Meta Australian Smash 4 General Ruleset Discussion

[Splice]

what Attila is trying to say: what YS is to BF in melee, BF is to miiverse in s4


At first I thought we couldn't have BF/Miiverse(MV)/DL64 all legal, but when I saw this list

DL, BF, MV, Lylat, SV, T&C, FD

It makes a lot of sense to me with Lylat as the middle of them being "horizontal/flat stage but platformy"
SV and T&C and FD are very similar and in a lot of situations there are times where they function exactly like FD; in SV when exchanges happen and the platform is not within a reasonable range, it is like FD. SV's neutral is affected by the platform but chains and juggles can often ignore it.

if DL, BF and MV are all unique in platform distance, I think that in a list like this they really balance out the stage list.
However if you were to add more platformy stages like Delphino and Skyloft, you might want to remove one of BF/MV or add another horizontal-based stage like Duck Hunt (in a lot of matchups Duck Hunt is more about the length then the high tree platform for camping little mac so please understand this example)

For anyone skeptical about platform distance being a big deal, YS/BF/DL in Melee all provide super different neutral game and setups across most MU's (and afaik all top tier ones)

 

[Attila_]

I think 7 starters could work really well. At least at this point.

It's nice to have a large yet functional list.

 

[Pazx]

Done some testing. From now on, when discussing Miiverse, keep in mind it has identical blast zones (side and top) and platform heights to Battlefield. I don't have an easy way to test the stage length or distance between platforms though, but it looks similar.

Dreamland allegedly has a lower ceiling (same as FD/SV) but I don't have it so I can't test.

Edit: http://smashboards.com/threads/dream-land-64-stage-research.406249/

 

[Attila_]

Played on dream land a lot yesterday, blast zones seem huge. Like, really huge. Wouldn't call it a problem at this point, but some characters are going to live for a long time. The higher platforms are also a point of difference.

Miiverse is smaller than battlefield, and has less platform coverage overall. This means less juggling, and a greater focus on neutral overall imo. Bottom blast zone is also different. which impact edgeguarding quite significantly for certain characters.

Now if we just for one more good stage to replace lylat with. ps1?

 

[Pazx]

i haven't tested myself you got people disagreeing with you saying DL's blast zones "seem huge" showing that it has smaller blast zones than BF

will confirm later

 

[Jamwa]

"The following table records the minimum percent necessary for black lightning to appear when hitting Mario with a fully charged smash attack from Bowser at the location specified."

is the black lightning directly proportional to the blast zones?
why didnt they just test kill percents?

 

[Pazx]

Confirming that DL64 has marginally smaller side and top blast zones than Battlefield. Tested in training mode with DI.

Bottom blast zone is significantly deeper though, according to results screen measurements. (~12.5m on both BF and MV, ~16m on DL).

 

[Ghostbone]

Have people seen the most recent stagelist posted by D1?

Essentially, standard 5 starters (FD, SV, BF, DL, T&C), with lylat and duck hunt as counter-picks, and one stage ban.
Omegas are counter-pickable instead of FD, Miiverse can be counter-picked instead of Battlefield. These two rules I really like

I'm sad not to see castle siege, but a stagelist sans Delfino/Halberd is definitely optimal imo.

Another thing to talk about is miis. We're legalising them (all sizes/moves) here in SA for a few reasons. The primary one being that you can play miis with customs off, so they're a separate issue from other characters when talking about customs. The miis are clearly designed around all their customs and each one is balanced individually (being patched without others being touched). Secondly, they've never been shown to be a balance concern, so banning their moves out of that fear is pretty unjustified....

 

[Shaya]

I can assure you there's a justified fear of tiny brawler. It doesn't do well against everything but those it does is pretty disgusting (IMO).
NSW may go with "standard sized" any custom move Miis.

At least that's my preference. Don't think there's any real issues with any of their individual customs except maybe hurricane kick. But I think it not being on like sub kirby sized speed demon hasn't really had shocking results ever.

 

[Ghostbone]

Imo tiny mii brawler is more tame than what ZSS or MK can already do. (dapuffster didn't get top 8 at evo for example, which was filled with default characters and rosa/pika)
It's just because the character is unconventional that we feel more justified banning his options.

Plus limiting swordfighter/gunner sizes because of worries about hurricane kick is pretty unfair.

