Firo's Experimental Smash 64 Ruleset

[firo]

Don’t dismiss this just because this is radically different than other rulesets you may have seen. I’ve been thinking about this for a while (way before this last apex) and thought I’d write it down and get some opinions on it. I think by tweaking how we look at this game we can really stress the strengths of the game and minimize its weaknesses.

Firo's Experimental SSB64 Ruleset

Mode: Time

Handicap: Off

Damage: 100%

All sets consist of 3, 4-minute rounds except for losers quarters and winners semis onward which are 5, 4-minute rounds.

All characters are legal.


Set procedure:
1. Players double-blind pick characters.

2. The player who picked the character lower on the tier list (determined by an ordering published before the tournament begins) gets to choose between two stage orders – Hyrule, Dreamland, Hyrule or Dreamland, Hyrule, Dreamland.*

3. The first round is played.

4. At the end of the round, players note the score for the round. You gain one point for every death of your opponent.

5. The player ahead in points chooses their character, followed by the losing player.

6. The next matches are played in a similar manner, with points carrying over.

7. The player with the most points at the end of the rounds wins the set.


*If players pick the same character and cannot agree on a stage order then a coin is flipped. Best of 5 matches feature each stage another time (or could go to congo once).

*If there are no kills/deaths in the first round, the player with the least percent gets 0.5 points. If the percentage is equal, the lower tiered character gets 0.5 points. If the score is tied at any point after a match, players can choose to double-blind character picks. If the score ends tied, the player with the lower percentage wins.



I really think there are many benefits of this sort of procedure over the current format, which I can delve deeper into if necessary. By having a points system (which would be useful for things like rankings and pools) and exact lengths of each match, we’d be able to fit many more games in and have them focused on exciting and entertaining gameplay, and make scheduling a lot easier. It is unreasonable to have stock matches and have timers for every game.

Some people might have issues with determining stage order based on the tier list, which is valid, but I think we know enough about this game at this point to say that some characters are better than others. Normally, in a competitive game, when there is an imbalance, the game is re-balanced. Allowing the lower tiers to select the stage order helps this in a small, but substantial way, and prevents getting shafted by a bad double-blind matchup. What characters we see a lot of in a tournament is impacted by what stages we allow. I think we’d see a lot more character variety with this setup.


I’ve never run a tournament with these rules, but I’d be willing to try. Let me know what you guys think.

 

[clubbadubba]

Did not instantly dismiss this. Thought about it, and really don't like it.

Cannot get around the tier list thing for a couple of reasons. First off the tier list is obviously subjective. Maybe people are pretty certain about pikachu being better than ness (which no matter how certain is still subjective), but something like mario/yoshi? Now sheermadness ties with nintendude in a time match and sheer wins because yoshi is one spot lower on the tier list, even though that is no where near consensus.

The second reason using tier lists bothers me is that one character being above another character in the tier list doesn't mean they win that matchup. Player 1 takes puff, player 2 takes luigi. Now player 2 not only has the advantage in getting stage selection and the half point in case of tie, they also get the matchup advantage right off the bat (yea yea whatever star king!). Now we've compensated someone who didn't need to be compensated.

Its also a bit weird that the first double blind pick gets to determine the stage order for the entire set. Maybe a bit too much compensation considering they might only be playing the character for one match.

Another problem with this is the inclusion of hyrule and a timer in the same ruleset. I don't like hyrule as a competitive stage because I think its pretty broken, but a fair amount of people think differently and if its in a tournament it definitely won't turn me away from entering. However, having hyrule combined with a timer is bonkers. Try catching a pro pikachu on that stage that doesn't want to be caught, not gonna happen. Down vs kirby on hyrule as falcon? Yea good luck with that. Maaaayyyyyybe on dreamland a timer could work, but even still there are a number of strategies that would eat up a decent amount of time like kirby air camping and samus lots of characters planking. It could kind of turn into football where having the ball and the lead with 2 minutes left means games over, which I think would not be very fun to play or watch.

In this game good defensive play, dare I say camping, is a very good strategy no matter what ruleset you come up with (okay fine I bet someone could come up with a ruleset where camping is bad lol). This ruleset just gives people an opportunity to win from camping/stalling alone, which I don't think is desirable. In fact its probably the opposite of what you're intending to do.

Also in terms of the in game point system, its pretty messed up. Get up to high percentage? Kill yourself to avoid giving your opponent a point. Helplessly trying to recover from a mile away as link? Okay hit yourself with a bomb and now your opponent just lost the kill. And if this were extended to teams I don't even know what kind of janky strategies would happen. Teammates killing each other at high percent to get a new life without changing the score at all (get a point for the kill lose one for the death = 0).

