Meta Competitive Smash Ruleset Discussion

[LiteralGrill]

If anybody here has interest in Miis Twitter is BLOWING UP again in discussion about them. should check it out.

Also shameless self plug: I'm part of that explosion.

Miis Should Be 100% Legal Or 100% Banned. Enjoy~

 

[J_the_Man]

The Custom/Alt Special Moves ban should not equate to "Custom moves turned off." Turning custom fighters off is merely an efficient method of enforcing a ban. It should be nothing more than that. This is a distinction the community needs to grasp.

 

[Yikarur]

If anybody here has interest in Miis Twitter is BLOWING UP again in discussion about them. should check it out.

Also shameless self plug: I'm part of that explosion.

Miis Should Be 100% Legal Or 100% Banned. Enjoy~

This is what I'm telling people since day 1. I still don't understand how people cannot agree to this. It's the most logical thing to understand.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

The Custom/Alt Special Moves ban should not equate to "Custom moves turned off." Turning custom fighters off is merely an efficient method of enforcing a ban. It should be nothing more than that. This is a distinction the community needs to grasp.

I...hadn't actually considered it in those terms, but that's a very interesting point. Thanks.

 

[Ghostbone]

Even if Charizard is awful either way he is better with customs. WFT is also better with customs. I don't know why you're saying that he/she is just as good without. Kirby is better with customs. Duck Hunt. Ganondorf. Dr. Mario. The thing is that there is no black and white when it comes to the term viable. You could argue that Sheik is the only viable character, but she is just better than everyone else. Characters don't go from unusable to usable just because we turn Customization to on, but the motivation to use some of them becomes significantly higher. Also, they don't have to be "extra gimmicky specials", often times they are just good tools that a character has use of.

Even if it were true that those characters were more worth using with customs (and I doubt they even move up a tier in terms of viability), they're only more worth using to the same extent other characters are less worth using, so it's not a competitive benefit.

 

[Player -0]

Confused on what you're saying. Other characters have customs too.

Having a character that you enjoy to play and having customs allow them to be able play them with a higher chance of winning is good, no?

 

[J_the_Man]

I...hadn't actually considered it in those terms, but that's a very interesting point. Thanks.

The entirety of the anti-mii argument is nothing more than semantics; fancy word play, if you will. I made a post earlier on page 52 in defense of Palutena carefully crafted to avoid these pitfalls, but the last point applies specifically to the Mii Fighters as well, and it's a point that needs to be adopted by the Pro-Mii side.

 

[Ghostbone]

Confused on what you're saying. Other characters have customs too.

Having a character that you enjoy to play and having customs allow them to be able play them with a higher chance of winning is good, no?

Think about it

Not every character can have a higher chance of winning.
One character having a higher chance of winning necessitates that other characters have a lower chance of winning.
And there are plenty of mid/low tiers with crappy customs, and top tiers with amazing customs. I see no evidence that the customs meta has more character diversity.

 

[Alhobbies440]

Here's my prediction. Most of the top players are against having Palutena and the Miis having access to their customs. Because of this, the TO's and the community are going to be punked by their opinions to leave the current ruleset status quo. Therefore I don't see this argument going anywhere in the long run. By the way I'm kinda against customs(mainly for logistics reasons) but pro Palutena and Miis having full access to theirs. I feel if Palutena came out as dlc today her trailer would be the same and all of her customs would be unlocked by default. And for those who say it's unfair to the other characters, you're right, technically it is unfair, but does it degenerate the gameplay or the meta? Absolutely not. Being able to change your custom moves in between games is still a worse option than just picking Sheik. Now if these characters where by default Sheik tier and their customs made them way better than I would sort of agree with you but these characters are trash right now and allowing them their customs moves is not going to skew tournament results in the slightest. But like I said all this arguing is pretty moot.

