Has the smash community ever considered pokemon-style battles, or swiss?

[OddCrow]

Basically a one-person crew match where each player uses 3 (or 5) fighters, and keeps a running stock count of them against their opponent's team - you cannot switch until your current character dies. This would lead to a more diverse meta where players are "forced" to pick up 3 or more characters instead of 1 or maybe 2.

I don't necessarily believe this would be BETTER than current formats, but with new game there is time to experiment.

Also, semi-related, has the community ever tried to run a swiss-style bracket? Swiss brackets are nice for a few reasons

Everyone gets more matches, meaning less personal downtime
Player skill starts to level out so you continue to face players closer to your skill level
For higher level tournaments, it guarantees a top-level game in most rounds
You can still cut to a top 8/16 and do a single/double elim bracket from there

 

[B0NK]

Only works for 3DS because everyone needs to play their match at the same time to be efficient.

And yes, it is already being done for Smash 3DS tourneys.

It will never work on WiiU or any competitive game on a home console.

 

[Weavile's Wrath]

I like the Pokemon-esque idea, but I don't know it would work well with TOs and their tight schedules. Diversity in character choices is always good though, unless people just stick to three top tiers.

 

[Jaxas]

We run swiss at our smaller locals, and it works really well. The problem is that it takes quite a long time, so for larger tournaments it's non-feasible.

And the other idea could be really cool for money-matches or something, since it's essentially a one-man crew battle.

 

[Icylobster]

I think a lot of this actually depends on how the game develops, but these are great points to keep in mind.

For example, lets say that this game has match-ups that have stronger counters than in past games, which make the game a little more like a advanced version of rock paper scissors. This time around I do feel that characters were designed to have a unique aspect to them, so even if overall they aren't the strongest, their kit involves a tool that makes them strong against specific types of characters. In this case a Pokemon battle format could work out really well. However, if it turns out where some characters really just sit on top with no direct counter/strategy apart from other high tier characters, then I don't think it is necessary or worthwhile to change the format.

As far as Swiss or other tournament styles go, I think its worth talking about, but this is much more of a decision for the TO to decide. Some formats don't work well in larger settings, etc.

 

[popsofctown]

It seems like a shame to only play one character when there are so many. I would love a pokemon ruleset and enjoyed it in Hearthstone, but it doesn't seem popular enough.

 

[LinkNIvy]

Kind of like League draft pick?

 

[Regi_King]

Swiss works pretty good due to how the 3DS works as "a TV + console setup", sadly, it might not last long due to Smash Bros for Wii U almost launching. I see that being played a lot more.

 

[Blueye]

I have played the Pokemon TCG for a while and yes, Swiss does provide that everyone has a least X amount of games before they get knocke out. However, as many others have stated, you all need your own game (or own 'deck'to keep the analogy) to play simultaneously. This works great with the 3ds game, but not with the WiiU verison which will come out in a month or so. Imagine that for a 128 man tournament, you'd need 64 Wii U's and 64 copies of the game :/

I like the idea of the 'crew battle' format. I am not sure how this will translate to the metagame and healthyness for the game, but with this roster it would be possible. There are more counters to everything apart from a few characters. Time would also be an issue for To's since matches now take thrice as long when you have 3 characters each.

 

[deepseadiva]

"forced"

Trying to control a player base is never a good idea.

 

[popsofctown]

Trying to control a player base is never a good idea.

Yeah mean, remember when they introduced ranked play in League of Legends and said you couldn't ditto in draft and play the same characters as the other team and everyone got forced to learn new characters, the game just died then, no one plays it now. The spectacting scene is like so totally dead too no one ever wants to watch all those games with so few repeat character appearances.

 

[deepseadiva]

Yeah mean, remember when they introduced ranked play in League of Legends and said you couldn't ditto in draft and play the same characters as the other team and everyone got forced to learn new characters, the game just died then, no one plays it now. The spectacting scene is like so totally dead too no one ever wants to watch all those games with so few repeat character appearances.

I doubt that team based game has a comparable amount of character pride Smash has. People play this game for one character. I don't want to make a comment on diversity. But that's just a fact of this community, and not really usefully compared to another game with what... over one hundred characters? And it's like 3v3 right?

 

[popsofctown]

It's five v five, and there's something like a hundred characters, although the rule started when there was more like 40.
League actually represents 10 distinct characters in every game, which would be about 10% of their cast. Smash represents 2 out of the 50 ish characters in the game, which would be about 4%. And that's if it's not a ditto.


Many people were playing the game for 1 character when the rule started. My point is that the group of people with a vision for a competitive scene, in this case it was Riot, created a rule that forced players to make a change for the greater good and future of the game. It doesn't mean that that's the right thing to do here (I don't think it's a bad concept to explore in side tourneys), but you were dealing in absolutes about it.

League actually represents 10 distinct characters in every game, which would be about 10% of their cast. Smash represents 2 out of the 50 ish characters in the game, which would be about 4%. And that's if it's not a ditto.

 

[deepseadiva]

It's interesting that Riot did that themselves. Either you play that way or you can't play at all.

With a player-made ruleset that forces you to use different characters, I wonder how popular that would ever be.

 

[UltiMario]

I cannot tell you how many games I've played and scenes I've been part of where "This completely nontransferrable, completely incompatible concept works in LoL/other popular game, so we should do it too!" has been an argument.

Just because 1 popular game does something that works in that games context doesn't mean it's a good idea in any other context, especially when the genres and pace of gameplay are worlds different. I don't understand how that concept is so hard to grasp.

So no, forcing people to change characters is not a good idea in Smash. Not in the slightest.

 

[popsofctown]

I cannot tell you how many games I've played and scenes I've been part of where "This completely nontransferrable, completely incompatible concept works in LoL/other popular game, so we should do it too!" has been an argument.

Just because 1 popular game does something that works in that games context doesn't mean it's a good idea in any other context, especially when the genres and pace of gameplay are worlds different. I don't understand how that concept is so hard to grasp.

So no, forcing people to change characters is not a good idea in Smash. Not in the slightest.

Your thesis is different then his original one. He said it is bad to force ANY playerbase to do something. That does mean I can use ANY successful playerbase as a counter-example to make him back off of that statement.

 

[TurnUp]

Quite interesting (especially to someone like me who can effectively play all characters to a good enough level) but not a good idea as a whole, do you choose your characters beforehand? Do you counter-pick characters? What about people who just want to focus on one character?

 

[ZombieBran]

I wouldn't call it Pokemon style battles. Pokemon teams are like one cohesive unit. And there are almost 720 Pokemon now, not even counting Megas/forms/whatever.

I like 'team battles' in fighting games (SCII, for example) and would probably enjoy it for Smash but I wouldn't want it to ever be mandatory in any way.