Meta Australian Smash 4 General Ruleset Discussion

[Dre89]

I reserve the right to respond to insults or taunts with one liners or jokes. I think this is pretty logical. Responding to these posts seriously is a waste of time and energy, and won't lead to any resolution.

Other short posts I post are normally because I'm posting from my phone, and typing on phones is terrible.

As stated earlier, the ruleset trial was not my decision, but a consensus reached by a group of ten people. That's how we are doing things. A group of Melbournians decided to have a ruleset discussion outside of this thread because this thread has be diagnosed with cancer. Nothing constructive has been achieved here, and I can't see this thread becoming fruitful anytime soon.

On the flip side, too many of your posts are text walls about Little Mac. Real Talk.

What would be your response to this post-

Just wanna chime in and say that you're not making a competitive game from scratch, you're adapting a pre-existing game to a competitive setting. The difference is that with the latter, anything that is already in the game and is competitive by default should be legal.

By default customs should be legal until proven non-competitive. I can't really think of any customs that really break the game. I also can't see how the option to customise four moves somehow degenerates this game into non-competitiveness.

 

[Lex__]

Please dont use red text its annoying to read.

Im excited to see custom moves on a global scale, and see how people adapt and which ones a best in slot.

 

[Attila_]

What would be your response to this post-

I think the logic is pretty flawed. Nothing in the game is competitive by default; it is up to us to determine the competitive nature of aspects of the game and act accordingly.

And to this end, not everything in the game needs to be tested in order to determine it's competitive-ness. We never tested items, equipment, or most stages because he determined that they already existed way outside the competitive spectrum.

Customs are hard because there are a number of customs that don't really change the game that much. But there are other customs that seriously dampen the competitive nature of smash and create situations where a simple tactic requires SIGNIFICANT time investment and precision to overcome. This leads to unavoidable situations where the better player may often lose, which is the essence of anti-competitiveness.

I suppose I speak from experience when I say banning things is hard; I sat through the brawl MK ban saga and was actively involved in international ruleset discussions. Banning things is really, really hard. We couldn't even ban MK in the whole of the brawl era; we also had brinstar and rainbow ride for years because the wider community refused to accept how much they skewed matchups (normally in MK's favor). It took years to come close to iron these things out; how successful do you think banning individual custom moves would be?

It's too hard a process. And the loss from dumb customs isn't worth the gain of added movesets.

If you prefer an incredibly campy ruleset focussed on abusing a few extra moves over a ruleset that favors diddy/sheik, that's your call. But I feel, and the wider Melbourne community feel that learning a few mus is a much better compromise.

 

[Leisha]

 

[Pazx]

@ Attila_

Why are you looking it as a case of customs vs Diddy and Sheik? The fact that customs improve most characters significantly more than they improve Diddy is nice but it's not the primary reason for them to be used. Your experience when it comes to banning things in the past is valid but it is only relevant to the current discussion once you outline which custom moves in particular are "incredibly campy" or "seriously dampen the competitive nature of smash and create situations where a simple tactic requires SIGNIFICANT time investment and precision to overcome. This leads to unavoidable situations where the better player may often lose, which is the essence of anti-competitiveness." While you're at it, reasoning for the KJ64 ban would be top notch.

Less important but if you disliked the stage list pandering to MK in Brawl why would you make the stage list favour Diddy so strongly by removing Skyloft and KJ64 (potentially the worst 2 Diddy stages in many matchups) and adding T&C to starters? From what I've gathered you probably don't like Siege, another bad stage for Diddy, and you'd like to see it removed. Be consistent, all of these stages are competitively viable, more so than RC ever was, and they do not give the best character a significant advantage through virtue of the stage list alone.

Edit: On the topic of banning individual customs, you have to remember that in Brawl we couldn't simply turn off some of Meta Knight's better attributes and thus the only solution was banning the character. In this game, it is far easier both to say and to enforce a rule like "You cannot use X special move" and still allow the character to be played with a full moveset. I personally don't support banning any custom moves as of yet as they need to be proven to be anti-competitive, but if it turns out some are completely obnoxious it wouldn't be as hard as you think to individually ban them.

 

[Venks]

I reserve the right to respond to insults or taunts with one liners or jokes. I think this is pretty logical. Responding to these posts seriously is a waste of time and energy, and won't lead to any resolution.

