4v4 - Quartets Discussion (Or other variants)

[smashmachine]

It's not "wrong", but it's an open question.

Should a team game be exclusively a test of who has the weakest player, and the stronger players not matter at all? Clearly not.
Should a team game be exclusively a test of who has the strongest player, and the weaker players not matter at all? Clearly not.

All team games are a balance somewhere between the two, and there are pros and cons to being tilted in either direction.

Important, unavoidable dichotomy: Emphasizing teamwork and emphasizing player agency are fundamentally opposing goals.

yes, but no matter what ruleset you use people will always attempt to target the weak link on the team

stock vs time or whatever, doesn't actually change this

 

[Thinkaman]

yes, but no matter what ruleset you use people will always attempt to target the weak link on the team

stock vs time or whatever, doesn't actually change this

The difference is the degree to which that translates directly into success.

If you and a decent friend played dabuz and a monkey, you would win 100% of Time matches and 0% of Stock matches.

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

Falcon 8 way.

The realist.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

I strongly endorse this format. We can't know whether it'll catch on (logistics/setup are huge obstacles), but it is nothing like FFA. Sure, it might be a little chaotic, but it'll be two big teams vying for control of the stage. I think it is fantastic. I've often felt that 2v2 is wildly under-explored format with a deep meta way beyond that of 1v1. I think 4v4 would open up crazy strategies. I love stock, but I would be open to a time-based rule set as well. There won't be nearly as many stall opportunities with so many players going at it.

 

[Nabbitnator]

yes, but no matter what ruleset you use people will always attempt to target the weak link on the team

stock vs time or whatever, doesn't actually change this

I always thought it was better to target the stronger players and then save the weaker players for later. It works.

 

[Big O]

I think for this mode a 1 character per team rule would be a good idea. A tourney with like 8 Sonic or Pacman on the screen would just be silly. This way the worst thing that can happen is like both teams having Pit and Dark Pit. It also would prevent a lot of the cheesier and degenerate abuse cases like 2girls1cup 2 GnW 1 Pika + anyone with a counter.

I also wouldn't mind seeing it develop into something like a game within the game. Like protect the VIP where each team has 1 designated VIP and you lose when the VIP runs out of stocks. With no stock sharing and maybe team attack off, I feel like it would have a lot of potential and would be really fun to watch.

Also, maybe team attack off should be a thing? I can't see 4v4 being anything but a hot mess on some of those stages with team attack on.

 

[Thinkaman]

Also, maybe team attack off should be a thing? I can't see 4v4 being anything but a hot mess on some of those stages with team attack on.

We can try it, but on reflection I'm pretty sure all the degenerate behavior in no-team-attack doubles will prove even more obnoxious in quads.

 

[Teshie U]

Targetting the weak link is a very frail strategy to abuse. Smart players can protect and assist weaker players on their team. Thats the whole point of having partners, to work together. If 1 guy on your team is getting slaughtered, protect him. Read your opponent's intentions of going straight for him and catch them off guard.

Competitively speaking, good players team with good players, great players with great players and the bad are left to team with the bad. In a stock battle, teaming with someone terrible is still not going to work out for you because winning 2v1 is going to be very hard (and they still don't have to fight you since they have the lead).

4v4 is going to be a complete mess with TA on or off. Thats kind of the point. Anyone that wants more than 2v2 is probably looking for a bit of chaos. TA on and Off will have some strong abuses either way I'm sure. But I think a time match gives a chance for anyone to adapt and make a team effort to come back.

What even happens when you sharestock in 4v4? Who do you take the stock from?

 

[Nabbitnator]

I would assume either there would be no sharestock because its 4 v 4 or that it takes from the person who has the highest amount of stocks. I think you'd have to plan who could share stock before the match starts.

 

[Piford]

Targetting the weak link is a very frail strategy to abuse. Smart players can protect and assist weaker players on their team. Thats the whole point of having partners, to work together. If 1 guy on your team is getting slaughtered, protect him. Read your opponent's intentions of going straight for him and catch them off guard.

Competitively speaking, good players team with good players, great players with great players and the bad are left to team with the bad. In a stock battle, teaming with someone terrible is still not going to work out for you because winning 2v1 is going to be very hard (and they still don't have to fight you since they have the lead).

4v4 is going to be a complete mess with TA on or off. Thats kind of the point. Anyone that wants more than 2v2 is probably looking for a bit of chaos. TA on and Off will have some strong abuses either way I'm sure. But I think a time match gives a chance for anyone to adapt and make a team effort to come back.