 

[AzuraSarah]

On the topic of Mii's and their moves not being customs, this specific post is an interesting read: http://smashboards.com/threads/mii-...p-pointy-objects.401541/page-18#post-19645879

I for one really want to push Victoria to do the same; allowing Mii's any size/moves, with a potential, POSSIBLE limitation: Not allowing them to swap sizes or moves for the duration of the tournament, in order to keep the counterpicks within the characters and stages, rather than in the Mii's moves or size. Want a reflector to counter projectiles? Then be prepared to lug it around through matches where it's not useful.

It's clear to anyone who has looked at Mii's with more scrutiny that their moves are separate to customs and thus should be treated as such. To echo Ghost, Their moves aren't considered custom by the game and they're getting actively patched/balanced unlike customs. So far the ruling on Mii's have just been a copy paste of what what other tournaments are doing, which were a kneejerk reaction to begin with. Plus their 1111 movesets don't really make a lot of sense, except for Gunner who lucked out into a usable moveset.

About the biggest concern is honestly the time it takes to make a Mii from scratch if someone doesn't have a 3ds to transfer it to a system but if people print off their QR codes they can scan their Mii's into the Mii Maker and make the fighter in-game in less than a minute. Entering names and changing controls takes a similar amount of time, plus once it's on a system it shouldn't have to be re-added to it.

 

[Pazx]

Canberra will not be restricting mii fighter movesets in any way but at the moment they're limited to default size only. If we decide to remove that limitation then 3DS imports only may be the way forward.

 

[Ghostbone]

I for one really want to push Victoria to do the same; allowing Mii's any size/moves, with a potential, POSSIBLE limitation: Not allowing them to swap sizes or moves for the duration of the tournament, in order to keep the counterpicks within the characters and stages, rather than in the Mii's moves or size. Want a reflector to counter projectiles? Then be prepared to lug it around through matches where it's not useful.

I feel like the best way to handle this is just to have the mii's specials be selected at the same time the character is in the set.

So if you double blind game 1, you have to choose your specials before you see your opponent's character.
If you win a game, they pick Battlefield, you have to pick your specials before they counter-pick their character.
No setting up miis mid set would also probably be a good idea. So you can upload whatever sets you want from your 3DS before the set, but that's what you're limited to throughout (as well as what's already on the wii)

 

[Dogivet]

I guess a month of allowing customized mii wouldn't be too harmful as a test and see down here, but Sarah, you are really the only person (I don't think I've seen anyone else the 6 times I've been) using a mii so I understand the frustration.
I do feel though that size might have to be a restriction but I don't know, tiny just seems absurd on paper.

I only really say 'guess' because I'm not too fussed about trying something out, but I am ultimately against it in the end.

 

[AzuraSarah]

I guess a month of allowing customized mii wouldn't be too harmful as a test and see down here, but Sarah, you are really the only person (I don't think I've seen anyone else the 6 times I've been) using a mii so I understand the frustration.
I do feel though that size might have to be a restriction but I don't know, tiny just seems absurd on paper.

I only really say 'guess' because I'm not too fussed about trying something out, but I am ultimately against it in the end.

Honestly I'm pretty set with 1111 gunner and default size. As I said, Gunner lucked into a workable 'default' set. Imagine if Laser Blaze, Echo Vortex and Stealth Burst were part of the 1 set for Gunner. This is basically the predicament Brawler and Swordfighter are in.

Maybe if it turns out to be a more permanent ruling I'd put the effort to learn Small-Gunner and things like missles and such, but I am rather happy with the 'default' as it is. Plus, Grenades got badly nerfed, they no longer detonate if they are hit by another move, so there's even less incentive for me to swap to them when I already consider Charge Shot a must-have due to Gunner's relatively bad kill moves.

I'm more thinking about other people here, in which this change would benefit people who want to play Brawler or Swordfighter more than myself.

At the end of the day, I don't expect people to flock to the Mii's with this change, however denying people the opportunity because other people out there want the easiest possible answer is a bit disappointing, especially when those decisions are made by people who haven't looked into Mii's at all.

 

[White_Pointer]

So...without going through 37 pages of this thread...what was the reason that NSW went with 3 stocks as standard when pretty much everywhere else uses 2 stocks?

 

[Shaya]

Because we have no reason to dislike it and it's the default stock setting~
Different places run different rules, 2 stocks is the mainstay at major level but there was never any concise reason for it other than For Glory / scheduling constraints.

If you want to understand why, basically the rule that becomes the standard is one which the least people *****/bicker over. 3 stock players make no claims (from what I see) that it is an objectively better format over 2 stock, but you'll definitely hear "3 stock ruins the game" (or something more petty like: "we should run tournaments with items or equipment before running 3 stocks") from the status quo-ers.

