Meta Competitive Smash Ruleset Discussion

[Radical Larry]

No rule is perfect, I too can pinpoint flaws, but whatever new method surfaces, it will have its fair number too. The only way the current, standard rule were to be replaced is if a solution has SIGNIFICANTLY less issues to address.

All of your examples trying to point problems of our current system are grouped in the same category:
You failed to terminate both of the opponents' stocks within the time frame (6 minutes = 360 seconds = 21600 frames), the deadline being so strict that even the "extra" frames of the character flying towards the blastzone are to be considered.
I mean, there are even cases of people throwing themselves out of the stage to points they would be unable to recover PRECISELY because time is to run out before they lose the stock.
EXHIBIT A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyQImaKwwoo
EXHIBIT B: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSLs5nwt5gM
Point being, it really can go both ways.

Now, I too find a lot of problems with your proposed rule:

• This has been proved already: by reducing the timer, it significantly increases the chance of a timeout. Not only because slower matches would take ~5 minutes anyway, but some that may normally take 4+ can be slowed down by the players and they now can aim for a timeout.
• Time between matches counts, a lot. So, instead of a single game taking 6 minutes max (without tiebreaker, but I'll get into this later), now you're taking 5, plus the downtime between games, plus whatever the tiebreaker lasts. It will likely be way more than 6 minutes total.
• Your time projection would only be actually improving if our current method had every timeout resulting in tiebreaker matches (both players would need to have the exact same percentage, and that's extremely unlikely), and if said tiebreaker will take all of the 3 minutes (even less likely). Otherwise, the current standard is better.
• And most importantly, WHY would you ignore percentage for the "regular match" but take it in account for the tiebreaker? Wouldn't that beat the purpose of changing the current rule?

Again, I understand what you're trying to get at: The current standard is flawed. And I somewhat agree.
But so far it is the least-worse out of any other option we have.

Alright, so let's talk about your points that you've talked about and let me explain my part:

• If you look at what I've said before in previous posts, you do know that I have clearly stated that the removal of incentive by taking damage into account for "regular" matches will not make people go into time out more often. In fact, time out may never be a thing anymore. So naturally if one were to not incentivise a win based on damage in a match, then a decrease in time is not necessarily a bad idea.
• Secondly, you're blowing time between matches out of proportion. Now yes, the entire thing, should it go into time out, may result in more than six minutes, but then again, if a tie breaker occurs, then the players will have to be on the same everything, bar at least ten seconds to change the stock and time from 2 stock and 5 minutes (my proposal) to 1 stock and 1 minute. But again, the time outs would rarely occur as per point 1.
• The current standard is the least fair of any of the standards because it benefits people who know how to really camp against the opponent. As an example, Little Mac vs Diddy Kong on Duck Hunt or Dreamland. It would be nigh impossible for the Little Mac to be able to even touch Diddy Kong on that stage for the obvious reason that a Diddy Kong can just camp the Little Mac. How can the current standard be better in this type of situation, which can indeed happen?
• Why would I ignore the damage for the regular match and apply it to the tie breaker? Easy, because it's actually more than fair than putting it on the regular match. The tie breaker match is self-explanatory in its title alone, it's meant to be a tie breaker, and damage will be taken into account to break the tie if neither opponent will KO each other.

My methodology is for time, efficiency and fairness. The option that I am giving would be the most fair because this one has the least problems that could be explained away and fixed simply by adjusting it to be fixed.

 

[ぱみゅ]

• But there is still an incentive to camp and aim for a timeout: The player with the most damage would want to slow down the game and run the timer out for a percentage reset. They may lose or not later anyway, but I bet they wouldn't want to miss the chance to try again.
• I may or not be blowing it out of proportion, but my point is that it still takes more time than the regular 6 minutes maximum (unless they tie, which is very, VERY unlikely), making it, in average, less efficient.
• Camping is a strong strategy PERIOD. If the Diddy manages to take a stock they can run away forever like you said anyway, so the point is moot because it may happen regardless of the change. Will it be less likely if percentage is not part of the equation anymore? Maybe; but then again:
  • Now you have an incentive for the player with a stock lead to camp.
  • Another incentive for the player with a large deficit to make up to get a reset.
  • The timer is shorter so both can aim for it at different points.
• Technically, on the current system, when the timer runs out and both characters have the same number of stocks, the game says it is a tie; and then WE decide to break that tie AT THE SAME TIME. I agree, it might not be the fairest option, but it's practical, easy to follow for players and everybody else, and we don't need to change the settings and start the last stock over again. It is simple and efficient enough.