If you were to do time it should still be a stock for stock basis in terms of scoring. In which case might as well just do current ruleset with a timer which is what we kind of discussed a while back but decided its just too impractical to have a timer on every game. Could we do an 8 minute time mode and have someone keep track of stocks on every match? Yea but then you would need a 3rd party every to keep count because good luck having all players keep accurate track of stocks every match. Players mess up stock count in stock mode as is lol.

4 minute timer is way too short as well imo if we wanted to go the timer route.

tl;dr

time mode is bad and leads to campy play/janky strategies

tier lists are entirely subjective and its not fair to use them in competition

 

[Annex]

I think the goals of a ruleset should be:
1 - Make the games fun to play
2 - Make the games fun to watch
3 - Make the games an accurate indicator of relative skill

Timed is not as fun to play as stocks.
Camping (Hyrule) is not as fun to watch as aggression. Timed is also rather anti-climactic.
Outside factors (who most people think is a better character at that given time) detracts from a pure test of skill.

I would love to see a rule change though...

 

[rjgbadger]

I think all smash is fun to watch and play. I had a blast watching you vs Wizzrobe, personally. I think our current rulset, but with DL only, is my favorite ruleset and overall best way to play smash.

also what clubba said. What stops a character from playing MAAAAD campy after getting 1 kill? You're pretty much asking for a patience-fest, just a timed one that involves much less kills.

Of course I am willing to hear more on the matter but as it stands this sounds completely outlandish and in no way proves who is the better player

 

[Karajan]

You want to prevent camping? Add items lol

 

[T-bone1]

If we want to tie stage selection to the tier list, why not just say if you pick a lower-tiered character, you can counterpick to hyrule? Pretty simple and easy to figure out, and it would add a new whole element to the metagame. To me, this would alleviate a lot of the debate over character balance vs. legal stages.

Heck, it wouldn't even be the first time to have character-based stage selection rule (Ness on Saffron).

 

[Battlecow]

"If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all"

--a wise man

seriously though I'm not about that stalling people out for 8 minutes life. Don't make me do it.

 

[Cobrevolution]

Don't make me do it.

you let me know when someone holds a gun to your head telling you to time your opponent out

 

[SheerMadness]

I just want a timer. Maybe like 6 minutes.

I'd settle for 8 over nothing though.

 

[MrMarbles]

Also in terms of the in game point system, its pretty messed up. Get up to high percentage? Kill yourself to avoid giving your opponent a point. Helplessly trying to recover from a mile away as link? Okay hit yourself with a bomb and now your opponent just lost the kill. And if this were extended to teams I don't even know what kind of janky strategies would happen. Teammates killing each other at high percent to get a new life without changing the score at all (get a point for the kill lose one for the death = 0).

^this

 

[Battlecow]

you let me know when someone holds a gun to your head telling you to time your opponent out

Lol

Do other communities have this problem? I only see it here. In sports/other games it only exists at like super duper low levels, but there are a whole bunch of somewhat good 64 players who buy into it. Prolly cuz there were no real tournaments until recently? Or something?

 

[Pooncahontas]

I was thinking about this since Firo's post about campiness and time limits. Why dont we get Karajan to make a device that plugs into a control port, and when you use it, it presses Start, waits 10 minutes, and then presses start again? Or just use a gameshark/ hacked rom.

 

[Cobrevolution]

i beg your pardon, bcow?

are you saying other sports and games don't actively try to time the opponent out, or what?

 

[clubbadubba]

i beg your pardon, bcow?

are you saying other sports and games don't actively try to time the opponent out, or what?

He's saying that being forced to time people out doesn't have to mean someone puts a gun to your head. It means you want to win and the rules dictate that if you time someone out you win, "forcing" you to time someone out if its to your advantage. Of course he's not really forced physically, but the rules force him to do things he doesn't want to do because his #1 goal is winning.

Like in football, the rules allow for the winning team with the ball to just kneel down and run out the clock. No one is forcing them to do it, but there is no way in hell a team wouldn't do it.

He's really just talking about how "play to win" is not universally accepted in smash but is pretty universally accepted in sports.

 

[EggSelent]

I have some problems with this ruleset. So I shall describe the DRUNKEY KONG ruleset of ultimate fairnness

1) I agree that picks should be double blind. In fact, ALL matches should be double blind.

2) The winner of a coin toss shall determine first stage.

Notes:
The tier list is a poor system to determine the favorite. Since no tier list I've seen is topologically sortable, the tier list is not a reliable indicator of all matchups. A tier list would need to be topologically sortable to guarantee that if tier(A) > tier(B), A has at least a 50% chance of beating B. But a network of matchups would have to be directed and acyclic in order to have a topological ordering, so I think it's impossible. Further, matchup proportions are inherently arbitrary, and the community's matchup tables vary with time, so they're not a very stable metric whence to base your initial selection

3) Matches should be played at 5 STOCKS, with all item frequency set to NONE, handicap OFF, team attack ON for doubles.

