Taking another look at the Brawl ruleset

[xDD-Master]

1 stock...

 

[Xebenkeck]

Actually i think the main problem with brawl is how long it takes to actually kill someone. When characters like snake DDD, can live to ridiculous percents and some characters can't kill till ridiculously high percents, this is why matches are taking so long. If you can consistantly kill your opponents at 110% instead of 170% it makes matches go alot faster. Not to mention people with crazy DI can make light characters live to obscene percents to. I've watch matches where pikas, kirbys, and olimars have lived to 150+ percent

Here is my new suggestion, we change the damage ratio from the standard 1.0 to something like 1.4.
This way it gets way easier to kill opponents and it will give characters more killing options. Not to mention that it gets rid of alot of other problems like DDD chaingrab, falcos chaingrab, sheiks ftilt, pikas chaingrabs, jablocks, wario dthrow on DK. i'd assume it also makes IC grabs harder to do. The only problem this doesn't fix are grab releases

 

[UberMario]

Of course they would. But there's nothing to stop their opponent suiciding either.

How about being on their last stock? And also this "anti-plank" method wouldn't work, since the person with the higher damage in this scenario would be the one camping/planking, not the other.

 

[•Col•]

I think a 9-10 minute timer wouldn't be a bad idea...

Also, even though I'm usually pretty against items.... Having food on low/very low seems kind of appealing to me for some reason.

 

[6Mizu]

I think a 9-10 minute timer wouldn't be a bad idea...

Also, even though I'm usually pretty against items.... Having food on low/very low seems kind of appealing to me for some reason.

See mostly every one agrees w/ the timer change...to 9 or 10 min. So whom do we go to get this **** changed?

 

[Tesh]

Increasing timer alone won't solve anything IMHO. People will be patient enough to stall an extra 2 minutes.
Anyone who would stall for 5 minutes, would stall for 7 minutes, 10 minutes or even an hour if there is no time limit. Increasing a time limit just means TOs will rent a venue for more days per tournament.

I believe it has already been stated (in this thread or another) that MK gets way more airtime of all the tourney viable characters, so he will always ledge stall better than everyone else that matters. Even without ledge grabbing, there are other ways to stall if you impose a stricter edge grab limit.

I wish I had a decent sounding idea of my own to add to the mix, rather than just talking down about the ones already presented.


As for adding in food on low or items in general, I think the effect of unfair random spawning and unlucky animations "eating up frames" is negligible compared to tripping. 3-5% from something spawning close to you unfairly is less influential than a free random tech chase.


Basically, no matter how you tweak the ruleset, people will find a way to stall it, camp it, gay it up and find a loophole to the easiest path. That is the nature of competition in general. Unless you start awarding points based on how cool and flashy the match was (like melee bonus point mode), I wouldn't expect much of a change from just increasing or decreasing numbers in a ruleset.

 

[Throwback]

How about being on their last stock? And also this "anti-plank" method wouldn't work, since the person with the higher damage in this scenario would be the one camping/planking, not the other.

Have you considered how difficult it will be to plank if there is no threat of you actually attacking the other person?

 

[Smashragde]

no cheeses u__u

 

[MBlaze]

Have you considered how difficult it will be to plank if there is no threat of you actually attacking the other person?

No Cheeses.

 

[Asdioh]

9 minutes, at least 9 minutes for semifinals and finals, is my vote.

melee matches are way faster than brawl matches, and melee timer is 8 minutes. Why is Brawl 7-8 minutes? Stupid.

It's because Brawl has less stocks.

Or at least, that was the theory.

And again:

Now it's time I threw in some ideas, which is the point of this thread. The basis for some ideas (namely the stage one) I've gotten from other people, the rest I've just thought of. Refinement may be necessary, but consider this:

Trash the starter/counterpick/"I ban this stage" system.
Instead: Combine "starters" and "counterpicks" into one large pool of stages. When you go to play your opponent, only these stages are listed as "on" on the stage selection screen. You will then proceed to strike out each stage each player does not want, in the manner you do for the current "Starters." Whether 1 strike by player A, then 1 strike by player B, repeat would be the best, or 1-2-2-1-etc. would be best, is up for debate, it doesn't really matter.

Anyway, you strike down to the last X amount of stages for the whole set, and those are the only stages you will play for that set. Under the current ruleset, games are best of 3 most of the time, so you will have struck down to three stages.