So, out of the three aims you've listed, yours might be fairer (I honestly have no opinion on that, neither positive or negative), but it's not more efficient or less time-consuming than the current one.

 

[Radical Larry]

• But there is still an incentive to camp and aim for a timeout: The player with the most damage would want to slow down the game and run the timer out for a percentage reset. They may lose or not later anyway, but I bet they wouldn't want to miss the chance to try again.
• I may or not be blowing it out of proportion, but my point is that it still takes more time than the regular 6 minutes maximum (unless they tie, which is very, VERY unlikely), making it, in average, less efficient.
• Camping is a strong strategy PERIOD. If the Diddy manages to take a stock they can run away forever like you said anyway, so the point is moot because it may happen regardless of the change. Will it be less likely if percentage is not part of the equation anymore? Maybe; but then again:
  • Now you have an incentive for the player with a stock lead to camp.
  • Another incentive for the player with a large deficit to make up to get a reset.
  • The timer is shorter so both can aim for it at different points.
• Technically, on the current system, when the timer runs out and both characters have the same number of stocks, the game says it is a tie; and then WE decide to break that tie AT THE SAME TIME. I agree, it might not be the fairest option, but it's practical, easy to follow for players and everybody else, and we don't need to change the settings and start the last stock over again. It is simple and efficient enough.

So, out of the three aims you've listed, yours might be fairer (I honestly have no opinion on that, neither positive or negative), but it's not more efficient or less time-consuming than the current one.

Listen, it's apparent you'd rather take "efficiency" over fairness. So let me state how efficient my method can truly be.

So you state that it takes six minutes maximum for a single match set. Alright, so let's take into account both players getting up towards their set; that would take around 1 to 2 minutes, an additional 30 seconds or so for both players to set their controllers up, should there not be a setup for them on the Wii U already, and also an additional minute selecting characters and a stage. So already you're spending a lot of time there. Okay, so what difference would it make if we have these kinds of tie breakers?

Setting the timer and stock back would be quicker than any of these, because it'd probably take 15 seconds. The stage and characters would remain the same, so there should be only a couple seconds time in the event of a tie breaker to choose these. The entire tie breaker match would take a minute, which is a very short amount of time. So really, if we were to take matches and tie breakers into account for my system, it'd be no more than just a few more seconds after six minutes, which isn't that big of a jump. So you're indefinitely blowing this out of proportion.

And now about your first and third points.

Let's then take into account that players on the normal match can KO early within a match. And this will attack your third point. Now yes, a player with a stock advantage would like to keep that advantage, but it's more than likely that they'll probably lose that stock before time ends on a normal match. Now I only put up one extreme instance, but remember, we have many characters and a few stages, as well as baiting people who retreat. So this instance would be very rare in either types of rules, but it'd definitely be less likely with mine, but even more less likely if we just outright ban Duck Hunt. As for the incentive to retreat and aim for a time-out, I would doubt it. See, not all characters can retreat as efficiently as others. Every character can be caught up by another character.

And at your fourth point, do you know what's easy to follow? Seeing how early matches can end. So really, what my rule does is fix something that shouldn't truly be there. Now let me state this, both things would definitely be redundant in the long run, but in those extreme cases that the timer does run out, we don't have to judge the winner by some sort of unfair rule, but rather, we can just have them fight it off and incorporate the rule in a more fair usage, obviously.

You see, I'm trying to think of it in a more sports-like manner. What I'm trying to give is a more fair and only extremely slimly more time consuming method, which is still definitely more efficient in its usage than, say, our current system.

Look, this is a more progressive system than our current one, and I would just want fairness in the events of time-outs instead of just so-called efficiency. Fairness over not, that is what should be the goal of the Smash games in tournaments.

 

[b2jammer]

Here's an idea for a tiebreaker that tries to take stage control and weight into account while sticking to our current % rule. It's based on @SpaghettiWeegee's idea of Smash Susceptibility (SS) covered in this thread (in short, Final Percent (FP)/Weight = SS), but also accounts for roughly where each character is at:

• If both players are on or close to the ground or a platform (i.e. not in a juggle situation), both Final Percents (FP) remain unchanged as the players are essentially in neutral.
• If one player is in a combo or juggle situation (such as in hitstun or tumbling) or otherwise much higher than their opponent while still offstage, +10% to the higher player's FP. This also does double duty of discouraging air camping.
• If one player is onstage and the other is off stage:
  
  • If the offstage player is high in the air or close to the ledge, +5-15% to that player's FP.
    
