Requesting Feedback - A Potential Alternate Rule Set

[Divinokage]

I rofled at the community, exposed!!! Anyways.. this sounds pretty interesting I'll make the smashers here aware of this ruleset and see how it will be played out though it will probably need some refinement for sure. Does this ruleset have DSR?? It would make sense I think to prevent playing the same stage all the time or seeing Fox dittos on Hyrule always lol.

 

[Kal]

Honestly, after reading Pengie's post again, it's clear to me that he was really just saying "8 minutes is too long for any match, so let's change the maximum possible match length by reducing the number of stocks and scaling the timer accordingly." He even uses the word "scrub," which is awesome. It's clear I was being dismissive of his post for no reason at all. It's probably fairer to say that I didn't even really read his post. I saw "4 minute timer" and thought "this is stupid." Though I think this is partly a result of being titled "A Proposition to Alleviate Time-outs."

 

[Bones0]

Cactuar is trolling.

I at least figured people who'd seen my posts in the No Johns Rule Set thread or MBR Recommended Rule Set thread would have called me out on my trolling, but I guess the internet is really that deceptive. I was randomly calling valid points "irrelevant" and "arbitrary," and at one point I think I used the term "accident forgiveness" 5 times in a single paragraph...

1. Reduced stage list is horrible. All the stages other than the 6 we have now are garbage. We removed them for a reason. Get a clue.

2. Two stocks means shorter matches, but comebacks aren't more likely at all. They are LESS likely. If you are down 1 stock in Cactuar's rule set, you only have 1 stock left, meaning you MUST take the next 2 stocks or you lose. If you are down 1 stock in the current rule set, you have 3 stocks left to make up the difference. Which is easier? derp

3. The timer is way too short. Taking the losing player to time wouldn't even be hard. The skill required to time people out is just a fraction of the skill required to take a stock, therefore the tactic should be discouraged in every way i.e. 10, maybe 15 minute timer for 4 stock matches. There is no drawback to having a larger timer because it's only even implemented to make sure matches finish so the tournament can progress. Outside of logistics, there is no reason players shouldn't be allowed to play out the set further. This isn't like Brawl where approaching is a last ditch effort to win. In Melee, you can just camp your *** off all game because you get pushed to the ledge and they only need one opening to punish your ***.

4. Accident forgiveness... LOL? It isn't the GAME's job to punish accidents/fluke inputs. That is the job of the PLAYER. If your opponent SDs and still beats you, it's because you suck and didn't capitalize on your free stock advantage. If you only have one stock and your opponent SDs, the game punishes them for you, which only marginalizes skill. This isn't ****ing SF or some ****. It's hard to even move around in our game without dying. How are you going to reference other fighting games using 1 life when YOU CAN'T ****ING SUICIDE IN THOSE GAMES?

5. Adaption gets shafted. In-game adaption is such a highly valued skill in Smash, and I think it should stay that way. You don't have time to adapt with 2 stocks. Do you understand that at the top level, you can get 0-death'd with relative frequency? Go watch some of your favorite matches ever and imagine it ended after the second stock. It's bull****.


Shoutouts to all the people I trolled.
I feel bad about it, but it was fun while it lasted (for me, anyway).

Shoutouts to DR Ray. Leave it to a Smasher to SD in another fighting game.

Shoutouts to Javi being horrible if we played with 2 stocks.

Shoutouts to comebacks. If it weren't for 4 stocks, you would never be so sweet.

Shoutouts to accident forgiveness.

This rule set is horrible, and if you supported it you should feel horrible.

 

[Kal]

False.

10falses

1. You know how I feel about this, so I don't need to address it I think.

2. I don't think you can accurately predict if comebacks will happen more or less often. While it's true that a one stock deficiency would be easier to overcome with four stock available, it's also true that two and three stock deficiencies won't happen when playing with two stock.

3. I don't understand why you keep posting this idea when I have addressed it so many times, but I think we're just going to be diametrically opposed on it since neither of us is seeing the other person's point of view. However, even if I grant you that increasing the length of the timer won't increase the likelihood of camping by the losing player, I still think the appropriate match duration scales with the number of stock.

