Meta Competitive Smash Ruleset Discussion

[Yikarur]

Duck Hunt, Castle Siege and Delfino shouldn't be banned though while Halberd is downright terrible. And Wuhu Island should be allowed too. It's like the better Delfino..

 

[Trieste SP]

My local which is the only one in the region allows any types of controllers as long as they're not third party controllers. From my experience, wireless controllers have seemingly the same amount of latency as wired controllers. However, experiences may differ because of external factors.

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 can agree that unlocking all custom moves is quite tedious especially if you're doing it the way Sakurai intended. I went through the process before the Wii U version and the customs movement. Eventually, people in my region got more interested in customs and my local used my copy to transfer all the custom sets.

My thoughts on the statement is that the TO seems to not want to go through the work of transferring the custom sets and sees it as not something worth investing in. Unless he can't get his hands on a 3DS copy with all customs unlocked.

Duck Hunt, Castle Siege and Delfino shouldn't be banned though while Halberd is downright terrible. And Wuhu Island should be allowed too. It's like the better Delfino..

Wuhu Island definitely should be legal in more tourneys. I honestly don't see why it's isn't more widely legalized. Perhaps, it's a new transforming stage that people are not used to or that people are not too keen on the walk-offs/hazards.

However, can you explain why Halberd is terrible? Is it because of the low ceilings and the stage hazards?

 

[Seagull Joe]

Question: For those who advocate for customs, what's your stance on size regulation of miis? I do not understand why mii's should be allowed to have size variations for customs tourney. That is not a moveset change. That changes ground/air mobility, combos, and weight. I believe only regular size should be legal.

And just so people know: Only small mii can kill you at 0 with dthrow>fair>up b.

 

[Trieste SP]

I'm personally neutral on the legality of customs. Couldn't care either way.

However, I prefer an open size design (or at least “you get one size per class, as taken from the Customs Project”) because it allows our mains to be at it's utmost potential. Truthfully, most of us willing to compromise Mii sizes if they aren't restricted to only using their default 1111 movesets. At least I do.

 

[Yikarur]

Question: For those who advocate for customs, what's your stance on size regulation of miis? I do not understand why mii's should be allowed to have size variations for customs tourney. That is not a moveset change. That changes ground/air mobility, combos, and weight. I believe only regular size should be legal.

And just so people know: Only small mii can kill you at 0 with dthrow>fair>up b.

The idea behind custom on is to have every customization availble. There is no logic behind restricting Mii's to a certain size in a custom environment. And no he cannot kill you at 0% with dthrow>fair>UpB. Get your facts straight. This combo is even DIable.

 

[Illuminose]

The idea behind custom on is to have every customization availble. There is no logic behind restricting Mii's to a certain size in a custom environment. And no he cannot kill you at 0% with dthrow>fair>UpB. Get your facts straight. This combo is even DIable.

He exaggerated, but that combo kills you at, like, 30-40%. On top of Brawler's ridiculous mobility. Tiny Brawler is broken. That's the point.

 

[Yikarur]

no he's probably S Tier together with Sheik but not "broken".
It's just a match-up you need to study your DI for. I main that character and my roommate mains that character. I know what I'm talking about.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Question: For those who advocate for customs, what's your stance on size regulation of miis? I do not understand why mii's should be allowed to have size variations for customs tourney. That is not a moveset change. That changes ground/air mobility, combos, and weight. I believe only regular size should be legal.

And just so people know: Only small mii can kill you at 0 with dthrow>fair>up b.

Honestly, compared to customs in general and stage legality, Mii size is far enough down my "list of things I care about" it may as well not even be there. My personal Mii is tall/thin (because I am too, surprise) and I made a bunch of default/default Miis styled after the ingame art of Brawler/Swordfighter/Gunner because I was bored one day and that's about it.

 

[Illuminose]

no he's probably S Tier together with Sheik but not "broken".
It's just a match-up you need to study your DI for. I main that character and my roommate mains that character. I know what I'm talking about.

Everyone likes to underrate their top/high tier mains. That aside, I don't buy for a second that a character with a throw combo that kills from 30-40% is a healthy character. It's not broken in the same way that other top tiers are "broken", it's broken in the sense that such an early kill option is not something that belongs in a competitive metagame.