Other short posts I post are normally because I'm posting from my phone, and typing on phones is terrible.

As stated earlier, the ruleset trial was not my decision, but a consensus reached by a group of ten people. That's how we are doing things. A group of Melbournians decided to have a ruleset discussion outside of this thread because this thread has be diagnosed with cancer. Nothing constructive has been achieved here, and I can't see this thread becoming fruitful anytime soon.

On the flip side, too many of your posts are text walls about Little Mac. Real Talk.

So what's the purpose of discussing things considering Melbourne if 10 guys are just gonna do what they want? Though I definitely agree that nothing here is being accomplished. We're all sharing our reasoning and thoughts on what we think the ruleset should be, but we just disagree with each other. The best thing ever to come from this thread was the custom and non-custom tournaments which went to show that everyone was placing around the same spots regardless of customs.

The largest wall I've ever posted was about Villager, customs moves competitively, the concept of zoning, and comparisons to Street Fighter. That wall was completely ignored. I'm pretty sure I'm the one who wastes the most time and energy in this thread going by word count.

 

[Shaya]

Rather than looking to problems that may occur in the future, shouldn't the ruleset be reflective of the problems which have actually occurred?

The better player losing argument isn't really sound. Results seem pretty consistent within custom rulesets and not. I'm going by that single instance of there being the two at one event in Melbourne plus New York/East Coast being the centre of customs with 3 big hosts running frequent large tournaments.
Simple tactics requiring significant time and effort to overcome is normal too, I'm not sure I understand the cherry picking. I'm still trying to contemplate how anyone is meant to beat Diddy's forward air in this game, the significant amount of effort I've put into trying to be precise enough to actually punish a move that' s practically Brawl MK's glide attack with 6 frames start up has been pretty much fruitless and I know it'll continue to be fruitless just by the sheer ******** numbers associated with it. I'll still be trying to overcome it, with my amazing crouching power shield shield shuffle forward jab (hope that your jab is 2 frames or faster and hits low to the ground otherwise it's still a BIG FAT NOPE for an otherwise 4-6% punish for 95% of the cast); but I can tell you now that the better player can do everything under the sun to deal with that move and they will STILL LOSE. I personally don't want to deal with more diddy forward airs or comparative custom specials, but that's just the biased player in me who wants to continue only having to work on beating Diddy's fair whilst ignoring everything else in the game because nothing else is that good to worry about; why would I want to increase my tournament worries when the majority of my current experience is without customs and I'm confident in dealing with this current meta?

Hyperishbole, but I'm pretty serious. The player in me (and nearly everyone else) wants the easiest workload. The logical and sometimes rational rule maker of the past 6 years tells me there is no valid excuse to not run them until I can truly see a reason to not do so (and even then I'd rather ban individual ones). I'm fine with both because I'm liking the game enough with what I'm playing right now - can't wait to get extremely upset by Donkey Kong spamming down b or up-b when I get back.

 

[Baron Omega]

Where is the love guys...why is there no love

 

[Splice]

@ Shaya I can relate to your perspective in the last post. One thing we (Vic) also have to deal with when it comes to putting customs in or not is to see whether or not our community is prepared to tolerate it or prefer it. It's not just in the long run we want to cater for but we want to keep people interested in the here or now. After changing a few of my views I think that it's a possibility to ban certain customs, although you know that's gonna create more room for endless debates... do we ban a move if it creates 99:1 MU's? what about if it seems like a 98:2? Anyway personally I wouldn't mind trialling customs but it's not up to me alone and I don't have the volition to run tournaments

In the end Attila's previous post stands as pretty good justification against what you've suggested, both work though.

I'm pretty keen for EVO to have customs.
That will force good players in the US to work hard and develop meta and we can see what customs looks like at a higher level. The spotlight will be on customs, and we'll be that much better equipped to make decisions.

 

[Attila_]

I'll make a longer response after work tonight, but for now:

Guys who support customs: are there any customs you think should be banned from the beginning? Are there others that warrant trial?

