Enforcing Time Limits in Tournaments

[Olikus]

your just tempting me with you're grammar, aren't you

do you honestly think i meant anything other than for an extended period of time?

theorycraft all day every day

nah im not so good with english grammar Im okay speaking though.

Well you didnt state it, and sometimes you say things, and then afterwords say you were ofc being sarcastic, so I didnt know. Your a mystery aa, live with it

 

[Sempiternity]

maybe hyrule needs to go

implementing a timer only serves to give the winning player (lol 10% lead) even more incentive to camp the ever-loving **** out of the unfortunate losing player who now has to approach (arguably the worst option a player has in this game). hypothetically speaking, the player who scores first hit wins.

without a timer, both players realize the game has to end sooner or later, so the winning player may occasionally approach out of boredom or what have you, but with an 8 minute goal, all thoughts of approaching get thrown out the window and the only focus is now on stalling out those remaining minutes for victory.

with a timer, pika dittos will end with both players having five stocks and a small percentage

this is, of course, the worst case scenario, but in a play-to-win situation (like some of you experienced at Apex), this could most certainly happen.

 

[SheerMadness]

It's very hard for me to understand why people play campy. It's boring as hell.

I'd rather be aggressive and lose than camp the whole match.

If someone is camping me with projectiles I'll play along for a minute and parry their **** and then get annoyed or bored and come after them.

 

[Sempiternity]

I'm the same way.

"Defensive" playing is understandable in high-level competitive play, but if you're just playing for fun... well, you're a sick **** if you think camping is fun.

I think I've said this before, but I guess some people can only have fun if they're winning. I'd rather not play with those people. I have way more fun doing cool stuff and losing by three stocks than by playing cheap and winning.

It seems I would get along with the Australian community since they appear all gung-ho about that kind of crazy ****.

 

[SSB64-Jel]

Just do time mode every match and then we will go by kills that would fix everything lol.

 

[Peek~]

Maybe we are overthinking this "I have the stock lead, let me run the rest of the game".

I think a timer would only promote camping on Hyrule because you have alot of room to work with and terrain advantage(Slope, Tent, Middle Platforms), but on the smaller stages I think it would promote gimping/simple/quickkilling styles more.
Honestly if I had the lead I would try to widen the lead as much as possible.
imo its safer/better winning 2-0stocks than 3-3stocks 80%/97%

 

[Sangoku]

It's very hard for me to understand why people play campy. It's boring as hell.

I'd rather be aggressive and lose than camp the whole match.

If someone is camping me with projectiles I'll play along for a minute and parry their **** and then get annoyed or bored and come after them.

^This man knows what's up.

Also it's funny because those who complain the most about Hyrule/camping are those who would camp the most there.

 

[Olikus]

^This man knows what's up.

Also it's funny because those who complain the most about Hyrule/camping are those who would camp the most there.

when did gerson post here?

 

[King Funk]

maybe hyrule needs to go

implementing a timer only serves to give the winning player (lol 10% lead) even more incentive to camp the ever-loving **** out of the unfortunate losing player who now has to approach (arguably the worst option a player has in this game). hypothetically speaking, the player who scores first hit wins.

I'm very afraid of this scenario happening, should a timer be implemented, because it's very realistic. Matches might become long not due to the matchup played, but due to intentional stalling with the goal of timing out one's adversary. With a stage as large as Hyrule and a huge imbalance in mobility with characters (how do you expect Luigi to chase Pikachu?), this might lead to some pretty "dirty" matches.

Which is why I am against an 8-minute timer.

The way I see it, there are three solutions:

1. ban Hyrule, I don't want to explain yet again my opinions on how bad this stage is competitively.
2. keep Hyrule, but as a counterpick and without a timer.
3. keep Hyrule, as a neutral/counterpick but use a 10-12 minute timer to attempt to discourage timing out.

 

[KnitePhox]

It's very hard for me to understand why people play campy. It's boring as hell.

I'd rather be aggressive and lose than camp the whole match.

this x1000000

 

[hamburglar]

8-9 minutes gets my vote but excessive stalling should definitely be enforced. personally I don't think timing someone out to get the win is much of a victory anyways. Its a technicality i look down on.

 

[Battlecow]

I respect your guys' "play with honor" sentiments, but the rules have to be based around a "play to win" mentality, because there are people with those and the "honor" thing will lead to awful, awful things like AA's "let's have referees stand around at every match and tell people to stop camping" idea.

If you think that someone will honestly say 'Oh, but he short hopped while in the tent, he can't be camping', then I'm justified in laughing at you...