The first game is then played on a random of these three stages.
The next stage is chosen from the remaining two stages by the loser. Pretty simple concept, and I feel that it is a great improvement over the starter/counterpick system. You know what stages you will be playing before the matches even start.
This also gives you the chance to "ban" all your least favorite stages at the beginning, and the same holds true for your opponent.

It also makes for more "interesting stage" potential. Some of the former "banned" stages, for example Norfair (assuming it's usually banned) and Corneria or whatever could be allowed, since either player will be able to strike it. The only problem I see with this is that it might cause one player to "waste" one or more of their strikes on "gay" stages such as Corneria, while the other player then gets to strike stages they simply don't like, rather than the "gay" ones since their opponent already took care of those.
It also means that any given set has a chance at not even having ANY of the standard neutrals, such as FD, SV, BF, and YI, which I personally think will add more interest. It could also mean that every single match in a set could be played on those neutrals, which is the same as the current starter/counterpick system, so this method simply adds more options. Players could even agree to repeat certain stages if they wish.



tl;dr version: a simple change to at least slightly improve Brawl as it currently is is to combine starter/counterpick stages into one big strikefest at the beginning of the set, allowing everyone to see what stages may be played before the set even starts, and sometimes making for more interesting stage choices.


Ok, my long-winded explanation of that is done.


Now for my next idea: combining the huge stagelist and striking system with more, shorter matches.

My hope for this is to make sets less campy, faster paced, and generally more interesting. Obviously it might not work, but this was what I was thinking: Everyone considers 3-stock, 8 minutes, best of 3 the standard. Why?

What if we lessened the stocks, shortened the timer, and increased the amount of wins required to win a set? I'm not saying it's a perfect idea, and may need tweaking, but... 2 stocks, 6 minutes? That would make sets faster, obviously, but I wonder if that would make timing out an even worse problem.

Here's something ridiculous: what about 1 stock, no time limit, best of 7? O_O!?!?!??
...it sounds kind of dumb. It doesn't leave room for amazing comebacks, or time to adapt to your opponents playstyle and overcome them.
It does solve the problem of people timing out, except that I'm sure people would find a way to camp/plank forever if they were in danger of losing...argh.

Maybe someone else can look at this and tell me what they think, I'm going to bed.

I still think the stagestrike system is ideal, though.

requoted myself so you guys can talk about something else, since everyone ignored my post and I can think of no reason that this idea would be so terrible as to be totally ignored, rather than refuted.

 

[Xebenkeck]

^^ don't worry no commented on my idea either, but like i said making games end faster could easily be remideed by increaseing the damage ratio to something higher, plus it gets rid of other problems, and i forgot to mention in my post earlier, tornado is way easier to DI out of with the damage higher.

Changing it to two stock i feel leaves little room for error, a SD at low percents or missed spacing to a gimp means you already are half done. plus someone also mention how lucario would seriously be hurt by a two stock game.

 

[Pierce7d]

If you're bad, two stocks hurts you . . . okay so? SDing generally costs the game anyway. If you're better, just win the other rounds.

Also, in NO WAY does less stocks hurt Lucario unless he's drastically losing, lol.

All fighter games where you must deplete your opponent's life bar, and then do it again after a reset to obtain victory are essentially two stock matches. I've always advocated two stocks in Brawl. I find a third stock completely unnecessary.

 

[Melomaniacal]

Also, in NO WAY does less stocks hurt Lucario unless he's drastically losing, lol.

How can you say that?

Lucario loses first stock, now his killing ability is drastically hindered until he gets to at least mid percents on his second and final stock.
Of course it's a different story if Lucario wins the first stock, because he then has a chance to rack up a lot of damage on his opponents final stock.

Basically, two stocks leaves Lucario no room for comebacks, which is kinda his thing. I'm exaggerating a bit of course, but it's true to an extent. Two stock matches would definitely hurt Lucario.

 

[Pierce7d]

How can you say that?

Lucario loses first stock, now his killing ability is drastically hindered until he gets to at least mid percents on his second and final stock.
Of course it's a different story if Lucario wins the first stock, because he then has a chance to rack up a lot of damage on his opponents final stock.

Basically, two stocks leaves Lucario no room for comebacks, which is kinda his thing. I'm exaggerating a bit of course, but it's true to an extent. Two stock matches would definitely hurt Lucario.

Doing good is better than doing bad, then having aura come and pull you out of trouble. I don't consider "Oh, I have a chance to make a 3 stock comeback against my opponent with broken power" a good enough attribute to Lucario, because it shouldn't happen against good players.