 

[T0MMY]

While it does not directly ban the ability to hurt your teammate, it effectively nullifies teams that use that tactic to be particularly good, namely Lucario/ZSS/Pikachu+Lucas/Ness, so they are downgraded, and possibly unviable in the overall competitive environment.
When you turn OFF Customs, it's the same. You do not directly ban characters that use customs, but certain characters that need customs to compete like Palutena, Charizard and WFT will be nullified as well, so they won't be seen at competitions often either.

The name might be different, but the result is the same: You're not banning it, but you're rendering a trait unusable.

The above bolding is my emphasis.

Although it is already established that this is in fact not a "ban", it seems to me that there is another avenue you are taking the argument. Correct me if my interpretation of this avenue is wrong: By the action of "not banning" (through taking no action in changing the game settings) then we are subjectively holding to circumstances which put some characters in a less advantageous matchup.

In simpler words: 'we're screwing over some characters from being better than what they could be with the standard competitive game settings'.

If the above is correct then I will simply disagree with you on this being a reason to change the game.
The reason for the disagreement is that I do not see it as a job of a rulecrafter to attempt to balance the game's characters. That is the job of the developers and/or balance team.
I believe the job of a rulecrafter for competitions is along the lines of: Creating an acceptable ruleset which abides by competitive theory.

So at this point I would like to ask you if you agree with my job description of a rulecrafter.
If you agree then my argument still stands.
If you disagree then please explain why what seems to be the dev/balance team's job should be taken up by a rulecrafter.

(I would explain the reasoning behind my proposition of a rulecrafter's job being to craft a competitive ruleset for competitions... except it seems rather self-evident)

While I do believe that the burden of proof is on the party that wants to change what the software's default game state is, I do not believe that something revolutionary or fantastic is needed to change the in-game settings. What is needed simply has to be better than what is offered in the default game state.

As strawman as it is (no "revolutionary"/"fantastic" argument was made), I will actually say I agree with this path of reasoning as valid. The only part I could disagree with is that customs would make the game "better" (to which I also agree this is subjective; although that is covered under Competitive Value in my guide).
However, to take the position that it is "better enough" to make a change to standard rules would need a "better enough" reason.
I suppose the reasoning is found further in your post, to which I will respond below.

What T0MMY defines as making the game competitively better (please don't nitpick on my wording here, you may formulate it in another way) in his guide is the following:

• Fairness - neutrality for the competitors
• In-game rulings - native design of the software
• Reward to skill - promoting the better skilled player

I don't believe those were reasons for competitive value - those are actually competitive principles; if anything violates those principles they are violating competition at its foundation. Competitive Value is found in a different area of the guide.

It seems very clear that I and T0MMY don't interpret the competitive principles in the exact same way, but I hope that I have at least cleared up why I think that enabling Customization is a good idea for competitive play regardless of what is written in that guide.

Actually, I think we interpret the competitive principles in nearly an identical manner, but your use of them may be different than mine. I them as simply just abstractions for the fundamental foundation that build the competitive theory we use to have competitions in the first place - I do not really seek to use them as reason to change rules.

Regarding "more content"

So what is so good with more content? Well, first and foremost, allowing customization is allowing everyone to choose whatever they want. If there is more content, there is a higher chance that everyone will find something that suits them. Does this fit in any of the above mentioned criteria? It may not seem like it at first, but actually, yes, it does. Every player being able to choose what suits them clearly corresponds to neutrality and fairness.

I agree with this, that Custom Fighters is not violating the Fairness Principle (that everyone has the option to select customization). But what should be pointed out is that it is not necessary to have Custom Fighters ON in order to preserve the Fairness Principal; both options ON and OFF preserve this principle, so neither is "better" at this point and the standard remains OFF if so desired.
Also, "getting what we want" is not a principle for competitive theory. If that were the case we would have no need for rules since everyone could get whatever they wanted ad infinitum and we would have chaos rather than order (formal rules are formal because they have form, not a void-like fuzzy chaos). Everyone getting what they want is more socialist or communist than it is rulecrafting and I'd suggest taking that point to a political forum instead.