4. I don't think anyone wants the game to punish anything. However, how the game favors and accentuates certain tactics is important.

5. While I think adaptation is something which occurs in real time, not stock-by-stock, the point that 0-deaths happen frequently is a good one. I would want to test this ruleset out more before assuming that two stock is too few for this reason alone, though.

 

[Divinokage]

Bones, wtf? You make it seem like you were the one that wrote all this. You lie!!

 

[Bones0]

False.

10falses

1. You know how I feel about this, so I don't need to address it I think.

2. I don't think you can't accurately predict if comebacks will happen more or less often. While it's true that a one stock deficiency would be easier to overcome with four stock available, it's also true that two and three stock deficiencies won't happen when playing with two stock.

3. I don't understand why you keep posting this idea when I have addressed it so many times, but I think we're just going to be diametrically opposed on it since neither of us is seeing the other person's point of view. However, even if I grant you that increasing the length of the timer won't increase the likelihood of camping by the losing player, I still think the appropriate match duration scales with the number of stock.

4. I don't think anyone wants the game to punish anything. However, how the game favors and accentuates certain tactics is important.

5. While I think adaptation is something which occurs in real time, not stock-by-stock, the point that 0-deaths happen frequently is a good one. I would want to test this ruleset out more before assuming that two stock is too few for this reason alone, though.

2. I never said I could accurately predict comebacks, but it's pretty evident that, statistically speaking, you will have more comebacks with more stocks. It really isn't debatable.

3. Okay, we obviously disagree about how prevalent camping would be with a longer time limit, but my main point WAS that Cactuar reduced the time per stock. If he had 2 stocks in 4 minutes, obviously I wouldn't have cited it as an issue. Your hypothesis around the losing player camping seems to revolve around the idea that camping is somehow a dominant strategy over approaching, which is where I guess we inherently disagree. I think if a losing player tried to camp a winning player of equal skill, then the camping player is more likely to slip up and get punished than the approaching player is, especially as you get higher up in the tournament. Obviously if you have some scrubby Falco approaching a Marth camping the ledge they will lose, but if the Falco isn't dumb he will patiently poke in lasers, ftilts, ledge grabs, etc. and once you get past a certain skill level being on the ledge (or camping in any other way) is no longer effective. I'd much rather be winning and in the middle of the stage than losing with my back to the ledge.

Ultimately it comes down to me wanting to minimize the impact the timer has as much as possible. If someone wants to camp their *** off and the tournament can finish on time with 30 minute games, I think that's what we should play. This is reflected in my distaste for 1 minute matches where the game is artificially changed from "fight until someone wins" to "fight until the time runs out." For most players, the game is played the same regardless of whether or not there is a timer. The only time it is relevant is when 1 or more players are playing defensively, and if they think that's the best way to win, I don't think their tactic should be discriminated against by applying a timer for no reason other than to encourage a certain type of game play. It's kind of funny because I originally thought for sure you would agree with me on a longer time limit because you've always seemed very against the idea that any certain style of game play (or stages lol) is discriminated against, but all you're doing by adding a timer is attempting to influence how someone plays.

4. Obviously the game inherently favors certain game play over others, but that should be limited as much as possible. No one wants to win because their opponent made a technical error, but that's the cost of having a really precise game. Anything we can do to scale back the importance of tech skill (in this case, increasing stocks) does a lot to reduce the influence, and while not completely relevant, it encourages healthy levels of game play because people aren't playing scared 24/7. I think ledge dashing is a good example because even though a lot of people are REALLY good and consistent with ledge dashing, I think it would be a much more rare tactic if we played with 1 stock where it is literally a game changing decision every time you decide to use it.

