3 stocks or 2?

[BBG|Scott-Spain]

I'm seeing a lot of people using sd's as a reason for 3 stocks. At some point, you have to just say "play better". There are techniques that will put you at risk if you try them in tournament. That also goes for recoveries and other things. We can't use poor execution as an excuse.

 

[KiteSC]

Matches often go way too quickly with two stocks, on top of making it much harder to make a comeback. What's with this silly tradition of subtracting a stock every Smash game, anyway? I mean, it made sense in the other games to subtract a stock from the last one, but it seems really unnecessary to do it again this time.

Smash 6 confirmed for 0 stock?

 

[DunnoBro]

I'm seeing a lot of people using sd's as a reason for 3 stocks. At some point, you have to just say "play better". There are techniques that will put you at risk if you try them in tournament. That also goes for recoveries and other things. We can't use poor execution as an excuse.

That's a good point. However, I would like to re-frame the "SD" argument into the more sensible "fluke" argument. SDing isn't the only way unearned momentum decides the winner.

Personally though, both 2 and 3 stocks have valid pros and cons, both rather equal in validity but the effects of both the variables themselves and the cost of trying to fix things later leads me to believe that 2-stocks are best for now.
But before we get into why, let me try to quantify the variables for both.

* = This pro can be considered a direct con of the other subject. I will not go into cons for this reason.

2-Stock Pros:

*Better logistically, and for time constraints. Probably the IDEAL stream time per match for commentating, since if it's a boring match, it won't be too long anyway. Better breaks for commentators to collect themselves and discuss the more easily digested matches.

-Most easily understood, and transitioned to for casual players due to for glory.

3-Stock Pros:

*Negates the effect of momentum, and rage.
As earlier stated, SDs are not the only mistakes that can be made that two-stock amplifies the effects of. The ability to adapt is also less rewarded in 2-stock, especially as things are with all this unfamiliar territory.

Furthermore, regardless of the intended use of "rage" it has become somewhat of a radical mechanic. Both for coming back, and maintaining a lead. I feel more stocks will lessen the effect of this radicalization, rather than amplify. Since the psychological impact of a 100+% diddy is far more threatening than a sub100% diddy that can't kill you with a single grab to upair. To the point that a better player will be forced to utilize an aggressive mindset to kill the diddy, but also even more non-committing if they're within the (now much lower) kill ranges of a grab.

Diddy is just a general example of how the neutral game changes with rage. I personally think it's a healthy interaction, but not one that should solely decide the match. And 3-stocks make these situations take up less percentage of a single match.

-Longer matches = No break in excitement or adrenaline for spectators, and players.

However, moving from 2 to 3 stocks would probably be an easier transition than 3 to 2, simply because 3 will always be more popular. Even if 3 ends up being an issue, it will obviously be harder to change twice than once. (From 2 stocks to 3, then from 3 to 2. Instead of just waiting until we know 2 stocks are flawed for sure)

 

[Conda]

Started another poll here. https://plus.google.com/113677833770074358574/posts/guaexSDT7Rd

Redundant, yes, but I plan on comparing both and adding up all results to see what side is strongest (3 stocks looks like the winner, but tradition give it bias).

 

[JingleJangleJamil]

That's a good point. However, I would like to re-frame the "SD" argument into the more sensible "fluke" argument. SDing isn't the only way unearned momentum decides the winner.

Personally though, both 2 and 3 stocks have valid pros and cons, both rather equal in validity but the effects of both the variables themselves and the cost of trying to fix things later leads me to believe that 2-stocks are best for now.
But before we get into why, let me try to quantify the variables for both.

* = This pro can be considered a direct con of the other subject. I will not go into cons for this reason.

2-Stock Pros:

*Better logistically, and for time constraints. Probably the IDEAL stream time per match for commentating, since if it's a boring match, it won't be too long anyway. Better breaks for commentators to collect themselves and discuss the more easily digested matches.

-Most easily understood, and transitioned to for casual players due to for glory.

3-Stock Pros:

*Negates the effect of momentum, and rage.
As earlier stated, SDs are not the only mistakes that can be made that two-stock amplifies the effects of. The ability to adapt is also less rewarded in 2-stock, especially as things are with all this unfamiliar territory.