  • If the offstage player is around ledge height and far offstage (as in Power of Flight far away) or well below ledge height, +15-30% that player's FP.
• If both players are offstage (such as in an offstage edgeguard attempt):
  • If both players are around the same distance from the ledge, FP's remain unchanged.
  • If one player is much farther from the ledge than the other, +10% to that player's FP.

The percentages and situations (and even this whole system, for that matter) are somewhat subjective and arbitrary, but it might be a good starting point.

 

[Yikarur]

lol how to make simple things complicated.
I don't think tie breaker as it is now will never change because it's simple and enforceable. Every other way would be either very unfair or like the calculaton above completely arbitrary and complicated.

 

[Lomogoto]

yeah i dont like assuming a person who plays a light character can't live a long time or to high percents. if you play a light character you often put a lot of time and practice into living longer.
thats why i proposed my idea a while back, it accounts for when the person has actually died, not when they are expected to.
similarly assuming being juggled means youll die isnt great. pikachu has a great up air for juggling, but it will not be killing you and we shouldnt assume that it will (or at least is as likely to kill you as being juggled by luma)
and being off stage just seems only a little less arbitrary.

 

[homiedixon]

This is a pretty basic question, but I was wondering how in-game volume is decided on in a tournament setting. I've recently started listening to music while I play, but I still need to have SFX on. I've tried playing with completely silent in-game sound/music, and its made me die from running out of jumps with Puff more times than I can count.

 

[Radical Larry]

This is a pretty basic question, but I was wondering how in-game volume is decided on in a tournament setting. I've recently started listening to music while I play, but I still need to have SFX on. I've tried playing with completely silent in-game sound/music, and its made me die from running out of jumps with Puff more times than I can count.

In tournaments, I believe there's no current rule, but it's generally agreed upon that SFX and Music are all turned on during battles. This comes as a redundant question, really, but if you want to listen to music, I would say just listen to the music and count how many jumps you have as Puff. It's easy, just count how many times you've tapped the button.

 

[Z1GMA]

Been playing a lot on Norfair with friends lately. It's actually pretty legit and not nearly as gimmicky as some ppl say.
Would definitely be interesting to have it as a CP.

 

[wizrad]

Why do we use Duck Hunt and Lylat Cruise but not Castle Siege? Unlike both of those stages it includes no randomness, and (barring the middle transformation) it is more than playable. Even in the middle transformation, the changes to gameplay are not so significant that strategies go from playing the game to playing the stage. I think it should be considered.

 

[ぱみゅ]

It used to be legal but got removed because reasons. I'd love it to have it back.

 

[Radical Larry]

If we had a sort of system to where people can legitimately hear us or a sort of group of hundreds that could make a finalized NTSC rule-set, then certainly Castle Seige will definitely be legal.

It used to be legal but got removed because reasons. I'd love it to have it back.

Some people will say that it was removed because of its middle transformation as well as the transitions being fast or distracting. I don't know the full thing, but the middle transformation is temporary and if someone dies from a transition, that's their fault. As for it being distracting, it's so fast that it shouldn't be distracting. Again, I don't know the full details.

 

[wizrad]

Weird stuff definitely happens during the transitions. Still, I've had worse happen to me on Town & City and Lylat Cruise. And then there's Duck Hunt... sigh. I honestly don't like most of the legal stages.

Also still waiting on three stock.





alsoalsostillwaitingonfreemiis

 

[vegeta18]

so lets say smashbox becomes legal when it comes out, im going to have a few extra buttons, i was thinking that i could modify the stick so that i make one of the extra buttons a "b button" and re map it to a foot pedal. So essentially id be taking the b button and id be hitting it with my foot.

if hypothetically smashbox was officially legal in tournaments, would the foot pedal idea be banned? way i think of it is im just hitting a button with my foot,its the same thing as holding R on a gc controller or holding the b button with my pinky except there would just be less hand strain and id be holding the button down with my foot instead of stretching my hand like crazy. but a few players i presented this idea too said that it would probably be illegal with out much reasoning.