 

[Pazx]

The more people play with customs the less inclined they are to ban any. Coming from your perspective, the "suspect" customs would likely be Kong Cyclone and Timber Counter. Venks, who clearly is more experienced with custom moves than most of the Melb scene, has already outlined the former's weaknesses and after playing with and against the latter I'm not convinced it warrants being banned.

3 hours later edit: Can we talk about Miis? The way I see it we have a few options

A) 1111, 2222 and 3333 only, guest miis (default height/weight) only
B) Any moveset, guest miis only
C) Any moveset, height and weight must fit into one of 3 categories (tall, middle, short, heavy, middle, light)
D) Any moveset, any height and weight (complete freedom)
E) Be Attila and ban everything we're scared of

Obviously there are a few other options (any height/weight 1111/2222/3333 only [which would improve the character drastically but is kinda... odd], recommended movesets only) but these are the only ones worth exploring in my opinion.

As far as protocol: players should be required to tell their opponent the weight/height and specials they are using before each match (Sorry Luke, I'll do it if you ask).

 

[Splice]

E) Be Attila and ban everything we're scared of

Hey there! I'd like to take your post more seriously but I have a hard time when you undermine your own inquisition by trying to take an opportunity to insult someone for their stance. Not everyone is going to have the same opinion as you, but using them as targets of ridicule benefits no-one, and hinders any progress you are trying to make.

I think that mii customs should be allowed if customs are allowed, but if they aren't then I don't think the customs should be allowed. Mii Brawler for example is quite good and does not need customisations, the fact that they are already unlocked is unimportant; I also think that if we're going to use customs, we need to get past the "recommended movesets" only because that is an effort in getting around the logistics of unlocking customs but there is less room for freedom and innovation and eventually it should be done away with once we have setups with all the customs.
I think the height/weight should be default, it's pretty unique thing so I don't know how to treat it. Only 3 characters have this extra option out of the game, it gives players a strange way to adjust their character in some MU's. I'm not actively against having full freedom of weights and heights I guess but I am concerned that short brawler is quite potent

 

[Venks]

E) Be Attila and ban everything we're scared of

I definitely don't agree with everything Attila says, but that doesn't mean I don't respect him as a great member of the community and an amazing TO. Comments like this need to be left out so that we can focus on constructive discussion.

That said I don't think Mii size/weight is really something that needs to be regulated. Last I checked there was only one person in the Melbourne community that uses Miis. In the long run I'd say just go with default size if it really is an issue. I'm not quite sure how many loadouts a Wii U can hold for Miis, but the differences between Mii types, customs, and sizes would call for a lot of slots.

 

[Gords]

I'll make a longer response after work tonight, but for now:

Guys who support customs: are there any customs you think should be banned from the beginning? Are there others that warrant trial?

I havent seen or heard any customs that justify a ban from the beginning, and the only customs I could think of that would come close to warrant a trial from community discussions may be Mii brawlers piston punch, DKs kong cylone and Villager"s timber counter.
from my limited experience against them and from discussion:
Brawlers Piston Punch seems very situational to be effective and arguement exists for it not to be his best alternative.
and DKs kong cylone seems to be a less effective, more punishable Brawl MK tornado.
both of which are less effective than diddys hoo-hahs or shieks F-air strings>bouncing fish imo
As for Timber counter, i believe this move is heavily overated. The trip sapling is basically a static banana peel that has a timer rather than a tripper count and should be treated as such. The purpose of the sapling is to control space mainly which imo the Counter tree does just as good, if not better. for those of you who dont know the tree counters when attacked but has less damage and knockback on growth and chop down. Imo the Counter tree is the best part of this move, it controls more space more effectively (esp. with villagers F&B-airs), can be used as a shield against many projectiles, ok for edgegaurding and gives me another weapon in the axe. Villager"s Extreme Balloon Trip (commonly referred to as exploding balloons) is probably the best custom villager has (possibly any character) and is definitely the best recovery in the game imo. Not only can villager still recover from anywhere on scren but he can cover himself more effectively against edgeguarders as well as allow a lot safer ledge regrabs.

