1. You are DEFINITELY talking about patching as well as balancing. The PAL version is essentially a patch, so even if we were only discussing making PAL the standard, you are essentially suggesting that everyone in North America patches their version of the game so that it coincides with Europe's version. I am opposed to the idea of NA switching to PAL, but I'm at least open to discussing it as a possibility. If there is going to be a huge push to standardize Melee, it should be standardizing it to an official version, not some Frankenstein version influenced by the bias of players and community members alike.
Which is the point of this thread, to an extent. I already said that having a hybrid would open a can of worms, and that it's very likely to be better simply to pick an existing version. There is nothing wrong with holding this idea, and if we could come to an agreement in this way it'd be way less of a headache.
Also, from the wording in the earlier post it sounded as if there would be more changes down the road, referring to communities in which patches are released regularly as toxic. So, to clarify exactly what I meant, there would be no other changes or updates. So while it's "technically" patching, it's not patching in a MMO-like sense. This would be it.
2. Compromise between two different versions is a means of balancing. As has already been suggested many times just in this thread, people wish to NERF characters they perceive as good (or even overpowered) and BUFF characters they perceive as bad. You may only be making changes that Sakurai also made in PAL, but the changes are inevitably going to be based on the perceived strength of each character. Just because the majority of people believe Fox is the best character and Ganon is not doesn't mean it's suddenly okay to mod a version to include Fox nerfs while excluding Ganon nerfs then try to call it Melee.
Fair enough. Keep in mind, I worded my OP the way I did because I did not want SD Remix ideas even mentioned, or things along those lines. While PAL is obviously a balance patch, I avoided that language to prevent confusion and to separate existing versions of the game from people wanting to "balance" things in a way they saw fit.
3. The votes don't mean **** for several reasons. First of all, there are plenty of people who will just go along with anything suggested. They don't put any critical thought into the pros and cons of any proposed ideas and instead go along with what most people are saying or support it because the ideal scenario is better than the status quo. I like to call this Project M syndrome. Some kid has a relatively small idea. "Hey, wouldn't it be cool ___?" Other people hear and also think it's a cool idea because they don't understand the repercussions of the change, don't understand the game in general, don't understand game design/balance, or just don't think it through. "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if you could airdodge after you up-Bed?" "Wow, that sounds neato!" Suddenly you end up with half the cast airdodging after what would have been a perfectly solid recovery in Melee and the same people that were supportive of the airdodge idea are now complaining about how broken everyone's recovery is.
This is preliminary, this is to test the waters to see if the community is even interested in this. Also, you are making a widespread generalisation of everything within the poll. Yes, some votes were made in a "this sounds cool" but not all. Where do you draw the line on this? How else would you gather this data then?
The point of this was just to get a baseline of what people think about a community standard, and how they think it should go down. IF there is overwhelming support, coders would actually have to figure out a way to do it (if they were even interested), and we'd then have to get TOs to back it, which was the last thing I said. There is no point in this if nobody is willing to host tournaments with the standard, and I can assure you that TO's would very carefully weigh the decision as to whether or not to host a tournament with this (and the answer is most likely a resounding "No" btw).
Thirdly, it's no surprise the European community supports this idea as it's only really benefiting them and affects them less overall. A compromise between the two versions is likely going to end up with all the NTSC buffs that mid-low tiers have while most of the PAL top tiers remain the same. So ofc no PAL player is going to be much opposed to buffing Ganon's fair and whatever other changes people would prefer from NTSC. They won't be adjusting much, and the adjustments they do make will be for less popular and less dominant characters.
Both the Swedish community and the boards showed a huge interest in compromise. Also, wanting compromise means that both sides get listened to, not just the PAL community. Pointing out that the differences between two versions aren't big and that tier lists remain largely unchanged != compromise wouldn't work both ways. Also my opinion != the final vote, this is a discussion just to see what people think about this issue.