What even happens when you sharestock in 4v4? Who do you take the stock from?

Well it'd probably would work the same way it works for a team of 3 in past games. You always take stocks from the people with lowest port. So if player 1 has 2 lives or more lives, you will always take from player 1. Stock sharing then adds depth as you have to decide whats the best order to put your team in.

 

[Thinkaman]

Stock sharing then adds depth as you have to decide whats the best order to put your team in.

Well, significance, not really depth per se.</semantics>

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

Just incase nobody knew. The names can be color coded; I can't remember if this was a feature or not before. So this can help the confusion

 

[Piford]

Well, significance, not really depth per se.</semantics>

Well it at least requires some forethought, as teams who assign their players willy-nilly would be at a disadvantage.

 

[BriefCasey795]

I'm all for 4v4 or 3v3.

 

[EddyBearr]

I'd like to see a few items included into this, namely the motion sensor bomb.

 

[Sleek Media]

I never understood the issue with circle camping. Just ban it like planking. If you need a ref to judge a match, just pull someone aside.

I'm in favor of all new possibilities that 8p allows. 2v2v2v2, 3v3, 4v4, and any combination of human and trained amiibo.

 

[Thinkaman]

Well, all serious formats will remain two-sided, to remain competitive rather than political.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

I never understood the issue with circle camping. Just ban it like planking. If you need a ref to judge a match, just pull someone aside.

I'm in favor of all new possibilities that 8p allows. 2v2v2v2, 3v3, 4v4, and any combination of human and trained amiibo.

It's not as simple as you make it out to be. Without precise ban criteria, the ref will just judge it based on feelings, which rarely turns out fairly. Exactly how would a ref enforce it? "Stop! You've circled enough. Turn and fight your pursuer, or you forfeit the match."

 

[Sleek Media]

Works in every major competitive sport. How is that not simple?

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

Works in every major competitive sport. How is that not simple?

Smash is not every major competitive sport. For one, those sports have multiple refs dedicated to monitoring every second of every match. Second, they are enforcing relatively concrete rules that, in our world, are typically enforced by the game engine. It's pretty clear that a football (soccer) player cannot touch the ball with his hands.

Seriously, try and tell me what the exact rule is. "No circle camping" is woefully inadequate.

 

[Cosmo!]

Absolute rules are much better than approximate rules, so circle camping is still a big issue. It is much easier to ban the stage if it is a problem than to try to enforce a vague rule

 

[Book Jacket]

Targetting the weak link is a very frail strategy to abuse. Smart players can protect and assist weaker players on their team. Thats the whole point of having partners, to work together. If 1 guy on your team is getting slaughtered, protect him. Read your opponent's intentions of going straight for him and catch them off guard.

Competitively speaking, good players team with good players, great players with great players and the bad are left to team with the bad. In a stock battle, teaming with someone terrible is still not going to work out for you because winning 2v1 is going to be very hard (and they still don't have to fight you since they have the lead).

4v4 is going to be a complete mess with TA on or off. Thats kind of the point. Anyone that wants more than 2v2 is probably looking for a bit of chaos. TA on and Off will have some strong abuses either way I'm sure. But I think a time match gives a chance for anyone to adapt and make a team effort to come back.

What even happens when you sharestock in 4v4? Who do you take the stock from?

I see your logic and all, but it isn't that simple.

Let's say you and a friend have a rock throwing contest. Your targets are bottles. Each bottle is one point, and most points wins. There's this really big bottle that's easy to hit, and this really small bottle that's harder to hit. They're both worth one point, and someone resets the bottles after every throw. The smart thing to do, then, is to just throw at the bigger bottle every time. It's easier to hit, after all.

But, if the goal is to hit both bottles, then you have to hit the smaller one at some point in order to win.

I know that's a really transparent metaphor here, and I don't expect that I'm making some big reveal by saying that 's why we do stock. In time, it's just too easy to just hit the weaker guy. I mean sure, he'll have a couple partners to help him, but he'll still get hit, and he can still be ganged up on for easy points. The other team doesn't even have to deal with actually fighting the rest of the team, they can just focus on getting around the better players to kill the weak link over and over. It would reduce good players to hurdles. In stock, you can only kill the weak one twice anyway, and your team has to fight the tougher players at some point.

