Attention BBR: Change the time out rule!!!

[~ Gheb ~]

Lately I've been talking to BBR members - namely Pierce7d and DMG - in the BBR chat. The main subject we were talking about was the time out rule, which I believe to be extremely unhealthy for the Brawl Metagame. At that time I wasn't able to put it in words too well mainly because English is not my mother tongue so I couldn't explain my thoughts so easily ad hoc.
Before a mod tries to close this thread - I've been trying to make my points in the official ruleset discussion already, where I was met with deaf ears. Please don't lock or move this thread.

---​

Here are the reasons why the current time out rules is bad:

It rewards certain aspects of the battle [and thus certain characters] more than others. The weight of a character is a major factor in the outcome of a match or even a whole set yet the time-out rule does not take this attribute into consideration at all. Weight, percent and knockback infliction are ultimately the three factors that make the game what it is: A game, where the primary aim is to knock the opponent over the death line of a stage.
Currently, the only facet of this trinity that the BBR rule covers is percent. As a result characters, whose main strength is to deal percent are given an unfair, unwarranted and arbitrary advantage.
A major consequence is the occurrence of stalling tactics such as planking or scrooging, which exploit the flaw of the current time-out rule - the tactics themselves are not broken; neither planking nor scrooging puts the user in a better position or allows him to safely deal damage. These tactics are only broken because the current rules allow them to. Because the factor of percent is the only one that is being taken into consideration in case of a time out, while the equally vital factors of knockback infliction and weight are not.

The other problem with the rule is that it's not even logical. How does it make sense to award the win of the whole match in its entirety to the player who has fulfilled the condition at only one specific time of the battle, which just randomly happens to be after 8 minutes because - well - the BBR has decided that it has to be so? The one moment after 8 minutes [for whatever reason they chose 8] does not represent the entirety of the whole fight but at the same time it decides the outcome of it? If you're already so close minded that you only take percent into account [which is still nonsense] then at least take the damage output of the whole match as the factor, not the one after 8 minutes.

As you see, the current rule is neither logical, nor does it give us a balanced way to handle time outs. I firmly believe that in a balanced ruleset, that takes all factors into account in case of a time-out, stalling tactics are ineffective [or much less so] and need no individual rules for each of them.

---​

Now I've been asked by Pierce to come up with a better idea - after some thinking, this looks like the best solution:

"In case of a time-out, the win will be awarded to the player with more stocks. If there's a tie in stocks the win goes to the player with less overall launch distance."

---​

Why is this a better idea? Because the lauch distance is the direct result of the three factors of percent, weight and knockback and it's the only measurable parameter [you can check it in the result screen after a battle] that takes all three factors into account. Additionally it adds the overall launch distance of the whole battle so it's not based on one particular, arbitrary moment but it considers everything that happened in battle, no matter if it's 8 minutes, 10 or 25.
Now a percent lead no longer is enough to guarantee a win for a time-out - with this rule there are other conditions you have to fulfill at the same time; Conditions, that are the same as the primary goal for the win.

This is not an attempt to alter the ruleset in order to arbitrarily re-balance the game; this is an attempt to remove a flawed rule that makes the game as unbalanced as it is right now and to replace it with a rule, that does not arbitrarily favor characters, attributes or tactics. Please try to support and promote this rule if you are interested in a healthy, non-broken Brawl metagame.

 

[Kewkky]

You're proposing a metagame-altering rule. Its effects will affect light characters in a negative way (they always get more launch distance than heavies because of their weight), same as campers since their damage-racking doesn't really launch opponents anyway (lasers, arrows, beams, boomerangs, pikmin, etc).

This doesn't solve planking either. MK hits you with any attack (preferable frametrapping something with a tornado), then as you pop out and add that launch distance to your total launch distance, he now goes to the ledge and starts to plank. Now you REALLY can't beat planking, except by hitting him with strong attacks/strong projectives, and those ones are limited to very few characters, not to mention that MK can avoid them!