Can we talk about Miis? The way I see it we have a few options

A) 1111, 2222 and 3333 only, guest miis (default height/weight) only
the difference between palutena and mii customs than all other charcaters is that their customs are completely different moves rather than variation of the same move. Imo, if Palutena is reduced to 1111, so should Miis, likewise if Palutena has full custom move options so should miis
B) Any moveset, guest miis only
Guest Miis are terrible apparently, in terms of stats
C) Any moveset, height and weight must fit into one of 3 categories (tall, middle, short, heavy, middle, light)
as far as i can tell being short is much preferred since it increases speed and reduces lag, then either having light for optimum movement speed and agility or heavy for increased damage and knockback.
D) Any moveset, any height and weight (complete freedom)
This is what Sydney is doing at the moment and will likely stay this way for at least few months until we get more evidence that says we should start restricting the options. In this case I would move to C) then B).
E) Be Attila and ban everything we're scared of
unnecessary

Obviously there are a few other options (any height/weight 1111/2222/3333 only [which would improve the character drastically but is kinda... odd], recommended movesets only) but these are the only ones worth exploring in my opinion.

As far as protocol: players should be required to tell their opponent the weight/height and specials they are using before each match (Sorry Luke, I'll do it if you ask).
Well NSW rules state that the name of any custom build, (MiiS included) be labeled by their custom build number, i also agree that height and weight be given too but it can be gauged pretty easily by looking at the Miis CSP

I think that mii customs should be allowed if customs are allowed, but if they aren't then I don't think the customs should be allowed. Mii Brawler for example is quite good and does not need customisations, the fact that they are already unlocked is unimportant;
Agreed, that if customs are on then Miis can swap out customs in any way as well,
for customs off though i see two different points of view regarding Miis:
1) Ban Miis
the character is Mii, which allows for you to not only choose between 1 of 3 different moves for each special but also choose from 1 of 3 standard move packages (called brawler, gunner, swordfighter, that offer a different set of specials) for standard moves and aerials. If other characters cannoit change their moveset in any way then why allow Mii.
[note i dont like this view]
2) Allow Miis
this is my preferred option and i believe should be implemented considering brawler, gunner, swordfighter as 3 seperate characters. the ruling regarding custom specials should follow the restrictions placed on Palutena as mentioned in my reply to Pazx.
I also think that if we're going to use customs, we need to get past the "recommended movesets" only because that is an effort in getting around the logistics of unlocking customs but there is less room for freedom and innovation and eventually it should be done away with once we have setups with all the customs.
i really dont like how the movesets listed in the custom project are considered recommended, they are the popular builds moreso than recommended.In NSW, they are not the only builds allowed in tourneys. They are the ones loaded onto the WiiU so that the majority of players have their custom builds available to them without wasting time porting it over from a 3DS. Any build can be used as long as its labeled correctly and as long as there is a 3DS with all customs on it then everyplayer has access to all custom combinations. Even if WiiUs had all customs unlocked it wouldnt be a bad idea to have these popular set premade on the setups just to avoid the time for people to setup the same sets up everytime, and if they are synced from a 3DS then it has the added security that someone cant change the build without telling anyone
I think the height/weight should be default, it's pretty unique thing so I don't know how to treat it. Only 3 characters have this extra option out of the game, it gives players a strange way to adjust their character in some MU's. I'm not actively against having full freedom of weights and heights I guess but I am concerned that short brawler is quite potent
I dont really know yet how I would want to restrict height and weight yet or if we need to, but if I was at the moment i would say let it be the best the Mii could have for consistency of character using either default setting or extreme settings until it can be seen that the best the mii can get with defualt/extreme combinations actually needs some balancing

 

[M]

Having Miis with different weight classes wouldn't be a fair idea for those fighting them. It's reasonable learning each of their 12 specials and what they do to you, but throwing height and weight into the mix? This actually has an effect on your offensive game (something most customs aren't directly capable of) and can have a rather negative outcome on various combos you may be used to on them in their standard size. It's something that probably shouldn't be overlooked.

 

[Leisha]

Can you use your own mii providing the weight and height are default?

I wanna use the brawler, but 1111 sucks. lol

1111 for gunner is all good though, and mii sword.. roflcopter

 

[Shaya]

Wow so hating on Attila in jest is a social faux pas now?
GUESS ILL HAVE TO REALLY HATE ON HIM INSTEAD <3

Mii weight/heights are balls to deal with, with default height/weights being a solid standard for any usage of those characters I've seen thus far (all like two out of however many tournaments, and probably not a single one at Apex).