Banning Hyrule is another topic entirely, and I'm all for trying it out based on the responses of some Apex attendees, but I still think it's at least something for the CP list.

There need to be anti-camping rules anyway.

Respond to this post in the Hyrule should be CP thread, if at all.

Back on topic and away from Battlecow's florid and repetitive (and weaker for it) arguments, timing isn't hard to do at all: the setup to participant ratio should stay around a fixed amount or lower, meaning there will basically always be somebody with a cellphone or watch in the crowd who can set it and count down from 5 if need be.

Aaagh. Agh. You did not respond to my post. There's no clear and objective way to draw a line on the camping thing. What you are proposing is SUBJECTIVE, CROWD-ENFORCED and VAGUE rules to ban camping IN TOURNAMENT. Do you not see the problem there?

 

[Sangoku]

Who talked about honor? You're the one mentioning it

Spoiler

while you shouldn't, given what you did to MikeHaggar

.

We're just saying that camping is BORING and a game shouldn't be boring or if it is, it shouldn't be played. If there is something else you're after, then fine, but what? Money? I don't think there's a lot of money involved in these tournies. Pride? If you're proud to the point of doing any stupid ****ing boring tactic to win, then I'm sad for you and I let you win by approaching blindly.

Now I know this is a competitive game and the purpose is precisely competition, so I know I'm going to get bashed for my opinion, but chill that's just a game. Shouldn't be that important.

 

[ballin4life]

ITT people completely miss battlecow's point

 

[King Funk]

People may look down upon camping, but in the end, players are here to win.

 

[clubbadubba]

Having a 'subjective' referee is not a ridiculous idea. Almost all sports have them and the pro sports leagues have a LOT more on the line than we do at a smash tournament. Now having the resources to put a referee at every tv of every tournament is another issue, but I don't think we can dismiss the idea when it is used so often in other highstakes situations.

 

[Sangoku]

What does ITT mean except from Intention To Treat?

v Thanks Semp.

 

[Sempiternity]

What does ITT mean except from Intention To Treat?

in this thread broski

 

[WOTG]

It's very hard for me to understand why people play campy. It's boring as hell.

I'd rather be aggressive and lose than camp the whole match.

If someone is camping me with projectiles I'll play along for a minute and parry their **** and then get annoyed or bored and come after them.

^this

-Stay at 5 stocks.

^this

1. keep Hyrule, but as a counterpick and without a timer.

^and this

I feel like I have nothing new to offer really, everyone has made good points, that's what I think it concludes to. 5 stocks, Hyrule Counterpick. There's always going to be defensive/campy players, that's just their playstyle, nothing you can do in both console and online tournies. But in friendlies, there's a reason why in kaillera I sometimes say, "no defensive players" because it's boring, and I sometimes don't feel like playing that style. I have every right to make the choice of who I want to play at that very moment.

 

[ballin4life]

Having a 'subjective' referee is not a ridiculous idea. Almost all sports have them and the pro sports leagues have a LOT more on the line than we do at a smash tournament. Now having the resources to put a referee at every tv of every tournament is another issue, but I don't think we can dismiss the idea when it is used so often in other highstakes situations.

the whole point of those referees is that they are SUPPOSED to be objective.

rulebooks for pro sports have hundreds of rules usually. that's because everything is supposed to be 100% objective.

i mean suppose that the NFL had a rule saying that you can be a little offsides - just not "too much". would probably lead to some issues, right?


the rules I can think of that are even slightly subjective are related to sportsmanship or "good of the game" situations (which in smash would be things like getting disqualified for punching your opponent in the face during a match, or being excessively abusive towards referees, etc). even for those I'm sure pro sports leagues have pretty clear guidelines about what is "unsportsmanlike"

 

[jimmyjoe]

Using a sort of referee is definitely worth trying before banning/making-counter-pick what many believe to be the best stage in the game. You can't dismiss the idea of refs by theorizing how it won't work because of subjectivity. Basketball refs work so subjectively, anyone who's a fan knows that, and it's a player's job to adjust. The strike zone in baseball is another clear example of this.

Just strike hyrule if you don't like it.

 

[clubbadubba]

@ballin, many calls in sports are subjective. Any foul in basketball is going to be subjective, and there are often fouls called by one official that another official might not have called, that's just the way it is. Its on the players to adjust to the way the refs are calling the game. Just saying subjectivity will almost definitely come into play with refs, but that it is also okay as long as each ref is consistent.