5. Adaption does occur in real time, but I think most players would agree they adapt LARGELY on a stock by stock basis. A few specific situations within a single stock can sometimes lead to minor adjustments from each player, but overall, stocks in this game don't last long enough for the s ame situation to come up more than twice usually. This may just be my bias as a Falco main though. I'm sure Jiggs players are frequently adapting more times per stock because when they make a mistake and get punished, they don't lose a stock for it nearly as often as the fast fallers who get comboed much harder. I just think it is most important at the top levels where a good approach with a small series of good reads frequently results in a stock loss. With only two stocks, it is much more likely people can abuse gimmicks without their opponent being able to catch on. And I'm not basing this off of how good players are at adapting. I'm saying that you literally will have enough gimmicks to last 2 stocks without having to recycle anything. This means that players will largely come into games with all the knowledge they need. I match my gimmicks against your gimmicks, and whoever's are better wins. I also don't want you to get the impression that I have a negative connotation when I talk about gimmicks. I love gimmicks, and I think when it comes down to it, all games can be reduced to just a series of gimmicks that, when combined, create a player's style. I just think it'd be a shame for people to lose because they got killed by something they couldn't possibly be expecting.

This also probably goes back to Melee differing from other fighters (though I lack any real understanding of other FGs, so excuse me if I'm wrong). It seems most fighters only have a few given options, whereas Melee has thousands more due to spacing and increased options being so much more important. I feel like in other fighters, players can do a relatively good job of predicting what few things they need to watch out for vs. any given player. In Melee, you can't just have a list of 5 or 6 options to watch out for because there are so many variations and mixups that it's essentially "random" whether or not your first approach works.

Other FGs seem much more RPS related, whereas in Smash you have many more options, and sub-options within those options. You can do your best to cover as many of those options as possible, but I don't think the game should be devolved into "guess your opponent's option right" so much as it should be "evaluate your opponent's option based on previous experience." This also seems to be why the stock count changes much more than momentum seems to change in other fighters. Obviously there are some games where momentum shifts back and forth, but I just see it way more often in Melee than in other fighters.

Bones, wtf? You make it seem like you were the one that wrote all this. You lie!!

Cactuar is my alt account. I'm sorry I never told you.

 

[CloneHat]

i approve of 2 stocks so i can **** a noob in 20 seconds

Done and done

 

[Bones0]

Mew2King would finish pools before Armada and Hbox finish 1 stock.

 

[Fernandez]

Cactuar is trolling.

I at least figured people who'd seen my posts in the No Johns Rule Set thread or MBR Recommended Rule Set thread would have called me out on my trolling, but I guess the internet is really that deceptive. I was randomly calling valid points "irrelevant" and "arbitrary," and at one point I think I used the term "accident forgiveness" 5 times in a single paragraph...

1. Reduced stage list is horrible. All the stages other than the 6 we have now are garbage. We removed them for a reason. Get a clue.

2. Two stocks means shorter matches, but comebacks aren't more likely at all. They are LESS likely. If you are down 1 stock in Cactuar's rule set, you only have 1 stock left, meaning you MUST take the next 2 stocks or you lose. If you are down 1 stock in the current rule set, you have 3 stocks left to make up the difference. Which is easier? derp

3. The timer is way too short. Taking the losing player to time wouldn't even be hard. The skill required to time people out is just a fraction of the skill required to take a stock, therefore the tactic should be discouraged in every way i.e. 10, maybe 15 minute timer for 4 stock matches. There is no drawback to having a larger timer because it's only even implemented to make sure matches finish so the tournament can progress. Outside of logistics, there is no reason players shouldn't be allowed to play out the set further. This isn't like Brawl where approaching is a last ditch effort to win. In Melee, you can just camp your *** off all game because you get pushed to the ledge and they only need one opening to punish your ***.

4. Accident forgiveness... LOL? It isn't the GAME's job to punish accidents/fluke inputs. That is the job of the PLAYER. If your opponent SDs and still beats you, it's because you suck and didn't capitalize on your free stock advantage. If you only have one stock and your opponent SDs, the game punishes them for you, which only marginalizes skill. This isn't ****ing SF or some ****. It's hard to even move around in our game without dying. How are you going to reference other fighting games using 1 life when YOU CAN'T ****ING SUICIDE IN THOSE GAMES?

