Change in overall rulesets for the future

[TheKiest]

So currently...

SS64:

• Game Settings: 5 Stocks, Best of 3 Games. Best of 5 Games for: Winners Semis, Winners Finals, Losers Quarters, Losers Semis, Losers Finals and Grand Finals

Melee:

• Game Settings: 4 Stocks, 8 Minute Time Limit, Best of 3 Games. Finals are Best of 5.

Brawl:

• Game Settings: 3 Stocks, 8 Minute Time Limit, Best of 3 Games. Finals are Best of 5.

PM:

• Game Settings: 4 Stocks, 8 Minute Time Limit, Best of 3 Games. Finals are Best of 5.
  
  

Seems ok right?
Well.... no not really. The issue I want to address is TIME.

Most other FGs have the set of 99s 2/3 Rounds, 2/3 games (Finals being 3/5). Thus giving the max amount of time of about 900 seconds or 15 minutes for regular games... vs the 24 minutes for smash. Both games add about 5 mins max for stage selecting/button checks/bans/CPs/Player shananigans etc.

So almost a 10 minute difference. This more or less applies to the average time as well.

Before it hasn't really matter much, BUT I think with the new smash the community needs to think about shortening the stocks/timer so we ALSO hit that 15 minute mark. Why? Mostly for two reasons:

1) We are now merging with other fighters at all levels of tournament hosting.
As Melee is breaking through the FGC in majors, the amount of interest in people playing these games are going to raise. While I doubt we'll see Brawl and 64 at these events, I can see Melee and Smash 4 (or PM if Smash 4 doesn't go well) being here as well.
As someone who has ran multiple games at the local level, I can say it becomes very difficult when players in Smash are bottlenecking other events.
I do not think that limiting players to just 1 or 2 events just because they are in Melee/Brawl is fair, when clearly other players can enter a much larger amount of other games.
Which brings me to 2...
2) We will soon have 5 Competitive Main events that are Smash only.
As a possible future TO that may come out of retirement, I want to run all five of these. Big again, my venue/setups cannot run Brawl, Melee, and PM in one day (with pools and doubles, some of those need cut out... I'm most likely never running pools again TBH, but that's a different debate). I think if those three minutes are cut from each of these formats, that provides plenty of room for Smash4.

Since I mostly TOed in the midwest from 2008-2011, I'm not certain of how and why the rulesets came to be... thus I ask of you guys:
1) What is the reasoning for 4 stocks and not 2 or 3?
2) Why is 8 minutes necessary?
3) What is the best solution to number 1 and/or two?
4) The extreme case of #1: Why are the stocks not 5+?
5) The extreme case of #2: Why not longer than 8 minutes?
6) How much of a drastic change to the meta are we looking at?
7) Can you think of a way to keep the current rules, but allow time for doubles and an event for lower level players (aka the main reason for pools from my understanding.)

Thanks for reading and please respond.

 

[TheKiest]

TLDR:

Change the ruleset in all smash games to have a 5 minute max instead of 8, because:


1) We are now merging with other fighters at all levels of tournament hosting.
As Melee is breaking through the FGC in majors, the amount of interest in people playing these games are going to raise. While I doubt we'll see Brawl and 64 at these events, I can see Melee and Smash 4 (or PM if Smash 4 doesn't go well) being here as well.
As someone who has ran multiple games at the local level, I can say it becomes very difficult when players in Smash are bottlenecking other events.
I do not think that limiting players to just 1 or 2 events just because they are in Melee/Brawl is fair, when clearly other players can enter a much larger amount of other games.
Which brings me to 2...
2) We will soon have 5 Competitive Main events that are Smash only.
As a possible future TO that may come out of retirement, I want to run all five of these. Big again, my venue/setups cannot run Brawl, Melee, and PM in one day (with pools and doubles, some of those need cut out... I'm most likely never running pools again TBH, but that's a different debate). I think if those three minutes are cut from each of these formats, that provides plenty of room for Smash4.


Please discuss by answering these:
1) What is the reasoning for 4 stocks and not 2 or 3?
2) Why is 8 minutes necessary?
3) What is the best solution to number 1 and/or two?
4) The extreme case of #1: Why are the stocks not 5+?
5) The extreme case of #2: Why not longer than 8 minutes?
6) How much of a drastic change to the meta are we looking at?
7) Can you think of a way to keep the current rules, but allow time for doubles and an event for lower level players (aka the main reason for pools from my understanding.)

 

[DeLux]

2) We will soon have 5 Competitive Main events that are Smash only.
As a possible future TO that may come out of retirement, I want to run all five of these. Big again, my venue/setups cannot run Brawl, Melee, and PM in one day (with pools and doubles, some of those need cut out... I'm most likely never running pools again TBH, but that's a different debate). I think if those three minutes are cut from each of these formats, that provides plenty of room for Smash4.

I disagree - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PxMn1DhscO807y9YowINXfolUBYpsWSXt93P2Vk3xQE/edit#gid=0

 

[TheKiest]

I'm lost at what the colors represent.

So this is done only with 10 setups? Well done.

But again, with Smash 4... where does it fit?

 

[DeLux]

Add me on FB and I'll talk you through it

 

[Kenkoku]

Can someone on here please explain the spreadsheet to me? It looks very organized, but I just can't seem to make sense of it.

 

[T00nbink]

I can agree to this!

 

[Overswarm]

Better solution:

Stop running multiple games.

Smash events run fine with an 8 minute timer and, due to the nature of smash gameplay, we need a longer amount of time to reduce variance.

Reducing the time and/or stock count to make room for other games, whether it is Street Fighter, PM, whatever, is a pretty big sin for a TO. The only time that reducing stock/time is acceptable is if there is some sort of emergency that absolutely requires it (power outage for 3 hours, for example).

If you want to host half a dozen games and trim their rulesets down I think that's a pretty bad idea. Host a well run tournament for a single event, possibly two, built around the primary game. Hosting multiple events is really only necessary for dying games that can't pull in appropriate attendance numbers.

 

[Radirgy]

You can't keep running every game at non-major tournaments. You don't see capcom players simultaneously run Super Turbo, 3rd Strike, Ultra, X Tekken, Marvel 2 and Marvel 3 in non-major tournaments for a reason.
Tournaments need to be planned around different types of players.
For example of combinations that would work well if you were to try and run more than one game in a tournament:
Melee + Project M (PM being based on melee it makes sense to run these together as a lot of people play both)
Brawl + Smash U (Brawl and Smash U have similarities that makes it possible for players to jump between both)
64 + Melee (these games are, in my opinion, the most hardcore smash games)
At a stretch:
Melee, PM & Smash U (they are the most popular smash games)

Try running more than that and you have to start cutting stocks/sets from games to gain back lost time, a lot of people would rather not see stock reductions on games.