Requesting Feedback - A Potential Alternate Rule Set

[Zoler]

bo5 should be done whole bracket even with 4 stocks, works in Europe.

More matches AND stocks = higher chance of the better player winning. Not saying we should do bo11 with 10 stocks but yea

 

[Varist]

. . . but yea, we should do bo11 with 10 stocks.

 

[Cactuar]

Making a ruleset that would somewhat force some players into choosing fox is really stupid.

I'm going to expand this statement a bit, because it is one that I use for the MBR Recommended:

Making a ruleset that would force players into playing more characters is bad.


With the direction of the current scene, this statement is true. The MBR set is built to standardize the playing field as much as possible, allowing a player to become good at one character, and apply that skill to all available stages.

I've said this too many times already, but:

This isn't a replacement for the competitive standard.

It is an alternate. It promotes a different set of skills than the competitive standard. It promotes being able to use a wide variety of stages, knowing what characters to use on those stages, and knowing a much wider range of matchups/strategies/etc.

Playing this ruleset with only one character would be difficult. As such, I don't really recommend this ruleset for low-mid level players. This requires a huge pool of skills to draw on to be played effectively. While this might seem discouraging, I think it would have a positive effect on players learning curves. This moves away from "practice anything and everything on neutrals" to "practice a specific character on a specific stage for a specific strategy". It focuses development, provided the person has something in mind to practice/try.

Fox being too good on certain stages is only an effect of being able to circle camp. Any other style of camping is one that can be beaten through zoning and smart play. Stages that have circle camping tracks will most likely need to be removed if this were to become something that is actually played competitively.


That being said: My "rule set" and the idea that we should probably be moving to lower stock count and lower timer are two different things. The first is me wanting a way to play the game, have fun, stay just as competitive, and see more of what is possible through melee. The second is something that should be addressed regardless of the first, as in: we should probably do 2-3 stock on neutrals for the competitive standard, but that isn't something that will change on the MBR Rec for 2012, and it won't be something I recommend in 2013, though someone else may, as I have bias as the lead on this alternate.

 

[Pakman]

One thing that I feel is intimidating to new players and probably has a negative effect on tournament attendance is the length of tournaments. Imagine being in a cramped room for 12 hours to play in a tournament with a bunch of people who have been playing to game for 10 years. That sounds pretty unpleasant to me.

I have never considered the idea of reducing stock counts, but I definitely support it. I don't really play too much anymore, but this has got me thinking to playing 3 stocks from now on.

 

[Kal]

Making a ruleset that would somewhat force some players into choosing fox is really stupid.

Thanks for this incredibly well-written, useful input. I understand now that the reason to ban so many stages is because players who use Fox have additional counterpicks. It's better to ban something than to expect players to figure out ways to beat it, especially if said counter strategy involves picking up a secondary. Hopefully Armada doesn't read this.

 

[Shawn101589]

Thanks for this incredibly well-written, useful input. I understand now that the reason to ban so many stages is because players who use Fox have additional counterpicks. It's better to ban something than to expect players to figure out ways to beat it, especially if said counter strategy involves picking up a secondary. Hopefully Armada doesn't read this.

Back before Halo Reaches community plummeted, there was a lot of debate over the brokenness of one of the armor abilities: Armor Lock. Unlike the rest of the way Halo played, Armor Abilities were something you decided on before spawning instead of being associated with map control. They were also something you could not tell if your opponent had (aside from jetpack since it is large and on their back) and this made armor lock encounters almost random.

Let's say, I would land a stick with a plasma grenade. Should be a kill right? A reward for my accuracy. But, unfortunately, if someone had Armor Lock, pressing it removed said plasma grenade, and granted 7 seconds of invisibility which is also enough time for shields to regenerate.

That's just one example, and I won't go into a ton of detail out of getting to far off topic it, but suffice it to say that in comparison to the other Armor Abilities, Armor Lock by far provided the most advantage. Unfortunately, it was also the one that slowed down gameplay the most, allowed HUGE mistakes to be countered, and was overall damaging to the experience.


There were arguments about nerfs, etc, but it always resulted in arguments similar to what I hear you say now: "If everyone has a chance to use it, is their own fault for being put at a disadvantage. If you truly think it is the best AA then why don't you use it?"


The answer is that, just because everyone has the ability to use it, does not mean it is balanced within the rest of the aspects of the game. Fox being powerful on a ton of stages is not something that can be countered with anyone but Fox (speaking extremely generally here, but you get my point). What your saying is pick up a secondary because we are going to make him more powerful now. I know in the brawl community, everyone pretty much has(had) a pocket MK because they had no choice. I don't think that should happen here.



