Meta Competitive Smash Ruleset Discussion

[thehard]

Just noticed Smashcon is still APEX rules. 3 starters, no DL64/Miiverse, and it has this humorous addition:

1111 Default Mii Brawler, Swordsman and Gunner are legal characters. This is the default Mii provided by in-game.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Just noticed Smashcon is still APEX rules. 3 starters, no DL64/Miiverse, and it has this humorous addition:

I tried to complain about this a while back, but to no avail. I don't think the guys TOing there wanna listen to outside influences. I get sometimes just sticking to your guns on stuff, but the DLC is such a nice addition it seems odd to ignore it (and Miis but I accept people wont be reasonable with them all the time).

 

[thehard]

Yeah, just a shame that the ruleset was announced so many months ago and isn't being updated to reflect popular changes since then. It's like a 2014 tournament.

Maybe there'll be more complaints as it draws near.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

If airbender DK were default, he would be treated like any other annoying-*** top tier.

No... He'd be treated like the obnoxious mid-tier that he is because people would ****ing adapt to it!

In what sense do you mean by "customs-off means we're banning characters"? Is it just a matter of characters becoming un-viable without customs, or are the custom sets themselves characters of their own?

Just to give an example, 1111 Palutena is a turtle. A campy, highly keep-away focused character which relies almost entirely on reactive play. x2x3 Palutena is a rushdown character. Forget "the difference between Marth and Lucina", there's more a difference between 1111 Palutena and x2x3 Palutena than there is between Fox and Pikachu. The more apt comparison is between something like Shiek and Villager. That is what we're talking about when we say that we're "banning a character".

The thing that's abundantly clear to me is exactly what I suspected. FLSS is a complete waste of time. We start on our normal starters anyways. Literally nothing changes.

This just in: almost all of the smash community is stupid. Oh wait, that's not news?

Look, not to put too fine a point on it, but you can talk about "starting on normal starters" when people stop striking, then counterpicking shieks to their very best stages. Until then, this mentality of "let's just play the actual game" dictates that we just go wherever is least disagreeable, and who would object to smashville (except people with a clue)?

I get sometimes just sticking to your guns on stuff, but the DLC is such a nice addition it seems odd to ignore it (and Miis but I accept people wont be reasonable with them all the time).

Why would we want the DLC? The default is good enough for everyone, as we've established pretty consistently. Who needs extra characters, more stages, more options, more game depth? Pah. Not us. Default chars on Smashville all day long, baby. Plus, you have to pay for DLC.

 

[MajorMajora]

Could someone enlighten me as to why the 3DS is a banned controller in many tournaments, while the Pro controller is still allowed? This seems inconsistent to me, just wondering if someone could shed some light on it.

Possibly the time it takes to set up. I was going to say something about wireless, but I'm assuming the pro controller is also wireless based on your post.

 

[Illuminose]

@ Budget Player Cadet_ what I'm saying is that no one is going to start on Halberd or Delfino or Castle Siege, therefore FLSS is a waste of time. It's not even being misinformed, people go to those stages to jank others out and that's a fact. Why go to Halberd? Cheesy low ceiling kills. Why go to Castle Siege? Trying to get them in the second transformation. Why go to Delfino? Walkoffs, low ceilings on transitions. There's no bs about those stages being 'more neutral' because they're only more neutral in the sense that you're wrestling with crappy stages to play a normal match. Players who want to play a skillful match do not go to those stages, wonder why? And seriously, if you really want to insist bringing Sheik to Castle Siege or Halberd...I don't think you really want that as much as you think. Sheik is good on every stage, people need to get over this and figure out specific strengths/weaknesses on different stages for the matchup they have to deal with. Smashville isn't even necessarily her best stage. It totally depends on the matchup.

