Xyro77
Unity Ruleset Committee Member
*listen to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EleQhHSIP9k while you read*
*200 points and a free candy bar to whoever remembers what famous movie this song was in oh and don't google this *****
As we all know, Smash 4 will be released some time in 2014 so i was thinking ways we can start off strong (as a state) and maybe eventually get our state back into the top 3 states in terms of skill like we did with Brawl. I was thinking about this for a while because of how bad the Brawl scene in getting in Tx. Speaking of how bad the scene is getting, lets dive into what caused it to deteriorate to the point it is at currently. If we can identify some things that went wrong in the past 5 years, maybe we can avoid/prevent it from happening in the era of Smash 4. The things i will be talking about can be applied to Brawl but tbh i think our Brawl ship has taken on too much water to continue to sail.
1. Too many events in a short amount of time/TOs not working with each other.
There have been many many times these past 5 years where literally every weekend we have multiple events going on in multiple cities. Some times they are happening at the SAME time. Now i can not tell you to stop running events/change your times but i highly suggest that we all work with each other when it comes to running events. If Xyro's event is in November, i recommend that the rest of the Tx TOs should not do anything in November. If IceCream wants March and Denti wants June then i shouldn't run an event in those months. I bring this topic up first because this is what hurts our attendance the most.
edit: If i see 4 events happen on the same weekend again i will drive to your city, burn your house down, kill your pet hamster, throw boric acid on your face and then record your screams as my new ringtone.
2. Lets spread ourselves out and not burn ourselves out.
This relates to #1, big time. If we each claim a month to run and event, it would mean we have to wait 20-30 days for the next event. It sounds like a long time between events, doesn't it? It is even LONGER if you are the type of person who refuses/cant travel OOC. It could be 60-90 days before its your cities turn to host again. That is why we should TRAVEL to other cities. It is a proven fact that they more you travel, the better you get AND the faster it happens. In between events, do some STDs (smash till dawn) or fests. It will be enough to hold you over. In brawl, next to no one does this. Its a free-for-all when it comes to events and we ALL suffer in the process.
3. Rules/Stages
In traditional fighters like SF or marvel or guilty gear or blazeblue, stages dont really matter and the rules are generally the same with each iteration of the game. Smash isnt the same. We drastically change the rules with each new game. Stages and rules literally determine what characters are viable in the game so it is very important that we take great care when we make rules. PLEASE dont do what we did in brawl and just jump on the most popular ruleset (apex). The less stages you have, the lower the amount of characters are viable. THAT slows the growth of the roster and shortens the life of the game. It took melee about 7 years to narrow down its results to about 5-6 characters. It took brawl 4 years. Lets not make this same mistake again with smash 4.
When it comes to rules like infinites, stalling, ledge grabs, timers, stock count, ports, stage striking......ect we cant really do anything about these until the game has come out, right? Well look at brawl. We have MLG rule set, unity ruleset, apex rule set, japanese rule set, bbr ruleset and other off the wall rulesets spread around here and there. What separates these rulesets is usually the STAGES. In smash 4, i recommend we start off with LOTS of stages instead of a FEW stages. Obviously, the stages that are on par with Hyrule Temple or New Pork City should not be allowed from the get go, but stages on par with Halberd or Delfino or Japes or Brinstar have NO REASON to be banned this early (remember, the only reason why those were banned was because mk) . Allowing more stages and characters allows for more people to play the character they want. if this happens, more people will attend events. I did this in the early days of melee and the early days of brawl and it worked out well.
4. Attitudes towards each other and New players.
I understand that over time players become familiar with each other they tend to open up to each other. They can cuss, be sarcastic and treat each other a bit rude because its all in good fun and no harm was meant. New players (especially YOUNG players) dont know this yet. I cant make you behave a certain way but do suggest you consider what your words/attitudes do to new players as well as the event. If people come to my events and get treated like poop right off the bad, they will probably never come back and that hurts our games total attendance. Remember, YOU and ME represent the event we attend, so if we come off as A-holes people will not return.