4) Excessive stalling is discouraged. If two players remain in more or less identical places after 30 seconds on any stage, the tournament organizer shall issue a warning and force the players to move to opposite ends, and then resume fighting.

Notes:
For instance, should m2kamp opt to pitch tent at the left of hyrule, camping for a kirby up-tilt for 30 seconds, the tournament organize shall force him to ascend to the middle area, while his opponent moves to the top the **** pillar. This rule shall be used to discourage lengthy stalemates and penalize unsportsmanlike camping. Note that defensive playing does not necessarily equal camping, if all players are making a sincere effort to move or avoid excessive stalling. If anyone has better, more objective / straightforward method fir preventing stalling, let me know.

5) The loser of the 1st game shall select the 2nd stage, and the loser of the 2nd game shall select the third. After stage selection, the players shall select their characters in a double-blind fashion.

6) All rounds shall be best of 3, barring grand finals, which shall be best of 5, with the 4th stage being selected by the loser of game 3, and the final stage being selected by the loser of game 4.

 

[Pooncahontas]

I have some problems with this ruleset. So I shall describe the DRUNKEY KONG ruleset of ultimate fairnness

1) I agree that picks should be double blind. In fact, ALL matches should be double blind.

etc.

Doesn't that remove counterpicking chars?
I feel like that it a part of the game that adds to it.

All you need is a time limit.
If the winner is camping, it means that they are outplaying the loser.
If the loser is camping, they will lose.
Just put a 7 minute time limit.

 

[Fireblaster]

4) Excessive stalling is discouraged. If two players remain in more or less identical places after 30 seconds on any stage, the tournament organizer shall issue a warning and force the players to move to opposite ends, and then resume fighting..

I just thought I'd let you know that it has been explained many times why this rule can never work. This rule as it exists in the current ruleset is absolutely meaningless and cannot be enforced in any feasible way as described.

 

[EggSelent]

I just thought I'd let you know that it has been explained many times why this rule can never work. This rule as it exists in the current ruleset is absolutely meaningless and cannot be enforced in any feasible way as described.

That's true -- it's pretty arbitrary and hard to enforce. I don't want to argue about it again but I think having this rule is still better than banning stages some people consider too susceptible to camping.

Doesn't that remove counterpicking chars?
I feel like that it a part of the game that adds to it.

All you need is a time limit.
If the winner is camping, it means that they are outplaying the loser.
If the loser is camping, they will lose.
Just put a 7 minute time limit.

I disagree. The time limit actually can encourage camping. Unless you want Smash 64 to end up like football or Brawl, where a time limit incentivizes camping for the player that's winning, a time limit should not be implemented. Further, many games run over 7 minutes, even when neither player is camping. In my opinion, it'd be really stupid to have a good game where no camping is occurring to be cut short by a stupid timer.

As for the counterpicking chars thing, it's more a subjective matter of preference. It'd be fine with me to have the status quo be maintained, I'm mostly just stating my own preference, figuring that few would consider adopting my ruleset regardless.

 

[firo]

I'll address a lot of the points. Some of the arguments people are making already exist in the status quo. In my opinion, a ruleset should be designed to give the most viable options available for competitive play, and be both fun to watch and participate.

First, I'll clear up how time mode this ruleset works. It's not just kills. If you die, you lose a point. If you get killed, the other player gets a point. The person who doesn't die gets +1 in either case. Obviously this doesn't work for teams. Killing yourself is just as valuable to the other player as getting killed in this ruleset.

For people thinking that time leads to more camping, there's nothing stopping someone from camping now, especially with no visible timer. People who like to camp, will, no matter what the ruleset. At least have it be limited to a short duration. I don't buy the argument that time leads to more camping in general at all. One of the reasons to have the timer is to discourage uninhibited camping. Killing the opponent once and then camping is just as easily viable in stock mode. At least here, if you choose to camp after one kill, the other player will have a certain amount of time where he needs to approach, or else he loses. Kills carry over, so camping is more risky than in stock, since if you choose to camp you'l only have a +1 for 8 or 10 minutes or whatever, and the other player has a chance to change the character and the stage to fight it. If he does not succeed, he loses.

For those who think camping increases due to time, what do we do in the situation where I'm up a stock, and both players decide to camp? Obviously the match needs to end at some point. It might not be obvious, but we already have time limits in all of our games. They just happen to be so long (well over 15 minutes per game) that it never has run out.