 

[Kaze Arashi]

In terms of miis, they should allow players to make miis before a tournament starts, makes it easier to manage, as they can set up names and stats and moves before tournament starts without worrying about making it before their match starts.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Which is why I am all from transferring from a 3DS with an already set built that can be revised by the opponent.

 

[Kaze Arashi]

Which is why I am all from transferring from a 3DS with an already set built that can be revised by the opponent.

When you have no 3ds. ;-;

 

[Yikarur]

European Smash 4 Pro Circuit has Guest Mii's all Moves legal

 

[SiO2]

In light of an incident at the Combo Breaker Tekken 7 tournament over the weekend, what are everyone's opinions about game resolution? I've pretty much assumed that everyone is playing at 1080p, since Sm4sh was designed around it (unless the TV being used doesn't support it, which is rare for most TVs built in the last 5-10 years). Should players be allowed to request the game be played at a lower resolution like 720p, or actually change the game resolution (like what actually occured on Tekken 7)?

Granted, most TOs should be frowning upon changing system settings, or explicitly not allow it. But not every TO explicitly calls it out either. Looking at the Combo Breaker 2017 rules, and even Evo 2017 rules, changing game resolution is not called out.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Display output IS a monitor/screen-specific issue.
For the majority of the time, Smash is preferred at 720p, since a lot of monitors start delaying 1080p (at least in my experience).
But I guess this can be treated as any other case of wrong settings: if noticed quickly enough, just restart the match, if not, it would depend on how deep into the game they are.


That said, back in the Brawl's last moments, there was a discussion about leaving the Flicker On or Off. Some events ran it "On" by default and allowed people to turn it On and Off as a counterpick. But it didn't last long to really cement a rule about it.

 

[Sock Man]

So currently if the timer goes out the winner of the match is whoever has the most stocks, or took the least amount of damage. Since the goal of the game is ultimately to take stocks and NOT just dealing damage for the sake of it, I think the winner of a match in the case of a same stock time out should be the one who's peak damage was higher. I mean, why should the player with less damage be rewarded for not dying? That is all.

 

[Lola Luftnagle]

It's simple, hon. That player was performing better than his opponent, avoiding damage as much he can. And don't forget, time-outs are quite a rarity here.

 

[Sock Man]

Surviving in this wacky game is not the easiest thing to do especially when a critical error can cost you a stock at 0%. What's more impressive, watching the predator toy with it's prey, or watching the prey defy death? Sure, your opponent might be at 200%, but you didn't finish them off in time. Dealing damage is not the goal, but a means to an end. That's my logic behind the suggestion.

 

[Lola Luftnagle]

Yeah...I'll admit I was confused by that post for quite a while. But all I can tell y'all is this is a fighting game. Not dissimilar to chess, it's about outplaying the foe, so nothing is guaranteed. If you're allowing your opponent to hit y'all that much, that shows me (s)he's more skilled than you or y'all ain't using your defensive options any better than a Melee level 9 CPU.

 

[Zerp]

So, what you're saying is that if we're both at last stock when the clock runs out, I'm at 110% barely clinging on to my life and my opponent who's been outplaying me this stock is at 0% I should be the one who wins just because I'm surviving at a higher percent than they are? Can't say I'd agree with that.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

I read all of these comments and I came out confused.

I do not mind the current timeout rules because it is the method that to my knowledge has always been used in fighting games before.

Also I am confused in the new ruling that is being proposed here.

I know in tourney mode for smash wii u, if both players are on the same stock and a timeout happens, the player that did the moost damage overall in the match wins regardless of percent. Is that what you are trying to say?

 

[MarioManTAW]

I read all of these comments and I came out confused.

I do not mind the current timeout rules because it is the method that to my knowledge has always been used in fighting games before.

Also I am confused in the new ruling that is being proposed here.

I know in tourney mode for smash wii u, if both players are on the same stock and a timeout happens, the player that did the moost damage overall in the match wins regardless of percent. Is that what you are trying to say?

He's saying that the player with more damage in case of a same-stock timeout should win, in other words, players should be punished for not being able to take stocks rather than rewarded for dealing more damage.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Oh boy, I've been here for a while and I've read all kinds of possible alternatives to our current timeout rulings.

Thus far, the single most convincing argument I've heard in favor of our current one is "It gives the advantage to the one who managed to get their opponent the farthest from the starting point of 0%".

It has some flaws but it's simple, easy to follow and to enforce.