 

[PUK]

MK has this, it's not stage position dependant, it's harder to DI and can start with 2 ways. Sry but your Metagame is already dead.

 

[Ghostbone]

Everyone likes to underrate their top/high tier mains. That aside, I don't buy for a second that a character with a throw combo that kills from 30-40% is a healthy character. It's not broken in the same way that other top tiers are "broken", it's broken in the sense that such an early kill option is not something that belongs in a competitive metagame.

I hate to make comparisons to melee, but you've clearly never seen puff in that game.

You've clearly also never seen lucario in this game.

Or seen a Rosalina with Rage.

Early kill options exist in a variety of places in this game, ZSS can combo you to death from 45 at any point on the stage, mii brawler can only do it at the edge if you don't DI properly.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I hate to make comparisons to melee, but you've clearly never seen puff in that game.

You've clearly also never seen lucario in this game.

Or seen a Rosalina with Rage.

Early kill options exist in a variety of places in this game, ZSS can combo you to death from 45 at any point on the stage, mii brawler can only do it at the edge if you don't DI properly.

Also only in a very specific % range. I forget the exact numbers, but the grab > death combo only works in a small 10% gap or so. Any lower and it won't kill, any higher and you can escape with proper DI (and airdodging, I think).

 

[Illuminose]

Just because there are early kill options doesn't mean we need more of them. Also if you die off the top to ZSS at 45% you are DIing wrong; that should not happen. Lucario's early kills are balanced by his incompetent performance in neutral until high percents. I also think we can agree that Rosalina's up air is silly (though you only get killed at low percents if you get juggle trapped near the top because it's not even close to a true combo and actually get hit by the Luma up air, which you can DI to avoid ie it's overrated). The Jigglypuff comparison is kind of moot because you can't really use Rest if you're behind, it's high risk if you use it anywhere outside a guaranteed setup, and it's Melee not Smash 4. None of these characters are even at the same level as Brawler in terms of risk/reward and ease of use, and besides why would we want more things like them? Things being just as bad (if they actually were) is more of a testament to the negative attributes of those things than the positive attributes of Brawler. I'll never understand why people use the "just as bad" argument because it's illogical.

 

[kackamee]

Question: For those who advocate for customs, what's your stance on size regulation of miis? I do not understand why mii's should be allowed to have size variations for customs tourney. That is not a moveset change. That changes ground/air mobility, combos, and weight. I believe only regular size should be legal.

And just so people know: Only small mii can kill you at 0 with dthrow>fair>up b.

IIIRC most people consider Customs and Mii's on different planes considering Mii's are available in all forms even with customs turned off. I have the personal opinion that Mii's should either be allowed in all forms or banned altogether.

 

[MajorMajora]

I think we should all be able to agree we can't call it broken and harmful to the metagame till top 8's consistently have small mii brawlers pouring out their ears (don't think too hard about that analogy). Everything till then is guesswork.

 

[Pazx]

I think we should all be able to agree we can't call it broken and harmful to the metagame till top 8's consistently have small mii brawlers pouring out their ears (don't think too hard about that analogy). Everything till then is guesswork.

We aren't going to get that opportunity though. If Miis are banned or restricted we can't prove whether they're broken or not.

FWIW I think tiny Brawler is pushing top 5 in a custom environment whilst default Brawler is outside the top 10 in either meta, that is a world of difference but right now it probably shouldn't be affecting our rules.

 

[Ghostbone]

Also only in a very specific % range. I forget the exact numbers, but the grab > death combo only works in a small 10% gap or so. Any lower and it won't kill, any higher and you can escape with proper DI (and airdodging, I think).

Yea I've played him a bunch and essentially there's a small window that d-throw > fair > up-b works (and it doesn't really if they just DI directly above you), and then reasonably later there's a window that d-throw > uair > up-b works.

Against someone who knows to expect it landing the grab in the right spot is super tough, and mii brawler can't actually kill you outside of a grab combo or a rogue up-b in the 120+ range.

 

[dav3yb]

I've got 2 comments on things i read above, and a question regarding some tournament procedures.