The ground time rule was more effective than this, in my opinion... And still it was rejected for being too metagame-altering, between other reasons (this is mine though). If we want to apply a change this big, we'd have to have a supermajority want this rule implemented, and due to such a drastic change in the game, I don't think a supermajority will take it better than the ground time rule.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

You're proposing a metagame-altering rule.

I expected more from a BBR member and mod than such a blatant strawman. The whole purpose of the rule change is to change the meta-game.

Your "it doesn't solve planking" paragraph is nothing but hypothesis and full of assumptions. If MK is hit before that the whole concept you propose holds no water whatsoever. The current ruleset deals with it a lot worse either way because your own logic applies to it, except that it's unfair and illogic.

But of course I shouldn't expect a BBR member to see how wrong he is *smh*

 

[rPSIvysaur]

And your rule isn't also arbitrary how? I mean, so what if launch distance plays a "big role". If I'm going to time out a Snake with some that can't kill well (especially on ****ing Snake), How am I supposed to know what percent he has to be at? And how are you going to test "launch distance"?
It's generally a bad rule that arbitrarily buffs people that are hard to kill. (see how every rule is arbitrary and arbitrarily buffs some different characters (or arbitrarily nerfs some)

 

[~ Gheb ~]

And your rule isn't also arbitrary how?

The conditions for the time-out win and the "regular" win are the same with this rules - at least much more so than the current rule.

I mean, so what if launch distance plays a "big role". If I'm going to time out a Snake with some that can't kill well (especially on ****ing Snake), How am I supposed to know what percent he has to be at?

You know you can just ... beat him.

And how are you going to test "launch distance"?

It's in the result screen.

It's generally a bad rule that arbitrarily buffs people that are hard to kill.

Show me proof that this is even the case.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Here are the reasons why the current time out rules is bad:

It rewards certain aspects of the battle [and thus certain characters] more than others. The weight of a character is a major factor in the outcome of a match or even a whole set yet the time-out rule does not take this attribute into consideration at all. Weight, percent and knockback infliction are ultimately the three factors that make the game what it is: A game, where the primary aim is to knock the opponent over the death line of a stage.
Currently, the only facet of this trinity that the BBR rule covers is percent. As a result characters, whose main strength is to deal percent are given an unfair, unwarranted and arbitrary advantage.

I'll agree with the key point in this, specifically that the current BBR rule does give certain chars a very unfair advantage.

A major consequence is the occurrence of stalling tactics such as planking or scrooging, which exploit the flaw of the current time-out rule - the tactics themselves are not broken; neither planking nor scrooging puts the user in a better position or allows him to safely deal damage. These tactics are only broken because the current rules allow them to.

Actually, they'd be broken unless you have some sort of rule in place that when time runs out, both players lose... You need a timer no matter what in order to ensure that tournaments finish on time. Planking and scrooging will still be busted. Funny that you bring these up, because my originalist ruleset allows for not only them to be legal and not broken, but applies the same to literally every form of stalling; IDC, infinite chaingrabs (you have one stock and that's all), sonic homing stall...

Because the factor of percent is the only one that is being taken into consideration in case of a time out, while the equally vital factors of knockback infliction and weight are not.

Can't measure either. And while I also disagree with the current ruling, throwing in more things that matter for it seems like a step backwards... Especially because...

The other problem with the rule is that it's not even logical. How does it make sense to award the win of the whole match in its entirety to the player who has fulfilled the condition at only one specific time of the battle, which just randomly happens to be after 8 minutes because - well - the BBR has decided that it has to be so? The one moment after 8 minutes [for whatever reason they chose 8] does not represent the entirety of the whole fight but at the same time it decides the outcome of it? If you're already so close minded that you only take percent into account [which is still nonsense] then at least take the damage output of the whole match as the factor, not the one after 8 minutes.

Well you only need to have 0 stocks at one point in the match... It may not reflect how well you played over the entire match that well, but it does reflect that somehow he had a higher % than you at 8 minutes, where you knew that you would lose if that would happen.

Now I've been asked by Pierce to come up with a better idea - after some thinking, this looks like the best solution:

"In case of a time-out, the win will be awarded to the player with more stocks. If there's a tie in stocks the win goes to the player with less overall launch distance."

