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Meta Competitive Smash Ruleset Discussion
- Thread starter SamuraiPanda
- Start date
ParanoidDrone
Smash Master
Oh bloody hell...
Someone refresh my memory, how long did it take for an LGL to be suggested in Brawl? (If you want you can only count time after planking was discovered.)
LiteralGrill
Smokin' Hot~
Always safe to show a source
EDIT: Keitaro is cool and responded to me on Twitter:
There was a problem fetching the tweet
There was a problem fetching the tweet
Nice to see a TO just giving it out straight up.
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ParanoidDrone
Smash Master
Eh, unless/until Villagers start dominating tournaments with it I think it's an overreaction, but props to Keitaro for at least talking about his reasoning when asked.
On the downside, LGL is a pointless rule that does nothing but blocks a poor strategy that no one likes.
On the upside, LGL is a pointless rule that does nothing but blocks a poor strategy that no one likes.
Remember, percent-lead-wins-timeout is also a janky homebrew "rules patch." We totally made it up, it's in no way part of the the game. We use it because Sudden Death is demonized, and that winner-camping is deemed a lesser evil than loser-camping.
I'm not a fan of LGL (seems unnecessary and reactionary), but I don't think you can be ideologically opposed to it as somehow undermining the rules integrity of the game while also supporting some other arbitrary timeout-victory rule.
On the upside, LGL is a pointless rule that does nothing but blocks a poor strategy that no one likes.
Remember, percent-lead-wins-timeout is also a janky homebrew "rules patch." We totally made it up, it's in no way part of the the game. We use it because Sudden Death is demonized, and that winner-camping is deemed a lesser evil than loser-camping.
I'm not a fan of LGL (seems unnecessary and reactionary), but I don't think you can be ideologically opposed to it as somehow undermining the rules integrity of the game while also supporting some other arbitrary timeout-victory rule.
Keitaro
Banned via Administration
Hey guys, since implementing a lgl I have yet to hear complaints from any people going to the event, however I have heard your opinions among others and facts on the matter. Simply put, custom villager made many matches look like a joke at the last KTAR as players were beaten by a tree sapling and an up B. Was from a smart player at least, but one who picked up the character days before the event.
Considering customs were still very new at the time, people had very few ideas on how to beat it. I still believe there's a chance that custom set will cause problems in the future, but until it does I've decided to remove the ledge grab limit and instead spread word of the many ways to deal with the custom set. I appreciate the heads up and responses guys.
Considering customs were still very new at the time, people had very few ideas on how to beat it. I still believe there's a chance that custom set will cause problems in the future, but until it does I've decided to remove the ledge grab limit and instead spread word of the many ways to deal with the custom set. I appreciate the heads up and responses guys.
Budget Player Cadet_
Smash Hero
EDIT: Ninja'd by Keitaro. Thank you for doing the right thing, man. This **** isn't broken, people just need to learn the (really really simple) counterplay.
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Jaxas
Smash Champion
Yo, I linked it on twitter too but I actually ended up working on a Community Reference that already discussed a ton about the Ledge-camping Villager and the counterplay to it; if you want more info to show people on how to beat the strategy, it's a solid starting point.
I'm glad you acknowledge this, a lot of people seem to complain about things like suicide clauses while not acknowledging that we're already deviating from the base game in terms of how we handle timeouts.
I'm shocked the game doesn't give any better options for handling timeouts by now. You would think something like "lowest percent wins, if tied the game ends the moment the percents are no longer tied" would exist.
allshort17
Smash Ace
Why not put the LGL only on Villager? Perhaps to avoid the whole argument of "X character also needs one", but a LGL in general changes the game in other ways outside of Villager. For example, this is persuading people not to ledge trump. Ledge trumping is still being fleshed out as an option for some players and characters, yet this rule is discouraging using it. Sure, you could say that most people won't even get close to the 25 LGL and have nothing to worry about. However, people won't count ledge grabs and thus will simply play more conservative with ledge grabbing just to avoid the threat.