On a somewhat serious note, considering that this is an alternate ruleset, why don't you just ban fox? It would actually diminish a lot of the problems I see this ruleset having, and open up some stages that would otherwise DEFINITELY be banned.

 

[Cactuar]

The only issue with that approach is that Fox is only super broken in theory. He has never been played like that. The number of stages that he is hypothetically broken on like that is also very few, yet people talk as if EVERY cp buffs him to that extent. The only situations where Fox is hypothetically broken to that extent are due to the ability to circle camp - circle the stage indefinitely after taking a lead. He is fast enough to avoid other characters indefinitely. He could be played that way to time out matches.

This is probably the most abusive strategy in the game, and doesn't require a significant amount of "skill" to pull off. As such, for ANY stage list to be reasonable, the rule set must have built in protection against this, through either stage bans, a Fox ban, the removal of those stages from the legal pool, or some other alternative that addresses it specifically.

In the grand scheme of stages, Fox does not get buffed by allowing more stages. He gets buffed by allowing circle camp stages.


The bigger issue that I am seeing from the community is gross exaggeration of effects.

 

[Divinokage]

Well stages with walk-off edges destroys certain match-ups when Fox is present. Certain characters will not be able to escape waveshines.

 

[Shawn101589]

The only issue with that approach is that Fox is only super broken in theory. He has never been played like that. The number of stages that he is hypothetically broken on like that is also very few, yet people talk as if EVERY cp buffs him to that extent. The only situations where Fox is hypothetically broken to that extent are due to the ability to circle camp - circle the stage indefinitely after taking a lead. He is fast enough to reasonable avoid other characters indefinitely. He could be played that way to time out matches.

This is probably the most abusive strategy in the game, and doesn't require a significant amount of "skill" to pull off. As such, for ANY stage list to be reasonable, the rule set must have built in protection against this, through either stage bans, a Fox ban, the removal of those stages from the legal pool, or some other alternative that addresses it specifically.

In the grand scheme of stages, Fox does not get buffed by allowing more stages. He gets buffed by allowing circle camp stages.


The bigger issue that I am seeing from the community is gross exaggeration of effects.

Are they truly exaggerations though? I suppose only playtesting will tell. So I guess that kind of goes back to the entire purpose of your thread; feedback from playtesting.


I'm playing with a bunch of Rhode Islanders today, but I'd like a somewhat more structured ruleset to go by if we are going to be testing it. Can you name your definite bans and then we will test it further from there?


And, having been with the community for a long time, when the stages that have been banned throughout the years were being banned, were you on board with the decisions, undecided, or against them, and what were the reasons for those thoughts at the time?

EDIT: And I'm going to be doing 3 stocks. 2 stocks punishes far to strongly for an SD imo.

We shouldn't be banning things to attain balance in gameplay. If you have a case for some strategy being broken, that is a noticeably different situation than having a case for the game being imbalanced.

You are definitely right: But what you are suggesting is that everyone should pick up a fox secondary in order to counteract fox. And what i'm saying is that it shouldn't be required to fight fire with fire in a game that has so much variety, simply because of the buffs fox will receive.

 

[Kal]

The answer is that, just because everyone has the ability to use it, does not mean it is balanced within the rest of the aspects of the game. Fox being powerful on a ton of stages is not something that can be countered with anyone but Fox (speaking extremely generally here, but you get my point). What your saying is pick up a secondary because we are going to make him more powerful now. I know in the brawl community, everyone pretty much has(had) a pocket MK because they had no choice. I don't think that should happen here.

We shouldn't be banning things to attain balance in gameplay. If you have a case for some strategy being broken, that is a noticeably different situation than having a case for the game being imbalanced.

EDIT: And I'm going to be doing 3 stocks. 2 stocks punishes far to strongly for an SD imo.

I think it's a good thing to test out multiple possibilities here. Whether something punishes too strongly is necessarily an opinion, so it will be good to have two and three stock matches to compare.

 

[Shawn101589]

We shouldn't be banning things to attain balance in gameplay. If you have a case for some strategy being broken, that is a noticeably different situation than having a case for the game being imbalanced.



I think it's a good thing to test out multiple possibilities here. Whether something punishes too strongly is necessarily an opinion, so it will be good to have two and three stock matches to compare.

I played 2 stocks for a couple hours after first reading this thread. It definitely punishes to hard. The fact that as soon as I'm off screen on my last stock, my opponent wins the match, not only buffs characters that can kill/suicide, but only being 3 minutes means it'll be a ton easier to avoid being killed for a shorter amount of time. I'm gonna do 3, 5 min.