...we go from something we can measure while still in the game to something we can't. This is bad for some reason, I just can't quite put my finger on it.

The problem with this is the same as with % leads. According to the game, if a move did not kill you, the only reason its launch distance matters is because it might have put you in a bad position. According to the game, if a move did not kill you, the only reason its damage matters is because it makes you easier to kill. See what I mean? The game inherently rewards both dealing damage to your opponent and giving them launch distance, but not in this way, and we shouldn't shoehorn it into it.

I honestly don't know why we even need to break ties so much in the case of time-outs anyways. Why don't we go by the game's ruling? We've established that SSD is broken and created a replacement for it-a 1-stock rematch. But beyond that, do we need a tie-breaker in normal matches beyond what the game demands (stock lead)?

This is not an attempt to alter the ruleset in order to arbitrarily re-balance the game; this is an attempt to remove a flawed rule that makes the game as unbalanced as it is right now and to replace it with a rule, that does not arbitrarily favor characters, attributes or tactics. Please try to support and promote this rule if you are interested in a healthy, non-broken Brawl metagame.

Eh, I'm sure someone loves this. Couldn't quite say who, but there's gotta be some char who has great base knockback moves but trouble killing.

 

[Raziek]

You also can't measure launch distance DURING the game, that's kind of a big no-no right there.

I don't see how this is going to work, especially since (as already pointed out) your rule is STILL arbitrary AND it deals out un-needed nerfs to characters who rack damage with low or NO-knockback moves. (Like Falco or Game and Watch) It's also rather unfair to heavies (since living longer means they're much more likely to accumulate launch distance) and those who are easily susceptible to juggles.

Would it be fair for MK to juggle Falco for an entire stock, Falco racks damage with lasers, and say they both die, and they're both at 0, but MK still wins because he took way less knockback?

This is getting rather ridiculous.

 

[Browny]

The other problem with the rule is that it's not even logical. How does it make sense to award the win of the whole match in its entirety to the player who has fulfilled the condition at only one specific time of the battle, which just randomly happens to be after 8 minutes because - well - the BBR has decided that it has to be so? The one moment after 8 minutes [for whatever reason they chose 8] does not represent the entirety of the whole fight but at the same time it decides the outcome of it? If you're already so close minded that you only take percent into account [which is still nonsense] then at least take the damage output of the whole match as the factor, not the one after 8 minutes.

See; every sporting game which ends after a given timer ever. How about soccer, theres dozens of factors which influence the result, but the ONLY thing that matters is how many times the ball crossed the goal line. calling that unfair is basically the same as what youre doing here.

It took the 8 minutes of the match to GET to that point, so that argument is pretty weak :/

I agree with the rest though. A 'fighting game' where the player who wins is the one who avoided combat for the largest possible time just doesnt seem right to me. an argument of skill is separate. You can argue that it takes skill to only use rocket and grenade launchers in an FPS, but then youre no longer playing the same game with guns as intended :/ I got no suggesitons on a fix though, however improbable that may be.

 

[Raziek]

Developer intention is almost completely irrelevant, since we've sculpted a competitive game out of a game NOT meant to be competitive.

Sakurai INTENDED us to play on stages like 75m, Wario Ware, and Temple.

SHOULD WE?

Probably not.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

You also can't measure launch distance DURING the game, that's kind of a big no-no right there.

This is an empty statement unless you canback it up with logic. Why is it a no-no?

I don't see how this is going to work, especially since (as already pointed out) your rule is STILL arbitrary AND it deals out un-needed nerfs to characters who rack damage with low or NO-knockback moves. (Like Falco or Game and Watch) It's also rather unfair to heavies (since living longer means they're much more likely to accumulate launch distance) and those who are easily susceptible to juggles.

This is all quickly made assumption where you put no thought behind it. You have no evidence for this whatsoever.
The rule doesn't buff or nerf anybody - if a character is weak with these rules, he is weak in a scenario where time would be a non-issue too.

Essentially, this rule doesn't make a character weaker or stronger than if there's no time at all. If he can be juggled that easily he's bad anyway, unless he can compensate which will pay off with that rule.