Keitaro
Banned via Administration
^ That's not a bad idea either. But I'll wing it on this for now. The only person who I think would try this anyway is ADHD as he's always been a troll when playing even in his serious sets. He also lives 5 minutes from the venue so I expect him to be at the event too and with Diddy nerfed I doubt he'll still play Diddy. It will be interesting to see how people will deal with those customs this time around.
I want to talk about stalling rules. (Irony warning: Dis gun be long)
Just about everyone here agrees that rules have to be:
1. Enforceable
2. Discrete (binary; non-subjective)
3. Warranted
For those who don't know me, I tend to be a stickler about all 3 of these. I set a very high bar for each criteria.
A long time ago (and sometimes not that long), it was common to having a "stalling clause"; intentionally stalling the game indefinitely was considered grounds for forfeiture. This rule was discarded by theorists for being a subjective, ill-defined rule neither enforceable nor discrete.
I am not going to argue that a stalling clause is warranted; tbqh, I personally don't think it is in Smash 4. But I would like to put forth that a (infinite) stalling clause is sufficiently enforceable and discrete to be used if so desired.
Discrete
Since Roth v. United States in 1957, it has been a clear and unambiguous ruling that obscene material as a "dominant theme" is not protected under the US First Amendment right to freedom of speech in a public place. But what counts as obscene? Surely this is a subjective, non-discrete law?
The 1964 SCOTUS case of Jacobellis v. Ohio in tested just that. Jacobellis was a theater manager who had showed a French film involving adultery. (Scandalous!) The state of Ohio wanted to censor this, on the smug grounds that obscenity was subjective and they could thus censor whatever they wanted.
The Supreme Court ruling, which had none of this bullcrap, included a famous line by Justice Potter Steward:
In certain cases where the classification of content is intuitive, a law can be discrete without having to be exhaustively well-defined.
I think it's really easy to assert that infinite stalling, at least in Smash 4, fits into this realm.
Infinite stalling techniques--like pornography and elephants--are very difficult to describe comprehensively yet incredibly easy to identify.
This is because infinite stalling, as a primary strategy, only yields any benefit if you do it for the entire remainder of the match. (Or very close to it.) It's not like say, a hypothetical rule against chaining Fox jabs, where if we put a 10-jab limit, everyone would just do 9 and still get a big reward.
I think, like Supreme Court Justices faced with pornography, 99% of the community can agree on identification of 99.9% games as infinite stalling or not. If we have a robust stalling clause that both defines stalling formally, such as "actively avoiding the stage's primary platform indefinitely" (not the opponent! bad definition), and suggests a temporal baseline for infinite stalling, such as "at least 20 seconds", we can have 99% of players agree on 99.9999% of games.
Like sportsmanship, we can come up with a decent definition, leave it up to the TO, and that's enough. It really is that simple.
Enforceable
"Sure," I hear you say, "maybe it's a reasonable rule to exist, but are TOs supposed to monitor every setup at all times? It's just not reasonable to enforce."
Except here's the rub--we already determined that infinite stalling has no point unless the strategy is used for a prolonged period of time, and the game goes to timeout as a result. Unlike any other strategy in the game, a TO and/or spectators can be called over mid-match to observe and confirm
Furthermore, by nature stalling matchups are the longest. This means that they are far more likely to be spectated (by a TO or others), but that's not all. As a good TO, I am constantly on the lookout for the longest matches, because those are my bottleneck. Even in game 1s, I'm trying to get a feel for it, keeping my finger on the pulse of who to look out for. To run a bracket at maximum efficiency, I have to make a special effort to get players from long sets into their next rounds as quickly as possible. As a TO, those are where my eyeballs are. I have never TO'd a tourney where a non-pool game went to time and I wasn't watching. Not once. (It helps that in my experience, timeouts are rare and easy to predict based on player and matchup.)