 

[MajorMajora]

@ Budget Player Cadet_ what I'm saying is that no one is going to start on Halberd or Delfino or Castle Siege, therefore FLSS is a waste of time. It's not even being misinformed, people go to those stages to jank others out and that's a fact. Why go to Halberd? Cheesy low ceiling kills. Why go to Castle Siege? Trying to get them in the second transformation. Why go to Delfino? Walkoffs, low ceilings on transitions. There's no bs about those stages being 'more neutral' because they're only more neutral in the sense that you're wrestling with crappy stages to play a normal match. Players who want to play a skillful match do not go to those stages, wonder why? And seriously, if you really want to insist bringing Sheik to Castle Siege or Halberd...I don't think you really want that as much as you think. Sheik is good on every stage, people need to get over this and figure out specific strengths/weaknesses on different stages for the matchup they have to deal with. Smashville isn't even necessarily her best stage. It totally depends on the matchup.

Even if no one wants to go to those stages (which I've actually heard reports about it not being true), it still has effects.

Let's say there are 9 legal stages. They are labeled 1-9. 1 is the best for character A, 9 is the best for character B, and so on. In starter counterpick stages 2-6 are starters. In FLSS, you strike to the median, 5. In starter counter pick, you strike to stage 4, giving character A an edge.

Not to mention that those other stages do get striked to.

Also can we get a godwin's law style rule about using the word jank? Because it means nothing and is just rhetoric for people to use when they don't have a reason to explain why they think something is unfair.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

So, this is an off-the-cuff thought about competitive rulesets taken from other games with character balance issues. I'm also just out of surgery and heavily medicated, so bear with me.

I am a competitive PC gamer in addition to an avid Smash fan, and one of my favorite games in recent years is the somewhat ill-fated Bloodline Champions. It's an arena fighter with WASD controls and an isometric view, highly skill-based and technical. In BLC tournaments for 1v1, they are striving to measure not just one's proficiency with a particular character or strategy, but their skill as an overall player. To do this, each player picks a character, plays a game, and then swaps character for game 2. In the event of a tie, the tie-breaker is a ditto with a 3rd character that both parties agree on. This measures versatility, skill, adaptability and manages to more or less avoid the problem of character balance.

I'm not suggesting we replace the Smash ruleset, but I'm curious what people thought of this idea for an alternative way to run a finals for some events.

 

[dansal]

There are too many characters in smash for that to work, seeing as each individual character has 20+ moves to know, instead of the usual 4 to 6 moves available to most moba characters.

 

[Scarlet Jile]

There are too many characters in smash for that to work, seeing as each individual character has 20+ moves to know, instead of the usual 4 to 6 moves available to most moba characters.

Well, most of the moves overlap in a fundamental capacity. A player with solid fundamentals can adequately play any character in the game to some degree. That's actually not true of some of the other games I'm thinking of, where a character's moveset is a hundred times less uniform and requires a larger investment of time to figure out.

There are problems with the system that I described, but this doesn't feel like one of them.

 

[webbedspace]

http://www.meleeitonme.com/juggleblog-the-big-house-5-ruleset/ - Thoughts?

"The extremely tedious overhead required to unlock all customs creates a dangerous precedent for the community if Smash 4 majors were to start playing with them legal" Fortunately that's never happened, especially not over the past several months.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

@ Budget Player Cadet_ what I'm saying is that no one is going to start on Halberd or Delfino or Castle Siege, therefore FLSS is a waste of time. It's not even being misinformed, people go to those stages to jank wop wop wopwah wopwah wop wah wah wah.

I'm sorry, want to try to articulate your point again? You said a certain word and then everything just devolved into so much pointless white noise.

Also, I started on Delfino quite a few times against a local Greninja player. Even if he had struck it, guess what: that's a strike he had to use on a stage he wasn't comfortable with that I was.

@ W webbedspace should I tell them? I think someone should tell them. I mean, sure, the whole "not what we want to test" argument is complete nonsense (because, you know, when we turn on customs, we're totally shifting from "Smash" to "Whack A Mole" or some **** like that). It's like this whole issue is just getting dumber and dumber, in direct proportion to the entire community.