Would it be fair for MK to juggle Falco for an entire stock, Falco racks damage with lasers, and say they both die, and they're both at 0, but MK still wins because he took way less knockback?

How would it be unfair? If the MK can rack up a whole stock with a single juggle then the Falco is doing it wrong / the MK is doing it right.

 

[Kewkky]

I expected more from a BBR member and mod than such a blatant strawman. The whole purpose of the rule change is to change the meta-game.

Your "it doesn't solve planking" paragraph is nothing but hypothesis and full of assumptions. If MK is hit before that the whole concept you propose holds no water whatsoever. The current ruleset deals with it a lot worse either way because your own logic applies to it, except that it's unfair and illogic.

But of course I shouldn't expect a BBR member to see how wrong he is *smh*

I see I can't reason with you. You have some bias towards BBR members, so I guess your rule will just have to have discussion with other non-BBR member. Good luck finding a way to persuade me, or any other BBR member, into taking the matter seriously, now.


At least put up some data, examples, videos, whatever, or a combination of all (the more, the better). Just throwing out ideas isn't gonna convince ANYBODY.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

I don't care about the BBR. I ask them to change the rules for their own sake. They are being laughed about by top level players and TOs ignore them. I think it's about time for you to wonder why you're such a joke. Stubbornly insisting on a garbage ruleset, which has been picked apart with simple logic many times is one of the reasons. If you think you're immune to the need of change you will also find the reason why you're an outdated, obsolete institution.

 

[rPSIvysaur]

Why the BBR hate dawg?

Honestly, I'm not sure who your trying to convince if you're putting this in tactical, but want it to not affect the BBR. This should go into tournament discussion then IMO.

 

[Kewkky]

I don't care about the BBR. I ask them to change the rules for their own sake. They are being laughed about by top level players and TOs ignore them. I think it's about time for you to wonder why you're such a joke.

And I care about people laughing at me... Why?


If you REALLY wanna make a difference, you should be putting up more effort. Have you ever considered that changing how things work from inside the BBR is more plausible than changing things from the outside? The policy that's been around since the first Back Room in SWF was created is still around: privacy. If you want to know what REALLY happens instead of blatant assumptions, make yourself look smart, apply, get accepted, and satisfy your needs. Maybe you'll be enlightened to something? Maybe it's just as you thought? Maybe we're much more organized and take scrutinizing to heart? You'd have to wait and find out.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Actually, I wouldn't mind this being moved to tournament discussion at all. It's probably better.

 

[Raziek]

This is an empty statement unless you canback it up with logic. Why is it a no-no?

When you are dealing with tactics that disrupt the whole of the match, AND YOU INTRODUCE A NEW WIN CONDITION, you NEED to be able to see if you are currently winning.

The player's tactics and choices will often depend on how far ahead or behind they are, specifically in situations where you need to gamble.

What you are suggesting is like playing a basketball game with no scoreboard and expecting the PLAYERS to remember how many points have been scored, while they're still playing.

I mean yeah, they could do it, but which such a vague quantifier as launch distance it'd be almost impossible to know if you were behind or ahead, or not.

This is all quickly made assumption where you put no thought behind it. You have no evidence for this whatsoever.
The rule doesn't buff or nerf anybody - if a character is weak with these rules, he is weak in a scenario where time would be a non-issue too.

No? Falco magically gets AWFUL at dealing with timeouts because of how much of his game is the laser.

You're also STILL IGNORING the fact that this completely skews balance with little or no backing to why.

Here's a hypothetical. I'm Marth, and I'm fighting Snake.

I juggle him for 90% of his stock (which is quite common), he catches me in a D-throw tech-chase that leads to an F-Smash read, for example.

We're both back at 0. He's taken CONSIDERABLY more launch distance than I have, so now I can just go to the ledge and time out, even though we're practically even.

Essentially, this rule doesn't make a character weaker or stronger than if there's no time at all. If he can be juggled that easily he's bad anyway, unless he can compensate which will pay off with that rule.

Juggling is but one way to kill someone. Takes no more skill than getting a Hard F-Smash read, and should not be ARBITRARILY rewarded as such.

