4v4 Gameplay

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

So 8 player smash was confirmed.

I wanted to open discussion back here on this type of gameplay since it will be a hot topic of how viable this will be and how this could be managed and hosted.

I'm pretty open to the idea, but not sure how it would catch on.

 

[Overswarm]

4 v 4 is a possibility under the following circumstances:
-There is minimal, if any, lag
-There are enough proper controller inputs (aren't there only 4 on the adapter? Can you USE two adapters?) (http://nintendo247.com/up-to-8-gamecube-controllers-can-be-connected-to-a-single-wii-u/)
-No crazy rule changes from base smash bros rules (e.g., team attack can be on)

If the above two don't fit, won't work out for anything but side events.


If it is possible, it will run into the issue of so many people required. 32 players? That's 8 teams of 4. 4 setups, 8, 8, 8 and 8.

Assuming we get past that issue, we run into the issue of how it should actually run.

1 stock? 2 stock? 3 stock? Time? Bo1, Bo3?

Will people be able to adapt to obvious changes? What will 3 G&W and a pikachu do in 4v4? What about Ness healing back to 0 in virtually no time?


It'll start as a side event before moving anywhere else.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

Why always 4v4? Why not 2v2v2v2?

 

[Overswarm]

Is anyone else excited about the possibility of legitimate 8 man FFA tournaments on hyrule temple

because I am

I don't even want to run 1v1s anymore

 

[Keitaro]

I plan on running a 4v4 tournament at my KTAR XI event November 22nd. People are pretty excited about it.

Here are the current rules. Looking for more opinions from everyone for better judgement. Especially on possible stages once we know more info about them.

-$20 per team
-Each team can have at max 6 people (can change players after matches)
-Best of 3
-2 Stock
-Single Elimination
-Grand Finals are best of 5
-6 minute timer
-No group can have both Pikachu and Game & Watch
-Stages will be discussed soon

 

[Overswarm]

Why are you banning Pika and G&W? We haven't seen an 8 person match yet, nor do we know the applicable stages. It could quite possibly not even be a OHKO and could very easily not be overcentralizing -- it has yet to make a significant impact in doubles.

While it could be a possibility, it is a pretty kneejerk response. You gonna ban villager too? Ness?


Want to be a forward thinker? Drop the "I have to have a perfect tournament and must sculpt it for my attendees" mentality that ends up making tournaments a mockery and put the onus on the players.

"Each team can have at max 6 people (can change players after matches)"

+

"Each team gets two character vetoes determined at the start of the match. The veto applies to ALL teams -- if you veto Sheik, you may not pick Sheik yourself."


Tournament comes up and a team goes triple G&W + Pikachu, wrecks the opponent's team. Players learn to veto Pika or G&W.

Same team goes triple G&W + Pikachu, gets wrecked by a team that focuses on the pikachu, killing it quickly, leaving 3 G&W players fighting a better constructed team. Players learn not to spam G&W as it isn't as effective as simply having ONE pika and G&W.

Knee jerky stuff is silly. 4v4 could be played with items if we want. The sky is the limit now.

 

[Keitaro]

Keep in mind that most of the 4v4 stages are bigger. So there is still a lot of time to do the G&W/Pikachu bucket combo. Some 2v2 teams have already abused it and placed well with other top players aiming to do the same. Although it isn't official, Apex is leaning on banning them in doubles as I already am. If people can create a tree, cut it, and pocket it effectively then that's fine. However that takes time while an invincible bucket of an already explosive move "Pikachu's down B" does not.

 

[Overswarm]

So people just pick G&W + Pikachu in your doubles events and win? Somehow I don' think this is the case. Do you have any results threads?

 

[Deleted member 245254]

So people just pick G&W + Pikachu in your doubles events and win? Somehow I don' think this is the case. Do you have any results threads?

I don't know actual placements but I've seen a great deal of "20 second match" gifs almost universally all using the Pika + GW combo. It seems a little absurd on the surface, at the very least.