In the event of fluke TO-and-audience failure, replays do exist. If this is a late bracket match, it's impossible that a TO or mass spectators will not observe the match, so this only applies to early matches.
And ultimately, it's sort of a moot-point. When everyone knows that infinite-stalling is inevitably going to get caught and prove pointless, it removes all incentive to do it. Why pursue a strategy that is not only going to result in social castration, but also get to disqualified by the TO? This makes the "TO headache" imaginary.
Back in the early Brawl days, all the tourneys I TO'd had a stalling clause because it was the norm at the time. It was never invoked in any way.
Bottom line is, I'm not actually saying we should have a "no infinite stalling" clause. But I do think that it's a legally sound rule to have in practice that us policy wonks do not have legalistic grounds to object to.
Footnotes:
Stalling clauses stopped seeing use in Brawl for 2 reasons:
Villager stall is a bad strategy, but ADHD is a very good player. He can use a bad strategy and still perform well, because he is flat out better than the vast majority of people he will play--not unlike using a low-tier character.
I'm concerned that good players winning with a bad strategy will still cause #outrage, even if those same players could have performed even better by playing a better character, including an aggressive or conventionally campy Villager.
Just about everyone here agrees that rules have to be:
1. Enforceable
2. Discrete (binary; non-subjective)
3. Warranted
For those who don't know me, I tend to be a stickler about all 3 of these. I set a very high bar for each criteria.
A long time ago (and sometimes not that long), it was common to having a "stalling clause"; intentionally stalling the game indefinitely was considered grounds for forfeiture. This rule was discarded by theorists for being a subjective, ill-defined rule neither enforceable nor discrete.
I am not going to argue that a stalling clause is warranted; tbqh, I personally don't think it is in Smash 4. But I would like to put forth that a (infinite) stalling clause is sufficiently enforceable and discrete to be used if so desired.
Discrete
Since Roth v. United States in 1957, it has been a clear and unambiguous ruling that obscene material as a "dominant theme" is not protected under the US First Amendment right to freedom of speech in a public place. But what counts as obscene? Surely this is a subjective, non-discrete law?
The 1964 SCOTUS case of Jacobellis v. Ohio in tested just that. Jacobellis was a theater manager who had showed a French film involving adultery. (Scandalous!) The state of Ohio wanted to censor this, on the smug grounds that obscenity was subjective and they could thus censor whatever they wanted.
The Supreme Court ruling, which had none of this bullcrap, included a famous line by Justice Potter Steward:
"I know it when I see it" has become a landmark legal concept that is vital to the topic we are discussing:
In certain cases where the classification of content is intuitive, a law can be discrete without having to be exhaustively well-defined.
I think it's really easy to assert that infinite stalling, at least in Smash 4, fits into this realm.
Infinite stalling techniques--like pornography and elephants--are very difficult to describe comprehensively yet incredibly easy to identify.
This is because infinite stalling, as a primary strategy, only yields any benefit if you do it for the entire remainder of the match. (Or very close to it.) It's not like say, a hypothetical rule against chaining Fox jabs, where if we put a 10-jab limit, everyone would just do 9 and still get a big reward.
I think, like Supreme Court Justices faced with pornography, 99% of the community can agree on identification of 99.9% games as infinite stalling or not. If we have a robust stalling clause that both defines stalling formally, such as "actively avoiding the stage's primary platform indefinitely" (not the opponent! bad definition), and suggests a temporal baseline for infinite stalling, such as "at least 20 seconds", we can have 99% of players agree on 99.9999% of games.
Like sportsmanship, we can come up with a decent definition, leave it up to the TO, and that's enough. It really is that simple.
Enforceable
"Sure," I hear you say, "maybe it's a reasonable rule to exist, but are TOs supposed to monitor every setup at all times? It's just not reasonable to enforce."
