Is It Time For Melee to Be Reduced to 3 Stocks?

[SynikaL]

I think it may be.

Hey, community. I've been around more than a decade and I've seen Melee and the Smash scene at large go through myriad changes. I've helped develop some parts of the South Florida community and Melee at large for a significant portion in that large span of time. I'm not blaring a klaxon for some nepotistic favoring of my opinion. I'm just trying to say: I've seen some ****.

I saw Scar and Toph briefly mention this last night during G3 but it's something I've been thinking on for some time: it may be time to reduce Melee to 3 stocks as the tournament standard.

I was around when the 4 stock standard was introduced way back when. This game as a competitive standard was a completely new thing to almost everyone involved. With developing techniques like shine spikes, chain grabbing and other gimping techniques ending stocks so quickly, and developing at exponential rates; we began to feel we needed more time to adjust to our opponents in a tournament environment to favor less volatile outcomes in results.

This is similar to how the Marvel 3 community more recently introduced a 3/5 standard instead of 2/3 early in that's game's life. Due to the game being so massive and open-ended, results ended up being not very satisfying.

I think the Melee community is long passed these growing pains in terms of understanding its game and no longer needs 4 stock matches. I'm more of a spectator these days than a player, so I feel perspective is a humble composite of both.

The main overriding reason why I believe this should be changed is that Smash tournaments generally just last too damned long. From a player and spectator perspective, I believe shorter tournaments benefit everyone.

Melee has a reputation for being a "fast" game, but a 2/3 set still lasts about 10-15 minutes. A 16 man bracket can last a significant portion of the day - about 5-6 hours - when a game like SF or Marvel can be ran in about a third of that time with a similar number of players. And this is assuming matches are ran back-to-back. I'm not saying taking away one stock will make a world of difference because it's the nature of the series, but it helps. If we approximate 3 stock 2/3 matches to be 8 minutes that shaves about 2 hours off a 16 man event according to my math (and Melee brackets are rarely that small).

From a spectator standpoint it also makes sense for matches to move more quickly, and 3 stocks still allows for satisfying enough outcomes. Tournaments often run passed 12am EST and is hell on other parts of the world (I made it up to top 4 myself for GEN3).

Certain matchups will also cause a distention in event time and hurt spectator morale. Despite Jiggly being an outlier, Hungrybox being relevant will always make her relevant. While Jiggs vs. Pikachu can be stimulating for some - it's a matchup that is a slog for most spectators and prolongs the event. I feel the effects the character has on spectator attention spans and event times should be mitigated where possible and reducing stocks to 3 is once such way.

That's all I got for now. Anyone else agree or disagree?


- Kimosabae




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[Plunder]

I wouldn't argue against it (I would actually prefer it), but imagine it would never take as a standard.

It would be sort of similar to having only 2/3s and no 3/5s ever (and the differing stage banning rules for those longer sets)

Basically people would perceive it as less of a true show of skill and consistency. Easier to take 3 stocks instead of 4 stocks, requires less endurance when you main a technical character, if they SD 1 stock that leaves only 2....less rooms for marginal errors to account for a true test of who's better.

Simplified - It would be like focus testing something with an audience of 300 people instead of 400 people. The results will be faster but maybe not as accurate and fleshed out.

 

[SynikaL]

You also have to consider how much more information you're truly getting by increasing a sample size by 100 people.

Not that much.

Just like I don't think we'd be losing much information from 3 stock matches. We'd just be gaining time.

But apparently, despite Scar's comments last night, I guess I'm pretty lonely when it comes to the sentiment of Melee touraments being longer than necessary. I was inspired to make this thread because I figured The comment Scar made was at least mildly supported by some prevalent strain of thought

 

[EPsilon933]

Despite Melee having the quickest games (IDK about 64), it's still the slowest game relative to other fighting games, ignoring Brawl, 4, and maybe even 64 too. Smash games don't work well when other tournaments are going on in the same whole event

But relative to esports games like FPSs and MOBAs, Melee is so much faster unless 2 floaties fight each other. Then it's only 2x as fast

Even if playing on 3 stocks is proven to benefit the community, the community is simply too established on playing with 4 stocks. Players don't like changes in rules. Some have attempted lowering the timer to 6 or 7 minutes and not even that gets good reception. It's so minor and games going to (near) timeout are so rare

But, since this is a fighting game, at tournaments, anyone can enter, which creates really big brackets meaning it'll take more time to compete. The big esports like LOL and CSGO are more invite only for the players, at least that's what it seems like for bigger events, so total player/team counts are a well controlled factor for them. I'm not an expert on esports, but I think it only takes common sense to guess that esports events have coordinators who just simply get players to where they need to be and make them play their games on time. This is perception from a casual. If you know correct things, correct me

 

[MookieRah]

Ah, 3 stock matches. I remember those. I think that was the standard when I first starting playing, actually. I think there was also a brief period in which 5 stock matches were the norm, and then the community settled on 4 and it pretty much stuck there.

I can see this working, although I don't know how I feel about it exactly. From a TO standpoint, I very much support things that relieve the time it takes to run a smash tournament. As a player, most of the time I feel that 3 stocks would be sufficient, but I'm hesitant to drop it there because I tend to be a player that benefits from having more time to figure my opponent out.