 

[Illuminose]

@ Budget Player Cadet_ grow a pair and accept that the word jank exists. Synonym for "cheese" or "dumb" or "anti-competitive". It's a word with a purpose and I've already articulated my concerns with those stages. Your anecdote is neither here nor there because on the whole FLSS is a waste of time and EVO showed this. It encourages more lazy gentlemans actually because it's such a waste of time, making players MORE likely to take the easy way out and default to Smashville.

 

[MajorMajora]

@ Budget Player Cadet_ grow a pair and accept that the word jank exists. Synonym for "cheese" or "dumb" or "anti-competitive". It's a word with a purpose and I've already articulated my concerns with those stages. Your anecdote is neither here nor there because on the whole FLSS is a waste of time and EVO showed this. It encourages more lazy gentlemans actually because it's such a waste of time, making players MORE likely to take the easy way out and default to Smashville.

Okay, first off, from dictionary.com

"jank
verb

To maneuver an airplane about evasively"

Thought that was funny was all.

Second of all, the one definition of jank I'll take seriously from your list is "Anti-competitive". That's fine, I suppose, but, correct me if I'm wrong, you've yet to define anti-competitive, or what you consider competitive values, and without anything to compare the qualities of the stage to your argument amounts to little besides you using rhetorical language and announcing a conclusion without a solid train of logic leading to it. The way you're using the word is about as justified as me trying to say someone's political agenda are wrong because "It's doomed to fail" without clarifying further.

Third, People gentleman'd to Smashville because they are ignorant. And because they are lazy. I see no reason to create a ruleset that is designed specifically to cater to ignorant, lazy players, as opposed to one that caters to players who take the time to explore the game.

 

[Ghostbone]

Third, People gentleman'd to Smashville because they are ignorant. And because they are lazy. I see no reason to create a ruleset that is designed specifically to cater to ignorant, lazy players, as opposed to one that caters to players who take the time to explore the game.

You heard it here first folks, top players are lazy and ignorant and don't take time to explore the game.

 

[MajorMajora]

You heard it here first folks, top players are lazy and ignorant and don't take time to explore the game.

They don't when it comes to stages.

And perhaps it has more to do with habit than sheer ignorance, but you really should know not to take a sheik to smashville. yet people did. I don't care how sarcastic you get, I'm going to blame the top players for that.

 

[SoniCraft]

We should always keep in mind that top players are not immune to error...whether it be in their play, decisions, or ideas about whatever.

Has anyone heard M2K talk about Project M?

 

[Illuminose]

They don't when it comes to stages.

And perhaps it has more to do with habit than sheer ignorance, but you really should know not to take a sheik to smashville. yet people did. I don't care how sarcastic you get, I'm going to blame the top players for that.

ok so tell me where exactly you want them to take her

Battlefield? lol right, see here: Sheik's best stage. Dreamland? Slightly bigger Battlefield. FD? If you have trouble with needles you're suffering, if not I'm striking this. Town & City? Earlier up air and bouncing fish kills AND upper platform camping/sharking, thank you. If we made this FLSS, still would be fine. Lylat? Not even that bad but I'll probably strike it because I don't like it. Duck Hunt? Basically FD with a tree, might just strike this. Halberd? I love down throw up air being a true kill combo at 80%, take me here please! Castle Siege? lol second transformation please take me here! Delfino? You really want to take Sheik to Delfino? Are you sure? Are you really sure?

Rhetoric aside, Sheik is good on pretty much every stage. Full list stage striking means that I can ban FD, Duck Hunt, and Lylat and get somewhere that I don't mind or even want to go to. This isn't the fault of the stage list, but more Sheik's adaptability as a character and plethora of options to take advantage of different stage features. Smashville isn't her best stage and it's not some ungodly horrible stage to fight her on. Sounds like you're just scapegoating that stage pick to call top players lazy when it's actually just a good stage and not some godly Sheik stage.