 

[Overswarm]

I don't know actual placements but I've seen a great deal of "20 second match" gifs almost universally all using the Pika + GW combo. It seems a little absurd on the surface, at the very least.

I've seen similar videos like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x60Rvt4kjXg

Two teams of pika + GW doesn't really apply. More importantly, the speed of matches being "too fast" isn't an indicator of whether or not a character should be banned. I've beaten players in Melee, a 4 stock game, in under a minute without breaking a sweat. It didn't mean Marth or Fox was banned, just meant I knew what to do and they didn't -- the ease in which I dispatched them was irrelevant.

If a team picks pika & GW and does better, that's fine as well. Some teams are going to have better synergy than others.

The issue comes about whne you have to pick pika & GW to do well. If it gets to the point where the top placements simply are pika & GW teams and a super small selection of teams that work against them (see: G&W + anyone else), they could be considered bannable. If they're simply distasteful and unenjoyable because of how shocking they are, they're just good.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

I'm just disappointed nobody has even so much as mentioned competitive 3v3. I mean just because 8 is the max everyone shot to 4v4 but 3v3 more immediately stands out to me as a format with a lot of technical potential, where 4v4 seems chaotic (in the context of smash).

 

[Overswarm]

I'm just disappointed nobody has even so much as mentioned competitive 3v3. I mean just because 8 is the max everyone shot to 4v4 but 3v3 more immediately stands out to me as a format with a lot of technical potential, where 4v4 seems chaotic (in the context of smash).

It's easier to trim down than to build up

 

[Zigsta]

I plan on running a 4v4 tournament at my KTAR XI event November 22nd. People are pretty excited about it.

Here are the current rules. Looking for more opinions from everyone for better judgement. Especially on possible stages once we know more info about them.

-$20 per team
-Each team can have at max 6 people (can change players after matches)
-Best of 3
-2 Stock
-Single Elimination
-Grand Finals are best of 5
-6 minute timer
-No group can have both Pikachu and Game & Watch
-Stages will be discussed soon

I don't see the reasoning behind having 2 subs per team. If it was me, I'd much prefer more playtime to try out the new format. I would hate to get stuck on the bench.

Why not have teams cap at 4 so more teams could compete?

 

[SamuraiPanda]

It's easier to trim down than to build up

What makes you say that? From what it looks like, 4v4 is fundamentally different like being limited to certain stages only.

 

[Overswarm]

What makes you say that? From what it looks like, 4v4 is fundamentally different like being limited to certain stages only.

It's easier to solve problems than to add new features.

For example:

Let's say items in Brawl would have had a good chance at making Brawl a fundamentally better game. That items would likely have been much better for the community and the competitive lifecycle if they had been implemented correctly.

Adding items themselves is a huuuuuuuge undertaking and you have no real way of knowing where to start!

Let's say the perfect item list is green turtle shells, food, and sticky bombs.

If we start with all items we can easily trim down the item list to remove things like invincibility stars, bob-ombs, etc., without much issue. Since green turtle shells, food, and sticky bombs are the perfect item list there would be no reason to remove them so they'd end up being what we went down to in the end.

If we on the other hand decided "I know best" and declare "Our item list will only contain Green Turtle Shells and the Star Wand", we'd get it wrong off the bat. We'd have absolutely no way of knowing to add food or sticky bombs -- if we're observant we might find removing the star wand is good, maybe. But when it got down to green turtle shells someone would say "this is good enough" and there would be complaints as to the changes of food and sticky bombs because people hate change.

If we start with 4v4 and find "4v4 is fun and awesome", then we find no reason to play 3v3 -- no incentive.

If we start with 3v3 and find "3v3 is fun and awesome", then we find no reason to play 4v4 -- no incentive.

But if we start with 4v4 and find that 4v4 is chaotic and not fun, we can scale down to 3v3. We have incentive to do so.

If we start with 3v3 and find 3v3 is chaotic and not fun, there is no incentive to scale up to 4v4.

It's the same with all things. If you play only on FD, suddenly Yoshi's Island seems like a terrible and janky stage. Scaling up involves change and adding new features. Scaling down involves removing unwanted features.