On wuhu, would some of its transformations being a bit large make people shy away from it? especially in the matches that has a character with a large probability of camping out the clock?

As for mii fighters, I feel if they are going to be legal, and the custom moveset project is being used (where people cannot make new sets), then mii fighters should be locked into 10 custom sets like all other characters, and each of the types using only a single mii for that type (brawler can be tiny/skinny, sword/gunner can be w/e is best for it).

Now for my question. when it comes to reporting results for a tournament, how is it usually done for large smash events? is it normally just match wins in a set? or is there more detailed scoring kept to more accurately deal with tiebreakers? I mainly ask because for the last few tournaments ive helped with, using challonge, it seems like some results might be a bit off. I'm pretty sure it's just a close result due to how tiebreakers were calculated, but if there is a better way, I'd like to explore it

 

[Pazx]

As for mii fighters, I feel if they are going to be legal, and the custom moveset project is being used (where people cannot make new sets)

Your Wuhu comment is somewhat accurate, this one is not. That's not how the custom moveset project works at all, fortunately. People were unable to make new sets for EVO because it was a huge tournament, at smaller events the people behind the custom moveset project encourage you to import your own sets from 3DS.

 

[dav3yb]

Your Wuhu comment is somewhat accurate, this one is not. That's not how the custom moveset project works at all, fortunately. People were unable to make new sets for EVO because it was a huge tournament, at smaller events the people behind the custom moveset project encourage you to import your own sets from 3DS.

Wuhu feels like it would be a better teams stage than singles, maybe just keep skyloft for singles. Also i know the customs project was mainly meant to help expedite creating a set that would be very likely to be used, but I guess I just haven't seen much in the way of tournaments having people load or create a new set every round. I also still think the mii fighters should be standardized in some way with regard to height/weight. I think the variables are just too numerous for them. Even just making 3 mii's, a neutral, a tiny/light, and tall/heavy.

One thing i also don't understand is the banning of 3ds controller at events, from what ive seen it takes less time to connect and sync it than it does a pro controller, and when you disconnect it, it stays that way until you go through the process again. unless what people have been doing here is just wrong or they're missing some step. but we had some issues recently with a random wireless controller causing issues with games being able to start.

 

[Yikarur]

Wireless Controllers should not be banned. It's the Tournament Organizers responsibility to maintain the event without banning people's controller choices.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Can anyone direct me toward the rulesets for major North American national tournaments and popular local tournaments? I want to compare and contrast commonly used rules for my own research. I'm not entirely sure what's out there worth considering besides EVO, Apex, and SmashCon.

Wireless Controllers should not be banned. It's the Tournament Organizers responsibility to maintain the event without banning people's controller choices.

AFAIK, the only way this can work without fail is if the tournament staff exits Smash, goes into the system settings menu, and wipes the controller pairings for that console after every, single, match. Otherwise, you're always running the risk of players walking away from the setup and then accidentally interfering with another match when buttons are pressed on the controller. That's a risk I'm willing to take at small local weeklies, but no major TO should ever want to run that same risk at a huge, international tournament with major prizes and prestige on the line.

The only exception is the Nintendo 3DS, which literally cannot interfere with a match in progress. It's impossible for a 3DS to bring up the Home menu or turn off a Wii U console, so it's the one wireless controller that I feel should be permissible with no questions asked. Any TO who bans it probably hasn't put any thought into that decision.

As a local TO, I hate having to put up with Wii Remotes or Wii U Pro Controllers. Last weekend, we kept having a problem with one Pro Controller constantly causing syncing issues throughout the evening no matter how many times we begged people via megaphone to make sure their controllers were turned off when not playing. I had to go into the system menu (which also necessitated finding and syncing someone else's Gamepad to the console because Nintendo inexplicably prevents you from using any other controller for this) and delete controller pairings twice in one evening because this unknown person just would not stop accidentally bringing the game to a halt at the character select screen. (I'm lucky that that's the only problem we had; it could have been worse and this person could have turned off the controller--and the console--at any time while another match was in progress.) it's a huge pain to divert attention and time to this kind of thing. There's no excuse for most players to refuse to learn how to use a Gamecube controller.