5. Adaption gets shafted. In-game adaption is such a highly valued skill in Smash, and I think it should stay that way. You don't have time to adapt with 2 stocks. Do you understand that at the top level, you can get 0-death'd with relative frequency? Go watch some of your favorite matches ever and imagine it ended after the second stock. It's bull****.


Shoutouts to all the people I trolled.
I feel bad about it, but it was fun while it lasted (for me, anyway).

Shoutouts to DR Ray. Leave it to a Smasher to SD in another fighting game.

Shoutouts to Javi being horrible if we played with 2 stocks.

Shoutouts to comebacks. If it weren't for 4 stocks, you would never be so sweet.

Shoutouts to accident forgiveness.

This rule set is horrible, and if you supported it you should feel horrible.

Honestly this just looks like an attempt to save face to me XD
also its pretty funny how it went from a serious ruleset to a for-fun ruleset after people discovered pengie's thread.

 

[Beat!]

I knew that Bones was up to something all along lol.

 

[Kal]

Wow, super epic wall of text, Bones. We truly are rivals. Can I be Goku?

2. I think you might have misunderstood. It's that I don't think you can actually predict whether comebacks will happen more or less often with two stock versus four. It also depends on how you define a comeback. Technically speaking, any match where you took the first hit but still won is a comeback. So I would just tread cautiously with any broad, generalized statements about making a comeback. I would, however, note that you have less room for a large gap between players, i.e., that there being fewer stock necessarily means that the gap will be smaller. But, this does not necessarily mean comebacks will occur more often.

In retrospect, I'm beginning to think that they will happen with the same frequency, at least at high level play. In order to measure something like this, you need a statistical sample, though, so it's not useful to cite individual examples where a player loses two stock and makes a come back.

3. You might be right that three minutes is too short. That's fine. If four minutes is necessary, hopefully we learn this sooner than later and change to four. Three was likely chosen because there are four total stock available, and many people subtract one from that total for the timer (i.e., 2 + 2 - 1 = 3).

I'm all for supporting different playstyles. It's just that, with a sufficiently long timer, you're just discouraging approach altogether for no reason. Players will camp until this "medium time" is reached, and then resume standard play, in my opinion, so I see no reason to extend the timer past this. I am also of the opinion that the timer determines the viability of certain strategies, to a degree, and so finding the correct medium allows for a broader spectrum of playstyles.

4. I think you've posited a good argument here, but you should keep in mind that much of this is subjective. I have not suggested playing with one stock, nor has Cactuar. Two stock, in my opinion, is a good suggestion because it's a happy medium between what you've suggested, which would be a tendency to overly safe play (one stock), and a tendency to worry-free "accident forgiven" play (four-stock).

5. While I agree that we don't want the game devolving into "who has the greater number of esoteric strategies," I don't think that would happen with something like this. For one, the stage list can be changed (and presently has just reset to default; we leave them all on until we find a problem, or so I believe), so I don't think the gimmicks present will be as overwhelming as you think. For two, I think that it will just become a necessity for players to become more well-rounded and learn to execute additional strategies.

At first, the game might be as you mentioned, with players having enough gimmicks to win two stock without the opponent adapting, and this is especially likely for newer players and are thus unfamiliar with the age-old strategies on the presently (scrubbily ) banned stages. However, I think that this would change rather quickly as players played friendlies on these stages and began learning and developing additional strategies there.

One thing that interests me greatly is a question of what untested strategies characters have on the non-starter stages. Does Marth excel on Mushroom Kingdom II by chance? Or C. Falcon on Flatzone? Provided we don't discover glaring reasons to ban these stages (in my opinion, anything banned for brokenness will become banned again for the same reasons, and the remaining stages will be up to the community to decide (and, of course, I think they'll ban those too T_T)), I think we might discover very intricate, exciting strategies on these stages. Of course, this has nothing to do with the new ruleset as far as number of stock, and is just about having more stages in general. c.f. The No-Johns Ruleset

I feel like our argument is too... civil? So I'm just going to throw this out there in the hopes of starting a flame war: ur fase.

And yeah, when Bones said Cactuar was half-assing it, I guessed he was trolling.