 

[Kal]

I see. I would like to test this myself, but have recently moved and am having a hard time finding smashers to play. I will test what I can at the next tournament I attend.

 

[Metal Reeper]

The only issue with that approach is that Fox is only super broken in theory. He has never been played like that. The number of stages that he is hypothetically broken on like that is also very few, yet people talk as if EVERY cp buffs him to that extent. The only situations where Fox is hypothetically broken to that extent are due to the ability to circle camp - circle the stage indefinitely after taking a lead. He is fast enough to avoid other characters indefinitely. He could be played that way to time out matches.

This is probably the most abusive strategy in the game, and doesn't require a significant amount of "skill" to pull off. As such, for ANY stage list to be reasonable, the rule set must have built in protection against this, through either stage bans, a Fox ban, the removal of those stages from the legal pool, or some other alternative that addresses it specifically.

In the grand scheme of stages, Fox does not get buffed by allowing more stages. He gets buffed by allowing circle camp stages.


The bigger issue that I am seeing from the community is gross exaggeration of effects.

I'll come over one day and you can circle camp the hell outta me. see what happens.

 

[Jolteon]

I'm just going to copypasta what I think about this from another post I made.

btw I've only tested it wth 2 stocks/3 mins and our current stage list (which is the 5 starter stages+pokemon stadium), we didn't really have enough time to test it out with different stage lists or different stock/timer variations but so far I really like 2 stock/3 mins, more-so than our standard 4 stocks/8 minutes anyway.

1. The main thing is the shorter timer, right now our timer is basically a pseudo-timer which does stop ridiculously long matches, but it's not really a threat to the losing player because it's too generous and he can afford to wait for a player with a lead to approach him by stalling for several minutes. There is very little clock pressure present.

2. With more matches and less focus on each individual match you have a good amount of time to reflect over your current strategy after a match. I understand that the significance of this is subjective and people are free to disagree, but I personally think it's a good thing.

3. Each individual CP holds less weight, I think it's fair to say that testing the players on a larger selection of legal stages helps us to decide who is the better player.

4. It encourages players to play better all the time (or at least, for a longer period of time).

5. Set numbers are more representative of player skill. They go from close 2-0s to 3-2 etc.

6. It increases the number of valid ways to win a match, e.g. characters like Marth/Mario who struggle to KO can look to win by finishing the second stock with a suicide gimp, or maintaining a lead and winning via a time-out.

 

[Cactuar]

Well stages with walk-off edges destroys certain match-ups when Fox is present. Certain characters will not be able to escape waveshines.

Such is the situational punishment for playing a character that doesn't fall over from shine on a stage with walk off ledges. And allowing Fox to start a waveshine on you in a position that extends to the blast zone. How is this any worse than Ice Climbers being able to start an infinite combo situationally (from a grab)?


How many stages is this even possible on?

How much of the space on those stages still doesn't get affected by this?


This is like complaining that Fox can shine spike you if you jump off the stage(put yourself in a bad position). I don't think any of the stages other than Flat Zone actually allows this from anywhere on the stage... and even Flat Zone has platforms to use in avoiding this.

Again, you guys talk in these weird hypotheticals. In this case, as if there is a stage that is FD with walk off edges. And that stage is all of the counterpick stages. Stop trying to discredit something by making **** up. It is painfully obvious to me when you do it, and a waste of my time to have to point it out.

 

[-ACE-]

Everyone can gimp, not everyone can infinite their opponent against a wall.

^^ not a hypothetical, not made up.

 

[Divinokage]

Heh, then it's a waste of time proving something that has been already proven.

 

[Kal]

Everyone can grab. Not everyone can chaingrab from 0% to death.

^^ not a hypothetical, not made up.

 

[Cactuar]

Everyone can gimp, not everyone can infinite their opponent against a wall.

^^ not a hypothetical, not made up.

How does the method matter at all when the community generally accepts IC grab infinites and wobbling? Wobbling has essentially become the threshold at which a single technique is broken. Wobbling is easier to do. Wobbling can't be SDI'd out of like waveshines can. Wobbling can lead to killing the opponent in any direction, unlike waveshine against wall combos. etcetc


Also, ness can legit infinite people against walls. Clearly he is now broken.

 

[RaphaelRobo]

You two are just complaining because your Ganons are terrible. You need to learn to infinite jab people on walls, and wavejab people on walk-off ledges.

 

[Kal]

Oh snap Raphael, you edited it before I could douchely correct you. Good ****.

 

[RaphaelRobo]

I noticed it as I was clicking "Post Quick Reply", so edited it straight away. I'm surprised you saw it.

 

[Kal]

Because I'm a ****ing sex panther. 60% of the time, I work every time.