@ Budget Player Cadet_ The only positive of varying stages is so that we can get a relatively neutral start and have varied enough layouts to make counterpicking relevant and useful. Bear in mind that less stages = lower amount of bans, which increases the value of counterpicking. The reason we need to have 2 bans at the moment is primarily because of how polarizing the layouts of Delfino, Halberd, and Castle Siege are. Anti-competitive elements are elements that detract from actual player vs player competition, which includes elements that interrupt/warp gameplay around those things and elements that heavily favor specific scenarios/increase their reward disproportionately. Things that allow for very early kills are problematic because stock leads are ridiculously powerful in this game, and we're not necessarily rewarding the more consistent/skillful player. This is especially why ultra low ceilings are not okay but also why temporary walkoffs/very close horizontal blast zones are not okay. Hence why such things are called "jank" or "cheese" in the sense that they create opportunities for less skilled players to capitalize on these early kills without consistently outplaying their opponent.

edit: if we think that having one transforming stage is a good idea then I'd rather it be wuhu rather than anything else.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Dreamland is not a bigger Battlefield..... The rest of the post I kinda agree in that Sheik is good pretty much everywhere, but certain characters are better at other stages. Sheik gains pressure but favoring her and against her in Battlefield (and Dreamland, which actually kinda make her combos harder to perform).
But Smashville does for her exactly what Castle Siege and Delfino: adds a way to extend her combos and even kill at stupid low %s.

 

[Illuminose]

Dreamland is not a bigger Battlefield..... The rest of the post I kinda agree in that Sheik is good pretty much everywhere, but certain characters are better at other stages. Sheik gains pressure but favoring her and against her in Battlefield (and Dreamland, which actually kinda make her combos harder to perform).
But Smashville does for her exactly what Castle Siege and Delfino: adds a way to extend her combos and even kill at stupid low %s.

It's close enough outside wind which is just a little annoying more than anything else + you can do different follow-ups, also Castle Siege and Delfino enable much easier and stupider early kills for her than Smashville for sure.

 

[ぱみゅ]

If you see Duckhunt as "a FD with a tree", I'm in the right to see Smashville as "Just another temporary semi-walkoff"

 

[Illuminose]

If you see Duckhunt as "a FD with a tree", I'm in the right to see Smashville as "Just another temporary semi-walkoff"

I generalized and it's not that far off. I didn't feel like making gigantic explanations on all of the stages when I'm getting rid of Duck Hunt for pretty much the same reasons as FD. Obviously there are different blastzones, but fundamentally it's a flat stage, like FD, with the addition of the tree on the left and the small bush on the right. There's not much else worthy of note about the stage so I don't really see what your issue is.

 

[Pazx]

You heard it here first folks, top players are lazy and ignorant and don't take time to explore the game.

I kind of agree with this assessment honestly. The only top player I can recall striking multiple times at Evo was Esam. I saw him strike to FD twice whilst most others were happy to gentleman to Smashville. Choosing not to strike would usually put one player at a disadvantage, which is usually either lazy or ignorant but can occasionally be clever (eg gentlemanning to a stage you like).

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Regarding the question of where to take Sheik, out of the EVO list I would consider any of the following:

Lylat, for the tilting to mess up needles
Delfino, for the transformations
Halberd, because I'm Rosalina
Duck Hunt, where the ducks can sometimes mess up Bouncing Fish (size and flatness are still issues)

I would strike Smashville right off the bat, followed by FD, maybe Castle Siege depending on my mood.

Even if some of my reasoning is flawed (I can't remember exactly how much Sheik likes Duck Hunt, for instance), at least I'm thinking about how to work the stage to my advantage tether than simply following the path of least resistance and agreeing to SV.

EDIT: I would also consider Skyloft or Wuhu in settings with those stages legal. Undecided about KJ64.

 

[Browny]

They don't when it comes to stages.

And perhaps it has more to do with habit than sheer ignorance, but you really should know not to take a sheik to smashville. yet people did. I don't care how sarcastic you get, I'm going to blame the top players for that.

