A Fair Solution To Smash 4 Ruleset Issues

[LiteralGrill]

Thanks to some hard debate with VS | NickRiddle I think I have found a reasonable solution to our issues with Miigality, stage legality, and other similar things at major Smash events. Here we go:

Registration Ruleset Polls

I know polls have been heavily dismissed in the past but hear me out. It would begin with every PAYING person registered for an event taking a poll to decide the ruleset of the event. The people competing can choose what stages they want, if Miis should have all of their moves, the works. There may be a few things we CANT poll on (ex. 2 stock vs 3 stock: if a TO has time constraints/not enough setups) but for a large majority of things we all can't agree on consistently this could be the way to solve the argument. A simple majority rule.

Viewership Polls

Yes, people going to just WATCH an event are not AS invested in it as people going to the event. HOWEVER tournaments getting large viewership is important for our growth and is part of the reason we can pull in more sponsors so they do deserve at least SOME voice, but not an overwhelming amount that has made previous polls unfair. I would say have a separate poll for viewers where their results count as 10% of the entrants competing. This gives them SOME say but not enough to drastically change numbers if they are not already close.(ex. 100 people enter, their results count as 10 votes)

When We Decide That Is It: No Complaining

If Miis aren't legal but you wanted them to be? It's too bad, the people decided. Want those certain stages legal? If the people said no, the people decided. There's no more gray line, it becomes black and white.

This puts all players from newbies to pros who preregister for events and show they are invested in our scene on equal footing. If the majority rules, even at 51% to 49% we accept the results. We keep saying "this is what our community wants" well here's the time to prove if that's the case with cold hard evidence.

What If Uninformed People Vote? Is That Fair?

As much as I dislike this, they also have every right to vote. It is the responsibility of us Smashers to make sure people are informed on a wide range of ruleset topics so people can make their own decisions. If they aren't informed and vote anyways we didn't do our jobs.

Genesis 3

We have a PERFECT testing ground for this in an upcoming major: Genesis 3. Registration is not going yet and I bet the smart folks at Smash.gg could see this happen if the TOs approved. Other majors being planned can start following suit and even if we see different regions with slightly different rulesets that's okay: we know the event is catering to its Smashers which is super important.

So What Now?

If this idea sounds good to you share it with every TO you can find. Show these folks that we want the Smashers to all have a fair chance to decide our ruleset within reason and we are willing to accept the results whether we agree with them or not because it's the community itself decided what it wanted.

Your thoughts Smashboards?

 

[Ansou]

I both like and dislike this at the same time. I do feel that this might be necessary, but I know that at least a lot of people here in Sweden have not tested custom moves for example and would just vote no because of unfamiliarity... I also don't really like the idea of having to pre register for a tourney in another city only to discover once the votes are gathered that my main is banned from the tourney... But something along these lines might be necessary for the community as we are pretty much repeating arguments back and forth right now.

 

[Wintropy]

I'm hesitant about this system, but I will say it's better than ignoring the "problem" and pretending it goes away. Hey, it's better than just deeming it a "problem" but doing nothing about it.

My reservations stem from the fact that, if this is a community-wide project, the community-wide ethic will inevitably hold sway. We know that there's a sizable contingent of players that vehemently oppose customs and don't want them to be in tournaments, for example, so if the community can outright reject customs based on basic numbers, then the chances of convincing people to try it become even more remote. I know this can be vindicated with the theory that it's "the will of the people", but if the ruleset can be defined by which side has the democratic stranglehold, I wonder if it's going to demonstrate honest change.

That said, I'm willing to support this system just because - to be frank - I don't think the "minority" rulesets have any chance right now if it's based on pro and TO opinions. I'd rather a system where there's some chance, however distant, to create change based on vox pop opinion.

So yeah, I'd need to see it in effect before I can make a fair judgement on it. Even so, I think it's a good idea in theory and I'm okay with it.

 

[epicnights]

I'm on the fence about the idea. It's smart and reasonable, but the idea of something being banned outright in a 51:49 scenario is very worrisome. In addition, this certainly and be the end-all, be-all poll of the community, it would have to occur somewhat regularly in order to keep up with the evolving meta. Maybe a poll like this every 6 months? That way, if major opinions change, then the ruleset will change.

 

[Raijinken]

I wouldn't pay to gamble with my enjoyment of the tournament, personally. Can this system include entry and venue refunds for people who drop out pre-bracket-formation? If that were the case, I'd support this.