Custom presets are actually good, probably better than I could've imagined for any solution to it (especially in the long term). Helps new players while also helping those wanting to learn match ups (or a new character) much faster. If we can come together to keep such presets updated then the issue of individual ones being banned (if needed) is already institutionalised by the system.

From what I've heard (warning: conjecture) Japan runs Miis completely legal. As they don't require changing settings to 'customs on' or whatever to have them. This answers that nasty Palutena question too, but it's still a poor result for those affected. By one logic we can screw over Palutena while at the same time giving us an alternative high/top tier to play with/against without much cost otherwise (bar the weight/height thing). Honestly I feel as if Brawler is probably bottom tier without being able to adjust his specials; he's solid and bad ass, don't get me wrong, but my god does he suck against top tiers when none of his specials are usable in neutral or in disadvantage [dat worse-than-melee recovery], and are pretty bad/laggy otherwise.

 

[Gords]

@ Leisha For sydney custom tourneys, Miis are completely unrestricted for the time being, both in custom moves and height/weight.

I see no reason to restrict the use of their customs in a customs on ruleset, however i do feel that some restrictions should be placed on height and weight. the problem i have is that i dont fully understand to what extent height and weight effects match ups, the opponent and the Mii player themselves. Even though i also share some of the concerns others have brought up here, my lack of understanding as well as the lack of finding others who actually understand means i am unsure of the best way to restrict height and weight or if it needs to be restricted at all. My ideas atm is that if a restriction is placed on weight and height I would like to have set weight and height options to allow opponents to learn Matchups without the Mii player getting an opportunity to change their attributes (which is basically what equipment does) mid set. At the same time i would want the Mii player to have their character close to optimum performance/balance of attributes when looking at the character alone. i would also want the options to be easily set which basically results to either extreme or the default position of each slider (height and weight).
from what i have gathered through talking to mii players, both here and america, shortest miis are preferred as it gives the most movement speed and lowest lag on their moves, however weight preferences are all over the place, so i just dont know what weight and height options to set.
My decisions to allow Miis with no restriction at all in sydney is so we can gather the data to help us identify what restrictions, if any, would be best to accommodate Mii players as well as their opponents.
It will likely remain this way until enough data is collected, from our own tournaments as well as other from around the world

 

[Splice]

As Ricky suggested, getting used to different weights/heights is a less obvious adjustment and a more difficult one than custom moves. I think that there are some flaws with any of the ways of dealing with the height/weight adjustment in a ruleset but in the end none of them take away from the game being competitive. Adjustable options or not, there isn't anything worth fearing, it will just change how dealing with Miis works and how good they will be.

I'm pretty sure our rules in Melbourne at the moment are open to height/weight adjustment, but we don't have people using these options to any extreme. afaik we only have two people that use Miis at all

 

[Luco]

I'll make a longer response after work tonight, but for now:

Guys who support customs: are there any customs you think should be banned from the beginning? Are there others that warrant trial?

I'm more or less in the same boat in my opinions here - from my experience I don't find any customs overpowering enough to be banned quite yet (As frustrating as Kong Cyclone is, I've heard there are ways to work around it). Piston Punch I feel is over-hyped. The move doesn't kill on most stages except for on platforms (meaning Brawler has to have grabbed you on a platform) even when it hits afaik and can be DI-ed I believe, also, although this isn't an argument against its legality, most Brawler mains use Helicopter Kick now instead because its KB is more consistently good.

Timber counter could be trialed if people wanted, though my initial reaction is also that its okay. Timber Counter's sapling to me seems comparable to Pac-Man's trampoline. If your character can do aerial approaches theen it's probably fine, and although grabs are good against aerial approaches, both Pac-man and villager have iffy grabs (a design that I don't think is co-incidental), so most characters are okay. It is a very good tool though and probably affects more than a few of Villager's MUs, so Ionno, if people were worried about it then a trial would probably be fine.

 

[earla]

yeh how do you deal with that dk cyclone.

 

[dean.]

yeh how do you deal with that dk cyclone.

Pray.

 

[Venks]

yeh how do you deal with that dk cyclone.

Pray.