 

[Zoler]

Fox can camp a lot of characters, especially the slow ones, really well on Corneria, Poke Floats, Hyrule, Fourside, Great bay, Yoshi's Island N64, Rainbow Ride(?).

Other stages are just really good for him because of walk offs, low ceiling and walls: Onett, Flatzone, Venom, Princess Peach's Castle, Green Greens.

There's almost no stages left that are banned at the moment LOL

Fox is already the best character, he doesn't need MORE stuff to make him even better lolz

 

[Kal]

Link is has a forward smash that is two separate attacks and is that the second attack can has be chosen to not also come out.

 

[Cactuar]

Before we go further with this, I want to make a PSA:

Camping: Playing heavily defensive and protecting yourself from external threats as they enter your immediate area by either running away, or hitting them, taking advantage, and then running away to restore your zone.

Stalling: Running away with no intention of doing anything other than watch the clock tick.


Time outs by stalling are generally looked down upon.

Time outs as a result of campy play are okay.

Circle camping is actually stalling.

 

[da K.I.D.]

fox can camp anybody anywhere, and slow characters are going to get ran away from regardless. that doesnt make corneria, poke floats or rainbow cruise illegitamate stages.

'really good for fox' shouldnt be a basis for banning a stage. 'broken or unbeatable for fox/anybody' should. venom, peach castle and greens dont really fit that criteria.

this is what cac was getting at, gross over generalization.

 

[Dan Salvato]

I think the criteria to warrant a ban should be the following:

1. One or more characters on the stage are broken to the point where a free win is essentially provided
OR
2. Stage hazards sufficiently randomize match wins regardless of skill level

There is nothing wrong with a character having an advantage on a stage, nor is there anything wrong with a particular stage having a different strategy. I think the problem with the current stage list is that they essentially all promote the exact same strategy from each character, so there is no need to practice more than one strategy, essentially.

Any good strategy game will require you to change your strategy depending on the circumstances, and I'd like Melee to exhibit a little more of that.

 

[knightpraetor]

biggest problem is that in 2 stock matches, suicide gimps are going to vastly increase the variance of each individual match. But with more matches, maybe it will be compensated for. I'm kind of against this, but i may try playing it for a few weeks.

Also, i don't see changing to this ruleset as good reason to bring back the old counterpick stages unless they were banned solely because of time constraints. Most of the stages that were banned (cruise, floats, corneria) were banned because they were imbalanced and only allowed a small selection of characters, forcing people to either not play their main or always keep a pocket fox (like every marth has from the old days).

I was happy to finally be able to actually main the character that I like, so I'm not relishing the idea of stage reintroduction

also, to say that to warrant a ban a stage must warrant a free win is still way too vague. Most of the banned stages were free wins in many matchups at equal skill level. And most of the pros at the time kept pocket fox/falco to deal with this stage rather than playing their other characters, so it's hard to even get data on the matchups on those stages

 

[Kal]

I think the criteria to warrant a ban should be the following:

1. One or more characters on the stage are broken to the point where a free win is essentially provided
OR
2. Stage hazards sufficiently randomize match wins regardless of skill level

There is nothing wrong with a character having an advantage on a stage, nor is there anything wrong with a particular stage having a different strategy. I think the problem with the current stage list is that they essentially all promote the exact same strategy from each character, so there is no need to practice more than one strategy, essentially.

Any good strategy game will require you to change your strategy depending on the circumstances, and I'd like Melee to exhibit a little more of that.

You're going to need to elaborate on both points:

1) What is a "free win?" And suppose two characters have one except against each other, is it still broken?
2) What makes results "sufficiently" randomized?

Both of these questions have answers, so I'm not telling you that your criteria are bad. Merely pointing out that there is potential for opposition on the definitions and well-posedness of your criteria.

 

[Dan Salvato]

You're going to need to elaborate on both points:

1) What is a "free win?" And suppose two characters have one except against each other, is it still broken?
2) What makes results "sufficiently" randomized?

Both of these questions have answers, so I'm not telling you that your criteria are bad. Merely pointing out that there is potential for opposition on the definitions and well-posedness of your criteria.

Thank you. I think the best way of doing this would be to take win statistics. We'd find some professional way of putting a whole bunch of reputed players against each other on different stages, and observe the win consistency. Any grossly inconsistent stage could be banned. For instance, two players with a 50% win rate who subsequently move to a stage that causes a 95% win rate would warrant a ban. Likewise, one with a 90% win rate who subsequently moves to a stage where hazards reduce the win rate to 50% should warrant a ban.