Not so much a habit as a case of every single goddam time stage striking for round 1 is done it invariably ends up on smashville so why even waste time going anywhere else. If I ban smashville I run a 50:50 of getting a stage with no platforms, or lots of platforms and since usually I am going to want one or the other, its not worth the risk.

Unless a character has a really distinct advantage on that stage that your character cant equally abuse (how many instances of this are there in the game?) then it just ends up there anyway.

 

[Ghostbone]

Regarding the question of where to take Sheik, out of the EVO list I would consider any of the following:

Lylat, for the tilting to mess up needles
Delfino, for the transformations
Halberd, because I'm Rosalina
Duck Hunt, where the ducks can sometimes mess up Bouncing Fish (size and flatness are still issues)

I would strike Smashville right off the bat, followed by FD, maybe Castle Siege depending on my mood.

Even if some of my reasoning is flawed (I can't remember exactly how much Sheik likes Duck Hunt, for instance), at least I'm thinking about how to work the stage to my advantage tether than simply following the path of least resistance and agreeing to SV.

Delfino/Halberd are really good for Sheik vs anyone that isn't Rosalina/ZSS, so your striking wouldn't work as any other character.

Most characters vs Sheik would be forced to strike Delfino/Halberd/Battlefield/Castle Siege before they could get to strike Smashville.
Because guess what guys, Smashville isn't some godly Sheik stage, it's about as good as every other neutral, Sheik just has the tools to excel no matter what stage she's on (as the best character tends to have).

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Delfino/Halberd are really good for Sheik vs anyone that isn't Rosalina/ZSS, so your striking wouldn't work as any other character.

Most characters vs Sheik would be forced to strike Delfino/Halberd/Battlefield/Castle Siege before they could get to strike Smashville.
Because guess what guys, Smashville isn't some godly Sheik stage, it's about as good as every other neutral, Sheik just has the tools to excel no matter what stage she's on (as the best character tends to have).

I'd still rather strike SV over BF, honestly. To be fair, that's at least partially due to being absolutely sick of SV by now.

 

[Yikarur]

Banning wireless controllers is awful. I hope no one will follow that as example.
It will hurt a lot of people. 4 of the up-to-date Top10 in germany are wireless controller users.
and I want to visit apex at some point; if other events would introduce a wireless ban, there is no way I would fly to the USA.

Under custom: off 1111 Mii's are outdated and should be abandoned. There is no logic behind having Mii's been artificially restricted.
Read here for further explanation: http://smashboards.com/threads/comp...haracter-should-be-allowed-custom-off.398225/

And no Sheik's best stages are Smashville and Town & City. The other stages aren't as good. She is amazing overall of course but Smashville and Town & City are the cherry on the cake.

 

[ぱみゅ]

A lot of characters do not dislike the idea of getting Sheik to BF. I'd be fine not getting carried away to the blastzone.

I generalized and it's not that far off. I didn't feel like making gigantic explanations on all of the stages when I'm getting rid of Duck Hunt for pretty much the same reasons as FD. Obviously there are different blastzones, but fundamentally it's a flat stage, like FD, with the addition of the tree on the left and the small bush on the right. There's not much else worthy of note about the stage so I don't really see what your issue is.

It's not really an issue, but if you get to generalize, then I want to do so, too.
I do not want to get too complex about it, but the platform effectively gets so close to the blastzone that it creates an scenario very similar to what she can do at walkoffs.

 

[J_the_Man]

http://www.meleeitonme.com/juggleblog-the-big-house-5-ruleset/ - Thoughts?

"The extremely tedious overhead required to unlock all customs creates a dangerous precedent for the community if Smash 4 majors were to start playing with them legal" Fortunately that's never happened, especially not over the past several months.

I don't know how this worked at EVO, but I'm assuming the sponsor providing the consoles ensured custom moves were on the system. So unless Big House is relying upon attendee setups or the sponsor/company providing the setups doesn't have the resources to do this, this is not a very convincing argument to me. Needs to be more specific.

Edit: read the whole article. It's the same stuff we've heard forever.