 

[Sethlon]

So people just pick G&W + Pikachu in your doubles events and win? Somehow I don' think this is the case. Do you have any results threads?

We have had this exact thing happen in Dallas already (people pick GnW+Pika, literally do nothing but bucket+thunder, and win the tournament). It is an obviously overpowered tactic.

 

[Overswarm]

We have had this exact thing happen in Dallas already (people pick GnW+Pika, literally do nothing but bucket+thunder, and win the tournament). It is an obviously overpowered tactic.

Do you have the results?

 

[SamuraiPanda]

It's easier to solve problems than to add new features.

For example:

Let's say items in Brawl would have had a good chance at making Brawl a fundamentally better game. That items would likely have been much better for the community and the competitive lifecycle if they had been implemented correctly.

Adding items themselves is a huuuuuuuge undertaking and you have no real way of knowing where to start!

Let's say the perfect item list is green turtle shells, food, and sticky bombs.

If we start with all items we can easily trim down the item list to remove things like invincibility stars, bob-ombs, etc., without much issue. Since green turtle shells, food, and sticky bombs are the perfect item list there would be no reason to remove them so they'd end up being what we went down to in the end.

If we on the other hand decided "I know best" and declare "Our item list will only contain Green Turtle Shells and the Star Wand", we'd get it wrong off the bat. We'd have absolutely no way of knowing to add food or sticky bombs -- if we're observant we might find removing the star wand is good, maybe. But when it got down to green turtle shells someone would say "this is good enough" and there would be complaints as to the changes of food and sticky bombs because people hate change.

If we start with 4v4 and find "4v4 is fun and awesome", then we find no reason to play 3v3 -- no incentive.

If we start with 3v3 and find "3v3 is fun and awesome", then we find no reason to play 4v4 -- no incentive.

But if we start with 4v4 and find that 4v4 is chaotic and not fun, we can scale down to 3v3. We have incentive to do so.

If we start with 3v3 and find 3v3 is chaotic and not fun, there is no incentive to scale up to 4v4.

It's the same with all things. If you play only on FD, suddenly Yoshi's Island seems like a terrible and janky stage. Scaling up involves change and adding new features. Scaling down involves removing unwanted features.

In theory what you're saying has some merit, but I think you're comparing apples to oranges in many ways and leaving out important things.

For example, if we start with 3v3 and find 3v3 to be too chaotic and not fun then you say there is no incentive to scale up to 4v4. What makes you think 4v4 would be less chaotic and more fun if 3v3 was too much? Besides, 3v3 and 4v4 could be fundamentally different things. We could even have our own rulesets like *gasp* team attack off for 4v4 or something like that.

And your comparison with items is also apples to oranges. Take 2 stock vs 3 stock events. That is an instance where it is far easier for people to go UP to 3 stocks after doing 2 stocks for a while and not see too much of an impact, versus going DOWN to 2 stocks is actually much more difficult to do.

I do get what you're saying but I think you oversimplify some things and apply logic in one areas that doesn't necessarily correlate with logic in others.

 

[Sethlon]

Can't find the results, unfortunately. (We have enough tournaments here in DFW that proper procedure gets tossed out the window sometimes...) I can confirm that it is indeed a OHKO on every character that I've seen it used on. Its just...absurd. This was at the very first teams tournament we had on release weekend, and it already started devolving into teams CPing thunderbucket back.

 

[Overswarm]

Can't find the results, unfortunately. (We have enough tournaments here in DFW that proper procedure gets tossed out the window sometimes...) I can confirm that it is indeed a OHKO on every character that I've seen it used on. Its just...absurd. This was at the very first teams tournament we had on release weekend, and it already started devolving into teams CPing thunderbucket back.

Need relevant information. Being a OHKO isn't "absurd" and being effective alone isn't means for a ban.

Record results, post results.

I'm not gonna ban jigglypuff because u-throw rest kills Fox at 0%.

If I've got people picking G&W & Pikachu and they're beating well-established teams to the point where Sethlon + Mew2King can't beat Tommy and his little brother Billy at their second tournament scouring across the countryside, sure, but we'll need results.

