A Proposition to Alleviate Time-outs

[Bones0]

If you increase the timer to fifteen minutes, I assure you I would camp like crazy every time I was down. There is absolutely no reason to approach when you have a seven minute buffer allowing you to hope for a mistake from your opponent.

As we've discussed before, increasing the duration of the match might only encourage camping from both players. Only if we are below the healthy medium should we increase time.

You keep posting this, but it never makes any sense. Why would you camp when you're losing? You gain nothing while your opponent gains the element of less time. You are just as likely to capitalize on a mistake they make in that 7 minutes as they are to capitalize on a mistake you make, and I would hardly consider it camping in the first place if either player is able to punish mistakes at all. That's just defensive spacing. Camping implies you have no intention of approaching at all, which is why it only benefits the player who is winning. I think it's also a mistake to assume that camping is even the superior position at all. I would say the large majority of players do worse when they are camping because in Melee that just means you are by the ledge and have less options.

 

[Kal]

Rather than say what I've said before, I'll link you to the thread where I explain this in depth. Read this thread, and particularly this post.

No, camping is not necessarily the best option. But the reason to camp is to try and bait a mistake out of your opponent, or to try and run out the clock. If you know you can run through a normal match in eight minutes, why would you approach if there were fifteen minutes on the clock? Better to wait seven minutes and hope the opponent makes a mistake, then continue, than to approach at the moment when there is no reason to. Camping doesn't need to be the best option. It just needs to be a viable one. The "element of less time" your opponent gains is unimportant because, as I said, there is a buffer where the time lost is no longer relevant.

 

[kevo]

1 stock, 1 minute, best of 7

I assume you're joking, but these are actually pretty fun. With defensive or campy play, it turns the entire set into a pensive clash of wits. Too bad it only makes sense in these extreme cases, though.

 

[Kal]

That would be a pretty amusing side event. At least until two matches have been played out.

 

[Habefiet]

It can be our version of All Brawl. We'll call it Really Melee, or some other terrible terrible rhyme.

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

I've always wondered how a 3-4 minute 4 stock tournament would look like.

I'd bet play would be a lot more aggressive in most matchups. A lead would actually force the other player to approach.

I suppose people don't like timeout wins though, and seeing a Fox/Falco game go to time would piss people off, even if a new layer of strategy would be added because of the constant timer pressure.

 

[Kal]

The lower you set the time (under the balance point), the more powerful timing the opponent out becomes. My guess is that four minutes would be short enough to make timing out a very viable tactic. I do wonder if six minutes would have the same problem.

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

So...why exactly is that a problem?

 

[Kal]

We don't want to make the game degenerate to the point where timing the opponent out becomes too powerful. When I said "very viable," I should have said "too powerful." There's obviously nothing wrong with a tactic being viable. But, if the metagame were to become centered around successfully timing the opponent out, we would probably agree on increasing the duration of matches.

 

[Metal Reeper]

The timer should just not exist. I think this will lead to shorter matches since there is no clock to worry about.
Or maybe we come have some special rule for floaties....like puff vs peach and puff vs Ylink the timer is to 6 minutes or something along those lines.
Just tossin the ball around.
EDIT: Or maybe we could have 8 minutes a match....but the players cant see the clock? IDK how this would work exactly lol.

 

[Jonas]

You want an official to time each match with a stopwatch?

As for completely abolishing the time limit.... it's just a bad idea. The point of it is to stop matches from lasting forever. Most matches wouldn't, but then you get extreme cases like Armada vs Hbox, where they both had two stocks left at the end of a game. And no, it's not because they both tried to time each other out, but rather a direct result of Armada's YL camping matching up with Hbox playing patiently in order to avoid getting with projectiles.

In most cases though, I believe the timer acts as a deterrent from building a strategy solely on keep-away game, at least until a certain point. It sounds ironic, but my thesis is that the existence of the timer tells the players that they have a deadline, and they need to get the match done before that. As said, until a certain point, where this psyochological effect wears off because the time limit transforms from a deadline into a goal line.
I don't know if anyone else experiences the time limit in this fashion, but if you do, you can see why it shouldn't necessarily be shortened.

 

[Anth0ny]

4 stock 8 minutes *

*when hbox and Armada play, timer is changed to 4 minutes

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

We don't want to make the game degenerate to the point where timing the opponent out becomes too powerful. When I said "very viable," I should have said "too powerful." There's obviously nothing wrong with a tactic being viable. But, if the metagame were to become centered around successfully timing the opponent out, we would probably agree on increasing the duration of matches.