 

[Bones0]

Honestly this just looks like an attempt to save face to me XD
also its pretty funny how it went from a serious ruleset to a for-fun ruleset after people discovered pengie's thread.

 

[Kal]

*shakes fist*

 

[ajp_anton]

this reminds me of a set from the big house, I think it was s2j vs a canadian fox might be wrong.
one player 3 stocked the other game 1 and then got 1 stocked games 2 and 3 and lost the set.
I remember pointing out to mundungu that the player that won the set took less stocks and still won. It made me think about how arbitrarily we decide that one player won a "point" and reset the playing field to neutral, like if the set was just 12 stocks one match then the other player would have won.

Interesting ruleset, will have to try it out.

Some players play differently when about to lose a match. Instead of trying to bring it back and take stocks, they try to just stabilize their play in preparation for the next match. Others start taking more risks in order to either make a comeback or lose by a bigger margin than if they kept playing safe.
You can't simply count stocks, unless the rules are changed into also taking them into account.

 

[ajp_anton]

2. I never said I could accurately predict comebacks, but it's pretty evident that, statistically speaking, you will have more comebacks with more stocks. It really isn't debatable.

Instead of making a comeback within a match, with more matches you can make a comeback with matches.

 

[VA]

I'm not too sure what to make of this. I will reserve judgement until I've play tested it a bit.

Personally I think it would work better with an even stricter stage ruleset.

 

[Kal]

I think FrootLoop's point isn't that we should just count stock. He points out that there are plenty of different starting rules and that the choice of any particular one is arbitrary. Why do we play best of three at four stock? Why not best of one at twelve stock? There will be justification of one over the other, but unless you can meaningfully show that one is better than another, the choice is arbitrary.

And no, my point was that, even within a match, I don't think it's correct to say that there will be more (or fewer) comebacks. We simply don't know.

 

[ajp_anton]

I actually honestly think this would make Melee a lot more fun and I support this for that reason

I think shorter matches are boring because the game / dead-time ratio goes down.
Also, when playing friendlies, the new "comeback system" (winning back matches instead of stocks) becomes completely meaningless.
And finally, you lose all the momentum of a match because it ends right when you're getting up to speed. Kind of like when watching a movie on American TV with commercials every 15 minutes.

 

[Kal]

The momentum concern is a legitimate one, but I haven't given it enough thought yet. When playing friendlies, you could just play sets.

 

[Cactuar]

You guys do realize that Falco can't suicide KO you on stages that aren't centered around killing people from the bottom blast zone right? This is where intelligent counterpicking comes into play. Some stages/characters are good for vertical combos. Others are good for horizontal ones. And others are good for hit and run tactics. And others are good for zone control. Or you can keep thinking in terms of neutrals and completely miss the objective here.

How exactly are you defining momentum? I would think that being able to build momentum against your opponent quickly becomes more valued.

To the point of adaptation: While adaptation is a highly valued skill, this gives you a much better opportunity to analyze the previous match between matches, and allows you to do so much clearer, as you only have to analyze your mistakes over 2 stock, rather than 4. Going into the next match, you can immediately address what you did wrong. A huge problem I see in the community is that a full match becomes a blur. Time isn't spent looking at our matches stock by stock while we are playing because we do have so many options. The lower the stock count of an individual match, the more specific you can get with on the fly analysis of mistakes.

The play time vs dead time ratio is a legitimate concern, and one that is only really made up by the excitement caused by stage /character/strategy change. I think longer matches are boring because we tend to see the same strategy over the course of 4 stock. Mango is really the only player I've seen who adapts in the ideal manner, and it is more that he is constantly reacting during his pressure game than the ideal that you guys are setting forth. The only real example I've seen of high adaptation in a short period of time recently has been Javi, and that was mostly because it was his first experience with a new field of play. We have held, essentially, the same tournament, over and over, for the past 2-3 years. It has become stagnant. We have seen hungrybox... backair a lot. We have seen Armada nair out of shield really fast and him use what is basically the same combo over and over on spacies. We have seen Mew2King stand at the edge and gimp people over and over. And you are concerned with a little bit of dead time between matches.