People who come to tournaments for the first time who wonder "why is it 3 stock tournaments" don't usually end the day thinking "my day sucked because it was 3 stock instead of 2", either. So if/when there is resistance it's very short lived.
Ultimately it makes so little impact to results (just like other rule set differences we've had here) we don't care enough about "other" standards. I do think something like 2 stock pools/3 stock bracket could be worth testing out.

Also a note, a majority of scenes from what I see play doubles with 3 stock.

 

[Jamwa]

So...without going through 37 pages of this thread...what was the reason that NSW went with 3 stocks as standard when pretty much everywhere else uses 2 stocks?

basically none of them have seen pit vs lil mac on duck hunt

 

[Pazx]

So...without going through 37 pages of this thread...what was the reason that NSW went with 3 stocks as standard when pretty much everywhere else uses 2 stocks?

Because we have no reason to dislike it and it's the default stock setting~
Different places run different rules, 2 stocks is the mainstay at major level but there was never any concise reason for it other than For Glory / scheduling constraints.

If you want to understand why, basically the rule that becomes the standard is one which the least people *****/bicker over. 3 stock players make no claims (from what I see) that it is an objectively better format over 2 stock, but you'll definitely hear "3 stock ruins the game" (or something more petty like: "we should run tournaments with items or equipment before running 3 stocks") from the status quo-ers.

People who come to tournaments for the first time who wonder "why is it 3 stock tournaments" don't usually end the day thinking "my day sucked because it was 3 stock instead of 2", either. So if/when there is resistance it's very short lived.
Ultimately it makes so little impact to results (just like other rule set differences we've had here) we don't care enough about "other" standards. I do think something like 2 stock pools/3 stock bracket could be worth testing out.

Also a note, a majority of scenes from what I see play doubles with 3 stock.

fine i'll do it

3 stock is objectively better than 2 stock, 2 stock is preferred by some people because 2stockholm syndrome + time constraints (which is probably fair enough)

 

[Shaya]

We either banned Duck Hunt (randomly shows up on stage lists at tournaments like it's some sort of lottery), or nearly everyone uses one of their bans to remove it.
Basically, Fox on duck hunt... universally in every match up.

I'm not sure why 2 stocks of something is fine while 3 stocks of it is sacrilege though.

 

[Invisi]

Sydney had both 3 stock and 2 stock tournaments when the WiiU version was released. After some discussion, the community decided that as a whole we preferred the feel of 3 stock. That's really the only reason it's our standard - because we like it better.

Most of the time when I ask why people run 2 stock, time constraints are cited as the reason (and are a valid concern, even though I'm fairly sure the impact of 3 stock on time is overstated). If time constraints aren't an issue, there's no non-subjective reason to pick one over the other.

 

[Attila_]

fine i'll do it

3 stock is objectively better than 2 stock, 2 stock is preferred by some people because 2stockholm syndrome + time constraints (which is probably fair enough)

We either banned Duck Hunt (randomly shows up on stage lists at tournaments like it's some sort of lottery), or nearly everyone uses one of their bans to remove it.
Basically, Fox on duck hunt... universally in every match up.

I'm not sure why 2 stocks of something is fine while 3 stocks of it is sacrilege though.

I've actually been compiling some statistics while writing a rather large (really, really large) post.

At CEO top8, player who won first stock won the game 90% of the time (39 games total).

Average game length was just over 2 minutes.

I don't know if time is a factor (this surprised me), but that's maybe because most of Melbourne don't use high punish characters, and spend a lot of time in neutral.

But the main argument against 3 stock is probably that the extra two stocks are unlikely to influence the outcome of a match.

(Happy for others to compile more data)

 

[Shaya]

That 90% win rate would probably be lower in 3 stocks.
But I appreciate the efforts :D

You're going to end up proving to me ultimatum-worthy arguments for abolishing 2 stock for either 1 or 3 *mwahwhahwahawhahwha*

But eh, I think if we saw more Luigi/Sheik (easier at mid level to dominate people, especially in neutral) you'd see the transition of character usage to characters who can handle... Luigi... who tend to need dominant neutral tools and dynamic KO potential to avoid not being wrecked by it.

Actually in general, Rosalina and Luigi, the two most polarizing characters in match ups, especially on high tier characters, are pretty much unseen in Australia.
You can try to camp them to slow down how fast you lose, but that's about it really. And once they get in, they get stocks. Their results on the best players of various characters are usually one sided in the West.