How would it be unfair? If the MK can rack up a whole stock with a single juggle then the Falco is doing it wrong / the MK is doing it right.

See my above hypothetical. They're even in terms of conventional gameplay, but Falco is losing BADLY just because his playstyle is low-knockback.

 

[Flayl]

I don't care about the BBR. I ask them to change the rules for their own sake. They are being laughed about by top level players and TOs ignore them. I think it's about time for you to wonder why you're such a joke. Stubbornly insisting on a garbage ruleset, which has been picked apart with simple logic many times is one of the reasons. If you think you're immune to the need of change you will also find the reason why you're an outdated, obsolete institution.

haha u mad

anyway this rule change outright states that using projectiles and running time cannot be used to win a game

i don't think any fighter with projectiles ever forced the better camper to attack if the timer was almost over

 

[Laem]

Ban Meta Knight.

 

[Raziek]

Ban Meta Knight.

This guy gets it.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

Shut up, tonie lmao. Make good rules before you ban anything.

Flayl, I'm actually not mad at all. I'm just extremely blunt here.

Can we please move this thread to the tourney discussion? I'd rather talk to ppl who actually play this game / are good at it and agree that the BBR ruleset is trash than with BBR meatriders who never saw a tourney from the inside.

 

[PottyJokes]

just adapt the japanese ruleset and stagelist for the most balanced type of gameplay.

 

[Raziek]

Shut up, tonie lmao. Make good rules before you ban anything.

Flayl, I'm actually not mad at all. I'm just extremely blunt here.

Can we please move this thread to the tourney discussion? I'd rather talk to ppl who actually play this game / are good at it and agree that the BBR ruleset is trash than with BBR meatriders who never saw a tourney from the inside.

So you'd rather talk only with the select group that is more inclined to agree with you? Holy bias Batman.

Also, you still have un-addressed arguments.

Futhermore, I don't suck, I run tourneys, I place well, I agree that the BBR ruleset is GOOD.

 

[Dark 3nergy]

I expected more from a BBR member and mod than such a blatant strawman. The whole purpose of the rule change is to change the meta-game.

i actually expected just that actually

i read the whole thing gheb, and i whole heartily agree. I like the idea and where your going with this. Not because i main a character that benefits from it, but i can visualize the good it can do over the bad rule we have now

 

[Browny]

No comment on my sports comparison Gheb? :/

 

[Dark 3nergy]

i dont understand why you'd bring professional sports, something thats been rule refined for years and generations, into a game series that is only 14 years old? and also has constantly changing rule sets due to each game having some what similar character cast yet different game engine/physics/altered moves etc.

 

[ChaosDrifter]

I don't care about the BBR. I ask them to change the rules for their own sake. They are being laughed about by top level players and TOs ignore them. I think it's about time for you to wonder why you're such a joke. Stubbornly insisting on a garbage ruleset, which has been picked apart with simple logic many times is one of the reasons. If you think you're immune to the need of change you will also find the reason why you're an outdated, obsolete institution.

uhhhh... im the TO for my region and I don't ignore the BBR. Just because you don't agree with everything they say doesn't mean they don't have many good points. You seem to be the type of person who cannot be convinced that his opinion is not correct though.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

No comment on my sports comparison Gheb? :/

Sorry, I didn't see that you edited stuff into it.

"See; every sporting game which ends after a given timer ever. How about soccer, theres dozens of factors which influence the result, but the ONLY thing that matters is how many times the ball crossed the goal line. calling that unfair is basically the same as what youre doing here."

First of all, the comparision is invalid because a game of soccer usually gives you the option of a tie, whereas a game of smash does not. I mean, in theory it's possible to just end a time-out in Brawl as a draw and count it as a point for both players in a set [I'm not even particularly against such a rule come to think of it] but normally, the end of a smash game requires a winner, whereas soccer allows for draws.

That's a major difference: In Brawl you are either the winner or the loser but soccer [and many other sports] allow for draws, which adds a third possible outcome.