Most tournaments for most other fighting games ban wireless controllers for similar reasons. I take the bullet and put up with it because I don't think it's a big enough deal to worry about at our locals (unless it becomes a persistent problem in the future), but I don't blame any other TO, especially those who run major tournaments, for wanting to wash their hands of this easily preventable issue altogether.

 

[Ulevo]

I was going to avoid posting until August was over but I felt the need to interject.

Banning controller options from players because of inconveniences they pose is stupid, not just irresponsible. You are alienating sectors of your player base. Inconveniences happen all the time at events and while it is fine to make policy to alleviate some of the burden on the organizers, it should not be at the expense of the people the event is for: the players.

I understand that custom moves might not remain standard anymore, and for a variety of reasons, but one of them being that they are an inconvenience. They are a hassle to unlock, and our current accommodations relegate us to using only 10 specific sets. Yet despite this, we as a community took it upon ourselves to see past this for the sake of fairly testing their competitive application and value. No one is going to question the competitive merits of alternative controllers; people are already enjoying and using them. If we are willing to put up with the inconveniences of custom moves for the sake of their competitive applications and merit, we should not be shunning away wireless controllers.

Concerns about wireless controllers losing their signal, interfering with other controllers, or latency problems are unfounded. Nintendo has really high quality wireless technology, and the latency on all controllers has a uniform 6 ~ frame delay to ensure wired controllers are not the superior option.

To add to this, you have the option to enforce strict rules. In the event a player with a wireless controller occupies a set up without being present and it interferes with tournament time, that player is eligible for disqualification from the tournament. Obviously the details of how this will be handled are at the discretion of the tournament organizer, but it stands to reason that if you just enforce a punishment to deter people from doing this, it will happen less often. It is the players responsibility to ensure that they do not interfere with other players tournament matches. Penalizing irresponsible actions? Who knew.

One strategy TO's can implement is upon sign up, they can ask players if they are using a wireless controller. This will narrow down the list of potential suspects in the event there is a problem.

I will be blunt. In many ways the Pro Controller is a better controller than the GameCube controller. It is not outright superior, but it has merits to it that definitely make players prefer its use. The build is higher quality, the analog sticks are far more responsive and less hyper mobile (you do not experience accidental pivot grabs for instance) and the triggers are worlds apart. To add to this, there are many players who have become accustomed to this style of controller because of the GameCube controllers were not readily available on release, and it would be unfair to expect players to swap what they have become accustomed to for months.

There are times when decisions need to be made to ensure a tournament runs smoothly at the expense of the players. This is not one of those times.

 

[Yikarur]

Another idea would be to have a "spare" Set-up that is not used for the tournament and let every fWiiU Pro Controller player synch with them after a set to avoid them interfering with tournament set-ups.

and WiiU Pro Controller >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Gamecube Controller
not even close to be comparable. WiiU Pro Controller is superior in every way but the way it synchs with the console.

 

[Illuminose]

The position and size of the second stock on the GC controller is a pretty huge advantage in itself. The second stick on the pro controller is not ideal for aerials. People can use what they want I find the notion that the Wii U Pro controller is somehow objectively better pretty laughable.

edit: my only response to that is 'lol'. You're right because you say you're right, ok.

 

[Ulevo]

The position and size of the second stock on the GC controller is a pretty huge advantage in itself. The second stick on the pro controller is not ideal for aerials. People can use what they want, lol. I find the notion that the Wii U Pro controller is somehow objectively better pretty laughable.

You wanna know why players like M2K and Mango are getting arthritis in their hands and carpal tunnel? The first reason is Melee is very technical. The second reason is that the GameCube Controller is not designed as well as it should be, and the players hands and wrist pay for it.

I don't have to argue with you. I'm right.

 

[A_Kae]

The position and size of the second stock on the GC controller is a pretty huge advantage in itself. The second stick on the pro controller is not ideal for aerials. People can use what they want I find the notion that the Wii U Pro controller is somehow objectively better pretty laughable.

edit: my only response to that is 'lol'. You're right because you say you're right, ok.