 

[Xebenkeck]

If you're bad, two stocks hurts you . . . okay so? SDing generally costs the game anyway. If you're better, just win the other rounds.

Also, in NO WAY does less stocks hurt Lucario unless he's drastically losing, lol.

All fighter games where you must deplete your opponent's life bar, and then do it again after a reset to obtain victory are essentially two stock matches. I've always advocated two stocks in Brawl. I find a third stock completely unnecessary.

I was simply saying the room for error is really small, yes if you SD generally you lose, but you have a better chance of redeeming yourself with three stocks instead of two.

I'm not argueing against 2 stock, im open to all suggestions, and simply discussing all the suggestions.

 

[Pierce7d]

Yes, it's true that you have more chance to make up for stupid stuff for three stocks, but I don't consider that a good reason to take a game like Brawl and make it LONGER.

Would you tell me that if time wasn't an issue, we should make it 4 stocks to neutralize mistakes and make Lucario (not) stronger? And btw, three stocks means more TIME to make mistakes.

 

[Xebenkeck]

Thats why i suggested changing the damage ratio.

 

[YagamiLight]

I skimmed through the topic and I've always thought that something like this would be the most optimal method.

3 stock match, 10 minutes.

Since you aren't reaching 10 minutes unless you want to this pretty much eliminates accidental timeouts.

If you DO time out, going to sudden death is flawed because what's to say they can't plank there.
However, if a time out occurs:

1 stock match, 5 minutes, Food on low.

They CAN'T get a stock lead here and they CAN'T keep a percent lead if they do get one. This means they're actually going to have to fight.

Opinions?

 

[Mr. Escalator]

Im backing my ike bro on this one.
Thoooooooough, I do like the idea of 2stocks, I want to try that out.

 

[YagamiLight]

Two stocks makes sense for all the reasons Pierce stated as well. I myself see little distinction between two and three stocks except that three stocks lets you make more mistakes I guess.

If I had to make a final ruleset that I would recommend people try it'd be:

2 stocks, 8 minutes first game.

1 stock, 4 minutes, food on low in the case of a timeout.

Even in slow *** matches stocks are lost before 2 minutes are up, generally. 3 minutes is already excessive and 4 minutes just means deliberate timeout.

Discuss.

 

[Xebenkeck]

I don't know the last time ppl have played with items but food on low wouldn't work, if i have a 50-70% stock lead, with 2 minutes left, food won't spawn fastenough for that defficite to be made up, therefore the problem still exists. Food on medium might be more adequate.

 

[BSP]

The one stock with the food and timer does sound like a good idea IMO.

 

[Asdioh]

I've always advocated two stocks in Brawl. I find a third stock completely unnecessary.

Hmm, perhaps.
What do you think of the stage idea I posted? It's really not that complicated guys :[

For a similar example, I once went to a tournament that had 9 neutrals (BF, SV, YI, FD, Lylat, PS1, Halberd, Siege, and...Delfino). There was nothing wrong with this because we could stagestrike normally. Just take this a little farther and stagestrike from the combined starter/counterpick list for the whole set in one go.

I skimmed through the topic and I've always thought that something like this would be the most optimal method.

3 stock match, 10 minutes.

Since you aren't reaching 10 minutes unless you want to this pretty much eliminates accidental timeouts.

If you DO time out, going to sudden death is flawed because what's to say they can't plank there.
However, if a time out occurs:

1 stock match, 5 minutes, Food on low.

They CAN'T get a stock lead here and they CAN'T keep a percent lead if they do get one. This means they're actually going to have to fight.

Opinions?

I don't agree with increasing the time limit because that really will just make tournaments longer, most likely.

Having a 1 stock match with Food on low though, that sounds interesting.

 

[HeroMystic]

Do not advocate 1-Stock.

2-Stock is debatable, but 1-stock does not allow players to learn their opponent's playstyles.

 

[Xebenkeck]

I would guess a 1 stock game is a bad idea for the simple reason camping would drastically increase, for you only have 1 stock so people are going to play as safe as possible, at least with two or three you can afford to be a little aggressive, plus falco would be ridiculous broken. One grab 40+ damage and lasers. Good luck beating him in a 1 stock match.

 

[stingers]

I really like YagamiLight's idea. (Nice name btw )

Though I don't see a reason for 8 minutes if we're doing 2 stock. I mean 4 minutes per stock is just excessive. Might as well cut it down to 6. We're dealing with 2.6~ minutes per stock atm, so 2 stock/6 minutes means more time per stock on average anyways, making time outs less likely (in theory).