And as far as TA goes, if you have it off, think of the projectile walling 4 Megamans could do. And if you ban duplicate characters, try to fathom a Megaman, a Samus, A Robin, and a Duck Hunt dog. They don't even have to be careful; Samus can fire missiles right through Megaman, Robin can throw out Thoron and Arcfire without a care in the world. Not pretty.

 

[Teshie U]

Thats a pretty poor analogy because it only takes into account offense. It would be more fair to say you and your friend each have to defend a large and small bottle I'd think.

The fact of the matter is that 4 guys trying to gang up on one guy are left somewhat open to his 3 friends. In a free for all, scoring points easily on incompetent players isn't very competitive, but exploiting a weak link in a teams match is no a bad thing. The same thing happens in stock battles.

Example: I'm fighting M2K and a 5 year old and they have 3 stocks each. Its still MUCH easier for me to take down the kid 3 times so that I can double team M2K, forcing him to fight 2 people alone or allow his partner to sharestock (meaning we only have to beat the better player twice and the weak link four times).

Which is exactly why great players rarely team with terrible players. Weak links matter regardless of the format. However in 4v4, time mode can make alot more sense simply because 1v4 and 2v4 is nearly impossible to accomplish and watching a full team adjust strategy to make a come back could be much more entertaining.

As for TA off, running 4 projectiles characters and spamming would be a terrible idea. All it would take is 1 palutena to send that hellstorm right back at you. Projectiles are much better used to cover the approach of rush down characters. Think of how assists work in marvel.

I think Villager/GnW could easily make 4v4 very unfun with TA on, but at least TA off might wind up being a refreshing change.

 

[Big O]

I'm not sure having such a projectile focused team with team attack set to off would really be that scary or effective. Having one or more reflectors/absorbers/GnW/Villager/Rosalina would largely invalidate the strength of such teams.

The real question is which happens to be less bad. The problems and abuse cases of team attack on vs the problems and abuse cases for team attack off.

 

[Teshie U]

Exactly right Big O. Its just two different metagames and in the end, if it becomes competitive enough, the best players will pick the most efficient strategies and many will say "wow that's lame".

Its just going to come down to majority rule and what level a exploitation we are willing to tolerate.

 

[Book Jacket]

Thats a pretty poor analogy because it only takes into account offense. It would be more fair to say you and your friend each have to defend a large and small bottle I'd think.

The fact of the matter is that 4 guys trying to gang up on one guy are left somewhat open to his 3 friends. In a free for all, scoring points easily on incompetent players isn't very competitive, but exploiting a weak link in a teams match is no a bad thing. The same thing happens in stock battles.

Example: I'm fighting M2K and a 5 year old and they have 3 stocks each. Its still MUCH easier for me to take down the kid 3 times so that I can double team M2K, forcing him to fight 2 people alone or allow his partner to sharestock (meaning we only have to beat the better player twice and the weak link four times).

Which is exactly why great players rarely team with terrible players. Weak links matter regardless of the format. However in 4v4, time mode can make alot more sense simply because 1v4 and 2v4 is nearly impossible to accomplish and watching a full team adjust strategy to make a come back could be much more entertaining.

As for TA off, running 4 projectiles characters and spamming would be a terrible idea. All it would take is 1 palutena to send that hellstorm right back at you. Projectiles are much better used to cover the approach of rush down characters. Think of how assists work in marvel.

I think Villager/GnW could easily make 4v4 very unfun with TA on, but at least TA off might wind up being a refreshing change.

My point is mostly just that you don't have to engage the better players in time. You can have a viable strategy by just attacking the worst player. In stock, you have to fight the better players. I mean yes, people will still gang up on the worse player, but at least in stock, you actually do have to fight the better ones.

And you're right, an all-projectile team wouldn't be great. I still think that TA should be on, however, because it not only means that it's up to the player to properly time and space their attacks (so that they don't hit their teammates), which I think is a good thing to encourage,but it also allows for more strategy. With TA off, kirby can't take his own team member's copy abilities, for example, and I always thought that was a pretty cool strategy.

Mostly I think that having team attack on makes teamwork more important. If it's off, each player can worry less about what their teammates are doing (I mean yeah, they still have to coordinate, but not quite as much), and I dunno, I just think having it on is more encouraging of smart cooperative play.

 

[Teshie U]

How are you going to avoid engaging the better players? They are going to come after you just like you are going after the weakest player on their team.