Regarding Fun, Enjoyment, and Entertainment

It also gives players more enjoyment because they can play with whatever they want, although that is not a part of T0MMY's definition of competitive principles. Obviously, there will still be people that find that the game has nothing that suits them regardless of if Customization is On or Off, but the chance is higher that they find something that works if it is On.

Enjoyment is not part of competitive principles, because it is not necessary; competitors can still compete even if they are not enjoying the game. This is not to say I do not believe fun and enjoyment are not good things, however what I do say is that it is outside the scope of competitive theory so it's simply not discussed.
One of the reasons I play Smash instead of Marvel vs Capcom 2, Chess, or any number of other competitive games is because of fun and enjoyment I have with the game. However, I don't bring that into discussion regarding rules so I'll respectfully end the point there.

Also there is an important piece left out of this point: It may be true that there's more chance players will find something that "works" if customization is used, but it is also a possibility that they will find something they strongly dislike. It may even be more likely the case that there are a lot of things competitors will dislike than they do like and thus reduces the value of customs (think of all the complaints of "jank" when customs is discussed).

Regarding Reward to Skill

Secondly, I have a point that some might find more important and more directly linked to making the game more "competitive". It's regarding depth and choices. I firmly believe that more content leads to more Reward to skill. Why? Because if there are more things to learn in the game, that increases the skill ceiling which leads to more things you need to master to be truly skilled at the game. Basically, more content gives the players chances to prove their skill in more ways.

This is a very interesting discussion, one that could push the understanding of the principle (either for better or worse, so I'll be careful with my words).
First, I will repeat that Reward to Skill is actually a principle of competition, and not reason for value.
However, your point of Reward to Skill and its association with "depth and choices" is very important to many discussions on this topic, so I will continue.

At this juncture (of depth and choice, AKA "depth and breadth") it is important to bring up the importance of scope.

Scope, Breadth, and Depth
Generically "scope" is the extent of a given activity*, but in the game design industry it can have important ramifications. James Portnow defines scope as both depth and breadth in his article Scope: A lesson in Game Design. The difference between these two concepts emerge in our conversation of competitive value of customs in SSB4 and are of great importance.

There are many good game-related articles regarding breadth and depth both in print and online; one I will refer to for convenience of discourse is Mike Stout's thoughts in Evaluating Game Mechanics for Depth. In that article Stout explains that depth is built from skills and objectives. Very important is that he sets clear boundaries for skills, that they must be "meaningful" (that is, not so basic they result in no depth added); and the for objectives, they are to be "clear" (that is, not overly complex which would then create confusion).

Stout makes it very clear that meaningful skills are what creates depth in gameplay and describes the mistake of adding more content which creates "confusion" out of the complexity of choices; found in the chapter of "Meaningful Skills: A Morality Tale". The parallel to his content-adding mistakes in Ratchet and Clank to our dilemma of Customs in SSB4 is an old story with many games (Rock/Paper/Scissors/Lizard/Spock is not standard despite more "content" when playing Rock/Paper/Scissors).

"Experiences like the one I had with the tractor beam taught me a valuable lesson: most game mechanics that don't feel deep enough feel that way because they have too many objectives and not enough meaningful skills."

Simply put, adding more content of something similar does not create depth, it creates more options (complexity); too much complexity creates confusion.
This over-complexity for sake of content may or may not add subjective "value" to competition - if you think it does, I will leave you to that opinion. My own opinion on the matter is about as worthless as any other, so what it comes down to is what the community is supporting.

Where to go with Customs
At this point in time the competitive community seems to be largely in favor of Standard Competition rather than Custom Fighters. That transcends one persons' opinion no matter if adding more content is adding more depth or just complicating gameplay. It is just plainly obvious the time is not right for Customs and I've said this for a while now that I am more supportive of Customs coming into their own when the time is right. To push too hard too soon seems to me to have devastating results for the pro-custom movement. I simply described two situations of a patient few who persue the introduction of the change in rules and are rewarded for their virtues, and then there are those who "shoot themselves in the foot". At this point I kind of see it as a sinking ship and those who pushed too hard too fast got their Customs Major (Evo) and have already abandoned the community and used it for what it was worth for them (good riddance). I am sorry if you are one of the patient few reasonable members of the community who are left.