On tier lists being subjective: I agree that there is some subjectivity here. But we need to choose a first stage somehow, and I can't think of any better way. If people really don't want to use it then we could use something very objective like tournament results. First stage dreamland clearly favors characters that are better on dreamland (mainly the high tier characters). First stage hyrule clearly favors characters that are better on hyrule.

About matchups: There are very few where the lower tier character has a clear advantage over the higher tier character (especially among the high tiers). Sure, it's not topologically sorted, but what characters are really hurt by this? The argument that we are giving matchup advantages is not a good one in my opinion, because choosing dreamland first already does this to a pretty high degree. That being said, when is the last time we've seen someone main luigi at a tournament? The idea is to prevent a race to the top of the tier list. If I'm a new player who wants to get good, there's really no reason to play characters who aren't good on dreamland with the current ruleset. If we can see players doing great stuff with luigi, link, DK, and others, I'd say that the ruleset is a success. Games with more variety are more fun to play, and more fun to watch.

I'm not expecting people to embrace this ruleset and start using it (although I would like that, and think it would work well), as it is a big change from what we've been doing. I presented this as a different way of looking at the game and to show how rulesets frame the game in a certain way.

 

[thegreginator]

I really think you're underestimating the unintended consequences that a timed match would have. People would run away the entire match after they got a lead.

Two better solutions (one or both):

1. Agree with Sheer that a timer would be nice in a stock match. One way to do it could be to play like the Japanese do where every round starts at the exact same time. TO yells "start" and the hits the timer. Then announce 1 min left, 30 sec left, etc.
2. Dreamland only

All this being said, though, I don't see the current ruleset as being broken at all.

EDIT: Just saw Firo's reply. I'm now even more convinced that all of the (worthy) goals he's aiming to achieve would be better served with a stock match with a timer. It can't be THAT hard to implement this. Even if you don't do it the Japanese way everyone has a timer on their phone.

 

[KnitePhox]

yeah we can all switch to modded roms on flashcarts

start in vs mode character select screen, with items set to off, team attack on, time set to any minute value you want, same for stocks

all values can be switched manually in game (you're not locked to default values AKA time can be put on infinite for standard stock play etc) as well as preliminary defaults

maybe we can even get stage select swap so that stages like sector z turn into battlefield or yoshi's into metal mario etc

 

[rpotts]

I'll address a lot of the points. Some of the arguments people are making already exist in the status quo. In my opinion, a ruleset should be designed to give the most viable options available for competitive play.

First, I'll clear up how time mode works. It's not just kills. If you die, you lose a point. If you get killed, the other player gets a point. The person who doesn't die gets +1 in either case. Obviously this doesn't work for teams. Killing yourself is just as valuable to the other player as getting killed.

I'll address a lot of the points. Some of the arguments people are making already exist in the status quo. In my opinion, a ruleset should be designed to give the most viable options available for competitive play.
First, I'll clear up how time mode works. It's not just kills. If you die, you lose a point. If you get killed, the other player gets a point. The person who doesn't die gets +1 in either case. Obviously this doesn't work for teams. Killing yourself is just as valuable to the other player as getting killed.

That's not how time mode works. Your score is KOs - TKOs, or kills - deaths. Getting a kill is +2 for you since it's +1 kill and -1 death for them. An SD is only -1 as the opponent doesn't get +1 kill. Also, the score system is imperfect, if the character slides off the ground on the way to death it counts as an SD. This can happen when you bthrow someone and they bounce off the little ceiling under the green house in Hyrule. If they don't tech and slide off the edge on their way to the blastzone it counts as an SD; the game doesn't see it any differently than if you get hit, land, get up and run off the stage to your death.

 

[bloodpeach]

First, I'll clear up how time mode works. It's not just kills. If you die, you lose a point. If you get killed, the other player gets a point. The person who doesn't die gets +1 in either case. Obviously this doesn't work for teams. Killing yourself is just as valuable to the other player as getting killed.

This is not true. Killing is +2, Opponent SD is +1. Creates weird incentives. And makes Link's bomb recovery OP
Oh so it's not using the built in method of time scoring. interesting

I also dont see why Hyrule should be legal, but not congo or peaches. The time ruleset only makes hyrule better for pika and kirby; with proper stalling techniques it is basically guarunteed that they maintiain or improve their score. And 4 minutes is really not a long time to stall.

 

[firo]

That's not how time mode works. Your score is KOs - TKOs, or kills - deaths. Getting a kill is +2 for you since it's +1 kill and -1 death for them. An SD is only -1 as the opponent doesn't get +1 kill. Also, the score system is imperfect, if the character slides off the ground on the way to death it counts as an SD. This can happen when you bthrow someone and they bounce off the little ceiling under the green house in Hyrule. If they don't tech and slide off the edge on their way to the blastzone it counts as an SD; the game doesn't see it any differently than if you get hit, land, get up and run off the stage to your death.