As long as we have a solid stagelist doesn't promote circle camping (still a problem in teams), you cannot just avoid anyone.

 

[Book Jacket]

How are you going to avoid engaging the better players? They are going to come after you just like you are going after the weakest player on their team.

As long as we have a solid stagelist doesn't promote circle camping (still a problem in teams), you cannot just avoid anyone.

Man, they can try to hit you all they want, you can still ignore them and hit the worse player. Even if they intercept you, there are ways around them. In this instance, we don't have someone who'll think, "alright, let's do this," we have someone who'll think "I'm just gonna go around you."

So if that's your plan, they come after you, you just go 'nah', and go back to hitting the little guy. I realize it won't always work, my point is just that it can work. And if it can work, people will do it.

 

[Teshie U]

It won't work. Good players don't just sit there waiting for someone to engage them. They make reads and if you are trying to go around them, they can and will stop you. This happens ALL the time in doubles when 1 person on a team is at high percents. The other team is hunting for him, but the other guy plays some defense on his behalf.

 

[Book Jacket]

It won't work. Good players don't just sit there waiting for someone to engage them. They make reads and if you are trying to go around them, they can and will stop you. This happens ALL the time in doubles when 1 person on a team is at high percents. The other team is hunting for him, but the other guy plays some defense on his behalf.

Yeah, good players make reads, but they can't always read every option. They mess up. Especially considering that theoretically here, they're fighting other good players. So you have somebody (let's say P1) trying to trap a player (let's say P2) trying to get away and hunt the little guy (let's say P3). P1 can read, but so can P2, and it's more difficult for P1 to keep P2 away from P3 than it is for P2 to get away from P1, especially when you consider the size of the stages these fights have to happen on. Even if it's just chip damage, it's easy for P2 to hit P3, and that means that eventually, P3's getting off'd. It's all well and good that P1 can pursue, but unless everyone who tries for this "Just hit the little guy" tactic plays Ganon, it won't put a solid stop to it.

And at what point does P2 become just a wild goose chase? If you need the good player to chase down someone and trap them just to prevent a gang-up, doesn't that in turn leave the weak player more open?

Bring in more players if you want; (evens are on one team, odds on the other for the purposes of this) If P1 can't stop P2 on his own, say P5 jumps in to help stop P1. Well great, now nobody's stopping P6 from attacking P3. And if both P4 and P6 are attacking P3, now it's prioritizing. Does the odd team go over and help P3? Or do they keep trying to keep P2 away? If one leaves to help P3, won't P2 be able to escape again? Even if they keep between P2 and P3, P2 will keep dragging the fight toward P3 to rack up chip damage and try for a kill, all while P4 and P6 are engaging P3. And what if P5 keeps on P6? Isn't P6 just going to do the same thing P2 has been doing?And all the while that P1 and P5 are trying to prevent a gang-up, isn't P3 fighting an uphill battle against P4? I mean, even if the better players, P1 and P5, do manage to keep P2 and P6, respectively, away, then P4 is free to fight the worse player alone anyway, and then all P2 and P6 have to do is keep P3 and P4 alone. In fact, maybe it shifts to keeping P1 and P5 away. Maybe now they're the one's trying to get to P3, but can they? Will it work? Because then the player they were keeping busy can go fight P3.

And then you have a match that centers around the worst player. And that will not be a fun match to play or to watch.

And if it works, if they manage to score points like that, won't it seem dull? Won't it seem cheap or boring that a team just tries to score kills by going after the weaker player?

All I really mean to say is that in time, and easy point becomes the focus. Of everything. If the easy point is the weakest player, the weakest player is the focus. If the easy point is camping, camping is the focus. Stock persuades players to interact more, and in more diverse and interesting ways.

 

[smashmachine]

if you seriously have a team member that is so much weaker than everyone else to the point where the other team can successfully win by solely going after them, then you deserve to lose

also in stock, you can do the same strategy of going after the weakest player anyway until their stocks are all gone

 

[Book Jacket]

if you seriously have a team member that is so much weaker than everyone else to the point where the other team can successfully win by solely going after them, then you deserve to lose

also in stock, you can do the same strategy of going after the weakest player anyway until their stocks are all gone

Yeah, but then you have to fight the rest of the team. That's the point I'm trying to make. At least in stock, you have to beat the whole team. No exceptions.