Why would the GCC c-stick location be optimal for aerials?

 

[Dustydog96]

So, I'm new to this custom debacle, however I was VERY against custom specials being tourney legal up until a few days ago. I had never played or experimented with customs TOO MUCH but did know I didn't feel they were "balanced" OR what I wanted for Smash 4's tourney scene. Until K. Rool's costume came to the mii brawler, which I was forced to use, and realized how customs can actually HELP make SMash 4 even MORE in-depth of a game. Characters like mii brawler are actually playable WITH customs.
What is the current community stance on customs overall? Zero won evo grand finals with Vanilla Diddy kong That was alone the proof I needed to side with customs tourney legality.

 

[Pazx]

So, I'm new to this custom debacle, however I was VERY against custom specials being tourney legal up until a few days ago. I had never played or experimented with customs TOO MUCH but did know I didn't feel they were "balanced" OR what I wanted for Smash 4's tourney scene. Until K. Rool's costume came to the mii brawler, which I was forced to use, and realized how customs can actually HELP make SMash 4 even MORE in-depth of a game. Characters like mii brawler are actually playable WITH customs.
What is the current community stance on customs overall? Zero won evo grand finals with Vanilla Diddy kong That was alone the proof I needed to side with customs tourney legality.

Mii fighters don't have customs, their moveset legality is a discussion that (really) should be independent of custom move legality. Means your argument is somewhat confused, but on the plus side it means you can hopefully use your x122 "King K Rool" Mii Brawler in customs-off tournaments.

 

[ぱみゅ]

To answer the question though, there is not a consensus on Customs usage.
Communities are actually divided, compared to other communities or even within themselves.

 

[dav3yb]

So the last time I was involved with a tournament, there seemed to be a minor issue of a rogue wireless controller causing a few issues with activating the cursor on the select screen, meaning the other players could not advance to stage select screen.

I decided to do a test with the WiiU Pro controller, and I think I might be implementing a new rule regarding them. If you pull the battery out of the Pro controller, you can still use it just fine if it is plugged up via its USB cable to the console (still have to sync it i think, but its fully powered through the USB with no issues). This would ensure that if a wireless controller is used, it won't interfere with a match when its not in use.

Any thoughts? All it takes is a small philips screw driver to pull the battery out, so it shouldn't be too big an issue for anyone.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

I decided to do a test with the WiiU Pro controller, and I think I might be implementing a new rule regarding them. If you pull the battery out of the Pro controller, you can still use it just fine if it is plugged up via its USB cable to the console (still have to sync it i think, but its fully powered through the USB with no issues). This would ensure that if a wireless controller is used, it won't interfere with a match when its not in use.

It helps, but players still have to remember to sync to each new console they connect to.

 

[dav3yb]

It helps, but players still have to remember to sync to each new console they connect to.

Which is something they have to do anyways, but this will at least help keep a controller from accidentally activating and having it interfere with another set in some way.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Got a ? about resets in grand finals:

Once the bracket is reset, is stage striking typically invoked again in the first game of the 2nd set? In other fighting games I play, the first game of a reset is treated as a brand new match and character lock does not apply for the winner of the previous game, so I'm curious if the Smash community handles this similarly or not.

Or is this something that varies between tournaments or tends not to be explicitly spelled out?

 

[Pazx]

Got a ? about resets in grand finals:

Once the bracket is reset, is stage striking typically invoked again in the first game of the 2nd set? In other fighting games I play, the first game of a reset is treated as a brand new match and character lock does not apply for the winner of the previous game, so I'm curious if the Smash community handles this similarly or not.

Or is this something that varies between tournaments or tends not to be explicitly spelled out?

It is treated as an entirely new set.

 

[dav3yb]

So one quick thing I thought of... is there ever an "inevitable death" rule, to where if a player, say, gets star-ko'd off the top, but doesn't actually die before the timer hits 0 (on his final stock), would the player who got the KO be awarded the win in that case? I know i've seen things about inevitable death and pausing, to where it doesn't cause someone to lose a stock, but just wondering if this might be the case with deaths and timeouts.