This is not what I am intending - it should not work this way. In this ruleset a point is gained whenever your opponent dies. Essentially, it remains similarly to stock, but this way we can have a timer in the game, and just isn't set to five lives. Sorry for not making this clear - this is definitely not what I meant the rules to be.

I edited the first post with this clarification.

This is not true. Killing is +2, Opponent SD is +1. Creates weird incentives. And makes Link's bomb recovery OP

I also dont see why Hyrule should be legal, but not congo or peaches. The time ruleset only makes hyrule better for pika and kirby; with proper stalling techniques it is basically guarunteed that they maintiain or improve their score. And 4 minutes is really not a long time to stall.

The specific stage list I described is just a sample one - I agree that other stages could be worked into the mix. But if pikachu and kirby are concerned, considering they will not often get to choose the stage order, their opponent can choose not to choose an order that involves a lot of hyrule. We saw matches on hyrule this tournament even though it was banned - I don't see it going away. That being said, the main idea is that the stage selection is predetermined and allows for more safety when choosing characters that do particularly bad on certain stages. Hyrule being available make some characters more viable. I don't think peach's or congo caters to more charactesr, in my opinion, but I don't know those stages too well.

 

[bloodpeach]

Even with your method of choosing stages, I think this ruleset has more potential for stalling than the current one.

For example if a falcon or fox player who likes hyule (stranded or solo) opts for HDH against a patient kirby, 8 minutes of stall is all but guaranteed.

With some modifications though, I think the ruleset has potential.

 

[SSB64-Jel]

I talked to Kefit about this at some point before Firo posted anything about it. I like the idea of it but there are some issues that go along with it.

Issues:

1. when someone has a one stock lead they can run away forever and win by time out if played right.

2. not knowing the stocks that someone has left can take away all hype of the match as spectators like to see a score on screen

 

[rjgbadger]

have you not seen battlecow be a gay ass prick on hyrule? you're basically guaranteeing a 8 minute stall fest at least 1 time per set with him in the mix.

 

[KeroKeroppi]

Heads up! Coming through!

Clear!

 

[MrMarbles]

as a big Hyrule fan, even i have to admit that if there was a timer then Hyrule would be even more unplayable. it's too easy to triangle stall with pika or camp right left side

2. not knowing the stocks that someone has left can take away all hype of the match as spectators like to see a score on screen

hadn't even thought of this but yes. sadly it just wouldn't be as hype for spectators if you cant see how close a game is

 

[clubbadubba]

First, I'll clear up how time mode this ruleset works. It's not just kills. If you die, you lose a point. If you get killed, the other player gets a point. The person who doesn't die gets +1 in either case. Obviously this doesn't work for teams. Killing yourself is just as valuable to the other player as getting killed in this ruleset.

Ok so instead of using the wack in game scoring system, you are requiring either the players to keep track of their own stocks (disaster waiting to happen) or have a third party keep track of stocks (also a potential for conflict unless the third party uses pen or paper or something). Option 1 is out of the question, and option 2 requires 1 extra person for every match and this resource isn't always available. Not to mention the authority/reliability of a non-TO third party is also going to be questionable. Not saying it can't work from a scoring perspective, but logistically it presents big problems.

For people thinking that time leads to more camping, there's nothing stopping someone from camping now, especially with no visible timer. People who like to camp, will, no matter what the ruleset. At least have it be limited to a short duration. I don't buy the argument that time leads to more camping in general at all. One of the reasons to have the timer is to discourage uninhibited camping. Killing the opponent once and then camping is just as easily viable in stock mode. At least here, if you choose to camp after one kill, the other player will have a certain amount of time where he needs to approach, or else he loses. Kills carry over, so camping is more risky than in stock, since if you choose to camp you'l only have a +1 for 8 or 10 minutes or whatever, and the other player has a chance to change the character and the stage to fight it. If he does not succeed, he loses.

The difference is in pure stock mode, sure you can camp to your heart's content, but you can't win from it. You have to actually kill the person to win. Plus stalling is the real fear of time mode, much more so than camping. Characters with high mobility just running away when they have a lead. Circle camping on Hyrule, and I'm pretty sure something similar is possible on Congo in many matchups, is another sure fire way to stall. Camping is a viable tactic in stock mode because it doesn't open you up for any attacks but leaves you in a position to attack if your opponent makes a mistake. Stalling is not viable because you do no damage and the game literally never ends. Once Time mode is used stalling becomes viable, and that is very, very, bad.

For those who think camping increases due to time, what do we do in the situation where I'm up a stock, and both players decide to camp? Obviously the match needs to end at some point. It might not be obvious, but we already have time limits in all of our games. They just happen to be so long (well over 15 minutes per game) that it never has run out.