I'm on the fence about the idea. It's smart and reasonable, but the idea of something being banned outright in a 51:49 scenario is very worrisome. In addition, this certainly and be the end-all, be-all poll of the community, it would have to occur somewhat regularly in order to keep up with the evolving meta. Maybe a poll like this every 6 months? That way, if major opinions change, then the ruleset will change.

I, for some reason, had the feeling this was on a tournament-by-tournament basis. Especially if you set it to such a long timespan, the entrenching mindset of a familiar meta would sway a lot of opinions.

 

[⑨ball]

If nothing else I'd like to see this given a try. I think everyone's a little wary about a poll not going there way and having to deal with something they didn't expect/prepare for. If registration fees are refundable it'd lessen people's worry's but I can see lots of people dropping out after results which could discourage TOs from trying this.

My biggest concern with this system would be a division in some of the poll questions that might allow some 'awkward' results.
For example in the matter of stage legality, would it list each individual stage for voting? Divide it between FLS and something pre-established already SoCal's Starters/Counters? Or some inbetween only using the stages that we all agree are good and the ones that sit in a gray area like WuHu and Skyloft?

Similar issues arrive with Miigality in that as it stands their customs are tied to the customs issues as a whole. when it's been debated on whether they should be due to avoiding logistic issues and having different operation in the UI (their customs aren't affect by the custom fighters toggle). Dividing them would allow clearer ideas about how player feel about specific issues to the cause such as size customization, but could also spell some issues when opponents of miis vote creating results which might have a majority for customs but against miis or vice versa which seem pretty silly given their identical tournament functionality.

 

[Raijinken]

If nothing else I'd like to see this given a try. I think everyone's a little wary about a poll not going there way and having to deal with something they didn't expect/prepare for. If registration fees are refundable it'd lessen people's worry's but I can see lots of people dropping out after results which could discourage TOs from trying this.

My biggest concern with this system would be a division in some of the poll questions that might allow some 'awkward' results.
For example in the matter of stage legality, would it list each individual stage for voting? Divide it between FLS and something pre-established already SoCal's Starters/Counters? Or some inbetween only using the stages that we all agree are good and the ones that sit in a gray area like WuHu and Skyloft?

Similar issues arrive with Miigality in that as it stands their customs are tied to customs as a whole. Dividing them would allow clearer ideas about how player feel about specific issues to the cause such as size customization, but could also spell some issues when opponents of miis vote creating results which might have a majority for customs but against miis or vice versa which seem pretty silly given their identical tournament functionality.

It is almost certainly assumed that if Customs are legal, Miis are legal. I've yet to meet anyone who supports Customs but opposes Miis, though I've seen several who are the other way around.

 

[⑨ball]

It is almost certainly assumed that if Customs are legal, Miis are legal. I've yet to meet anyone who supports Customs but opposes Miis, though I've seen several who are the other way around.

This is because as I stated before as they stand now they are tied to the customs issue as a whole. However if given the opportunity to better their chances by restricting a comparatively smaller group, there's no competitively logical reason not to do so.

Let's say I play DH. I'm obviously a better character with customs so I vote pro. I don't have any issue with miis customs per say, but MiiLoverGirl86 has a terrifying Gunner. It's completely in my interest if I want to win to vote against mii customs so that in case I end up facing her, she has to use a neutered character while I'm fully decked out or better yet, she resigns because she doesn't want to play with a third of her character.

We'd probably see similar things if we put polls up for characters. Don't like Sheik? Vote against and better your chances.

Obviously not everyone in our community would think like this but given the option the possibility comes into existence.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

"I'm sorry Billy, but you can't use your main. Most of the players involved were just too scrubby and voted to ban it instead of adapting, learning the matchup, and other difficult things."

It is the responsibility of the TO to ensure that their event is run in a reasonable fashion. Ensuring that the ruleset is not set until signups are over is a bad idea, as we're clearly not done debating the legality of characters. What's more, I'd like to think that the average TO has less of a vested interest in keeping the ruleset as simplistic and non-threatening as possible than the average player and is also less of a scrub.

All in all, this idea is awful. Feel free to institute it wherever you want SoCal ruleset with no Miis or customs.

 

[Ansou]

"I'm sorry Billy, but you can't use your main. Most of the players involved were just too scrubby and voted to ban it instead of adapting, learning the matchup, and other difficult things."

It is the responsibility of the TO to ensure that their event is run in a reasonable fashion. Ensuring that the ruleset is not set until signups are over is a bad idea, as we're clearly not done debating the legality of characters. What's more, I'd like to think that the average TO has less of a vested interest in keeping the ruleset as simplistic and non-threatening as possible than the average player and is also less of a scrub.