 

[MoonFreezer262]

Hey guys, for those of you who don't know me I'm SamuraiPanda. Old school smasher who played a role in the original rulesets of Brawl and helped TO many different tournaments in the past (although never ran my own). I'd like to open a discussion on the rulesets that we should use going forward with Smash 4. I'll outline each section with a header and give my 2 cents. A lot of this includes options hat we have and then my personal opinion. Some topics are too large to discuss in this thread and I'll try to provide a better place to discuss them.

And if I'm stepping on any toes here Shaya, then just give it a lock. I'll just shift my reasoning to respective threads that already exist later on.

KEEP IN MIND that 3DS tournaments will likely be few and far inbetween once the Wii U version is out, so many of these rules are tailored for the eventual Wii U tournament scene rather than specifically playing to the strengths of the 3DS. Also if you have options or ideas other than those stated here then please share them!

FORMAT

How many stocks/how much time should we run?

Options:
- 3 stock 8 minutes (Brawl rules) best of 3
- 2 stock 5 minutes (Sakurai's For Glory mode format) best of 3
- 2 stock 5 minutes best of 5

Arguments =
- [3 stocks]
Many pro players like M2K advocate that 3 stocks is the most "fair" in a competitive match. They believe this is the best test of skill and allows appropriate time to read your opponent, get read, and read back in return. They believe combacks are more possible and leads to closer matches overall. 3 stocks were first used as tournament standard at the beginning of Brawl's life. IIRC we either rarely used or never used 4 stocks in Brawl tournaments because it was clear at the beginning of the game's lifespan that Brawl was not as fast as Melee and so Melee's rules should not apply.

- [2 stocks bo3]
(a) Competitive Smash Bros tournaments take a VERY long time. Absurdly long compared to other modern fighting games. 8 minutes is the length of a best of 3 set normally. Smash tounaments run all day and night while other fighters can be fit in half a day's time. 2 stocks would alleviate a lot of that. It would be easier to find venues because they don't need to be open so early/late, more players would have time to attend, etc
(b) It is much easier to go UP on stocks later in a game's life than go DOWN on stocks. This is because the relative impact on competitive gameplay of going UP on stocks is much less than the impact of going down.
(c) [thanks to @popsofctown for this] Players in the future who have trained on For Glory mode and are now looking for in-person tournaments to test their mettle will find this to be easiest to transition to, and players who want to practice online will be able to practice in this format as well.

- [2 stocks bo5]
The time equivalent of 3 stocks best of 3. This format is simply a variance on the current default Brawl ruleset that some believe could lead to more exciting matches, larger variety of stages/counterpicks/characters used, and other various things which would improve the overall competitive metagame. Still has the advantages of B and C from the previous argument.

My personal preference = 2 stocks bo3 at the beginning of Smash 4's lifespan. Even if Smash 4 turns out to be a SIGNIFICANTLY faster game than we currently have, I think 2 stocks would help alleviate many of Smash's underlying tournament issues. I believe that fatigue in tournaments is a very important and very real problem in Smash. The number of people getting to grand finals and just wanting to split because its 2am and they're exhausted would be cut down, and I've seen perfectly legitimate grand finals have absolutely no hype at all because a best of 5 set followed by a reset to another best of 5 set when each game was nearly 8 minutes long is draining to both players and viewers. Additionally, finding venues that are open early/late enough and running tournaments all day long would be a concern of the past.
\
EDIT2: Thinkaman and Amazing_Ampharos also a thread with data illustrating that times are not too different between 2 stock and 3 stock.

How should we run the tournaments?

Options:
- Swiss format for pools/early matches, then top 8/16/whatever uses traditional double elimination
- Double elimination for full tournament
(Open for more suggestions)

Arguments =
- [Swiss to double elim]
This format favors the 3DS. To be honest it is not very viable for tournament play on the Wii U simply because of time it would take to run a tournament. Inifinty, a TO from Texas, did a great write up on why Swiss would be ideal for 3DS (among other things). Some arguments brought against this idea by people who have run large scale Mario Kart and Pokemon 3DS tournaments are that Wifi instability is very difficult to deal with, and Wifi tends to become unstable with a large number of people connecting at the same time. The conversion to double elim later on is to preserve hype and interest.