Except here's the rub--we already determined that infinite stalling has no point unless the strategy is used for a prolonged period of time, and the game goes to timeout as a result. Unlike any other strategy in the game, a TO and/or spectators can be called over mid-match to observe and confirm
Furthermore, by nature stalling matchups are the longest. This means that they are far more likely to be spectated (by a TO or others), but that's not all. As a good TO, I am constantly on the lookout for the longest matches, because those are my bottleneck. Even in game 1s, I'm trying to get a feel for it, keeping my finger on the pulse of who to look out for. To run a bracket at maximum efficiency, I have to make a special effort to get players from long sets into their next rounds as quickly as possible. As a TO, those are where my eyeballs are. I have never TO'd a tourney where a non-pool game went to time and I wasn't watching. Not once. (It helps that in my experience, timeouts are rare and easy to predict based on player and matchup.)
In the event of fluke TO-and-audience failure, replays do exist. If this is a late bracket match, it's impossible that a TO or mass spectators will not observe the match, so this only applies to early matches.
And ultimately, it's sort of a moot-point. When everyone knows that infinite-stalling is inevitably going to get caught and prove pointless, it removes all incentive to do it. Why pursue a strategy that is not only going to result in social castration, but also get to disqualified by the TO? This makes the "TO headache" imaginary.
Back in the early Brawl days, all the tourneys I TO'd had a stalling clause because it was the norm at the time. It was never invoked in any way.
Bottom line is, I'm not actually saying we should have a "no infinite stalling" clause. But I do think that it's a legally sound rule to have in practice that us policy wonks do not have legalistic grounds to object to.
Footnotes:
Stalling clauses stopped seeing use in Brawl for 2 reasons:
- It is uniquely difficult to discern what counts as stalling on Brinstar, which was legal for quite some time (This is not true of any other stage in Smash's competitive history.)
- The same could be said of circle camping, or camping the inner corners of Venom and Pilotwings biplane. These stages should not be used in competitive play regardless though.
- Ice Climber infinites were seen as a greater evil than stalling, which was the only true high-level counter-strategy.
- Other grab infinites in Brawl also played a small part in this.
I think LGL is a bad (or at least unnecessary) rule, but I think considering it was good TOing.
I have a concern about ADHD and some other strong players in particular using this strategy, from a public attitude standpoint.
Villager stall is a bad strategy, but ADHD is a very good player. He can use a bad strategy and still perform well, because he is flat out better than the vast majority of people he will play--not unlike using a low-tier character.
I'm concerned that good players winning with a bad strategy will still cause #outrage, even if those same players could have performed even better by playing a better character, including an aggressive or conventionally campy Villager.
Real Talk: The One True tournament timeout game ruling in any fighting game should be a computation of which player spent the most time closest to the center of the stage, weighted such that the end of the match counts significantly more.
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Do you play Divekick? Its timeout clause is that whomever is closer to the center of the stage wins.
Of course, that game has no concept of health (it's one hit dead for both players), so it's really the only mechanic they have.
It'd certainly be an interesting idea for Smash Bros, though stages which aren't symmetrical would be a problem.
I've actually never had a Divekick game go to time, and didn't know that! (Don't play it much)
I prefer a (weighted) running total though, rather than a mad-dash at the last second. This would be particularly ill-suited for Smash Bros, though still arguably superior to the status quo.
I think the way it would have to work is that when time runs out, if the stock / score is tied, a Golden Ball appears in the dead middle of the stage (you'd probably have an outline show up when time is running out so you know where it is). Whomever touches it first wins. Of course, you may get killed trying to get back there if you have bad stage position. I think that actually might work.
For extra flash you could have whomever gets the ball instantly execute a final smash on the opponent that always KOs. (For transformation FS's it'd just have to be some kind of cutscene).
Of course, this kind of thing will never happen, at least not until Sakurai retires and someone who actually cares about the competitive side of the game takes his place. We'll also get the ability to turn off stage hazards at the same time.