If it turns out that someone says "Oh, I just use counter and kill G&W every time he does it. It's pretty sweet" or "I just... kill Pikachu. It's not that hard" and G&W/Pikachu only pushes people's placements up by a few spots because it's a good team, but not a broken team... then it's likely just a factor in doubles that teams will need to address.

Around here it hasn't done much at all for the people who have tried it so it hasn't caught on, but Kel and I have been winning doubles events for years now and most of the best Smash 4 players here aren't teaming with each other, so we don't have much to go off of. We can confirm that you can't just "pick G&W and Pikachu and win" when you're a weaker team though, those people got wrecked.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

Sorry but G&W + Pikachu is actually already being banned at tournaments here in Japan.

Proof.

You can try to logic the strategy in to being reasonable, counter-able, or fair in anyway you please but the general public/community has already deemed this tactic unacceptable for competitive play due to its implications. At the end of the day people are speaking with their actions on this one.

 

[Shaya]

http://smashboards.com/threads/community-project-mr-game-watch-in-doubles-data.375553/

 

[Overswarm]

Sorry but G&W + Pikachu is actually already being banned at tournaments here in Japan.

Proof.

You can try to logic the strategy in to being reasonable, counter-able, or fair in anyway you please but the general public/community has already deemed this tactic unacceptable for competitive play due to its implications. At the end of the day people are speaking with their actions on this one.

Or, I could say "**** Japan" because no one with any sense would agree.

The "general public/community" thought that wavedashing was cheating and that Meta Knight should be banned too. Public has bad and good ideas, but they certainly don't make them into rules.

The argument of "but Japan" is tired and old. Also irrelevant. I don't live in Japan.

 

[Deleted member 245254]

Or, I could say "**** Japan" because no one with any sense would agree.

The "general public/community" thought that wavedashing was cheating and that Meta Knight should be banned too. Public has bad and good ideas, but they certainly don't make them into rules.

The argument of "but Japan" is tired and old. Also irrelevant. I don't live in Japan.

The statement wasn't meant to be divisive. I was only citing it as a general reference, not some kind of special snowflake circumstance that holds more weight simply because it's "in Japan". If I lived in Saudi Arabia would you have held the statement to similar weight? I don't see how it's irrelevant at all. We're all smashers with the same goal in mind, to create the most fair experience possible within the confines of the game to demonstrate who is more skilled.

The point is the public does make those decisions, whether they are good or bad. In the end, wavedashing isn't banned, and is actually one of the most popularized movement techniques of competitive play, and despite the fact that Meta Knight is almost objectively the most effective character in Brawl by far too much, the community unbanned him only after a short stint of being banned. While this caused strife overall, it still exemplifies that in both of your examples, in reality, the resulting effect was that of a reasonable one. One you agree with based on your assertion of the absurdity of the original rules/bans in question.

Maybe Pikachu + G&W will be later disproved to be as strong as they are making themselves appear, but it's difficult to argue against in this case.

In the end, the point is that you do not control what people do, you can only sway them with logical arguments that would behoove them or align with their experiences in a way that they would see fit to take your suggestion seriously with a means to put it in to practice. Right now people agree nearly unanimously across certain communities (Japan included) that Pikachu + G&W subtracts from the competitive experience, so they're going to disallow it and there really isn't anything you can do about aside from allow it in your own tournaments, and see how your attendance holds up in the 2v2 bracket, and after that, see what the general experience is across the competitors (this is assuming you have a PIkachu + G&W team even competing).

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I want to see more data of it unbanned to see if it does over centralize.

It looks absolutely ****ing stupid to fight against but I want to be open to how tournament data looks in the end.

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

Game and Watch doesn't auto fill with Bucket via thunder anymore.Can he be legal in doubles/4v4 now?

 

[Deleted member 245254]

Game and Watch doesn't auto fill with Bucket via thunder anymore.Can he be legal in doubles/4v4 now?

T'would seem that a re-evaluation would certainly be in order but it seems safe.