 

[GenNyan]

On one hand, I like having four stocks because I get more bang for my buck in tournaments (I get to play longer, because lets face it, tournaments are expensive and I'm not going to win any soon). On the other hand, I had to stay up until 3 in the morning to watch Genesis.

I think four stocks is almost synonymous with melee at this point. Maybe it would be more acceptable if we did 3 stocks only in pools and switched to 4 for top 64 or w/e, like many TOs do with BO3/5 matches. That way at least top players wouldn't complain about it like they did with BO3 sets at EVO 2015.

I think all of Genesis top 64 was all BO5, so I guess the TOs wanted a larger sample size (to use plunder's metaphor), rather than more time anyway.

 

[CeeLew]

In my humble opinion, I do not like the idea of lowering the stocks to three and making Bo3 the norm. Personally, I believe it would reward players/characters who are more "gimpy" by nature and punish players whose strong suit may involve adaptation. Take APEX 2015 as an example. If it were not for four stocks and Bo5 sets, AMSA would have probably won the tournament, if not, taken second.

As both a spectator and competitor of melee, I desire whichever format identifies the better player, and in this case, I believe four stocks and Bo5 do a better job in determining who that better player is.

There are more counter-points that I could identify, but unfortunately, I do not have the time to do so.

 

[GBC]

Definitely with regard to how long tournaments take, 3 stock matches would help with time tremendously. However, I think 4 stock matches show who the better player is, which is the whole point of a tournament. It takes more skill to take down 4 stocks instead of 3. Certain character match-ups do take longer than others but it's not a significant amount to initiate a change I think.

 

[-ACE-]

What's up Kye!

Interesting. This would definitely save a ton of time. There's also the relief that many spacey mains' (other mains also) hands will feel from less play, unless the hypothetical new 3-stock rule was later coupled with an increase in bo5 sets (which would hurt the purpose of saving time, but I could see some TO's doing this to make up for certain changes that come with reducing the number of stocks). I think this would alter the risk/reward dynamic of melee (potentially leaning towards defensive play). Each stock would be more valuable than before, and this would influence many players' gameplay. Mistakes would matter more. You'd see more suicide KO's also (being up 2 to 1 is better than being up 3 to 2, and especially if you are at high percent and they are not). Without a doubt, somehow, it would help some characters more than others, but I don't want to go that far into theory lol. It would definitely change things. Not saying it's bad though.

 

[SynikaL]

Sup Ace!

It would change the Beginning, Middle and Endgame strategies and mental states in unmeasurable ways without a doubt. But in terms of the actual relationship between two competitors: I believe that would remain unchanged and that's what's fundamentally most important. Does anyone truly believe that the current Top 6 players would be different if we had 3 stock standard? Or an outlying event like AMSA winning a single major would upset the established order?

I don't think so.

- Kimosabae

 

[-ACE-]

SynikaL what's your opinion on the 8 minute time limit on 3 stocks vs 4?

 

[SynikaL]

The 8 minute time limit is a community arbitration. The thinking goes: the average match pace is equivalent to ~ 1 stock loss/1:00. 2 players with 8 stocks total means 8 minutes should be sufficient for the average match.

following that reasoning, 6:00 time limit should suffice.

 

[TheFlyingCule]

The 8 minute time limit is a community arbitration. The thinking goes: the average match pace is equivalent to ~ 1 stock loss/1:00. 2 players with 8 stocks total means 8 minutes should be sufficient for the average match.

following that reasoning, 6:00 time limit should suffice.

The only issue with that is Time outs. If the games have shorter time limits, people are more likely to go for timeouts, particularly floaty characters like Jiggs. Sure those happen anyways and it makes TImeouts less time consuming, it will certainly increase the total number of timeouts and definitely support more matches going over 5 minutes long. It probably wouldn't even save time

 

[SynikaL]

You're ignoring the fact that you're scaling the stocks AND time back by 25%. Just because a player has less time to chase Jiggs doesn't necessarily mean stalling becomes more effective. The stock/time ratio is essentially the same. She's applying the strat with 3 stocks in 6:00 not 4.

But, again, admittedly, players could become theoretically more unassertive under those conditions and which could lead to longer matches. At least, initially.

 

[-ACE-]

Well, if it was 1 stock and 2 minutes, you'd certainly see more timeouts. So a step in that direction would probably yield a few extra timeouts here and there, but not a lot. The sheer amount of time (and focus) necessary to time someone out is a deterrence imo. Mental stamina comes into play.

 

[SynikaL]

Good point.

 

[MookieRah]

Then 3 stock 7 minutes. It's not as if the time limit effects the length of most matches, so this would ensure that it's still really hard to time someone out and minimize it's impact on a tournament's duration.

 

[Sutekh]

I think my biggest issue with this personally is (as has been already stated) that with less stocks, mistakes matter more, which could dissuade players from being as flashy or aggressive. I'm much more likely to go for a risky, flashier kill at the end of the game when I know I'm still up a stock than I would if it's a last stock situation. The fact is that Melee has grown into what it is today because it's such a fantastic game, not only for the players, but for the spectators. I'm not too far in favor of any change that could decrease the amount of styling I see in top 8.