This is top-of-the-head logic, not an official proposition. I'm aware that I oversimplified a bit, but I think it makes sense as a general rule.

 

[KrIsP!]

You're going to need to elaborate on both points:

1) What is a "free win?" And suppose two characters have one except against each other, is it still broken?
2) What makes results "sufficiently" randomized?

Both of these questions have answers, so I'm not telling you that your criteria are bad. Merely pointing out that there is potential for opposition on the definitions and well-posedness of your criteria.

I'd say if one character gets a huge slant towards victory it's broken, if two or more get a slant then it's a counter pick and should be dropped down to his second criteria as obviously no stage warrants a free win regardless of skill. However i think these two 'criteria' were literally copy/pasted off of something cactuar said, just put into his own words.

 

[Dan Salvato]

I'd say if one character gets a huge slant towards victory it's broken, if two or more get a slant then it's a counter pick and should be dropped down to his second criteria as obviously no stage warrants a free win regardless of skill. However i think these two 'criteria' were literally copy/pasted off of something cactuar said, just put into his own words.

This makes sense, as long as the winning player is still allowed to ban a stage or two in case he doesn't have the advantageous character in his play roster. Otherwise Melee would turn into "practice the characters with the most stage advantages because nobody else stands a chance".

Also, those criteria are probably sensible enough for many people to come up with, lawl.

 

[Kal]

Let's suppose, for the sake of argument, that I have every statistic available, at the highest practical metagame.

What constitutes a free win? If I have a 50% win rate in Peach vs. Falco on Dreamland, and this shoots up to 95% on Brinstar, that warrants a ban? Even if this is unique to this particular matchup? In this case, you need a strict definition of a "free win." It's not a free win if your opponent has options; in almost every case, there is an option. So the question becomes "how many?" I think having at least two is sufficient; a stage should be banned if it only allows for a single character or single strategy. From that, we obviously ban Hyrule.

For the second, while I agree with the idea (it reduces the likelyhood of the better player winning, with the assumption that one player is better on that stage), I have to wonder how you would separate the impact the stage itself has on the matchup probabilities from the impact the randomness has. In other words, is it the random hazard impacting the matchup, or is it the qualities of the stage impacting the matchup?

It's important to realize that a 50-50 matchup doesn't need to be 50-50 on a second stage for the second stage to be fair. The fact is that this sort of logic is circular; you're assuming that the matchup probabilities on a particular stage are the global matchup probabilities, and that they should necessarily conform to them on other stages. They often won't, and that's ok. So the mere fact that matchups change on different stages, even if they change greatly, is not enough to warrant a ban.

 

[-ACE-]

How does the method matter at all when the community generally accepts IC grab infinites and wobbling? Wobbling has essentially become the threshold at which a single technique is broken. Wobbling is easier to do. Wobbling can't be SDI'd out of like waveshines can. Wobbling can lead to killing the opponent in any direction, unlike waveshine against wall combos. etcetc


Also, ness can legit infinite people against walls. Clearly he is now broken.

Wobbling has proved to generally not be earth-shattering in skewing tournament results. There is a difference between buffing the best character in the game vs the 8th best character or one of the worst (ness).

^^ not hypothetical, not made up.

 

[da K.I.D.]

biggest problem is that in 2 stock matches, suicide gimps are going to vastly increase the variance of each individual match. But with more matches, maybe it will be compensated for. I'm kind of against this, but i may try playing it for a few weeks.

Maybe... 10 years into the game, people should stop killing themselves.

People are acting like it should just be A-OK to just throw stocks away whenever you feel like it, why is that?

 

[KAOSTAR]

I like 3 stocks with a 5 minute timer lol.

basically im ok with what we have but in a game like smash two stocks is too little. and the suicide gimp will change the meta game. also the variance would probably widen in terms of who wins.

 

[Bl@ckChris]

i definitely like the 2 stock 3 minute bo5 or bo7.

i'm not much for the stage expansion.

but if you SD in tournament and don't come back and win the match, get better and stop SDing lol. plus, you have (roughly) just as many stocks in a 2 stock bo7, so i don't see how it punishes too hard for it. don't SD.

the only stages me and mike added were onett, japes, and kongo jungle (the rock) along with the neutrals and CP stages of the current play. i think adding these stages is reasonable.

edit: 3 stock 5 minute is a cool medium, but idk if i'd wanna do bo5 or bo3 with that middle ground. i'd have to play it to see whats reasonable i guess.

 

[Divinokage]

You would add all 3 those stages but not MC, Brinstar or Cruise? And the regular kongo? uhhh..

 

[RaphaelRobo]

Forget Cruise and use Pokefloats instead. It has way better music.