Why do you think timing people out is degenerate gameplay? It is my understanding that time-outs are lame because they take 8 minutes to do and are thus very boring. A 4 minute time-out with each player constantly fishing for hits as the lead swings back and forth? Seems interesting.

I'm not sure if a lowered timer is good or bad, but I'd definitely like to try it.

 

[Citizen Snips]

Time outs have so far been a significant issue with matches involving Peaches and Puffs primarily.

I propose we ban those characters.

KK for pres

 

[Beat!]

@Blur

He didn't say timing people out is degenerate gameplay. He said that if timing people out became too powerful, the game would become degenerate. I imagine he'd say the same about just about any strategy becoming too powerful.

 

[Bing]

Lets just not **** with the system... it works, we got the odd timeout, not like it brawl when people enter with the idea to timeout the other person. -_-

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

@Blur

He didn't say timing people out is degenerate gameplay. He said that if timing people out became too powerful, the game would become degenerate. I imagine he'd say the same about just about any strategy becoming too powerful.

Right. I probably should have read that better lol.

But I don't think a 4 minute timer would degenerate gameplay much at all though, in fact I'm rather confident we'd see people become much more aggressive. The way things work now, people play as if there is basically no timer (except for Armada/Hbox); they simply go for strategies that will net them kills/damage as much as possible. So if your optimal way to net damage is to camp your *** off and wait until your opponent loses patience, then thats what a lot of players will choose. The opposite is true as well; if you win best by being super aggressive thats what you will choose as well.

With an ever-present but unobtrusive timer, whoever is behind HAS to approach. Therefore, more well-rounded players will win; players who can approach when they are down, and players who can defend their lead. I don't think you'd see very many one-dimensional players (purely offensive or purely defensive) winning anymore...

This is all theory though, and I think our current metagame is on the whole pretty ****ing awesome, but a lowered timer (and bo5 standard!) tournament would definitely be a super interesting experiment.

 

[Bones0]

I doubt different types of players would start winning. The results would just be more random. Players would only play the first stock or two properly, and past that point whoever is losing is forced to resort to high risk, high reward strategies like a Jiggs going for rests because they are down 3 stocks.

 

[Kal]

Crimson, I don't know if a four minute timer would cause gameplay to degenerate. It would require serious, long-term testing, which I don't think is ever going to happen. Saying that a four minute timer would result in timing out becoming too powerful is just speculation. There is, in my opinion, a balance point (which probably changes from matchup to matchup), which I've written about in other posts. I think that the balance point is probably in the 6-10 minute range. Again, this is all speculation.

If you read this thread, I elaborate on the issue a bit.

 

[Citizen Snips]

The way I see it, matches should be timed so that there is ample time to conclude a match for the slowest matchup when no camping occurs. I would say that the average spacies/falcon/pikachu/fast character matchups last around 3 minutes. To give a minute leeway for the fastest characters is ridiculous, even more so when you take floaties and slow characters into account.

When you get to four minutes, the issue isn't camping anymore. It's whether or not anyone is going to be able to actually finish the match.

An argument for 7 minutes I could understand. 4? Out of the question.

EDIT: Also, I don't think people understand that HBox doesn't play to time out, and neither did Armada. Hell, the last case of timeout I saw that was obviously intentional was PinkShinobi (Rockcrock didn't deserve that. Hella gay). Hbox and Armada just played patiently. Shortening a timer or reducing stocks won't change the way HBox plays or the way Armada counters him, it'll just piss off people who legitimately need that time to finish their matches.

 

[stelzig]

Pretty sure armada once said he actually wanted to time hbox out. Don't know if he still wanted to do that at apex though

 

[SSBMLahti]

Another no.

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

The way I see it, matches should be timed so that there is ample time to conclude a match for the slowest matchup when no camping occurs. I would say that the average spacies/falcon/pikachu/fast character matchups last around 3 minutes. To give a minute leeway for the fastest characters is ridiculous, even more so when you take floaties and slow characters into account.

When you get to four minutes, the issue isn't camping anymore. It's whether or not anyone is going to be able to actually finish the match.

An argument for 7 minutes I could understand. 4? Out of the question.