5. Streaming and advertising.
In brawl for the past 5 years, not every event had a stream. It is 2013 now and streaming has turned out to be a really common thing for almost every competitive game. Lol it can be done on a damn smartphone now. We gotta find ways to include streams in as many events as possible. Not only does it show off our states skill but it also shows the world how much fun we are having at our events. This could def bring in more people to our state/events. As for advertising, its really simple: DO IT! Literally spam Gamefaqs, smashboards, aib, smash4u, reddit, neogaf, luelinks, twitter, craigslist (a xyro secret), dating sites (another xyro secret) and any other social forum you know about with threads/posts to your event. Also, ask each other to advertise each others events on the stream. Sktar did that for WHOBO a few weeks back and it was bad ass. The more people know about your event, the more people will probably go so please advertise.
6. Offering alt forms of smash is bad.
Because so many people ended up disliking Brawl, we tried Balanced Brawl, Brawl -, Brawl +, Melee and now Project M. It was cool at first because it was something new. But guess what, melee and PM has taken hold and brawl is having its lowest numbers of all time. What once was a fun side event is now taking numbers away from the main game. That is why this gen, i recommend that we all do something new. Instead of alternate forms of Smash 4, why dont we do things like Low tier or Mid Tier or Crews (once we find out who is good/bad in terms of characters)? Doing this not only allows players who main bad characters a chance to do well (and thus cause them to return to another one of your events), but it also allows us to expand the metagame of the characters that are not used as much and thus maybe find new things about this game that can make it more enjoyable.
7. When in doubt, do what XYRO77 (the legend) does.
I have the longest running/most "successful" tournament series in all of smash history ( the HOBO series has reached 40 events) and i currently hold multiple MK banned attendance records (HOBO 17, WHOBO 4), largest monthly attendance record (HOBO 10, HOBO 11) as well as the largest Low tier event attendance (WHOBO 3) . Im not saying i am the best TO (even though i am) and i am not saying my way is the ONLY CORRECT way (even though it is), but what i am saying is what i do WORKS. I recommend that if you are currently a TO or want to become a TO for smash 4, please ask me anything you want and i would love to help you.
Remember, without Xyro, you fail:
But with Xyro, anything is possible:
*200 points and a free candy bar to whoever remembers what famous movie this song was in oh and don't google this *****
As we all know, Smash 4 will be released some time in 2014 so i was thinking ways we can start off strong (as a state) and maybe eventually get our state back into the top 3 states in terms of skill like we did with Brawl. I was thinking about this for a while because of how bad the Brawl scene in getting in Tx. Speaking of how bad the scene is getting, lets dive into what caused it to deteriorate to the point it is at currently. If we can identify some things that went wrong in the past 5 years, maybe we can avoid/prevent it from happening in the era of Smash 4. The things i will be talking about can be applied to Brawl but tbh i think our Brawl ship has taken on too much water to continue to sail.
1. Too many events in a short amount of time/TOs not working with each other.
There have been many many times these past 5 years where literally every weekend we have multiple events going on in multiple cities. Some times they are happening at the SAME time. Now i can not tell you to stop running events/change your times but i highly suggest that we all work with each other when it comes to running events. If Xyro's event is in November, i recommend that the rest of the Tx TOs should not do anything in November. If IceCream wants March and Denti wants June then i shouldn't run an event in those months. I bring this topic up first because this is what hurts our attendance the most.
edit: If i see 4 events happen on the same weekend again i will drive to your city, burn your house down, kill your pet hamster, throw boric acid on your face and then record your screams as my new ringtone.
2. Lets spread ourselves out and not burn ourselves out.
This relates to #1, big time. If we each claim a month to run and event, it would mean we have to wait 20-30 days for the next event. It sounds like a long time between events, doesn't it? It is even LONGER if you are the type of person who refuses/cant travel OOC. It could be 60-90 days before its your cities turn to host again. That is why we should TRAVEL to other cities. It is a proven fact that they more you travel, the better you get AND the faster it happens. In between events, do some STDs (smash till dawn) or fests. It will be enough to hold you over. In brawl, next to no one does this. Its a free-for-all when it comes to events and we ALL suffer in the process.