 

[smashmachine]

Yeah, but then you have to fight the rest of the team. That's the point I'm trying to make. At least in stock, you have to beat the whole team. No exceptions.

you think there is a scenario where a team can win in time but not stock, but the truth is if they are capable of pursuing the weak link of the opposing team by getting around its other members and their attempts to protect them, then they are also good enough to win a teamfight with a man advantage

 

[Book Jacket]

you think there is a scenario where a team can win in time but not stock, but the truth is if they are capable of pursuing the weak link of the opposing team by getting around its other members and their attempts to protect them, then they are also good enough to win a teamfight with a man advantage

It's not about whether or not they win, it's about how they do it. I personally don't want targeting the weak player to be the entire match. If it's part of it, sure, great, do that. Kill him and move on to the rest of the team, divide and conquer, whatever. That's like 2 minutes of the match, maybe? And then they go after the other players. Very nice.

I just don't want an entire 5 to 8 minutes of ganging up on the worse player. That is not divide and conquer. It is not varied, it is not interesting, it's just boring and sad. I just don't want that to occur. That's it. That's all I'm saying.

 

[Thinkaman]

If you and a decent friend played dabuz and a monkey, you would win 100% of Time matches and 0% of Stock matches.

This example still holds.

 

[Arturito_Burrito]

This example still holds.

This doesn't actually apply to me, and anyone who really knows how to play doubles well. I beat Esam+MVD at mlg dalls 2010, I'm sure I could beat dabuz and a monkey.

Talking about worthless teamates(moneky/weakest link) in a competitive setting doesn't really make sense. If a team doesn't have 4 strong players they do deserve to lose, that's not a team suited to the meta. It's such a waste of time though because what we are all interested in, is actual teams that will form with 4 strong players.

 

[Book Jacket]

This doesn't actually apply to me, and anyone who really knows how to play doubles well. I beat Esam+MVD at mlg dalls 2010, I'm sure I could beat dabuz and a monkey.

Talking about worthless teamates(moneky/weakest link) in a competitive setting doesn't really make sense. If a team doesn't have 4 strong players they do deserve to lose, that's not a team suited to the meta. It's such a waste of time though because what we are all interested in, is actual teams that will form with 4 strong players.

It's not about having an incredibly weak player, it's about not having a match that centers around a weaker player, which time no doubt encourages.

Think of timed free-for-alls: You play your friends, who are all good, and the last slice of pizza is on the line. If you want to score the most points, your gonna go after whichever one of your friends is worst more often than not. Maybe kill another player here or there, engage someone else for a couple seconds, but your main target is the worst one. It doesn't matter how small the skill gap is, if you can tell, he's the target.

Same would happen in teams if it were set to time. The match gravitates to the weakest player, because he'll be there for the entire match. In stock, you eliminate the weak one, but then he's gone. The match can't gravitate to him because he died.

We just don't want the weaker players (however big or small the skill gap is) to be the center of the match. That's not to say time is unplayable fairly, that's just to say there's some prevalent problems with it.

 

[popsofctown]

What's wrong with the match centering around the weaker player? Strategically targetting the weakest player is still playing smash brothers, it doesn't seem unfun.

If the weakest player is terrible at smash, then yeah it's always boring to play a landslide, but if he's slightly weaker than his teammate it's sstill interesting and fun to wail on him. While the other team wails on your weak link, which you're defending.

 

[Book Jacket]

What's wrong with the match centering around the weaker player? Strategically targetting the weakest player is still playing smash brothers, it doesn't seem unfun.

If the weakest player is terrible at smash, then yeah it's always boring to play a landslide, but if he's slightly weaker than his teammate it's sstill interesting and fun to wail on him. While the other team wails on your weak link, which you're defending.

I personally don't find it fun to watch. If most people do, then I guess there's no problem, but I was under the impression that the tactic seemed a little cheesy, or otherwise un-fun to watch. I personally want to see the good players engage each other, not chase the bad players.

Why watch two one-sided fights happening at the same time when you can watch a massive tactically diverse blowout?

 

[MajorMajora]

What I find interesting about 4v4 and 2v2v2v2, especially on these huge battlefields like GCO and Palutena's temple, is that people might form sort of "Bases" That they operate from. Each time has a section of the map and it's a sort of tactical battle to control space and get at people effectively. This is sort of why I would like to see big 8 player stock battles: These things seem to be best handled as a slow process, at least if it's competitive and in teams. Free for alls it's chaos.