 

[Sock Man]

So, what you're saying is that if we're both at last stock when the clock runs out, I'm at 110% barely clinging on to my life and my opponent who's been outplaying me this stock is at 0% I should be the one who wins just because I'm surviving at a higher percent than they are? Can't say I'd agree with that.

If they were "outplaying" you the entire stock and you didn't die, then either they are doing something wrong or you're doing something right. I mean, the game mode IS called survival. It's reasonable to survive quite a bit beyond the "global kill percentage" of 100. I kinda wanted to dissuade people from camping while they had a better chance of surviving, or rather I wanted to make campers easier to deal with. Yes, you can camp if you're ahead by one stock, but if the opponent takes that one stock, they now have to defend against your attacks until the timer runs out or take your next stock, and the only way for you to win is to end them. This way you can only really "lead" with stocks and the opponent doesn't have to spend the next minute or so playing catch-up with a severe disadvantage against "Sonic the Spinball", "Bullet Bill Trio" or really anyone. **** me it's 8:00 PM and I'm getting dumber. Ending it early.

 

[NINTENDO Galaxy]

Decided to move this here after being redirected from the 4br thread.

What are your thoughts on my Mii Fighters stance?

All this talk about banning Bayonetta meanwhile Mii Brawler, Swordfighter, and Gunner mains are just thrown a bone and told to be happy and make it WORK.

The Zero playing Bayonetta to get her banned talk reminds me of a few years ago when Zero said he would play Luigi just to get him nerfed. One way or another that happened shortly after that.

As far as setting unrealistic expectations for Bayonetta mains to make to warrant a ban, will the bar be set higher if Bayonetta mains DO manage to meet those expectations?

Edit: I hope the community can get it's priorities straight before tackling any other issues.

Edit 2: How can we talk about "character diversity" when Mii mains are still getting the short end of the stick? Are we suppose to forget about them and move on?

Also has anyone here talked with the Mii servers from Smashcords? A few of them have (or used to have) mii legality channels or they talk about it in their general chat.

Well I've been there a few times and proposed multiple ideas; either they got shot down because it was a modification of the golden ruleset or players and TO's alike would find the process too tedious or time-consuming and start to talk about problems they have yet to face and exaggerate them to make them sound believable like tournies would not start or end on time (the 2GG team has managed to run very huge tournies in 1 and 2 day events on time that sometimes they were told it could not happen) , complain about checking everything.

Two ideas I have brought up that I can remember are: proposing for TO's to carry a 3ds with Smash 4 3DS that contained all of the move combinations but restrict the Miis to default weight and height.

The second one was to have all setups with all move combinations whule restricting characters height and weight to the medium, maximum, and minimum scales.

That got shot down because it would be ignoring the height and weights in between the scales.

Yeah, I think this might be a difficult subject to convince TO's to consider instead of just taking the easy way out they have been for years.

My complaint is that I think that the reason our notable players talk against Mii Fighters is so they could keep their spots at the top while other players bandwagon their opinions.just because they are top players which can spread a lot of misinformation or other players may have seen bad experiences vs Mii Fighters (I bet the biggest offense was Small Mii Brawler) whether it in a tourney match they played, spectated, or saw a top player's video saying how dumb or who the best character is.

 

[T0MMY]

I've been a prominent Mii player and active on the Mii Discord servers and will say that nearly the entire Mii Community supports the simple solution of just allowing Mii as the SSB4 Wii U software permits without any using any other software/hardware. What this equates to is a player can create a Mii using one of the Guest Mii. That's it.
It's painfully simple solution.
Anything outside of that is either going to be too convoluted (golden sets that could never be universally agreed on) or completely illogical ("broken" "not fair" "OP" "ridiculous" etc).

Hoping the Mii fiasco can be put to bed once and for all for a happy ending.

 

[A Scrub]

So currently if the timer goes out the winner of the match is whoever has the most stocks, or took the least amount of damage. Since the goal of the game is ultimately to take stocks and NOT just dealing damage for the sake of it, I think the winner of a match in the case of a same stock time out should be the one who's peak damage was higher. I mean, why should the player with less damage be rewarded for not dying? That is all.

LOL this is... a not polite word.


The idea is that you have a higher percent of damage and are going to likely be the first one to die.

The other guy with the lower percent is surviving longer.... and being rewarded for it.

 

[Justin Maribito]

No spiking, that is all.

 

[Thinkaman]

No spiking, that is all.

Obligatory Link To Playing To Win