Regarding the movie comparison: 4 stock may be a movie, but 2 stock would be more like a TV series season. Properly done, each episode builds momentum and has its own climax, but still leaves you on a cliffhanger, wanting to see what happens next, and allowing you to think about the events of the episode and how they could affect the next. Hell, 4 stock should really just be an hour long show, while 2 is a 30 minute one. Both can be quality regardless of length.

To a point made earlier by I don't know who: I never claimed that this method was without flaw. All approaches to a competitive standard will have pros and cons. That you actively want to resign yourself to the same set of pros and cons from now until melee's end is your business. I see a specific problem, and I address it specifically. I'm going to experiment. I have no reason not to. I know where the current competitive scene is going and I'm going to fully push the MBR Recommended for that purpose. I don't have a problem separating my thoughts between where the scene is and possible other approaches. If people happen to like using an alternate and it builds enough of a following, then so be it. This is more religion than science. Always has been.

 

[Bones0]

Wow, super epic wall of text, Bones. We truly are rivals. Can I be Goku?

2. I think you might have misunderstood. It's that I don't think you can actually predict whether comebacks will happen more or less often with two stock versus four. It also depends on how you define a comeback. Technically speaking, any match where you took the first hit but still won is a comeback. So I would just tread cautiously with any broad, generalized statements about making a comeback. I would, however, note that you have less room for a large gap between players, i.e., that there being fewer stock necessarily means that the gap will be smaller. But, this does not necessarily mean comebacks will occur more often.

In retrospect, I'm beginning to think that they will happen with the same frequency, at least at high level play. In order to measure something like this, you need a statistical sample, though, so it's not useful to cite individual examples where a player loses two stock and makes a come back.

3. You might be right that three minutes is too short. That's fine. If four minutes is necessary, hopefully we learn this sooner than later and change to four. Three was likely chosen because there are four total stock available, and many people subtract one from that total for the timer (i.e., 2 + 2 - 1 = 3).

I'm all for supporting different playstyles. It's just that, with a sufficiently long timer, you're just discouraging approach altogether for no reason. Players will camp until this "medium time" is reached, and then resume standard play, in my opinion, so I see no reason to extend the timer past this. I am also of the opinion that the timer determines the viability of certain strategies, to a degree, and so finding the correct medium allows for a broader spectrum of playstyles.

4. I think you've posited a good argument here, but you should keep in mind that much of this is subjective. I have not suggested playing with one stock, nor has Cactuar. Two stock, in my opinion, is a good suggestion because it's a happy medium between what you've suggested, which would be a tendency to overly safe play (one stock), and a tendency to worry-free "accident forgiven" play (four-stock).

5. While I agree that we don't want the game devolving into "who has the greater number of esoteric strategies," I don't think that would happen with something like this. For one, the stage list can be changed (and presently has just reset to default; we leave them all on until we find a problem, or so I believe), so I don't think the gimmicks present will be as overwhelming as you think. For two, I think that it will just become a necessity for players to become more well-rounded and learn to execute additional strategies.

At first, the game might be as you mentioned, with players having enough gimmicks to win two stock without the opponent adapting, and this is especially likely for newer players and are thus unfamiliar with the age-old strategies on the presently (scrubbily ) banned stages. However, I think that this would change rather quickly as players played friendlies on these stages and began learning and developing additional strategies there.

One thing that interests me greatly is a question of what untested strategies characters have on the non-starter stages. Does Marth excel on Mushroom Kingdom II by chance? Or C. Falcon on Flatzone? Provided we don't discover glaring reasons to ban these stages (in my opinion, anything banned for brokenness will become banned again for the same reasons, and the remaining stages will be up to the community to decide (and, of course, I think they'll ban those too T_T)), I think we might discover very intricate, exciting strategies on these stages. Of course, this has nothing to do with the new ruleset as far as number of stock, and is just about having more stages in general. c.f. The No-Johns Ruleset

I feel like our argument is too... civil? So I'm just going to throw this out there in the hopes of starting a flame war: ur fase.

And yeah, when Bones said Cactuar was half-assing it, I guessed he was trolling.