- [Double elim]
Traditional format, time tested to be more-or-less one of the best ways of testing skill (Swiss is superior here though) while running a smooth and fast tournament. For logistical issues, this will likely be the de-facto format for Wii U tournaments in the future.

Personal preference = Double elimination. People playing the 3DS version are practicing Smash 4 for the eventual Wii U release. I don't think people should have to adapt to new formats they are uncomfortable with just for a month.


STAGES

What stages should we use?

Let's not discuss this huge topic here. Please refer to this thread for further discussion.

How should stage selection work?

Options:
- Random stage selection from a given "starter" list
- Rock Paper Scissors for first stage selection from a given list prior to selecting characters
- Stage striking
- For Glory Mode (IE ONLY FD AND OMEGA STAGES)
(Open to more suggestions)

Arguments =
- [Random stage]
You will have to pick a character for your first match with enough versatility to fit all stages in this "starter" list and not be signfiicantly weak to one. Limits character selection.

- [RPS]
Both you and your opponent have time to consider who to play on the given stage. Player who wins the RPS can clearly choose the stage best for them.

- [Striking]
This is the given format for Smash tournaments now for a reason. While not a perfect solution, it is by far the best option we've had in tournament play since the inception of competitive Smash bros.

- [For Glory Mode]
(thanks to @popsofctown for this) Players in the future who have trained on For Glory mode and are now looking for in-person tournaments to test their mettle will find this to be easiest to transition to. This severely limits viable character choice and limits variety in competitive play. It may allow for a larger early and middle-lifespan fanbase, but it would likely severely hinder the longevity of the game.

Personal preference = Yeah I didn't really hide that clearly stage striking is the best from this list in my opinion. I'd find it hard for anyone to argue that one of the other points here is superior to striking. There are other suggestions I've seen floating around for a ruleset superior to stage striking but nothing viable quite yet.

How should stage banning work?

This is really up to the TO for how many stages they allow you to ban. I believe this should reflective of the number of stages they have but again its up to them. However, in this section I'd like to address a big issue people have been sleeping on (IMO). Omega stages, which are the "FD" versions of almost all the stages in the game. They have SLIGHTLY different properties form FD. There may or may not be differences in blast zones (yet to be tested extensively) but stage length is the exact same among all of them. They have 5 different platform types apparently though; Pillar, Floating, and Wall formats. The exceptions being the Mother stage and Arena which may have slightly different properties to these three (thanks to @ ParanoidDrone for the info).

How should we address Omega stages in tournament play? Specifically in banning?

Options:
- Banning FD bans FD+all Omega stages
- Banning Omega bans ALL Omega stages, but they are separate from FD
- Omegas are all individual stages
(Open to more suggstions here)

Arguments =
- [Ban FD+Omega together]
When banning stages in competitive play, you are USUALLY banning to get rid of a "type" of stage. When someone bans FD against the Ice Climbers, that means they want a stage with platforms to utlize vs the ICs. Similarly, some characters will be extrodinarily strong on flat stages vs flat+plat stages and otherwise. Little Mac is the perfect example of a character who will without a doubt thrive on a flat stage. By combining the ban, you are allowing players to ban the entire flat stage "type" at once. In tournaments with only 1 stage ban but allowing FD and Omega, how can ban out that type?

- [Banning Omega bans ALL Omega stages]
Yes Omega stages have different properties between them so lumping them all together may be "unfair" to certain stages. However this may be the best solution for the aforementioned "type" banning.

- [Omegas are individual stages]
If you run this, then your tournament better have 20 stage bans.

Personal preference = Banning Omega bans ALL Omega stages. This does not mean you cannot ban individual Omega stages you may not like (Warioware's Omega seems HUGE) but it allows you to ban the full "type". Lumping FD+Omega together IMO causes an unfair lumping. Not all Flat+plat stages are lumped together (i.e. Brawl Smashville and BF) so why should one ban cover every single version of a single, often-used type? Given, if there is only one version of a single type on a stage list (i.e. only one walkoff stage) then they suffer from that issue.