EDIT: Also, I don't think people understand that HBox doesn't play to time out, and neither did Armada. Hell, the last case of timeout I saw that was obviously intentional was PinkShinobi (Rockcrock didn't deserve that. Hella gay). Hbox and Armada just played patiently. Shortening a timer or reducing stocks won't change the way HBox plays or the way Armada counters him, it'll just piss off people who legitimately need that time to finish their matches.

Dude the average spacie match is like...a little over 2 minutes...what campy/untechnical spacies are you playing against lol. 4 minutes is like double that. I'd say the majority of matchups are in the 3-3.5 minute range, and the super floaty minority are 5 or so minutes.

Personally, I think 4 minutes is plenty of time to take back a deficit. Time running out IS concluding the match, not just losing stocks. You have to remember the goal of a impactful timer is to encourage action. Plus, the benefit is that is bo5s become even more attractive. I think a bo5 with a shorter timer would be more entertaining than a bo3 with a long timer, especially in MUs where the lead is so big that the game is basically decided within the first few minutes.

 

[The Tycon]

Guys, we need to totally have a Unity Ruleset Committee.

All we need to do is take a group of tons(10-16) of people who play/heard of the game/ have a heartbeat hate something and hold a poll(Including only the haters) and when you guys win the majority, that thing will be banned.

Worked for Brawl

 

[Kal]

It also worked for Melee. It's called the Melee Back Room, and we have six stages left.

 

[Metal Reeper]

Ban FoD already. I don't even main Falcon and I think it should be banned.

 

[Bones0]

It also worked for Melee. It's called the Melee Back Room, and we have six stages left.

The six stages that the community has been practicing on almost exclusively since before the MLG days... hmmmm...

Ban FoD already. I don't even main Falcon and I think it should be banned.

cuz u suk!

 

[Metal Reeper]

The six stages that the community has been practicing on almost exclusively since before the MLG days... hmmmm...



cuz u suk!

**** YOU BONES! are you ****ing serious? Id ****ing own your scrubby Falco. 35$MM NOW.

Psyche. Im your biggest fan.

 

[♡ⓛⓞⓥⓔ♡]

What is the reasoning behind 7 minute timer in today's ruleset? Why not 5? Just curious

 

[Bones0]

**** YOU BONES! are you ****ing serious? Id ****ing own your scrubby Falco. 35$MM NOW.

Psyche. Im your biggest fan.

You're welcome to drive 2 hours, 14 minutes out into the middle of nowhere to play me. If you win, you may just break even in gas money. ;D

Oh, btw, it'd be a best of 97, FoD only.

What is the reasoning behind 7 minute timer in today's ruleset? Why not 5? Just curious

For the longest time 8 has been used. If I remember correctly, the first notable tournament to switch it to 7 was Pound 5, and I believe that was either an arbitrary decision, or it was done to prevent matches from holding up the tournament (a myth that has largely been dispelled; I'd like to think most TOs now realize that match length RARELY causes issues). The reason why 5 ISN'T used is because that simply isn't enough time to finish 4-stock matches. Why WOULD 5 be used, other than the fact that it is a multiple of 5 which makes our brains just all warm and fuzzy inside because it's a multiple of 10?

 

[Calzum!]

no
100000 nos

 

[Kal]

The six stages that the community has been practicing on almost exclusively since before the MLG days... hmmmm...

This somehow changes the fact that they ban **** because they dislike it?

And the reason eight has been used in the past, if I remember correctly, is to allot one minute per stock. However, some people observe that once seven stocks have been lost, the match is over, and allot one minute per stock up to seven (i.e., they set the timer to seven minutes). Today, it's mostly a matter of convention and logistics.

Novice probably suggested five minutes because he's noticed that most matches take less than four.

 

[Citizen Snips]

I just want to say that I was reading this after reading Cactuar's thing, and the last page of posts is just great. Good job everyone.

 

[Kal]

Wait, what? All of the posts in this thread are objectively bad.

 

[Citizen Snips]

wait, what? All of the posts in this thread are objectively bad.

Shut up kal you're objectively bad

 

[Kal]

not nice

 

[Bones0]

ur mom

 

[Citizen Snips]

I see this discussion has developed well.

 

[Kal]

ur mom

this times a million billion

 

[Smelly Cat]

i just want to say that i was reading this after reading cactuar's thing

O______________________________________________o



o______________________________________________O



-_______________________________________________-