Furthermore, regardless of the intended use of "rage" it has become somewhat of a radical mechanic. Both for coming back, and maintaining a lead. I feel more stocks will lessen the effect of this radicalization, rather than amplify. Since the psychological impact of a 100+% diddy is far more threatening than a sub100% diddy that can't kill you with a single grab to upair. To the point that a better player will be forced to utilize an aggressive mindset to kill the diddy, but also even more non-committing if they're within the (now much lower) kill ranges of a grab.

Diddy is just a general example of how the neutral game changes with rage. I personally think it's a healthy interaction, but not one that should solely decide the match. And 3-stocks make these situations take up less percentage of a single match.

-Longer matches = No break in excitement or adrenaline for spectators, and players.

One of my reasons for liking 3 stocks more is because it makes it so that SDing is not as bad. In a 2 stock match SDing will make the match nearly impossible. Also if you lose a match because you SD then that is bull****. I guess not much can be done to make losing from an SD not as bad,but it doesn't show that the other player is better. I also think that having 2 stock matches actually makes players BE MORE campy, thus making a longer match. I think this, because in every 2 stock match I have played compared to 3 stock matches, the players tend to roll and just try to avoid getting hit more often then actually trying to attack. In a 3 stock match you don't have to just worry about getting hit and losing a stock all the time, making it so that players can be more aggressive, making matches go by faster. Though of course, there are the campy players who play defensively no matter how many stocks there are,but I feel 3 stocks is worth it. Now with vectoring gone you can kill much earlier.

 

[Gionni]

I think 3 stocks are better because if you sd in 2 stocks your basically done, you have almost no chance to get a comeback and rage just makes that worse

 

[TekKnite]

For what I've seen, some TOs use 2 stocks while some use 3 stocks. But what would be the best, 3 stocks or 2? I personally prefer 3 stocks.

I prefer three because it gives you time to adapt

 

[JingleJangleJamil]

I think 3 stocks are better because if you sd in 2 stocks your basically done, you have almost no chance to get a comeback and rage just makes that worse

Exactly, watching comebacks is hype anyways.

 

[KingBroly]

I'll say 3, since 1.0.4 on 3DS made the game faster.

 

[FishkeeperTimmay!]

Self destructs are a terrible reason for 3 stock. Rules should not be centered around poor play. Players should be good enough to not kill themselves! If they are constantly SDing, we shouldnt be lessening the pain of doing so. Encourage players to get better, dont bring the rules in line for lower end players.

We have other, more important factors to consider like tournament runtime, player fatigue and spectator engagment. I would argue that all 3 of these issues are better served by shorter sets. Smash has a bad habit for long sets and long tournaments. It hurts our scene. It makes it hard to secure venues. Organizers and attendees cant rely on runtimes. It would be better to have faster sets for regular games and simply increase the number of sets in "hype" matches.

 

[Trickerhere]

2 stocks 6 minutes.

 

[Raijinken]

3's fine and only goes to time when you have double-defensive characters in a matchup, which is becoming less and less common.

2 has, and always will, resulted in too-harsh a penalty from self-destructs, which happen at any level of play. The reduced room for error can also result in a mental tendency to play safer, as you have 33% fewer critical failures you're allowed to make.

The only case I see for 2s is that it's identical to For Glory. But unless TOs are going to start picking random Omega stages as the sole legal stage, that argument isn't valid either.

The removal of Vectoring has also notably reduced time between kills and lowered the kill percent threshold in many cases. I think we should use 3 until it is proven statistically that it causes too many games to go to time. That's assuming we treat time-up as an undesirable solution, which some players would disagree with.

Just remember. If going to time is the "worst case scenario", then Melee's rules have the exact same worst-case scenario. If it's your desire to set the average match time to a specific value or less, there is literally no reason not to set the timer to the nearest minute value to that desired match length.

 

[Dr. Tuen]

This article isn't terribly clear in conveying results, my writing wasn't very good back then. But when analyzing some APEX video data, I found that the person who won the first stock tended to win 88.4% of the time in Brawl. I could go back through some data I have and tabulate the rate of 2-stock comebacks, but I'd guess it'll be smaller than that.

http://nintendodojo.com/blogpost.aspx?id=140397

If that comeback rate is at all an indication of the behavior we'll experience in competitive Smash 4 U, then I would wager that we won't get significant enough competitive differentiation to warrant adding another stock.