3. Rules/Stages
In traditional fighters like SF or marvel or guilty gear or blazeblue, stages dont really matter and the rules are generally the same with each iteration of the game. Smash isnt the same. We drastically change the rules with each new game. Stages and rules literally determine what characters are viable in the game so it is very important that we take great care when we make rules. PLEASE dont do what we did in brawl and just jump on the most popular ruleset (apex). The less stages you have, the lower the amount of characters are viable. THAT slows the growth of the roster and shortens the life of the game. It took melee about 7 years to narrow down its results to about 5-6 characters. It took brawl 4 years. Lets not make this same mistake again with smash 4.
When it comes to rules like infinites, stalling, ledge grabs, timers, stock count, ports, stage striking......ect we cant really do anything about these until the game has come out, right? Well look at brawl. We have MLG rule set, unity ruleset, apex rule set, japanese rule set, bbr ruleset and other off the wall rulesets spread around here and there. What separates these rulesets is usually the STAGES. In smash 4, i recommend we start off with LOTS of stages instead of a FEW stages. Obviously, the stages that are on par with Hyrule Temple or New Pork City should not be allowed from the get go, but stages on par with Halberd or Delfino or Japes or Brinstar have NO REASON to be banned this early (remember, the only reason why those were banned was because mk) . Allowing more stages and characters allows for more people to play the character they want. if this happens, more people will attend events. I did this in the early days of melee and the early days of brawl and it worked out well.
4. Attitudes towards each other and New players.
I understand that over time players become familiar with each other they tend to open up to each other. They can cuss, be sarcastic and treat each other a bit rude because its all in good fun and no harm was meant. New players (especially YOUNG players) dont know this yet. I cant make you behave a certain way but do suggest you consider what your words/attitudes do to new players as well as the event. If people come to my events and get treated like poop right off the bad, they will probably never come back and that hurts our games total attendance. Remember, YOU and ME represent the event we attend, so if we come off as A-holes people will not return.
5. Streaming and advertising.
In brawl for the past 5 years, not every event had a stream. It is 2013 now and streaming has turned out to be a really common thing for almost every competitive game. Lol it can be done on a damn smartphone now. We gotta find ways to include streams in as many events as possible. Not only does it show off our states skill but it also shows the world how much fun we are having at our events. This could def bring in more people to our state/events. As for advertising, its really simple: DO IT! Literally spam Gamefaqs, smashboards, aib, smash4u, reddit, neogaf, luelinks, twitter, craigslist (a xyro secret), dating sites (another xyro secret) and any other social forum you know about with threads/posts to your event. Also, ask each other to advertise each others events on the stream. Sktar did that for WHOBO a few weeks back and it was bad ass. The more people know about your event, the more people will probably go so please advertise.
6. Offering alt forms of smash is bad.
Because so many people ended up disliking Brawl, we tried Balanced Brawl, Brawl -, Brawl +, Melee and now Project M. It was cool at first because it was something new. But guess what, melee and PM has taken hold and brawl is having its lowest numbers of all time. What once was a fun side event is now taking numbers away from the main game. That is why this gen, i recommend that we all do something new. Instead of alternate forms of Smash 4, why dont we do things like Low tier or Mid Tier or Crews (once we find out who is good/bad in terms of characters)? Doing this not only allows players who main bad characters a chance to do well (and thus cause them to return to another one of your events), but it also allows us to expand the metagame of the characters that are not used as much and thus maybe find new things about this game that can make it more enjoyable.
7. When in doubt, do what XYRO77 (the legend) does.
I have the longest running/most "successful" tournament series in all of smash history ( the HOBO series has reached 40 events) and i currently hold multiple MK banned attendance records (HOBO 17, WHOBO 4), largest monthly attendance record (HOBO 10, HOBO 11) as well as the largest Low tier event attendance (WHOBO 3) . Im not saying i am the best TO (even though i am) and i am not saying my way is the ONLY CORRECT way (even though it is), but what i am saying is what i do WORKS. I recommend that if you are currently a TO or want to become a TO for smash 4, please ask me anything you want and i would love to help you.
Remember, without Xyro, you fail:
But with Xyro, anything is possible:
,