AeroLink looked to have a lot of trouble, but during the last match you can see he respected the move a lot more. Backing off when he didn't have a good situation. DK has to land on a platform to avoid the landing lag so that makes him more predictable. It was a close set, but AeroLink beat the move out a lot before the super armor went active or hitting it just after.
On the the defensive side knowing when to dodge looked to help out as well. The attack only has two hits and they are pretty far apart.

 

[Luco]

AeroLink looked to have a lot of trouble, but during the last match you can see he respected the move a lot more. Backing off when he didn't have a good situation. DK has to land on a platform to avoid the landing lag so that makes him more predictable. It was a close set, but AeroLink beat the move out a lot before the super armor went active or hitting it just after.
On the the defensive side knowing when to dodge looked to help out as well. The attack only has two hits and they are pretty far apart.

I'll be fair, AD-ing at the wrong time in that move causes silliness (such as Ness 'accidentally' using PSI teleport to end up all the way below Town and City! ).

Because there's only two hits and the super armour only comes in at a certain time I believe, as long as you know these two things then you can probably beat it out a lot easier. Basically what Venks just said haha.

 

[earla]

how do u guys feel bout coaching

 

[CyberHyperPhoenix]

how do u guys feel bout coaching

From a spectators perspective, as long as its short and in between sets, I don't mind.

 

[Redact]

Customs now apparently not on for smash 4 at evo

http://imgur.com/bZHvoOt

Also other changes (different starters)

Discuss

 

[CyberHyperPhoenix]

Customs now apparently not on for smash 4 at evo

http://imgur.com/bZHvoOt

Also other changes (different starters)

Discuss

A shame that there are no customs.

Also I find it pretty cool that a simple tweet can change the stage list around. I think that t&c as starter is aight. Don't really care for lylat.

 

[Snoc]

Customs now apparently not on for smash 4 at evo

http://imgur.com/bZHvoOt

Also other changes (different starters)

Discuss

Customs allowed is now on the actual EVO page though. mrwizard apparently tweeted that customs are still in.

 

[Attila_]

5 minutes? Timeouts every game.

 

[Gords]

links please

 

[Snoc]

links please

check evos website

 

[Splice]

I like 5 starters, I honestly would like to see Halberd in more than FD though...
This games stagelist has such little platform density, with only one tri-platform stage and Delfino not being a great potential starter.
So many almost totally flat stages as starters.

I want to see customs at a high level major. I want them to be in the spotlight for a bit so I wanna see them at EVO. I don't currently favour them I just want to give them a fair chance and then we'll see how peoples opinions change.

5 minute timer is actually terrible imo, I don't wanna see more timeouts

 

[earla]

5 mins.. what a joke. dabuz neeed 15 min games atleast

 

[Redact]

Customs are still actually on as clarified

https://twitter.com/EvilMrWizard/status/568566884729094144

Mr wizard decided to omit that customs are still on in the updated rules

 

[CyberHyperPhoenix]

I like 5 starters, I honestly would like to see Halberd in more than FD though...
This games stagelist has such little platform density, with only one tri-platform stage and Delfino not being a great potential starter.
So many almost totally flat stages as starters.

I want to see customs at a high level major. I want them to be in the spotlight for a bit so I wanna see them at EVO. I don't currently favour them I just want to give them a fair chance and then we'll see how peoples opinions change.

5 minute timer is actually terrible imo, I don't wanna see more timeouts

Someone should tweet Mr.Wizard this and ask him to change the time.

And if it stays like that, I want someone to count all of the timeouts in Smash 4.

 

[Splice]

It's not just timeouts but matches that end prematurely because when people see there is 1 minute on the clock and they are losing they have to play like spastics

 

[Leisha]

Cool. I can play good Rob now. Inb4 walls of text though.




Billy is using the avatar I made ages ago <3 yeee!

 

[Redact]

It's time constraints that they have such a low time limit on smash 4. Previously they were planning to have 4 minutes and 5 is actually a compromise here based on what I've read

 

[M]

The 5 minutes rule is a bit of a mixed bag really. While some characters can tailor their moves to kill early enough, I can see a looooot of people creating some stupid builds that are made to run the timer.

Dealing with Kong Cyclone alone takes way more time and patience than EVO are allowing thus far. And those super campy Villager sets become much more difficult when you can't set your own pace. :/