I have yet to see a match not end. We don't have to theorize this actually, we can see it in practice. Look at melee and brawl, in those games in matchups where it is possible to stall, people will stall and time out their opponent. Luckily for melee it isn't viable in most matchups, but in some like young link vs puff (armada vs hungry box look the matches up if you haven't seen them) it is possible and has been done. And brawl its far more common. Brawl had to actually make rules against certain tactics to prevent players from stalling infinitely. I think its like you can only plank for X amount of time and there are a few other ones. Is that where we want 64 to go? Because that's where it would have to go. Stalling is just too viable in too many matchups to do Time mode.

On tier lists being subjective: I agree that there is some subjectivity here. But we need to choose a first stage somehow, and I can't think of any better way. If people really don't want to use it then we could use something very objective like tournament results. First stage dreamland clearly favors characters that are better on dreamland (mainly the high tier characters). First stage hyrule clearly favors characters that are better on hyrule.

Flipping a coin is a better option than giving one player the choice (though this is bad too). No fair reason why one player should get a choice over another. Don't handicap players who play high-tiers or handicap the better player in general, we can do a handicap tournament for that. This whole idea of one player getting a choice over the other is not fair. Having a predetermined first stage or stage striking is better.

About matchups: There are very few where the lower tier character has a clear advantage over the higher tier character (especially among the high tiers). Sure, it's not topologically sorted, but what characters are really hurt by this?

Puff is hurt horribly by this seeing as how she is above both samus and luigi but loses to both. In some tier lists she could even be ahead of dk, another bad matchup.

Not to mention, "the tier list" doesn't exist. There is a one for each specific stage, and they are different. Averaging the lists results in some arbitrary meaningless list, so which one do you use? If the answer is dreamland, hyrule, congo, peach's, an average of all tier lists, it's a bad answer. Plus all the mind games of whether or not to pick a character lower tiered than your opponent has not a whole lot to do with playing smash but decides a fair amount of the outcome. Its the biggest problem with double blind picks in general (which I already hate).

The argument that we are giving matchup advantages is not a good one in my opinion, because choosing dreamland first already does this to a pretty high degree. That being said, when is the last time we've seen someone main luigi at a tournament? The idea is to prevent a race to the top of the tier list. If I'm a new player who wants to get good, there's really no reason to play characters who aren't good on dreamland with the current ruleset. If we can see players doing great stuff with luigi, link, DK, and others, I'd say that the ruleset is a success. Games with more variety are more fun to play, and more fun to watch.

There is a noticeable difference between having TO determined preset stages and having one player choose the preset stages. One of them is essentially giving a player the counterpick, and using a tier list of any kind means the player with the counterpick might have the better matchup. The fact that stage selection comes after a double blind character pick and is based on that double blind pick adds too many mind games to the pre-game ritual and can result in giving a double advantage instead of "balancing" the advantage. Yes DL first already tilts matchups a certain way, but players know that BEFORE picking their characters so they can act pick accordingly.

I'm not expecting people to embrace this ruleset and start using it (although I would like that, and think it would work well), as it is a big change from what we've been doing. I presented this as a different way of looking at the game and to show how rulesets frame the game in a certain way.

Rulesets definitely frame the game. If you win a tournament it means you were the best that day AT THAT RULESET. Being the "best at smash" is not really a definable thing, and everyone will have a different opinion on what makes one player better than another. All we can do is try to make a fair ruleset that tests what the community agrees mostly is smash skill.[/quote][/quote]

 

[rjgbadger]

hadn't even thought of this but yes. sadly it just wouldn't be as hype for spectators if you cant see how close a game is

this

 

[prisonchild]

this ruleset is trash.


if anything the damage should be a little off of 100%, make people less reliant on combos

 

[KnitePhox]

whoa whoa...changing damage % is huge, don't anyone consider that for tournament play; LOL prisonchild

 

[Shears]

I was thinking about this since Firo's post about campiness and time limits. Why dont we get Karajan to make a device that plugs into a control port, and when you use it, it presses Start, waits 10 minutes, and then presses start again? Or just use a gameshark/ hacked rom.

I don't think the controllers can read the game state from the console so the timer would have to be manually initiated. But if the timer is manually started, it wouldn't be too much to have a timer emit the start button signal after 10 minutes.

I don't think firo's ruleset is a very good idea and clubba mentioned most of the counter points. I do have a ruleset that I think would make the game way more hype.