All in all, this idea is awful. Feel free to institute it wherever you want SoCal ruleset with no Miis or customs.

While I do agree that this particular idea has pretty severe issues, we have to do something if we want to decide a unified ruleset. A problem with continuing as we are right now is that many TO's go with the ruleset that most attendees want regardless of if it's scrubby or not. Majority votes would obviously only strengthen that though if we would assume that most people just don't want new things.

I do have another idea that could work in the long run, but only if enough TOs would go with that idea (which I honestly doubt pretty strongly). The first step would be to craft two rulesets: one pretty conservative and one more liberal (13 stage FLSS and customs on). Let's then say that we put up a poll that every competitive Smash 4 player should fill in, similar to the ones that Oracle and SmashCapps made before. In that poll, there would be questions regarding stages and custom moves and such and for each question there would be another question asking how many tournaments the person has participated in that have/don't have that specific rule. This first poll would not decide anything but would just be for the statistics.

After the poll, we would have TOs all around the world host tournaments using both of the rulesets for six months or something like that. When that time has passed, we would make a new poll similar to the first one. This would be the poll that would actually decide on a global ruleset. However, only the votes of people that have participated in X tourneys with both rulesets would count.

The good things about this are that:

1. Everyone will have a say in what rules we should use.
2. This will make the world use a unified and global ruleset.
   
3. Everyone who is voting will have to know what they are talking about, as their votes will not count otherwise.

Some flaws with it:

1. Making every TO follow this idea and use a global ruleset is incredibly hard.
2. We will have to endure a ruleset split for another six months or so.
   
3. Even though people will be forced to have experience in what they are talking about, they might not use much logic when voting.

I'm sorry LiteralGrill for posting this in your thread, but I just wanted to get this idea out there and didn't want to make a new thread about it just yet.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

While I do agree that this particular idea has pretty severe issues, we have to do something if we want to decide a unified ruleset.

I have absolutely no interest in "unifying" myself with the SoCal ruleset. I have no interest in banning multiple characters for no reason beyond "This community is full of scrubs". At this point, what is the value in a unified ruleset? So that we can all be scrubs together?

 

[NegaNixx]

I have absolutely no interest in "unifying" myself with the SoCal ruleset. I have no interest in banning multiple characters for no reason beyond "This community is full of scrubs". At this point, what is the value in a unified ruleset? So that we can all be scrubs together?

The value of a unified ruleset is so that all regions of the world are on the sand page when it comes to Majors and we seem more professional in order to get into super majors. To be honest the whole community is Super Scrub Babies for Wii U and 3DS. We're already scrubs. We whine and moan nonsensically about random rulings and create rifts for each other. The main goal of a competitive community is to be showcased at Major events (Apexs and EVOs.) the world reaches far beyond the boards and your locals. And locals serve as the training ground for larger events. To be taken seriously there has to be a middle ground. And we've gotta stop being petty with each other (on both sides).

So yeah SoCal and Japan's ruleset is a bit too conservative and causes its own issues. I know you ran a tournament recently that had your more liberal ruleset + allowing Palutena with full customs. We should probably end up closer to the middle maybe even closer to yourside for a compromise. All this community has done is tear itself apart. At some point we've gotta become unified if we want to remain at these majors.

 

[Raijinken]

The value of a unified ruleset is so that all regions of the world are on the sand page when it comes to Majors and we seem more professional in order to get into super majors. To be honest the whole community is Super Scrub Babies for Wii U and 3DS. We're already scrubs. We whine and moan nonsensically about random rulings and create rifts for each other. The main goal of a competitive community is to be showcased at Major events (Apexs and EVOs.) the world reaches far beyond the boards and your locals. And locals serve as the training ground for larger events. To be taken seriously there has to be a middle ground. And we've gotta stop being petty with each other (on both sides).

So yeah SoCal and Japan's ruleset is a bit too conservative and causes its own issues. I know you ran a tournament recently that had your more liberal ruleset + allowing Palutena with full customs. We should probably end up closer to the middle maybe even closer to yourside for a compromise. All this community has done is tear itself apart. At some point we've gotta become unified if we want to remain at these majors.

Nobody is really interested in compromise, and most are fully willing to let (or make) the other side die instead of playing by their rules.

Honestly I'd sooner just take Japan's ruleset than our current "conservative" rules because it's probably more relevant to future balance patching, and if we're going to be conservative we may as well not be nitpicky about it like we are here.