Then in case of a time out, 1 stock 5 minutes with Food on Low (or Medium, since if you've ever played with Low, that's like...hardly any spawn at all :/). I think that could actually work.

It might be interesting to make all sets 3/5 instead of 2/3 if we do it this way, but I'm not sure if that'd be necessary.

 

[Pierce7d]

One stock allows luck to be a crushing factor. In a game with tripping, I cannot advocate one stock. Even an 90% damage string can be overcome by safe play, and avoiding the K.O.. One stock is too drastic a shift, and since you can gimp people in this game, too dangerous.

I will note that ICE CLIMBERS appear weakened in this format.

 

[Xebenkeck]

^^^ is that sarcasm about the Ice Climbers?

 

[stingers]

Characters are buffed and nerfed based on the ruleset we copied on Melee anyway. Hopefully, the metagame will change if we change around the ruleset. There's nothing wrong with that.

 

[Asdioh]

We were advocating 1-stock as a tiebreaker in case of timeouts, as an alternative to sudden death @_@

2 stock matches are a MAYBE, but I would think increasing sets to best of 5 would be almost necessary if you're only going to have that.

That, or triple elimination, if that's even possible. lol -.-

 

[decreasingentropy]

Wtf, everybody in this thread advocating that we play out Sudden Death or a short 1 stock match in the event of a time out is really, really stupid. If we do that, all it will do is give the LOSER an incentive to camp instead of the winner.

Also, reducing the number of stocks to two is a much better idea than changing the damage ratio, because changing the damage ratio requires people to relearn kill percents, while reducing the number of stocks to two doesn't (although I guess reducing stocks to two rewards gimping more....).

 

[stingers]

...did anyone suggest changing the damage ratio? that sounds abysmal >.>

 

[Xebenkeck]

why?

........

 

[Dekar173]

One stock allows luck to be a crushing factor. In a game with tripping, I cannot advocate one stock. Even an 90% damage string can be overcome by safe play, and avoiding the K.O.. One stock is too drastic a shift, and since you can gimp people in this game, too dangerous.

I will note that ICE CLIMBERS appear weakened in this format.

Antitrip wiis, problem solved.

Seriously, tripping is ****ing bull****.

 

[Tin Man]

Triple elimination has a flaw, although it seems like a sick idea, like triple elimination tourney, and no pools, that would actually be faster with proper seeding

 

[Xebenkeck]

You need pools however to set up a nice even bracket Example you have 137entries, how do you make a nice easy to follow bracket out of that

 

['V']

Whether they're broken or not, items tourneys would probably make me wanna start trying to play this game again.

 

[J4pu]

Also why food or items will not be tolerated by competitve standards is because well lets think about it


Snake ___________________________ Kirby

pretend thats Final D


Now lets pretend food is on Low

Snake _____food__________________ Kirby

ok it lands there whos going to get it.... Snake
Thats just 1 of the MANY major issues with items which is the example above

that's your fault for not having stage control, and because it is food (not of huge importance for one piece) an unlucky occasion where you have stage control 90% of the match then an item comes when you don't, won't cause you to lose the game.
This was the whole point of the standard items play list i believe. It adds new depth to the game in so far as the advantage given by stage contro and forces you to make more choices "do I go for the food now or continue to put on pressure and risk losing the opportunity"l, but creates minor unwanted randomness, but hey overall I see it as a good idea.
I think any items that are on though do need to give very slight advantages, similar to food.

 

[abhishekh]

I really like Asdioh's idea on stage striking.

I really don't know how much that'll balance things out between characters, but being able to play on more stages is more fun in my opinion.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I would keep it 3 stocks, less you are more likely to make a mistake, but it's better than one mistake deciding the match in a 1 stock match. More mistakes can also allow people to fix these mistakes if they make them.

So for a 3 vs 2 stock scenario I'd pick the 3 stock games. Moving the timer up would be a nice idea.

Also about Lucario, if he is a stock behind he gets an aura boost equivalent to about 50%, if he's ahead it's a debuff instead of an increase. But for the most part, this doesn't matter when the boost he gets from his % is much much greater than a stock boost gives, unless of course it's a 2v2 which is the "Anubis" tactic.

So changing it from a 3-2 stock game would just change the range his buff could give from being behind in stocks or ahead. Nothing really to fret about.