I personally think that 2 stocks differentiates enough, is a tight enough time frame for large events, and would do a better job at holding the interest of an audience/livestream.

And that's about what I have time for right now. Maybe some other data soon, but I have stuff to do.

 

[Syde7]

I feel 3 stocks is the way to go.

1. 2 Stocks is simply too unforgiving. A single SD on your first stock will most likely bury you as there's very little room to make it up. This also stops super hype come-backs, which is great to both play in & watch. Granted SD's at any time suck, but 2 stocks leave you an incredibly tough up-hill climb.
2. Building off Point #1 - two stocks leaves waaaay too much room for Johns / complaining. "I gave up after the SD on my first stock... no way I was going to climb back from him having 50% on 1st stock with me on my last one to win."
3. Larger stock counts make it easier to find common comparative ground. That is to say, Player A & B both lose to Player C, by 1 stock, and 2 stocks respectively in a 3 stock match. If this trend persists, one can assume that A is better than B, at the very least against player C. However, in a 2 stock match, both players may take one stock... or, both may get 2-stocked... it becomes harder to tell who may be better. (I know this isn't an incredibly accurate way of determining skill.... but, people use it & bring it up all the time.
4. When I attend a tournament, and put down $ to play a game... I want to get the most out of my experience. Yeah, I can play a ton of friendlies or MM's or whatever, but I'm there to play the tourney, and I want as much tourney play as possible (inb4getgoodandyouplaythewholetime), so I'd personally feel like I got more out of the tourney playing 3 stock matches. (Also, its this same reason why I kind of enjoy Swiss formats for pools instead of the current system).
5. Brawl had 3 stocks. Brawl is a significantly slower game, imo, than Sm4sh. Therefore, it seems to me that if you give Brawl, a slower-paced game 3 stocks, it stands to reason you should give a quicker-paced game the same amount of stocks.
6. Regarding watching/spectating, this also builds off #1. There may be the risk of: It may be a good match for most of the first stock, or a match people really want to watch. A single mistake or SD that costs the first stock, and everyone is like: "Well, this match is over...." and instantly is less interested.

For those that said use 2 stocks in pools/early rounds, 3 in later... I also disagree. In almost every pool, especially in larger tournaments, you wind up with at least 1, sometimes 2 matches between *solid* players. It'd be a shame to see that settled by an SD, or a mistake that someone can't come back from (As in Point #1). On the flip side, would you want to see a borderline scrub happen to get terribly lucky and win bc of an SD, with the superior player having much less time to make the ground up? It may be a rare occurrence, but it will most certainly happen. Even if its just ONE game, that could cost the other player the difference between 1st, 2nd, or even making it OUT of pools.

Plus, at some point someone will inevitably say: "Oh, we thought it was 2 stocks in this round of pools (or this part of the bracket). We played it as two stocks" The winner will say: "Too bad, we played it, I won," while the loser will say: "Yeah, but they were close games, that one stock extra may have made a difference. Let's replay it with 3 stocks". A delay ensues as a TO has to get called, sort it all out, etc etc.

If two stocks is desired, as someone mentioned before - I propose a 3/5 set.

Regarding times (and this is somewhat off topic, but just wanted to throw it out there)... the shorter the time limit, the less aggressive the leader will play, imo. "If I have 6 minutes, I am going to get a lead and sit on it. I only have to hold it for like... 3 minutes, as opposed to sitting on the lead for 5 minutes in a longer match"

• If two stocks is desired; 4 minute matches.
• If 3 stocks is desired 5 to 6 minute matches.

 

[Conda]

The poll I started already has 200-something votes. Not sure where they're coming from, but people sure do seem to prefer 3 stocks.

https://plus.google.com/113677833770074358574/posts/guaexSDT7Rd


The issue is that, at lower-level competitive play, 3 stocks takes forever. Defensive play reigns at lower skill levels, where players don't punish things that are punishable.
Meanwhile at higher levels of play, 3 stocks zooms by because every decision counts.

This is an important point that I feel many of us aren't keeping in mind.

