3 stock or 4 stock?

[Chilex]

Judging by Smash 4's speed, gameplay, and the demo at E3 2013, how many stocks should there be in a competitive Smash 4 match? I can't decide myself, but I'd like to hear the opinions of others.

 

[NintendoKnight]

The average length of a match can't be measured as of now, we have to wait until the game is released to see just how quickly matches play out normally, and how easy or difficult it is to earn KOs. Then the stock amount can be determined.

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

I'm personally hoping the next game warrants going back to using 4 stocks. The gameplay may be faster but I think it will really come down to how combos can be set up (hitstun and knockback power) and whether there are stronger options to gimp to offset how easy it is to recover. The defensive mechs would have to be toned down for sure.

 

[asia_catdog_blue]

You know, I never got the whole "4 stocks" thing. Arent "5 lives" usually the default in video games?

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

We'd need to wait til he get the game and see how fast it is tbh.

 

[Hippopotasauce]

You know, I never got the whole "4 stocks" thing. Arent "5 lives" usually the default in video games?

The amount of lives in competitive matches is to make reasonably lengthed matches. Brawl has 3, Melee has 4, and 64 has 5. It's mostly down to how fast you can get kills.

 

[LancerStaff]

I doubt we'll go back to four because edgeguarding was so easy in Melee.

 

[Chilex]

Now that I think about it more, I'm leaning on four stocks. The gameplay looks about as fast as Melee, and it doesn't look too hard to get kills (harder than Melee but easier than Brawl)

 

[BridgesWithTurtles]

Well, since the speed's supposed to be in between Melee and Brawl, how about 3.5 stocks?

Seriously though, from the little we've seen, the game currently looks closer to Brawl, I think. Therefore, I think 3 stocks might continue to be the standard. Mega Man died pretty quickly to Mario's attack in the single match we've seen, though, so who knows? Maybe we can return to 4 stocks. I'd certainly prefer it.

 

[smashmachine]

64 had 5 stocks, Melee had 4 stocks, Brawl had 3 stocks, obviously this game will be 2 stocks

 

[mimgrim]

1 stock.

YOLO.

10 YOLOs.

 

[RODO]

I kind of like 3 stocks. Something about it seems right to me.

 

[Jigglymaster]

Brawl has been testing out with 1 Stock games recently, and its actually going surprisingly well. Perhaps thats what the ruleset for Smash 4 should be at the beginning.

 

[MasterOfKnees]

Considering it's said to be between Melee and Brawl in speed, it should obviously be 3.5 stock.

In all honesty though, it's really hard to judge at the moment. My gut feeling says 3 stock, but I'll be damned if it hasn't been wrong many times before.

 

[Lozjam]

From the look of the Little Mac Trailer, I am thinking 5

 

[Rain(ame)]

I would say to start, go with 4 stocks. If it proves to be too long, then drop it to 3.

 

[Pazzo.]

Well... we're leaning toward Brawl-like with increased speed and new mechanics... only time will tell what needs to be done..

 

[Cheezey Bites]

With the changes to edge-guarding it's pretty much impossible to say... I could see two working if it's harder to edge guard, but we just don't know enough at this stage to mak that decision.

 

[Rain(ame)]

Yeah, I can agree with that. The more I examine these "changes", the more I'm resolved to not have any opinion until I play the game. It's gonna be a lot easier that way. I almost got caught up, but I'm keeping neutral until the release.

 

[AEMehr]

99 Stock is the only way to play any Smash game.

 

[Scourge The Hedgehog]

Three Stocks. Final Dest- yeah 3.