Right now if I believe Customs rules to be the stronger argument for competitions I would simply support Customs Events and allow the Free Market to come to realize it is "better" by its inherent virtue and the result would be that the competitors would, by and large, be registering for Custom events which should get more support and become the new standard (the same way any other change in ruling has done).
If it is not the stronger argument or if it was simply just denied its greater value then I would concede and still enjoy Standard Events without customs seeing as I am a competitive player and it is competition that is important to me, not the degree of competition (Rock/Paper/Scissors is much simpler and I can still accept and enjoy a game of that, with or without the addition of lizard and spock).

 

[wizrad]

Maybe I'd just like to see some variety in the discussion, but I think the rules for timeouts need to be changed. Right now, they favor campy, defensive play. Defensive play is already encouraged by the game and by characters like Sonic, Villager, and Rosalina. No one likes to watch this and no one likes to play against this. In addition, the rule just doesn't make sense. A game ends like this: Bowser with one stock at 80% and Jigglypuff with one stock at 40%. By our rules, Jigglypuff wins because she has the lower percent. However, despite being down in percent, Bowser probably has the advantage. He's in no real danger of dying because of how heavy he is and he's almost ready to kill the much lighter Jigglypuff. Who loses, again?

My proposition is this: decide timeouts by factoring in character weights. The values compared would be found by the formula x = weight / percentage. The character with the higher value wins. Camping is discouraged unless the camper actually possesses an advantage, aggression is encouraged, the game speeds up. Everyone is satisfied.

Or we could, y'know, turn the timer off.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Maybe I'd just like to see some variety in the discussion, but I think the rules for timeouts need to be changed. Right now, they favor campy, defensive play. Defensive play is already encouraged by the game and by characters like Sonic, Villager, and Rosalina. No one likes to watch this and no one likes to play against this. In addition, the rule just doesn't make sense. A game ends like this: Bowser with one stock at 80% and Jigglypuff with one stock at 40%. By our rules, Jigglypuff wins because she has the lower percent. However, despite being down in percent, Bowser probably has the advantage. He's in no real danger of dying because of how heavy he is and he's almost ready to kill the much lighter Jigglypuff. Who loses, again?

My proposition is this: decide timeouts by factoring in character weights. The values compared would be found by the formula x = weight / percentage. The character with the higher value wins. Camping is discouraged unless the camper actually possesses an advantage, aggression is encouraged, the game speeds up. Everyone is satisfied.

Or we could, y'know, turn the timer off.

I get where you're coming from, but I'm against a rule that would require consulting an external resource (in this case, character weights) in order for accurate rulings to be passed. Seems like quite a lot of work for comparatively little reward.

Some other ideas I've seen bandied around are:

• Timeouts result in a loss for each player instead of a win for one and a loss for the other.
• Timeouts go to a one stock rematch with the same stage and characters. (Possibly use handicap to mimic end-round % as close as possible.)

Personally I find the idea of giving a loss to both players in the event of a timeout to be intriguing on an abstract level since it's a disincentive to run the clock. Right now I think it's just seen as a necessary evil.

I'm also assuming that a timeout where one player has the stock advantage will just consider that player to be the winner, so we're only concerned with same-stock timeouts.

 

[Ansou]

There are some problems with this. On of them is that the character weight thing doesn't handle gimping. Jigglypuff could definitely be gimping Bowser in that scenario, so saying that Bowser has the advantage isn't fair either. Camping is still not discouraged either. As long as one of the players will benefit from a timeout (which is extremely hard, if not impossible to avoid when deciding on a tiebreaker), camping will be encouraged. This only switches up who wants to camp in certain situations, but it doesn't take the camping away.