 

[JingleJangleJamil]

I have never played Brawl competitively so I am pretty ignorant on this,but why is it that after the removal of vectoring 2 stocks is still used? Brawl was a slower game all-around, so why is it that even with vectoring gone (which removing it made matches go by much quicker) people want to use LESS stocks than used in Brawl? Once players learn even more about the game I am pretty sure players will be able to close off stocks a lot quicker. Having 2 stocks at that point would make matches go by so fast, that the players won't have time to learn how to counter the other's strategy. Am I the only one who would rather watch/play in a close game then just having a one-sided match? With 2 stocks players won't be able to learn what to do on the fly mid-match.

 

[<π]

The more tests you have the more accurate the out come.

2 stock for glory is neat but its there because of a time limitation. Don't let anyone fool you. 2 stock 5 minutes is a nice and easy way to have a casual bite sided match. If you are going for accuracy in competitive play you want a better test. For example flip a roll a die 5 times; your results will not favor 1 or more numbers, This is not an accurate representation of how dice rolls work. but if you do this same test 500 times you get a result that is much more accurate. I could talk for days about this topic and other related ones. But it sums up to this:
The more stocks you have in a match the better, the trade off; however; is match time. The average stock in smash4 takes between 80 and 90 seconds and that is being generous IMO. (I personally believe we allocate way too much time to matches; almost twice the average stock time; I think that's issue, but one for another topic) I think 3 stocks with matches lasting around 5-6 minutes, or 17-21 a set (that's play time plus about a minute between games) is very reasonable, its around the same as brawl and melee set times, but it still provides a setting where our tests give more accurate results than what 2 stocks can provide.

 

[AceStarThe3rd]

I don't know who even made 2 stock a staple anyway >.>

 

[HeroMystic]

I don't know who even made 2 stock a staple anyway >.>

Sakurai.

 

[Raijinken]

The abovementioned impact of the Rage Mechanic actually feels unexpectedly strong in favor of 3 stocks, now that I re-read it. It has a very real potential to negate comebacks when there isn't a real chance to remove it.

 

[vato_break]

Hey guys, I'm a TO in socal and I wanted to add my input. I think 2 stocks is the way to go for now. Everyone is still learning the game so games are still going to be lengthy and from a TO stand point we want to establish a balance of fun competitive gameplay and time management so 2 stocks work nicely. Though, i'm not against 3 stock! I think 3 stock can be a tournament standard once people start learning to play the game more and more. I actually enjoy playing the game as 3 stocks; it feel more "natural"(from a conventional smash sense). Also, I think if we are going to pick a number of stocks for a tournament it should remain as 2 or 3 stocks for the whole tournament. Some people have suggested that we start the tournament in the early round with 2 stocks and as the bracket winds down we change it to 3 stocks. I disagree with this based on the fact that I feel that everyone should have to play under the same rules throughout tournament, though I guess there is nothing wrong with actually doing this but to keep it fair for everyone I think this is necessary(Some characters have an obvious advantage in 2 stock vs 3 stock)

 

[Omega Tyrant]

A bit late in replying to this thread, but I would like to point out that the "Brawl used 3 stocks, and it's a slower game, so SmashU should use 3 too" argument is fallacious, when Brawl using 3 proved to be too much and should have been reduced, and the only reason Brawl remained 3 stocks was because the community was way too stubborn and abhorrent to change to reduce the stock count, even when Brawl's tournament attendance and viewership started dropping rapidly. Now if a tourney is going to actually run Brawl nowadays and with 3 stocks, while running SmashU with 2 (Apex...), then yeah, this argument would have some merit (though in this case, it should be towards Brawl getting its stock count reduced rather than SmashU's getting increased).

Overall, the result of what happened with Brawl when 3 stocks was made standard early on and avoiding that mistake again is a major reason why we would start with 2 as the standard for SmashU; the community is extremely unlikely to accept a different stock count once a certain number is made standard, no matter how unoptimal it ends up proving, and it would be far better for the game's competitive health to have its matches run a little fast than for them to drag on.

 

[M15t3R E]

3 stocks allows more time for adaptation, comebacks, and hype, though this could cause tournaments to run on for too long. It's necessary to put yourself in the position of a TO.