For extra flash you could have whomever gets the ball instantly execute a final smash on the opponent that always KOs. (For transformation FS's it'd just have to be some kind of cutscene).
Of course, this kind of thing will never happen, at least not until Sakurai retires and someone who actually cares about the competitive side of the game takes his place. We'll also get the ability to turn off stage hazards at the same time.
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I've thought about this before; I'd sooner have a game-winning Special Flag stuck in the middle of the stage. It can't be just instantaneous, a mad dash to the center.
Wouldn't this give an edge to more mobile characters though? Maybe it's not as fair as it seems.
Stuck as in, you can't move it away from the middle of the stage. (You drop it if you move away)
digiholic
Smash Ace
How about a "first player to spend 10 total seconds in a given area wins" mechanic? Like a light comes up in the middle of the screen, and the players can fight for it, the timers can tick for both players at once if they're both in there, and the first person to spend 10 total seconds (non-consecutive) wins? In the event that both players are standing in the light when it spawns, the timer won't tick down until someone gets knocked out of it, effectively making it impossible to cause a draw.
Blobface
Smash Lord
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Er, why is S@X not using customs? I can't find anything on Gimr's twitter, so I'm hoping this just has something to do with Mewtwo.
ParanoidDrone
Smash Master
IIRC Xanadu alternates customs on/off each week. I guess this week is customs off.
vegeta18
Smash Journeyman
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I understand why people can`t use wiiU gamepads in tournaments because you can`t even have multiple gamepads synced to the same wiiU. So 2 or more people can`t use them at the same time.
Im curious about why most tournaments don`t allow 3ds/2ds as controllers?
Im curious about why most tournaments don`t allow 3ds/2ds as controllers?
They don't? Every tournament I've been to has allowed them, and I've seen several players take advantage of the option.
ぱみゅ
❤ ~
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If anything, they might be wanting to mimic EVO, which don't allow it for a variety of reasons, the most obvious ones are time, the fact they tend to sync in at wrong times only creating a numb slot that can't be removed, and the fact they use to have "Home" buttons that might mess up the game.
Player-1 used Custom Villager at a recent Alabama event, and the end result was that that tournament series decided they would not use Customs at future events.
I beat him in Grand Finals (he used Diddy in Winners Finals and lost soundly), but it's worth noting that GFs went to Game 5, second set, last hit. Pushy Lloid makes dealing with that situation significantly harder, in my experience. The discussion seems shortsighted in that thread about dealing with individual customs and likely deserves more scrutiny.
I beat him in Grand Finals (he used Diddy in Winners Finals and lost soundly), but it's worth noting that GFs went to Game 5, second set, last hit. Pushy Lloid makes dealing with that situation significantly harder, in my experience. The discussion seems shortsighted in that thread about dealing with individual customs and likely deserves more scrutiny.
What impact would no-stalling or LGL rules have had on your matches? I'm interested in both your objective thoughts on their impact and subsequent subjective opinions on their merit.
smashmachine
Smash Lord
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why do some people suck up to Japan so much? they're not even better than us, it feels more like a ****ty excuse to ban customs+stages they don't like
#HBC | Red Ryu
Red Fox Warrior
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What is the core custom or move you think makes it really difficult? Mostly Pushy Lloid or something else that is core?
Budget Player Cadet_
Smash Hero
Are there any videos of this?
Well, since he's often hittable and often sending moves my way, no-stalling doesn't seem to change anything. It's not that he wasn't interacting with me.
An LGL would've made approaching him significantly less intimidating and would have caused him to play something much more similar to the standard Villager gameplan (of which he knows well, being a good Villager player, period).
