost made a great post about the running time of events. Long events certainly are a problem, and the obvious solution is to lessen the time of the matches, but I think there might be other, more experimental options.

Consider a Swiss-style bracket with a fairly large cut to double elimination. A lot of trading card games, whose rounds take ~40 minutes and can have attendees that number above 300. They've figured out how to have long rounds and large numbers of players while ending the event before midnight. If they can do it, why can't we?

But if I had to make a choice right now, based on nothing but my own theory, I would probably support the standard bracket 2 stock / 5 minutes, at least as a starting point. It's something thatpeople are used to. I think we could try a Swiss-style at maybe one or two venues just to see how it goes. The key here is to test everything, and that's something we can't do until we have the game in our hands, playing at these events.

 

[Deku_Don]

Way too early to tell. People don't know how to play yet. If the combo game at early percentages is legitimate then we need time for people to learn the system. That way instead of judging our future ruleset off people getting to only 40% after a minute of flailing attacks with characters they don't know how to play, we look at something a bit more established where people are potentially dealing 50% combos the second the game begins, as well as taking advantage of the new ledge mechanics that have been implemented and the changes they make to recovering off stage. Saying all that though, those blast zones are a bit too big.

 

[Scourge The Hedgehog]

I was having a conversation about this earlier with some TOs in the bay area. We're thinking of starting with 3 Stocks and 8 Minutes just for now. Though we all agreed that due to the blast zones the 2 Stocks rule set looks more conventional.

Of course this is going to require the full game to be released for everyone to truly test. Basing it off a few players streaming game play isn't the precise way to do things. Multiple factors are going to come into this. Combo potential for a lot of the cast is pretty great like Link, Mario, Greninja, and Fox while some characters are more zoning like Mega Man, Duck Hunt, and Mii Gunner.

TL:DR More testing is required with a larger group.

 

[Rich Homie Quan]

7 stocks, 4 minutes.


Make em work.