CUSTOM EQUIPMENT

This discussion should be focused in this thread. My favorite quote from the thread that perfectly reflects one of the biggest reasons I'm personally against equipment is from @Tristan_win :


CUSTOM SPECIALS

Discussion regarding SHOULD they be allowed should go to this thread. I also believe that Thinkaman's thread regarding the issue is a wonderful overview of the potential merits they could have for the competitive scene.

CAN they be allowed in tournaments?

Oh boy this is a loaded question that proves a large dichotomy between 3DS and Wii U. As it is now, YES they are easily possible for the 3DS and should be a TO decision whether they are or not.

However, for the Wii U to have Custom Specials usable in tournaments there will have to be a quick way to unlock everything for every Wii U. Likely if the 3DS can transfer unlocked specials over to the Wii U (and can do so for multiple Wii Us) then logistically they could work. If every Wii U requires as much time as it currently does on the 3DS to unlock custom special attacks for every single character in the game, then it is unlikely for custom specials to ever be legal in large-scale tournaments simply due to the difficultly and time required for unlocking for all of the Wii Us.

Miis Plz??
Should they be allowed in tournaments?

Ugh another loaded question. I wish this had its own thread to discuss I could redirect to.

Okay, again I'm going to talk about the LOGISTICS of Mii fighters in Wii U tournament play. There is NO ISSUE with Mii fighters for the 3DS and that is a TO-dependent decision to make. There IS however an issue for Wii U tournaments:

The balance of the Mii fighter depends on the height (and width??) of the Mii fighter.

Taller ones have longer reach and shorter ones are faster. If you were to main the Mii fighter, you would have a specific size you want to use. Logistically allowing Mii fighters for the Wii U would require standardized Miis to be used. And how to you make sure that PlayerXX who graciously brought his Wii U for you to use in your tournament is using the CORRECT standardized Mii and didn't paste the standardized Mii's face on a different size body? As a TO, checking every Wii U has the correct standardized Miis is absurdly difficult. And then you have to figure out WHO makes the standardized Mii and which Mii becomes the standard. That is a huge logistical nightmare.

There are TWO scenarios (I can think of) where the Miis would pose no issues being part of the Wii U tournament scene. The first lies in the reliability and speed of connecting a 3DS to the Wii U. If you can quickly connect to sync your Mii fighter via your 3DS without adding much time to a tournament, then they could work. The second is if they give us premade Miis with the Wii U version as well, allowing us to simply chose one of those to play with.

are bowsercides allowed in competitive play like this one - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnQ4yidOWY8

 

[Ansou]

So one quick thing I thought of... is there ever an "inevitable death" rule, to where if a player, say, gets star-ko'd off the top, but doesn't actually die before the timer hits 0 (on his final stock), would the player who got the KO be awarded the win in that case? I know i've seen things about inevitable death and pausing, to where it doesn't cause someone to lose a stock, but just wondering if this might be the case with deaths and timeouts.

I have never ever seen such a rule. Even if someone is being star KOd when the timer hits 0, the result screen or percent lead is what counts.

are bowsercides allowed in competitive play like this one - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnQ4yidOWY8

Yes, they are allowed. Suicide moves are not overpowered even though they are good if you have a stock lead.

 

[Kaladin]

So today, I killed a Ryu at 40% with Falco Bthrow on the smashville platform, in a real match... Twice. Can we please treat smashville like what it is: a partial/transforming walk off? Pretty please?

 

[John12346]

So one quick thing I thought of... is there ever an "inevitable death" rule, to where if a player, say, gets star-ko'd off the top, but doesn't actually die before the timer hits 0 (on his final stock), would the player who got the KO be awarded the win in that case? I know i've seen things about inevitable death and pausing, to where it doesn't cause someone to lose a stock, but just wondering if this might be the case with deaths and timeouts.

I actually want to mention about this, during the POTD phase of Smash 4, before its official release, Sakurai had mentioned that any delayed deaths like that would be disabled as the game was wrapping up. Of course, it was something I kept in mind as I messed about with the game after it was released.

As someone who plays a good deal of For Fun in their spare time, I can confirm with 100% certainty: Star KOs and Screen KOs are disabled during the last 5 seconds of the game.