Fourthly, it is VERY different from custom rulesets. Rulesets are an in-game option. We do not have to mod the game to play 4-stocks. We do not have to mod the game to play bo5 sets, use certain stagelists, or ban stages. You do realize you're talking about making a MODDED VERSION of the game standard, right? It is not Melee. It may be really close to Melee, but it'd also be really close to Melee if you removed a frame of lag from WDing. Even if the majority agreed removing a frame from WDs would overall benefit the game, you still wouldn't do it because it ruins the integrity of the sport. You can go ahead and make your compromised version, but like I said, there will be others. We'll have a ton of different versions of the game floating around with different groups pushing different versions all claiming to be the same game. Why anyone would wish this upon the community, especially right as we're on the precipice of full-blown e-sports success, is beyond me.
Lots of things here and there. I'm not asking for any changes that aren't in PAL or NTSC, and I'm not even asking that we have a compromise. Your example regarding global wavedash changes are outside the scope of what I'm discussing. To me it seems you are attacking mostly the idea of a compromise, which I have acknowledged is problematic. Keep in mind, I could really like the idea of a compromise and prefer that, but at the same time understand that it's largely unpractical and would cause all kinds of problems. Also, I refer to the last thing I said in my previous post, in order for people to respect this it would need a ton of serious TO support. IF several major tournaments worldwide thought this was the way to go, then I don't see how we'd have problems with lots of tiny fringe versions floating around.
The reason why I said making a community standard is like the SBR recommended ruleset is because when that came out, a majority of TOs just ran it, or they ran something extremely close to it. Yeah, some didn't, but the majority did, and it was a great help to smaller events. While this isn't aimed at small events, if the big TOs are behind it, then you will likely see the majority adopting it.
- Figuring out if you are playing on an "official" version of the game becomes a constant issue.
Easy, all you'd have to do is give some kind of graphical indication on the save data. Remember, it's loading from your memory card, so your argument is basically on the same level of "People won't know whether or not their saved data is loading." I've never heard of that happening, or at least I've never had problems with save data corruption and what not.
- Players have to adjust from over 12 years of experience with Melee (show me a game that was successfully patched after a decade).
I'm not going to claim knowledge I don't have here. I can't even think of a game that had 12 years experience and was patched after a decade. The closest I can think of is HD Remix, which actually was ran for a few years before more or less getting outmoded by newer titles.
As far as an adjustment, look, it's not hard to adjust to PAL from NTSC given a little bit of time. I know, because I've done it. Adjusting to any version, be it PAL, NTSC, or a compromise, would likely take about a week or so of dedicated practice to overcome most things. For someone like M2K, it'd hurt more because he is so knowledge based on what his options are at certain percents, but even he would still be able to catch on in time. You'd also have to keep in mind that everyone in their respective region will be making adjustments, so for non-international events this would just be a minor issue.
This is mostly a problem to people who want to participate in international events, I know, but at the same time if we want this to grow as an e-sport this will become more and more of a problem. The last BEAST happened prior to Apex, and it had different results than Apex. While it's impossible to determine how much or how little PAL had on the US players that attended, I can assure you that there was a difference, and there will likely be problems between regional differences if Melee grows even larger.
- There will never be unanimity about which version is truly "official". This may be manageable for locals, but when Evo or MLG rolls around, how are they supposed to pick a version? Do you think they'd ever pick a non-official version anyway?
This is the biggest reason why the standard should be an existing version. If it's all PAL, or all NTSC, then at least the version is predicated on a real disc. It would be much easier for them to go along with this if it was an "official" version, even if it patches the disc in the system. At this point, I don't think it'd be wise to consider a compromise at all.
- Like I said above, balancing the cast ruins the integrity of the sport. Players are now encouraged not to abuse certain mechanics for fear of them getting patched. How many people do you think would be in favor of modding wobbling out of the game? I certainly think it'd be a good adjustment, but that's just MY OPINION.
You make a lot of great points in this post and it's exactly what this thread needs, but I just don't buy the integrity angle. To me it sounds like a slippery slope argument, claiming that once we start down this path it only leads to more balances, more versions, etc. This is a logical fallacy, and is completely outside what I have outlined here. As far as sports go, all major sports have gone through several rule changes in their history. Smash has also had so many different rule changes as well. The integrity has been maintained throughout, though.
I think it'd be best to progress from the angle that this would more than likely be the adoption of an existing version and not a compromise. Unless someone could argue why MLG, Evo, or other outside groups would ever consider a hybrid, amongst the other issues, I just don't see it happening
despite the fact that I think a hybrid would be better for everyone.