The pacing of games is fast right now because most players at high level tend to act as if is futile to not try to win neutral as we have combos/high damage set ups, rather than ignoring neutral for chip damage and getting a KO move punish (i.e. Brawl).
2 stocks also emphasises this really, you don't have "time" to ignore neutral if you're taking chip damage and are behind, and not giving off offensive pressure at all means an opponent feels free to use set up/neutral winning tools that could lead to stocks.

 

[M]

Yeah I dunno who you need to pull of the street to play him, but Melbourne needs a Luigi or three lol.


What happened in Perth is just plain wrong. :/

 

[Attila_]

That 90% win rate would probably be lower in 3 stocks.
But I appreciate the efforts :D

I remember someone (Ankoku?) collaborated some brawl statistics, showing that however took the first stock first won ~80% of the time, and whoever took the second won ~85%. Similar enough.

The advantage still exists; I can't see an extra stock making that any different.

But hey, happy for one of you three stockers to collect some stats.

 

[Splice]

85% isn't 100%
that's all the stats you should need

if you have time run 3 stock

 

[Invisi]

Also, that stat is hardly surprising. The better player will take the first stock in most games. The better player will win most games. The better player will win most sets.

I don't have the stats to analyse, but I'm willing to bet that there is a similar correlation between the first game of a set and the result of the entire set itself. Yes, the first game of a set is very important (just as the first stock of a game is very important), but the more likely explanation is that the better player takes both the first stock/game and the resulting game/set in the majority of cases.

 

[Pete278]

The same thing happened in MvC3 with debates over bo3 and bo5, the vast majority of the time the difference doesn't matter and whoever won the bo5 would've won a bo3 anyway, but we still run bo5 marvel, so do whatever you guys want imo.

 

[Attila_]

The other half of that statistics.

Player who wins the first game wins the set 70% of the time.

So comebacks are 20% more viable for adding games, rather than adding stocks.

Obviously an extension of the stats, but the 20% difference is rather large.

 

[Ghostbone]

Something to remember about the 3-stock vs 2-stock debate is that 3-stocks produce more consistent results.
That's fairly obvious and we probably all agree on that.

The extension of that is that since the better player more consistently wins each game with 3-stocks, that sets tend to be 2-0's or 3-0/3-1's with 3 stock more than they tend to be with 2-stock. (because again, better player wins each game more consistently).
So 3 stock games might take up to 50% longer (though it often takes less then that), but sets tend to be resolved in less games, so the overall time difference between a 2-stock tournament and a 3-stock tournament is exaggerated.

3-stock is competitively better than 2-stock (as is 4 vs 3, and 5 vs 4, and so on), because you get more consistent results, ultimately it comes down to preference but I think people are too scared of how long 3 stock tournaments will take when really it's not that much longer. Personally I dislike 2-stock because of how ridiculously far behind someone is if they lose the first stock (because of rage mostly), 3 stocks greatly lessens the impact of taking the first stock. I'd rather 1 stock over 2 stock for this reason as well (though that would require increasing the number of games too) Even if the winrate of the person taking the first stock "only" goes down to something like 80% from 90%, that's still doubling the amount of games the other person can make a comeback in, which is incredibly significant.

 

[Invisi]

I'm skeptical of the above argument, but I do agree that the time difference between 2 and 3 stock is largely overstated. Much of the time that a tournament takes is not due to the length of the games themselves, but rather logistical issues and the time between games for character/stage selection. Unlike a proposal like 1 stock Bo5s, 3 stock does not add to this time.

Let's do an analysis of how much time might be added by running 3 stock over 2. If we take a conservative estimate, we can assume that each set takes an extra 6 minutes with this ruleset (with sets running to 3 games and each game running for an extra 2 minutes).

Let's look at a tournament with 128 entrants (seems average for a Melbourne tournament) played on 32 setups (which is what I have read is expected/required for you guys to run pools). If a straight DE bracket is run, there are 17 rounds to be played (after you split the first few rounds to account for limited setups). If you were to run pools, there would be 25 rounds (assuming 16 pools of 8 players into a top 32 bracket, and again accounting for number of setups).

So this gives us an estimated additional time of under 2 hours for a bracket, and about 2 1/2 hours for pools into a bracket. Admittedly this is more than I initially anticipated, but it is worth noting that this is a worst case scenario analysis, and that in reality the additional time will not be this large (most sets won't go to 3 games, and only the slowest of games will take an additional 2 minutes). I would expect that 1 hour for a bracket or 1 1/2 hours for pools into bracket is a reasonable estimate of how much additional time to expect a 3 stock tournament to take.