 

[Kaladin]

Jank= HEAVY pre-johns. That is all.

 

[TheAnomaly]

Are we seriously still having this discussion about FLSS? I'm fairly sure it is proven to be the most effective method of attaining the fairest allowed stage in game 1 of any matchup for any 2 characters in the cast. What I don't think people realize is that FLSS is just an extended striking procedure. You strike the same way in normal start counterpick situations. People wanting to gentleman to a stage is in no way an argument for or against FLSS. It simply means people don't always use the optimal strategy in a given situation, the same way some people will refuse to camp out another player although it may be in their best interest to do so in a specific situation.

 

[Probalo]

Banning wireless controllers is awful. I hope no one will follow that as example.
It will hurt a lot of people. 4 of the up-to-date Top10 in germany are wireless controller users.
and I want to visit apex at some point; if other events would introduce a wireless ban, there is no way I would fly to the USA.

I feel that wireless controllers shouldn't be banned in a tournament environment, but it definitely isn't optimal IMO. Mainly because of controller lag and interference with other wireless controllers. Too many wireless controllers in a single setting can have some pretty noticeable lag. I feel that the ruleset should be Gamecube controller.

 

[Yikarur]

We are in modern times. I've never experienced any connectivity problems with the WiiU Pro Controller + WiiU and a lot of people in germany are using WiiU Pro Controllers.

 

[Nabbitnator]

the one thing I'm not fond of is when people forget to turn their wireless controllers off thus holding up the tournament. Other wise its fine.

 

[Ulevo]

I feel that wireless controllers shouldn't be banned in a tournament environment, but it definitely isn't optimal IMO. Mainly because of controller lag and interference with other wireless controllers. Too many wireless controllers in a single setting can have some pretty noticeable lag. I feel that the ruleset should be Gamecube controller.

Wireless controllers do not have lag. They have the same 6 frame latency as any other controller scheme.

Delfino/Halberd are really good for Sheik vs anyone that isn't Rosalina/ZSS, so your striking wouldn't work as any other character.

Most characters vs Sheik would be forced to strike Delfino/Halberd/Battlefield/Castle Siege before they could get to strike Smashville.
Because guess what guys, Smashville isn't some godly Sheik stage, it's about as good as every other neutral, Sheik just has the tools to excel no matter what stage she's on (as the best character tends to have).

Smashville is Sheiks best stage because it augments her kill potential. It is one of the smallest stages in the game. I would absolutely give up Halberd or Castle Siege to ensure it remains banned. As for Delfino, I do not think that is an ideal stage for Sheik in the slightest. She loses the advantage of having a better recovery, there are many ways to avoid Needles, and the blast zones are huge in many places. It does not stop her from being Sheik, but it is hardly one of her better picks.

 

[ShadowKing]

Can someone tell me what stagesare most used in tournaments so I can practice more?

 

[Pazx]

Can someone tell me what stagesare most used in tournaments so I can practice more?

In rough order of most to least common, both in terms of how often they are legal and how often they are picked by players. Some tournaments will only allow stages towards the top of this list, but others will use all of them and sometimes even more.

Smashville
Battlefield
Town and City
Final Destination
Lylat Cruise
Dream Land 64
~~~~small gap~~~~
Duck Hunt
Halberd
Delfino Plaza
Castle Siege
~~~~small gap~~~~
Kongo Jungle 64
Skyloft
Wuhu Island
~~~~small gap~~~~
Mario Circuit U
Norfair

Any more and you get into veeeeery controversial territory (like Luigi's Mansion), so if I were you I'd practice on the top 10 stages in particular and try to find out what stages tournaments around you use.

 

[Yikarur]

Halberd should belong in the lower category. It's banned in different regions and in parts of europe.

 

[Pazx]

Halberd should belong in the lower category. It's banned in different regions and in parts of europe.

Duck Hunt, Delfino and Siege are all banned in some regions as well, despite that I think it's fair to say that those four are somewhat more frequently legal than Kongo, Skyloft or Wuhu.