The problem is that deciding on which character will win when the time is up will always be arbitrary. It won't make perfect sense regardless of how we do it. Removing the timer would solve the issue, but no TO will/should remove the timer. If there is a risk that a match will go on forever, I would not take it as a TO.

 

[LiteralGrill]

• Timeouts go to a one stock rematch with the same stage and characters. (Possibly use handicap to mimic end-round % as close as possible.)

You mean the fandango Timeout Clause.

 

[wizrad]

Redoing timeouts is too much of a burden. Awarding each player a loss is interesting and I'd definitely like to see it in use. I mean, it makes sense. The objective is to take all of the other player's stocks. Both players failed to meet this objective, so they both lose. But what does this mean in game 5?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Redoing timeouts is too much of a burden. Awarding each player a loss is interesting and I'd definitely like to see it in use. I mean, it makes sense. The objective is to take all of the other player's stocks. Both players failed to meet this objective, so they both lose. But what does this mean in game 5?

Presumably the same thing that happens if both players miraculously die at the same moment in game 5. (I assume the game goes to sudden death if this happens, which means there's probably an external ruling.)

 

[wizrad]

So they''d end up redoing it anyways? I don't like that solution, it could theoretically lead to infinite matches, and if we're going to have infinite matches, we might as well jump to a straight win by 2 ruleset.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

So they''d end up redoing it anyways? I don't like that solution, it could theoretically lead to infinite matches, and if we're going to have infinite matches, we might as well jump to a straight win by 2 ruleset.

Or win by 3 in what would normally be BO5 matches? Also an option. The key idea is timeouts not being a win option.

 

[wizrad]

Win by 3 is a bit much. If you can win on a neutral and when counterpicked against, I think you've already won. But the chance of infinite matches makes it infeasible. Therefore, I think weight/damage is the way to go. Gimps are possible, but so are fully charged F smashes. In fact, anything is possible. The thing is, in a vaccuum and a neutral state, the heavier character holds an advantage for much longer. Lucario, however, is a problem...

 

[Ghostbone]

You mean the fandango Timeout Clause.

The problem with this is that there's no real advantage over just extending the timer by however many minutes the rematch is allotted.

The whole point of using handicaps is to try and emulate the situation at the end of the previous game, but there's no real advantage over just having a longer timer for the original game. I guess in extreme cases where games finish with both players on 2-stocks, it's better, but it's worse in every other scenario because you have a lot of extra time setting up the rematch, and players are reset to neutral even if someone was about to die or being juggled or whatever, and any stale moves are now fresh.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Invited to travel to a tournament, sounds like fun.
Except...
3 starters (and shameless enough to also mention Striking)
Suicide clause listing moves that count as suicide (and funny enough, excludes Bowser's).

Eh... I might just want to spectate it.

 

[dav3yb]

So with a patch being released now, i have to ask for sake of sanity... Is there any way to just remove the most recent patch from a console? So that it reverts back to the previous version?

 

[Ghostbone]

So with a patch being released now, i have to ask for sake of sanity... Is there any way to just remove the most recent patch from a console? So that it reverts back to the previous version?

You can probably delete all the data for the game on your wiiU and go back to 1.0.4, but that's it.

 

[dav3yb]

You can probably delete all the data for the game on your wiiU and go back to 1.0.4, but that's it.

yeah... that's what i was afraid of... Have a tournament coming up this weekend, and i know with the last patch i tired to keep it from installing while i got some replays recorded off, but eventually it finished the auto-update and got that patch.

And with setups coming from out of town, people are going to be getting that update eventually before the weekend.

 

[Gamesfreak13563]

I get where you're coming from, but I'm against a rule that would require consulting an external resource (in this case, character weights) in order for accurate rulings to be passed. Seems like quite a lot of work for comparatively little reward.

I concur on a different principle: the players are unable to consult that resource while they're playing the game and it's not an easy calculation to do during gameplay. Jigglypuff, for instance, would have no idea whether or not she's "won" and can be campy for the last ten seconds, or if she has to be aggressive.