Imo, hyrule is not the only stage where running away is possible. luigi catching fox on dreamland? Not if fox is decent and doesn't want to be caught. Some characters are just faster than others, and that's something we can't get around no matter what stages we ban. Not only that, but running away is not the only way to secure a lead and time out an opponent. A fox shdl on one side of dreamland is very difficult to approach by a character such as link or samus.

I would like a timer, I just wish people would play as if the timer wasn't there. What if players couldn't see the timer?

 

[ballin4life]

the point is that basketball fouls are SUPPOSED to be objective. hence people complaining when different refs call things different ways.

imagine the problems that occur when the rule is entirely subjective

 

[clubbadubba]

Some of the rules in basketball are actually designed intentionally to allow refs to use their discretion. For example:

Incidental contact with the hand against an offensive player shall be ignored if it does not affect the player's speed, quickness, balance and/or rhythm.

Giving the ref the option to not call a foul if they determine that it doesn't really affect the play. I do understand your point, and of course any rules we make should be as objective as possible.

I'm feeling more and more like ssb and a timer don't go together, since its too easy to time out an opponent. I like just having an anti stalling rule instead, like if neither player approaches the other for X amount of time, the match is over.

 

[Luigisama]

I agree with this and I was actually thinking about this on my own. I propose that matches should be played in time mode and have one person watch the match. First person to lose five stocks(die five times) loses since the stock count is five or maybe the two players that see this happen stop playing.

 

[Fish641]

Adding a timer would add an incentive to gain a lead and evade the opponent, so you'd have to be careful about it.

 

[Battlecow]

Using a sort of referee is definitely worth trying before banning/making-counter-pick what many believe to be the best stage in the game.

Why is hyrule the best stage in the game? because of the random elements? Because of the fact that you're proposing to change smash fundamentally in order to keep it? No, you like it because of tent combos. How "fun" it is for you to do tent combos should not be a consideration when making rulesets.

Just strike hyrule if you don't like it.

-Playing to win means that if I have a better chance of winning by timing someone out on hyrule, I should strike DL and get my flashlight and s'mores out.

-Even if I don't play to win, I can still be CP'd to hyrule.

Guys, this referee thing is a really, really bad idea. If you have a rule against camping, the competitive player will try to circumvent and abuse it as much as possible. If this means he has to hop out of the tent every thirty seconds, he'll hop out and then back in. If he has to damage his opponent every 30 seconds, his opponent will start playing runaway from him. If he stumbles, we have to pause the match and mete out punishment or just DQ the poor **** for hesitating a second too long. If it's super subjective, you'll get beef between the player and the ref every time the ref tries to enforce a rule. I'm loath to step down to this level-really, I should be able to convince you not to do this from a much more theoretical standpoint-but even logistically, it could never work. You would need unbiased referees at EVERY MATCH. If some guy in the crowd ****s up or loses track of time, it costs you a match.

Ugh, come on.

Yoshi's Island is banned because it promotes camping. Hyrule, everyone now seems to agree, also promotes camping to a game-breaking degree. If we adopt the Asianaussie method and punch players who try to play their best on hyrule, we need to legalize Yoshi's as well. I'm hoping against hope here that your subjective dislike for YS is enough to overrule your subjective affinity for Hyrule and get you to agree to do things the competitive way.

 

[KnitePhox]

Yoshi's Island is banned because it promotes camping. Hyrule, everyone now seems to agree, also promotes camping to a game-breaking degree. If we adopt the Asianaussie method and punch players who try to play their best on hyrule, we need to legalize Yoshi's as well. I'm hoping against hope here that your subjective dislike for YS is enough to overrule your subjective affinity for Hyrule and get you to agree to do things the competitive way.

agree

10illini's also agree

 

[ballin4life]

Some of the rules in basketball are actually designed intentionally to allow refs to use their discretion. For example:

Incidental contact with the hand against an offensive player shall be ignored if it does not affect the player's speed, quickness, balance and/or rhythm.

Giving the ref the option to not call a foul if they determine that it doesn't really affect the play. I do understand your point, and of course any rules we make should be as objective as possible.

I'm feeling more and more like ssb and a timer don't go together, since its too easy to time out an opponent. I like just having an anti stalling rule instead, like if neither player approaches the other for X amount of time, the match is over.

"if neither player approaches the other for X amount of time" is WAY more vague than the examples you cite above. it's not clear at all what "approaches" means. also, what happens when the match is over? person with more percent wins?