-5-stock.
-Best 2/3, 3/5 for WF, LS, LF, and GF.
-Hyrule, Congo, DL as starters where each player strikes one and the remaining stage is played on.
-Hyrule, Congo, DL, and Peach's as counter-picks.
-Each player has two beers, a game beer and a penalty beer.
-Game beers must be finished before the end of each game.
-Game beers may be opened but cannot be consumed until the GO! sound at the start of the game.
-If a player doesn't finish their beer and wins, the game is replayed and they are served a punishment beer that must be finished before the start of the game. If a player loses and doesn't finish their beer, the beer must be finished before their next game is played.
-Any player suiciding in an attempt to force the other player to drink punishment beers will instead be served a punishment beer and will take the game as a loss.
-Penalty beers do not need to be finished but if a player is called for stalling, is 69ed, or pauses, they incur a 2-second drink penalty from the penalty beer, not the game beer, where they cannot use their controller for the 2 seconds. The match is not paused and the opponent can pursue the violator during these 2 seconds.
-If a player incurs a penalty, but has no beer left in their penalty beer, they are required to get their next penalty beer, open it, and then begin their 2 second penalty while the game continues to be played. Any damage received or stocks lost during this time is a casualty of the player who was unprepared to have a full penalty beer at the start of the game.
-Leftover penalty beer can be used in subsequent games.
-All forms of 69 are legal and can be used strategically for drink and rally purposes.

 

[firo]

Ok so instead of using the wack in game scoring system, you are requiring either the players to keep track of their own stocks (disaster waiting to happen) or have a third party keep track of stocks (also a potential for conflict unless the third party uses pen or paper or something). Option 1 is out of the question, and option 2 requires 1 extra person for every match and this resource isn't always available. Not to mention the authority/reliability of a non-TO third party is also going to be questionable. Not saying it can't work from a scoring perspective, but logistically it presents big problems.

All the players have to do is just remember one number - the number of stocks the winning player has over his opponent. If I'm interpreting the results correctly, TKOs count your number of deaths at the end of the game. I really don't think this is a big problem - this is like the players not agreeing who won games in a set. You are framing this as a much bigger issue than in reality.

The difference is in pure stock mode, sure you can camp to your heart's content, but you can't win from it. You have to actually kill the person to win. Plus stalling is the real fear of time mode, much more so than camping. Characters with high mobility just running away when they have a lead. Circle camping on Hyrule, and I'm pretty sure something similar is possible on Congo in many matchups, is another sure fire way to stall. Camping is a viable tactic in stock mode because it doesn't open you up for any attacks but leaves you in a position to attack if your opponent makes a mistake. Stalling is not viable because you do no damage and the game literally never ends. Once Time mode is used stalling becomes viable, and that is very, very, bad.

I have yet to see a match not end. We don't have to theorize this actually, we can see it in practice. Look at melee and brawl, in those games in matchups where it is possible to stall, people will stall and time out their opponent. Luckily for melee it isn't viable in most matchups, but in some like young link vs puff (armada vs hungry box look the matches up if you haven't seen them) it is possible and has been done. And brawl its far more common. Brawl had to actually make rules against certain tactics to prevent players from stalling infinitely. I think its like you can only plank for X amount of time and there are a few other ones. Is that where we want 64 to go? Because that's where it would have to go. Stalling is just too viable in too many matchups to do Time mode.

You are arguing against any form of a timer here. I think we are just approaching the rules with a different set of values. I, personally, do not want 8+ minute games, and would rather see a stally/campy game end rather quickly with one player forced to approach within 4 minutes than have one go on for, in the present case, a potentially unbounded period of time. Usually, in long games, based in my experience, the longer it goes on, the players end up losing patience and doing riskier moves in order to bring the game to an end. It becomes a challenge of endurance rather than aggression, combos, mindgames, and techskill. Which is fine, if that's what you are looking for. I, personally, am not. If you are fine with these long games, then this ruleset won't seem appealing in any sense. There's no way in any tournament, a host will allow a game to go on indefinitely - it will have to be stopped eventually, and the player ahead is going to win.

Flipping a coin is a better option than giving one player the choice (though this is bad too). No fair reason why one player should get a choice over another. Don't handicap players who play high-tiers or handicap the better player in general, we can do a handicap tournament for that. This whole idea of one player getting a choice over the other is not fair. Having a predetermined first stage or stage striking is better.

Puff is hurt horribly by this seeing as how she is above both samus and luigi but loses to both. In some tier lists she could even be ahead of dk, another bad matchup.

Not to mention, "the tier list" doesn't exist. There is a one for each specific stage, and they are different. Averaging the lists results in some arbitrary meaningless list, so which one do you use? If the answer is dreamland, hyrule, congo, peach's, an average of all tier lists, it's a bad answer. Plus all the mind games of whether or not to pick a character lower tiered than your opponent has not a whole lot to do with playing smash but decides a fair amount of the outcome. Its the biggest problem with double blind picks in general (which I already hate).