Pushy Lloid reduces the amount of time he has to wait before using another one (assuming a Lloid Rocket wouldn't be shielded or hit you, as I feel the optimal way to deal with it is by avoiding it), appears to have a bigger hitbox, can't be clanked out nearly as easily, and can be followed more efficiently a la Guile Sonic Boom (most importantly from the ledge; it covers the 20 frames of vulnerability pretty well). It's a very useful move.
Hesitating to go to the ledge for longer than a split second as a recovering Villager with Exploding Balloons is pointless and doesn't help you. The point is just to make that 20 frames of vulnerability as ambiguous as possible.
I think the VODs are unavailable because they want to put the matches on YouTube in the near future. I'll post them when I see that they're up.
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AvariceX
Smash Champion
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I was just thinking about our set last month and came to this thread to see you already asked this. Seeing that no one answered it though I'd like to bring it up again. Who chooses the music on a counterpick stage? As silly as it is back in the Brawl days I would sometimes counterpick a stage for no other reason than I wanted the music.
Stage bans in best of 5 sets in this game confuse me as well, someone walk me through what's right and wrong here please:
Let's say for example the stage list is FD, BF, SV (Neutral), Lylat, Castle, Delfino, T&C, Halberd, Duck Hunt (counterpick) [Apex stagelist]
Stage clause from Apex ruleset: "A player/team may not pick any stage they previously won on during the set." (Also known as Modified DSR)
Player 1 wins game 1 on SV, bans Halberd and Lylat
Counterpick options for Player 2: FD, BF, SV, Castle, Delfino, T&C, Duck Hunt
Player 2 wins game 2 on BF, bans FD and Castle Siege
Counterpick options for Player 1: BF, Delfino, T&C, Duck Hunt
Player 1 wins game 3 on T&C, bans Duck Hunt and Delfino
Counterpick options for Player 2: SV, T&C
Player 2 wins game 4 on SV, bans BF and T&C
There are no legal counterpicks remaining for Player 1???????????
(Player 1 won on SV and T&C so can't pick those. Halberd, Lylat, FD, Castle Siege, Duck Hunt, Delfino, BF, T&C were banned out by the players. There are no other stages in the list.)
Or can a player pick a stage that he banned himself (correct me if I'm wrong but this is not the case in any other Smash game)?
This can't be right so what am I missing?
PND
Smash Champion
In my scene, in Bo5's, we don't give the players extra ban phases. You get two bans the first time you lose, and that's it -- They stick throughout the set. You gave opponents two ban phases which nets them a total of 4 bans, and that's where the issue seems to arise.
TheAnomaly
Smash Cadet
I'm fairly certain you can pick a stage you banned. That ban you made means you did not want your opponent to carry you to that stage. Also you have the bans stacking which doesn't happen. Bans are for that match only so worst case scenario would be P1 winning 2 matches in a BO5 on different stages and then having to pick the stage in the 5th match after his opponent banned 2 different stages. 4 stages are excluded from the list(the two he won on and the two opponent bans) of 9 legal stages.
JimmyTheCaterpillar
Smash Ace
I still think that's a bit silly... Pro Controllers can have the same problem as well. People just need to remember to disconnect and it's not a problem.
LiteralGrill
Smokin' Hot~
So Super Smash Con has its rules out. TLDR: it's basically the exact same thing as Apex, and notably ALL wireless controllers are banned.
JimmyTheCaterpillar
Smash Ace
So literally only GC controllers?!
thehard
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Somehow, Lylat is a neutral in Brawl and CP in Smash 4. (While the one thing that "makes it a CP" [if you subscribe to that line of thought] has been fixed in 4...)
If T&C is a CP because of the platforms "that can kill you"... why is Yoshi's Island a neutral in Brawl? It's also got killing platforms.
This has got to stop.
If T&C is a CP because of the platforms "that can kill you"... why is Yoshi's Island a neutral in Brawl? It's also got killing platforms.
This has got to stop.
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smashmachine
Smash Lord
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I don't get why Town and City and Lylat (now fixed!) sometimes get put as counterpicks