 

[Attila_]

Something to remember about the 3-stock vs 2-stock debate is that 3-stocks produce more consistent results.
That's fairly obvious and we probably all agree on that.

No.

I've been arguing something different this whole time.

I think a 1 stock bo5 will produce more consistent results than a 2 stock bo3. I think a 2 stock bo3 will produce similar results to a 3 stock bo3. And I also think a 2 stock bo5 will produce nor consistent results than a 3 stock bo3.

Tl;Dr
For best results, add games, not stocks

 

[Invisi]

Unfortunately, adding more games takes far more additional time than adding stocks. You not only have the time of the extra game, but also the additional time taken for stage/character selection, which can easily be longer than the time it takes to play out a single extra stock. A 2 stock Bo5 set will almost certainly take longer than a 3 stock Bo3. In many cases, a 1 stock Bo5 may even take longer than a 3 stock Bo3.

 

[Ghostbone]

3 stock Bo3 sets are more consistent than 2 stock Bo3 sets.

2 stock Bo5 sets throughout the whole tournament would take way way too long, so I'm not sure why you're making that comparison, even if it's true it's not relevant.

 

[Shaya]

Games add a lot more time to things than actual play time though.

I think all those things you mentioned should produce similar results because all of them still fairly work under the "best player coming out on top".
Is 5 games at 2 stock produce more "consistent" results than 3 games at 3 stock? Well, for one, it's up to 10 stocks in a set compared to 9, so obviously it would, and "first stocks" are very important, we all agree too.
But is ONE first stock worth more than the combination of TWO 'other' stocks? I think that's the ideology clash / shortfall.

Either way, as local anecdotes for us show, our players who exist in a 3-stock scene are doing perfectly fine in two-stock regions (AND VICE VERSA). Actually, the region who plays with 3 stocks is doing better at larger tournaments with two stocks than the people who only play 2-stock.
Who should be winning? Myself, Kira, Luke or Ignis, Extra, etc? Depending on what stock number you pick, what we have thus far contradicts or is an oddity enough that their overall consistency is similar.

So then it comes down to preference / how it personally feels for you, honestly. What 3 stock has going for it notably here is the estimated time frame being a lot less than 2 stock with more games. Up to 5 first stocks (when the second stock of the match is mostly superfluous) with up to 3 more games of counterpicking process that takes minutes at a time, vs 1 stock total less overall and the assumption 2 non-first stocks isn't as superfluous as just one in helping a player adapt and that the second "first stock" (i.e. the second game and is necessary to win after dropping first game) is an amount of time we consider fair for a good player to adjust.

 

[Attila_]

http://smashboards.com/threads/wii-u-stage-blast-zone-data.395357/

Apparently Omega Palutena's Temple has a (very slightly) larger vertical blast zone than FD.

 

[Shaya]

Hmm, lately I've been bringing up how Palutena's temple reduces the ability of wall-jump tech (that isn't the case on plain Final Destination),
One way to think about it is "well that was the intention, the Omega that is most neutral".
The other way to think about it is that it's removing character capabilities thus artificially nerfing characters (in contrast to FD).
On 3DS we went with Arena Ferox, thinking in a Brawl-like fashion, "stage doesn't let people travel underneath, stage practically negates wall clings and wall jumps; hence most 'neutral'", Palutena's temple being the only stage with a similar structure.

So I'm not sure if we've gone anywhere with that, but I believe Omega Hyrule Temple comes close(st?) with FD.
Palu/Halberd/Coli being slightly larger as well is interesting to say the least, not exactly a game breaker though.

How is the omega-picking meta in Melb anyway?
People tend to go Palu ("most used") or Mario Galaxy (music + walls), some Omega Battlefield because of it's janky ledges.

 

[Attila_]

We play Palutena's or FD only.

Not sure how this dispute is resolved for starters, but otherwise it's CPer's choice.

Most players end up on Palutena's.

But maybe that is a rule that should be looked into.

 

[Lex__]

@ Shaya @ Attila_ unless its been fixed (which i doubt it has) all grass fd's should be banned because of there technical differences.

Source: http://smashboards.com/threads/wii-u-omega-stage-differences.379365/

 

[M]

People tend to go Palu ("most used") or Mario Galaxy (music + walls), some Omega Battlefield because of it's janky ledges.

Not sure if or when it became a trend, but I originally only cp'd Galaxy because it was pretty and had grass, which was a niche thing to soften some matchups for me.