Yoshi's Island is banned because it promotes camping. Hyrule, everyone now seems to agree, also promotes camping to a game-breaking degree. If we adopt the Asianaussie method and punch players who try to play their best on hyrule, we need to legalize Yoshi's as well. I'm hoping against hope here that your subjective dislike for YS is enough to overrule your subjective affinity for Hyrule and get you to agree to do things the competitive way.

I actually don't think Yoshi's Island camping is that bad. It's not unbeatable IMO, it's mostly just dumb (at least the variations I have seen).

 

[The Star King]

Yoshi's Island is banned because camping is broken, not because it's promoted.

BTW I'm not really reading this thread, just skimmed it. Was going to read it but realized Battlecow caused it to devolve into stage discussion even faster than I expected and didn't feel like it. Maybe later.

 

[asianaussie]

Yoshi's Island is banned because camping is broken, not because it's promoted.

BTW I'm not really reading this thread, just skimmed it. Was going to read it but realized Battlecow caused it to devolve into stage discussion even faster than I expected and didn't feel like it. Maybe later.

this is almost precisely what i was about to post, second paragraph included

i still don't see the big deal here, i think shunting hyrule to CP is all that needs to happen

Timer should still be enforced, ezpz, excessive stalling is an issue that needs to be addressed not only on Hyrule, but on other stages, definitely. Samus can plank to a degree, Kirby is very good at air camping, etc, etc.

 

[Olikus]

this is almost precisely what i was about to post, second paragraph included

i still don't see the big deal here, i think shunting hyrule to CP is all that needs to happen

Timer should still be enforced, ezpz, excessive stalling is an issue that needs to be addressed not only on Hyrule, but on other stages, definitely. Samus can plank to a degree, Kirby is very good at air camping, etc, etc.

I like this solution.

 

[clubbadubba]

"if neither player approaches the other for X amount of time" is WAY more vague than the examples you cite above. it's not clear at all what "approaches" means. also, what happens when the match is over? person with more percent wins?



I actually don't think Yoshi's Island camping is that bad. It's not unbeatable IMO, it's mostly just dumb (at least the variations I have seen).

It's not clear what "rhythm" is in basketball either. I'm not saying the suggestion I made is perfect (and it shouldn't be I just wrote it down in 2 seconds), I'm saying that it is almost impossible to have a set of objective rules that covers every single possibility. Sports have realized this and have built subjectivity into their rules, and is probably something we would have to do if we wanted to prevent stalling.

@Battlecow, don't assume tent combos is why people like hyrule. I personally like it because it has a lot of different stage elements. The tent is included in that, but it also has the platforms in the middle and the slanted stage on the left side. I think the stage is more balanced character wise than other stages. Yea pikachu is still a monster, but that's really unstoppable anywhere. Fox is good, but the various platforms and walls provide protection and escape routes from lasers. Easily gimped characters such as link get a boost here. With the recovery disparity in this game, I think it would be a shame to have only small stages in competitive play.

I'm not against Hyrule -> counterpick and Peach's -> neutral or just Hyrule -> counterpick and start every match on dreamland.

 

[cyoonit123]

i have a **** friend who all he does is camp in that ****ing tent with dk and just tent comboes all day. what we do is if no percentage is received for a small amount of time. we will call a halt and have both of the players go to the middle (space almost the same as when you both spawn), have a 3 countdown and start again. Granted this wouldnt work sometimes but if we were going to have a freakin ref on hyrule this could be easily enforced. meh just throwin out ideas.

p.s. i hate hyrule.

 

[Kefit]

All things being equal, the player on defense in this game is in a stronger position than the player on offense. Simple but powerful utilts and dash dance grabs allow an alert opponent to punish most attempts to approach. To compensate for this, players will space camp with effective aerials and dash dancing mind games, all the while waiting for their opponent to screw up and leave an opening. This can result in a slow moving match, even on a stage like Dreamland. It also results in matches that aren't terribly fun for others to watch.

The real problem comes up on a stage like Hyrule. A very common situation on this stage is to have one player on the central platform and the other player either in the pit or on the slope on the left side. Neither player wants to approach the other here because doing so requires committing to a movement pattern that overcomes the change in elevation. This reduces options for the aggressive player, which makes that player easier to read, which makes that player even easier to punish than usual for the defensive player. This situation happened multiple times with Boom vs Isai at Genesis, and probably happened a bunch with Sensei vs Kefit at Apex too.

So why is a situation like this eventually resolved in lieu of a time limit? Well, it's a combination of players not having infinite patience and of playing a 12 year old game because, god dammit, they love that game and want to actually play it. But these factors stop mattering in a competitive enough environment, when playing to win takes precedence over all else. While Apex 2012 wasn't quite at this level of competitiveness, it was close.