 

[Yikarur]

We have a Major in 8 days and are thinking about how to handle Diddy Kong if the glitch is not fixed by then.
what do you think?

 

[Gamesfreak13563]

We have a Major in 8 days and are thinking about how to handle Diddy Kong if the glitch is not fixed by then.
what do you think?

Ideally, use 1.1.0. If that's not an option, I'd say ban -- you don't want to deal with players saying they had a win stolen from them.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Preventing the metagame to develop is worth it if you can avoid dealing with scrubby complaints.
I mean, look at what happened to customs.

 

[Gamesfreak13563]

Preventing the metagame to develop is worth it if you can avoid dealing with scrubby complaints.
I mean, look at what happened to customs.

Everyone agrees this bug is going to be fixed. It would be detrimental to Diddy Kong players to advance in a tournament based on a tool they won't have for very long. You would 'develop the meta', but it would be a meaningless advancement.

Anyway, we have a thread for this now.

 

[Thinkaman]

Common sense would say it's unfair and scrubby to ban a character that hasn't proven to be problematic, but apparently we can't play with Miis or Palutena so who knows with this community.

 

[Pazx]

It would really suck for Diddy players to not get a chance at a tourney (let alone a major), but it would be equally ****ty for players who come up against them and play a set where the glitch has an impact on the outcome of the match. 1.1.0 is by far the best solution, but I'd imagine it's already too late for you Yikarur

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I demonstrated the glitch to some people at a local weekly gathering and to a man they were all surprised. That tells me it's not quite common knowledge, especially given its newness.

 

[Ghostbone]

We have a Major in 8 days and are thinking about how to handle Diddy Kong if the glitch is not fixed by then.
what do you think?

Players can adapt, it's fairly easy not to attack into diddy's shield with multihit attacks, and even if he does drop shield during them, you get the hit + it only takes one hit on diddy's shield to nullify it. There are no significant problems and certainly no legitimate balance concerns.

Had tournament today with no rules on it and it was a non issue. (like lucario aura sphere shenanigans were actually prominent and we don't ban those because players are too lazy to learn and adapt)

 

[thehard]

The MLG 2015 New Orleans ruleset: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_6led0kUk1UFIQr6wYPv4wLKbmJ-z0doLZQNuYjeSjc/preview

TL;DR: "Each player may make one Mii Fighter of each type (Brawler/Gunner/Swordfighter) during a set when they intend to use them. They may only use a system default Mii with any special combination of their preference. The appearance or equipment may not be altered."

We did it boys

 

[J_the_Man]

I was always in favor of that specific ruleset for Miis. This is interesting. Now if we can just work on Palutena, I will be satisfied.

 

[Thinkaman]

It might be best to let people see how totally reasonable Miis are, and get used to how this is no different than customs controls...

...and then realize on their own that Palutena is the same ****ing thing.

 

[Stromp]

Shouldn't Miis be treated as every other character? For example allow them to use 1-1-1-1 moveset

 

[Ansou]

Shouldn't Miis be treated as every other character? For example allow them to use 1-1-1-1 moveset

Shouldn't every other character be treated like Miis? For example allow them to use 3-1-2-3 moveset or any other moveset? Honestly, the problems that has been with custom specials are not that problematic anymore... Just look at how much attention custom moves got in the last patch.

 

[Stromp]

Shouldn't every other character be treated like Miis? For example allow them to use 3-1-2-3 moveset or any other moveset? Honestly, the problems that has been with custom specials are not that problematic anymore... Just look at how much attention custom moves got in the last patch.

I still feel like some custom moves make certain characters too good. I'd be fine with having my custom side b though

 

[ぱみゅ]

I dont like miis but damn y'all need to chill. If it doesnt work we wont use then later. There are so many tournaments, we can test stuff.

— ESAM (Stride Esports) (@imESAM) October 5, 2015