 

[ToadsterOven]

Yeah no...I'm not going to support this "fair solution" as I know darn well Zero or whomever just has to once again speak out of line about how "jank" customs allegedly are despite having no valid proof of that and most everyone who votes on Sm4sh's "unified rule set" will just piggyback off of top sm4sh player's unwarranted and groundless opinions like the sheep they are without doing their own research.

Honestly I've been so...frustrated by the smash 4 community and it going with whatever the top players and TO's want instead of what the community actually wants.

I.e Zero says customs are dumb: Everyone agrees with him without question or call him out on his illogical anti customs bull****!

Seriously, why don't we just stop listening to people who want customs and miis banned and instead start including them in every event from here on out? Why don't we just tell the anti customs crowd that if they don't like it, oh well, they can jump off a cliff for all we care. Seriously, why don't we start harassing Zer0 and everyone against customs to start using them and tell them too bad, you're going to do it, or you'll be replaced by someone who will when they inevitably refuse to do what we tell them to? If it causes a divide? That's good. Purging the cancer that holds this community back will only benefit us in the long run.

Forget unity. We tried that with Melee and Brawl...didn't last long. We tried that with customs. We've still got uninformed players who don't want to y'know ADAPT to using them and instead listen to father zero who's full of **** about what he claims to know about smash 4 in general imo.

 

[wizrad]

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for democracy and all that. It's just that there are too many people who are uninformed and make stupid decisions, or who don't care and vote randomly or let their friends get multiple votes. I think we need to find a way to figure out objectively the most competitive way to play the game. sheik dittos on smashville

... Scandinavian socialism is pretty great though...

 

[Raijinken]

Don't get me wrong. I'm all for democracy and all that. It's just that there are too many people who are uninformed and make stupid decisions, or who don't care and vote randomly or let their friends get multiple votes. I think we need to find a way to figure out objectively the most competitive way to play the game. sheik dittos on smashville

... Scandinavian socialism is pretty great though...

This is exactly why I don't vote in real life.

In all seriousness, it's not reasonable to expect a purely objective competitive analysis for the game. That doesn't exist, or at least I don't think it does. There's an ideal balance, somewhere, between player enjoyment, logistical feasibility, and competitive validity. It's a matter of analyzing those three things objectively and finding a relevant mid-point. And we probably won't be able to do so for a very long time.

 

[chaos11011]

What If Uninformed People Vote? Is That Fair?

As much as I dislike this, they also have every right to vote. It is the responsibility of us Smashers to make sure people are informed on a wide range of ruleset topics so people can make their own decisions. If they aren't informed and vote anyways we didn't do our jobs.

Is it really "their own decision" if they're biased by pros who are avidly against customs because they don't want to relearn a new meta and sacrifice their relatively comfortable placings? I have a feeling a lot of the people who will be voting won't know the reasoning behind their votes beyond what a pro told them in a 3 minute video. I feel like the Youtubers have too much of a force behind them for this to be a fair vote. Their vote is essentially worth hundreds.

 

[teluoborg]

Voting is probably the second worst way to decide a ruleset right after rolling a dice. Just because many people share the same opinion doesn't mean they are right.
Moreover as chaos11011 said democracy will lead to lobbying with people trying to convince people to vote for the ruleset they prefer.

The best way to make a ruleset is for the TO to decide which rules reflect his view of competitive smash the best. Those views are subjective and will make some people upset, but as you said it "When We Decide That Is It: No Complaining". And it's been this way since the beginning actually : if you pay the entry fee for a tournament it means you agree with the ruleset.

If anything what smash 4 needs would be a backroom like Brawl had, that takes TOs and knowledgeable players from all around the world to discuss about stuff and publish some "ruleset recommendations".


Edit : after thinking about it for a while I believe rolling a dice is more fair to decide a ruleset than voting, because the outcome will be different for each tournament giving everyone the ruleset they prefer if only once.

 

[Ghostbone]

The Brawl backroom was awful lmao, I hope smash 4 never has anything close to that.

TOs and knowledgeable players can easily discuss rulesets in a open forum (reddit or twitter or something), where they're open to critique and people actually know what's going on.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Guys, the general consensus is that this wont work and has too many issues. So let's just let the thread die now yes?

 

[Ansou]

The Brawl backroom was awful lmao, I hope smash 4 never has anything close to that.

TOs and knowledgeable players can easily discuss rulesets in a open forum (reddit or twitter or something), where they're open to critique and people actually know what's going on.