Additionally you have to consider this: Time is a basic factor of the soccer game. Soccer without a fixed timer doesn't make sense - Brawl in essence does; it's just that the timer is considered necessary in a tournament setting.
The aim of soccer is to score goals while receiving none within 90 mminutes.
The aim of Brawl is the take away alll stocks of your opponents.

The timer in Brawl and sports do not have the same purpose and a third option is given by the rules. You can not compare the two.

It took the 8 minutes of the match to GET to that point, so that argument is pretty weak :/

But why 8 minutes? Why is the % lead after 8 minutes more important than the one after 3 minutes? Just because the BBR recommends that a match takes this long?

Thanks DE :3

 

[Luxor]

8 minutes is arbitrary, it could be anything.

What if football (not the American kind, I'm trying to get used to European mannerisms)/soccer ties were decided by possession %? Would that be workable? No. It rewards players for avoiding risky goal shots (which is all of them) and just do the safe thing and run around passing the ball for 46 minutes. That's a degenerate game. True, the current Brawl timer system is equally degenerate in theory- hit once, plank, win. Does making the win condition launch distance fix anything? No. That's pretty obvious tbh. There exists no real way to force "aggressive" style play, short of offering some incentive to do so. The only one that comes to mind is items.

Not to mention that invalidating timeouts arbitrarily nerfs many characters. You're basically saying "your playstyle as a character is invalid n00b lrn2aggro." Timeouts should always, always, always remain as a viable option, but preferably with some discouragement. The usual deterrent from timeouts is honor; items on could also work.

 

[WindMajor]

---​

Here are the reasons why the current time out rules is bad:

It rewards certain aspects of the battle [and thus certain characters] more than others. The weight of a character is a major factor in the outcome of a match or even a whole set yet the time-out rule does not take this attribute into consideration at all. Weight, percent and knockback infliction are ultimately the three factors that make the game what it is: A game, where the primary aim is to knock the opponent over the death line of a stage.
Currently, the only facet of this trinity that the BBR rule covers is percent. As a result characters, whose main strength is to deal percent are given an unfair, unwarranted and arbitrary advantage.

Why is being able to deal a lot of percent an unfair and unwarranted advantage? It's an advantage, yes, but what's wrong with it?

Wouldn't you say that your rule favors getting two smash kills vs two gimps? What's so wrong with gimps that you would prefer to give more priority to smash kills for??

 

[Suspect]

Ask the T.O for the tourny, not some "well informed" group of people.

 

[AMKalmar]

@ Gheb, I've always felt the same way as you about deciding a match by % - the percent on its own just isn't a relevant factor. But I also disagree with your idea of deciding the match by overall launch distance.

Here are my thoughts:
The goal is to remove 3 stocks from your opponent. We add a time limit because of time constraints in tournaments. In the event that a match cannot be finished (the timer runs out), we should award the match to the player that would most likely win - to the player with the most stocks remaining. In the event that both players have the same amount of stocks remaining, the win should go to the player with greater potential to KO the opponent.

% on its own does not accurately represent KO potential because it does not consider the weight of the characters or the power of their KO moves. Snake @ 101% vs MK @ 100%, both on their last stock. Snake has a higher potential to KO MK, but the match would go to MK if it ended at that instant.

Overall launch distance is also not an accurate representation of a characters potential to be KOd. Consider a match where between player X and player Y. Y keeps hitting X with KO moves but X DIs well and manages to recover many times before being KOd. X sets up Y for a gimp and ledge hogs him for KOs. Both players lose 2 stocks by the end of the match. Overall, X was launched much further throughout the match, but this information alone is not enough to decide who has the greater potential to win. For all we know, X may have had a very comfortable advantage over Y when the timer ran out, but the game would go to Y.

So how do we determine who has the greater potential to KO the opponent at the last instant of the match? I've been trying to think of a way for months... I've decided that there is no way to decide this - there are too many variables. You would have to consider Damage%, weight, KO power of moves, the staleness of those moves, and the matchup as a whole. The matchup itself has the greatest effect on the outcome (assuming the players are of the same skill level) and it is also the most complicated variable to consider. How easy is it for player X to set up player Y for a KO move? Can player X gimp player Y and how easily? How great is the risk of player X misses a KO on player Y? How well can player X recover versus player Y? There are just too many things that affect X's potential to score that last KO on Y (and visa versa).