 

[lordvaati]

Comes down to the nature of the game.

the way it looks so far it might end up possibly being super aggro like 64 for 5 stocks might even return.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

My experience is that 4 stocks generally makes doubles work better but in singles just elongates games. It's not even about game speed (we always want tournaments to run as quickly as possible, of course); it's about how swingy matches are. In Melee 4 stocks had a bit of merit since a lot of characters (space animals especially) had credible ways to die at very low percentages, and 4 stocks was designed to make games in which that happened still possible to bring back. In Brawl, dying very early generally means the player did something extraordinarily stupid so it wasn't really so necessary; sure you could die fast, but that generally meant you had made a big series of mistakes so you deserved to be losing that quickly no matter how things are looked at. As long as smash 4 doesn't have things like 0-death combos or strong low% gimp set-ups, I think 3 stocks is best no matter how fast paced the game is. If it does have those things, we should look into 4 stocks.

That being said, those things won't be discovered on day 1. I think we should do 3 stocks at first and add a stock if we discover matches are too swingy. We might consider making doubles 4 by default since that greatly increases the potential for life sharing and more emphasizes teamwork (since it's a critical point of length difference in which team synergy gets tested), but for singles, I think starting with 3 is just logical.

 

[Ryan.]

Well, since the speed's supposed to be in between Melee and Brawl, how about 3.5 stocks?

Lol I was thinking the same thing.

 

[Banjodorf]

I'm in the 4-stock to start, 3-stock if it disappoints us in the speed department camp.

It's a pretty safe formula.

 

[egaddmario]

It doesn't matter how many stock. Just as long as it's no items, Fox only, Final Destination.

 

[Chilex]

We've gotten way more info since the time of the OP. I'm bumping for new inputs.

 

[LancerStaff]

Still saying three. Even PM goes with three, and I doubt stocks would last any shorter then PM's.

 

[Raijinken]

I'm defaulting to 3 stock no time limit, time will tell if that needs tweaking.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

Brawl has been testing out with 1 Stock games recently, and its actually going surprisingly well. Perhaps thats what the ruleset for Smash 4 should be at the beginning.

Um that is a horrible idea, actually. Even scientifically within the context of experimentation, you always work your way down, not up.

Many people criticized the 1-stock tournament heavily for not providing enough flexibility for downloading to happen, there was more criticism than applaud.

We should start with 3 at the very least, and depending on the length of matches we can shave off stocks/minutes pending how it goes.

 

[Kidney Thief]

3 stocks seems about right. Move brawl to two only

 

[Jigglymaster]

Um that is a horrible idea, actually. Even scientifically within the context of experimentation, you always work your way down, not up.

Many people criticized the 1-stock tournament heavily for not providing enough flexibility for downloading to happen, there was more criticism than applaud.

We should start with 3 at the very least, and depending on the length of matches we can shave off stocks/minutes pending how it goes.

Oh hello post of mine from like 5 months ago, maybe you should consider asking me if I've changed my mind on this matter in the past 5 months, because I have. I don't support the 1-stock idea now anyways.

 

[Renji64]

3 stocks kills seem to take awhile.

 

[Cheezey Bites]

3 stocks kills seem to take awhile.

To be fair no-one's really studied the characters yet, when people start learning more reliable combos it could get a lot faster...

I still stick that we don't know enough at this stage, and probably won't 'till a little while after the game comes out.

 

[KaZe_DaRKWIND]

I'd say 3 because you can't edgehog anymore.

 

[LOGIA666]

Honestly, I'm leaning towards three stocks, because it plays closer to Brawl than Melee. I'd be down for four, but three seems to be the most optimal to me. It'll basically end up being slightly quicker than Brawl matches, which I'm certainly down for. Moving it to four stocks could even that out and make it as long as a 3 stock Brawl match, which I'd prefer not to happen, unless this game turns out to be alot more interesting than Brawl competitively, which it likely will be.

I'm okay with four stocks, but right now, my mind is set on 3.

 

[Bladeviper]

i will say they used 4 stock with 6 minutes at sdcc for the 3ds tournament

 

[Bedoop]

5 Stock

 

[Gleethor]

I really enjoy using 4.

 

[<π]

I don't think now is the time to get too caught up on this kind of stuff...