I think it's quite obvious that a time limit, when added to a competitive environment like this, will lead to massive stalling and camping on Hyrule, and potentially on other stages. It would actually validate the strategy of getting a stock advantage and then running away forever by triangle jumping around the pit or simply by going back and forth with quick attacks or Kirby's aerials or planking or whatever. I also don't think a "no excessive stalling" rule can co-exist with a time limit. A time limit exists because it's a clean easily adjudicated rule that resolves the main issue that a messy subjective anti-stalling rule would be meant to address - that is, it forces matches to end so that tournaments can carry forward at a reasonable clip.

I also don't think a "no excessive stalling" rule can co-exist with the sort of competitive environment that gives rise to the concerns expressed in this thread in the first place. It's simply too subjective and messy. What separates stalling from a valid but hyper careful and defensive strategy? We can try and pick out some easy examples, such as saying that a DK player must throw a grabbed player within x seconds of initiating the grab, but there's no way that rules like these can cover even a tiny shred of the stalling possibilities. Especially when other methods don't involve the use of moves/tactics as immediately dubious, identifiable, and intentional as DK's chain grabbing.

Man, that's a lot of talking about Hyule when we are supposed to be talking about time limits! Well, I don't think time limits will effect gameplay on the smaller stages all that much due to the infeasibility of stalling forever (though Kirby/Jiggly air camping and/or planking might prove me wrong). Yes, a good Fox can run away from a slower character all day on Dreamland, but it takes skill and thought on the Fox player's part. Eventually the Fox will **** up and die or will win. If matches last too long on smaller stages then that's probably just a problem with the way the game forces itself to be played - defensively. In this case the sensible solution is to lower the number of stocks.

But this doesn't fix Hyrule. I'm not sure anything can fix Hyrule. A time limit will have the opposite effect, and lower stock numbers won't defeat the issues inherent in the uneven positioning situations and subsequent camping/stalling provided by the stage. Don't give me wrong, I love playing on Hyrule and think it's a great stage in the absence of hyper-competitive play. But it probably can't survive in an environment focused excessively on winning above all else.

Unfortunately, removing Hyrule would have some drastic effects on character viability and would lead to even more Falcons in this world. But that might just be part of the growing pains this game needs to go through if we want to treat it in a more competitive manner.

 

[blaze3927]

timers sound like a pain and extra hassle that might just be ignored

 

[asianaussie]

next aus tourney im bringing robsta and making him time every single match just because

 

[kys]

I think there are a couple of things that haven't been discussed yet and I'm bringing them up in an effort to get a little more discussion in a different direction and it would be interesting to see what everyone thinks:

There's a fear that in a timed match the winner would simply run away. Is this not a reward for the winning player to make the loser approach? I feel this is similar to the really really old-school (and noob) idea of letting people back on the stage because it's "honorable". If I've knocked my opponent off, I've removed options because they are recovering and I can subsequently keep them away. If I've killed my opponent and gained a stock advantage, I've removed their options because I'm making them approach.

Anti-camping strategies have not been explored on Hyrule. Some say that there is a clear advantage to being in the tent, but I am not so sure. Using the top of the tent as an entrance point, there's plenty of fastfall and feint jump options to get down, and the reward is well worth the risk. How many times in the Boom/Isai matches in GF's did they fake each other out with techs or purposely missed techs. There were times, if I recall correctly, that Boom or Isai had the other in SHIELD STUN and still did not capitalize.

To be clear, I'm not sold on the arguments I've made above, I'm more or less playing devil's advocate.

We have to have a timer. At times I honestly thought Isai could go take a piss and grab a beer against Gerson. And those were friendlies. You put two people in a tournament and you can honestly have 40+ minute matches because there are people who care that much about winning.

 

[SSB64-Jel]

I think baning Hyrule would be dumb if a player does not wanna play on that stage all they have to do is strike it easy as that. And as timers go in the end it will be up to the host if they want to do that or not and if they want to do time limits they will have to time everyones match to be fair cause as soon as they forget or dont time a match all someone has to say is will you did not time that match why time mine.

 

[clubbadubba]

@kys, there is a difference between giving the winner a deserved advantage, and giving him the win when he is only up one stock. What people are scared of is that getting up one stock is as good as winning the game, which is certainly not what we want, right? Then we would just get super super campy first stocks because no one wants to lose the first life and therefore the game.