I agree that a closed backroom is pretty bad for various reasons. Twitter though... It's very unorganized (it's hard to tell exactly where on Twitter the discussion is taking place) and the character limit isn't very good for discussion. Reddit might be good as well as Smashboards.

I really think that there needs to be a real central discussion going on about rules that is not so incredibly scattered. Every interested player and TO should know where the discussion is taking place and the discussion should have a concrete outcome. The arguments also have to be well documented and mapped out in order to prevent the echo chamber effect. Also, everyone who's discussing should have some real experience with what's being discussed and not just go by speculation. We have been discussing a lot of rules here on Smashboards, but it has both been an echo chamber with no real outcome and it feels like people don't care much about what has been said because "it's just Smashboards" or something... I have not been on Reddit at all, so I honestly don't know what has been going on over there.

The last thing that I heard @ChileZeRo say about customs (which I think is the most relevant topic right now) is that he just wants the drama to end and therefore wants people to stop bringing it up. I don't think that the "drama" can end until we as a community have done a well informed decision based on what's best for the game rather than personal bias, baseless speculation, assumptions and scattered opinions.

LiteralGrill while I don't think that this particular idea was that great, I really agree that we need one idea that we can work from to decide a ruleset rather than every TO having different ideas on how they decide on their rulesets. The community split is an issue and I really want a solution for it. Of course, that solution has to be a reasonable one and not necessarily the quickest way out.

 

[teluoborg]

Is there really a split of the community because of the ruleset ? I know there are some boycotts here and there but calling it a split is a bit of a stretch. Or maybe there are some precedents that I'm not aware of ?

The Brawl backroom was awful lmao, I hope smash 4 never has anything close to that.

TOs and knowledgeable players can easily discuss rulesets in a open forum (reddit or twitter or something), where they're open to critique and people actually know what's going on.

Say what you want about the backrooms, even with their bad points they got stuff done.
And lmao@ the twitter/reddit suggestion. Both are good sites to get news but neither are made to hold a long term discussion.

 

[Illuminose]

There's a key point that I think is being missed though (or maybe that's just my perception, idk). Most of the community has moved on as far as customs are concerned. They're not even a real consideration at this point, at least not in the eyes of the general public. There are no major community figures, TOs/top player w/e, pushing for customs legality. There isn't a majority of the community pushing for customs against a vocal minority. It's a vocal minority pushing to keep customs going. I would go so far as to say that customs are dead in the water. I don't think it's necessarily correct to say that there's this huge ruleset split in the community. Certainly there's discussions over topics like the stage list (the SoCal stage list appears to be the future though), the occasional 2 stock vs 3 stock (not a big deal on a large scale), and I guess Miis are kind of a big thing. But there isn't such a lack of public support for the current ruleset that has been employed at recent major tournaments as is being implicated

 

[Steelballray]

If you're opposed to this idea because of fear of people's "uninformed opinion" you really suck lmao. Basically in your eyes everyone who's against you is uninformed and that's just sad.

.. Not that I agree with this idea. Sounds like too much pain with not a lot to gain.

 

[Ansou]

Alright, maybe not so much a complete split, but there are so many different rulesets that it's hard to define what is even the meta. My local scene runs customs on every other tourneys because we think those are the best rules, but for the other tourneys we run customs off just so that people can be more prepared for other customs off tourneys. It's not exactly efficient if I can say so. And yes, people are uninformed and inexperienced. Not everyone that disagrees with me, but a lot of them are. They have even said themselves that they don't want to test certain things because of unfamiliarity.

 

[Horseketchup]

How exactly does japan handle miis? I know they allow customs, but are they restricted to standard weight too?

It seems like the main argument against allowing customs for mii's that i've been hearing lately is that its unfair, since they have the ability to choose multiple customs while other characters don't. I understand that to some extent, but I feel like there is a pretty easy way around this.

I could see a solution to this being that one is allowed to pick custom mii's, but doing so locks you into that XXXX combo for the entire tourney. So functionally, the only difference between mii's and other characters would be that one would have to learn the nuances of 8 extra specials for each character and how the more popular custom picks effect mu's. It's not like someone would be able to counterpick specials, or even be able to change up their customs if you face them multiple times in bracket. I'd say restrict it to medium weight mii's only and then you have solidified mii's in place (since changing the weight effects things like frame data and opens up the possibility for way too much variation)

The only "unfair" thing about doing it like this is the possibility that someone doesn't know how the different customs effect mu's, but that's not unfair at all that's just laziness on the player's part. Mii's would have no unfair advantage over any other character if it was set up like this, and the end result would be 3 characters going from bad and barely used to much, much more viable.