Something I thought of while writing this: Increase the timer (keep reading). In the event that the timer surpasses 8 minutes (or whatever time is decided upon) and both players have the same number of stocks remaining, the game goes into overtime and the next KO wins. Thoughts? I would really like to see this tested with characters that like to time out.

Upon rereading that... the overtime things would just be like no time limit at all. Almost. I don't know. I still want to hear what others have to say. It wouldn't be quite like a match with no time limit because if neither player scores a KO throughout the first 8 minutes, they would only have to score 1 KO, where in an unlimited match they would have to score 2 more afterwards.

 

[Raziek]

Something I thought of while writing this: What if we increase the timer (keep reading). Once the timer reaches 8 minutes (or whatever time is decided upon) the player with more stocks remaining is decided the winner. In the event that both players have the same amount of stocks remaining, the next KO wins. Thoughts? I would really like to see this tested with characters that like to time out.

This actually doesn't seem too bad. The problem I see is that the timer has to end at SOME point.

Otherwise, it turns into a battle of wills as to who is going to wait the longest before approaching, which doesn't solve anything.

So, what then happens when you hit this SECONDARY timer? (Since there has to be one, or people can wait it out indefinitely)

We're stuck in a vicious circle here.

Edit: Get Ninja'd Ripple.

 

[Ripple]

Something I thought of while writing this: What if we increase the timer (keep reading). Once the timer reaches 8 minutes (or whatever time is decided upon) the player with more stocks remaining is decided the winner. In the event that both players have the same amount of stocks remaining, the next KO wins. Thoughts? I would really like to see this tested with characters that like to time out.

it seems like a good idea at first but then what if, someone is LOSING or know he/she will lose. and lets just say its MK because he does cause a lot of timeouts.

I have so much incentive to plank, its not even funny. because next KO wins, he doesn't have to approach at all. EVER.

and then what? its another tie with MK only going to plank because he/she doesn't want to lose

 

[AMKalmar]

Well then we should just ban MK.

 

[Raziek]

Hey, guess what. That's actually a really practical solution.

Too bad people won't do it. (Except me)

 

[A2ZOMG]

I like the idea, but I believe it needs extensive testing to confirm how it exactly works.

Mainly my questions are, what conditions count as fulfilling the knockback distance requirement? How much distance do you get when a character collides with a surface, an obstacle, momentum cancels, hits the blastzone, etc? What about things like G&W's U-air and Mario's FLUDD? Honestly as long as you know what counts for distance, guestimating mid match who is winning isn't particularly hard.

 

[Raziek]

If you have to estimate (guesstimate is not a word, **** off), chances are it's a bad way of measuring a win condition.

 

[ph00tbag]

Player one is killed outright twice, but his opponent suicides once attempting one of the kills, and is gimped on the second stock. The last stock times out with player one having less percent, but because he inflicted less knockback, he loses.

Sure it's a hypothetical situation, but it could conceivably obtain, and in this situation, your rule is totally arbitrary, and counter to readily available evidence. And that's really the main problem there: counter to readily available evidence. It's already been said, but players have a right to know if they're winning in regards to all win conditions.

 

[~ Gheb ~]

ph00tbag, if he suicides he can't blame the rules for his loss.

 

[AMKalmar]

To me, neither the overall launch distance or the damage are good ways of determining the winner because neither of these show a player's potential to win.

Both of these rules force someone to approach. This is good because someone has to approach - we can't have matches where the two players just stand there. This is bad because it forces someone to approach - one player may have to take a risk that they wouldn't normally take, giving the other an unfair advantage. Both of these rules are bad however because the damage rule puts campers at an unfair advantage, and the launch distance rule puts campers at an unfair disadvantage.

The overtime rule may not actually fix anything... once the second time limit is reached, you would still have to decide the winner somehow. Still, I would like to see how this rule would play out.

ph00tbag, if he suicides he can't blame the rules for his loss.

See my post at the top of this page. I gave a better example.