There is a noticeable difference between having TO determined preset stages and having one player choose the preset stages. One of them is essentially giving a player the counterpick, and using a tier list of any kind means the player with the counterpick might have the better matchup. The fact that stage selection comes after a double blind character pick and is based on that double blind pick adds too many mind games to the pre-game ritual and can result in giving a double advantage instead of "balancing" the advantage. Yes DL first already tilts matchups a certain way, but players know that BEFORE picking their characters so they can act pick accordingly.

Flipping a coin is luck based, and again is risky - if I choose link vs pika, and the coin flips to dreamland, then oh well. I really have yet to hear a fair way of choosing the first stage, as I believe one doesn't exist, but at least here we are getting closer.

You can argue that this hurts puff (even though puff against samus I'm not too sure about), but the idea is not to make one objective list that stays the same and helps/hurts some characters. If puff is hurt by this, then move her down the list. If some character is too buffed, then move them up. Again, if the goal here is to increase character variety (which is one of my goals, it might not be one of yours), then the ruleset adapts based on thoughts and results and changes over time.

The comments that Jel made about not knowing the score is certainly valid. On a stream, we can just overlay the score pretty easily. I agree it is a drawback, (along with the notion that the "winner" at the of the last match won't necessarily be the winner of the set, which can be confusing), but not a big enough one in my opinion to make it unusable.

Again, if you are not aiming towards the particular goals that I'm shooting for here, then discussing the merits of a ruleset won't go very far. Resolving that would require a much more fundamental discussion about things, which is a different matter entirely.

 

[Battlecow]

have you not seen battlecow be a gay *** prick on hyrule? you're basically guaranteeing a 8 minute stall fest at least 1 time per set with him in the mix.

Lol

It's not enough to be bad at smash

this guy wants to make absolutely sure that he never becomes good

it's a sad existence dude

 

[MattNF]

ban kirby + pikachu
dreamland only

RIP stalling

 

[rjgbadger]

Lol

It's not enough to be bad at smash

this guy wants to make absolutely sure that he never becomes good

it's a sad existence dude

Trust me I don't mind defensive play, but you camp hyrule left side almost solely to boost your own ego, and to 'prove' that the stage sucks. Nothing wrong with hanging back and baiting approaches, you just take being gay to a whole new level, in game and IRL, and you know it lmao. Your style of play is not the reason I don't play hyrule anymore, I've been since enlightened to DL only for some time now. But w/e I'll just block you so I don't have to read your pathetic cocky nonsense anymore(why didn't I do this ages ago is a very good question)

 

[Battlecow]

Trust me I don't mind defensive play, but you camp hyrule left side almost solely to boost your own ego, and to 'prove' that the stage sucks. Nothing wrong with hanging back and baiting approaches, you just take being gay to a whole new level, in game and IRL, and you know it lmao. Your style of play is not the reason I don't play hyrule anymore, I've been since enlightened to DL only for some time now. But w/e I'll just block you so I don't have to read your pathetic cocky nonsense anymore(why didn't I do this ages ago is a very good question)

I play as well as I can. There aren't, like, degrees of gayness. You just try to win. It's real simple. If trying to win means that a stage's metagame turns ****ty, you change the stage, you don't start sandbagging. This is competitive anything 101.

 

[MrMarbles]

First off i just want to thank you Firo for attempting to come up with a solution to the problems with our current ruleset. And there are certainly problems that you have pointed out. I truly appreciate the work and thought you put into it and i think more people should contribute to this discussion like you have. However i just don't think this works. Its just not hype and won't attract new player IMO. There are more reasons than this however.

All the players have to do is just remember one number - the number of stocks the winning player has over his opponent. If I'm interpreting the results correctly, TKOs count your number of deaths at the end of the game. I really don't think this is a big problem - this is like the players not agreeing who won games in a set. You are framing this as a much bigger issue than in reality.

I have to disagree here. As a player you are already keeping track of many things in your head and asking a player to keep track of something so important to the results is just asking for conflict. Maybe the majority of matches will run smoothly but it would only take one disagreement to cause a disruption and ruin a tourney experience for 1 or more people. Also for anyone watching recorded matches without commentary it would be an unpleasant task to have to keep track of the stocks in your head just to keep up with whats going on in the match/set.

Flipping a coin is luck based, and again is risky - if I choose link vs pika, and the coin flips to dreamland, then oh well. I really have yet to hear a fair way of choosing the first stage, as I believe one doesn't exist, but at least here we are getting closer.

Here is another point i have to disagree with. I think that the most fair stage picking method is already being used. And that is to have DL first by default. You can argue that DL doesn't favor low tiers but if you KNOW DL is first you can pick your char accordingly.