1. Mango is obviously Goku. Armada is... Frieza? Leffen is Vegeta. Kage is Master Roshi. Hbox is Buu. You can be... Piccolo? But hey, it could be worse.

Spoiler

Merkuri is Krillin.

2. Comebacks are only made easier the more stocks you have, therefore they will be more common. I really can't think of any better way to explain it, and I can't fathom how you could possibly have more comebacks unless you are going to twist words to say something like "if 1 stock is a comeback in a 4 stock game, then a comeback in a 2 stock game is 50%!" Obviously that just doesn't make sense. Really, it's irrelevant because we shouldn't be building a rule set around the encouragement of comebacks.

3. See, we just have an inherent disagreement on approaching. You seem to think the losing player will never approach if there is not timer (Hax status). I think we could easily play 99% of tournament matches without a timer and it'd work fine. The only problem is the 1% of matches where A. neither player wants to approach, and B. one player is stalling/running away/hardcore camping/whatever you want to call it. Usually it is beneficial for a player to approach, and it's typically the bad players who try to camp and end up getting punished for it. Camping isn't some sort of static situation in Melee. You can't just sit on the left side of FD and throw out attacks so your opponent can't approach. They can easily just punish an attack or even your bad movement/spacing. So in situation B the camping player loses (assuming they are of equal or lower skill), and in situation A, we have a timer so SOMEONE has to approach, and it ends up being the losing player. Other than that, I don't really get how extending the time limit can possibly influence how people play, which is why I think it should be extended. When it is shortened, it has clear effects on game play, and I would consider any effect the timer has on a match to be a negative one.

4. You have certainly chosen a medium, but I don't see why. If you really don't think "fluke" errors should be the determinant of any given match, then you should agree that the longer the match the better. Of course this leads people to the question, "Why not play with 5 stocks? OR 6?!" My response is that I'd like to, but logistics dictate that tournaments wouldn't finish in time if we played 10 stock games, best of 37. There are also other logistical issues such as players getting exhausted, which is an issue because a tournament's goal should be to measure players at their peak performance. I am confident that excessively long sets would turn into a sort of marathon where players are required to ration energy. Now I know this mentality is already somewhat used by top players who play all day through bracket, but for the most part, players are almost always giving it 100% when they are playing an opponent of similar skill level, and extending sets so that it becomes impossible to maintain that 100% level would just lead to degraded quality of game play.

5. If you don't think the game would devolve into a gimmick war with 2 stock games and all stages on, idk what to tell you. It'd take YEARS for people to even BEGIN to exhaust the number of gimmicks available to all of the characters on all of the stages. I cp Flat Zone, my Falco vs. your Fox. I land a grab, bthrow into fthrow (you missed ONE buffer roll), and you die at 15%. Buckets start falling as you respawn, I laser you, you shield, a wrench shield pokes you, and you die. GG bro. Next game on Onett you go Ganon, I go Fox. I waveshine you off the side for the first stock, and proceed to run away and/or tank hits with techs on the inside walls for 3 minutes. GG bro.

Are those situations avoidable? Obviously, but when each player has an arsenal of a couple hundred solid mixup gimmicks, many of which you could very easily have never seen before, you aren't going to last long, and you aren't going to feel like you were out-played because there was very little you could have done without simply guessing better.

 

[Kal]

1. Can I just be Mr. Satan? Overall failure, but he has one successful moment with Fat Buu. Better than Piccolo. My balls are not inert.

Spoiler

Also, Krillin? Wouldn't New Strife be Chiaotzu or Yajirobe?

2. You're just ignoring my point here about the large potential for gaps. While it's true that you have more time to take back a small loss, you also have more scenarios where the loss is larger. And I agree that this should have no bearing on the ruleset.

3. I definitely agree that, for the overwhelming majority of matches, in practice an extended timer won't change anything. But, at least in theory (and from the truly determined players), we would just see longer battles of attrition. Approaching doesn't need to be inferior for this to be true. Camping just needs to be a viable option. If it's the case where camping is bad, then the timer isn't important. The main thing to note is that, with the A situation you have described, players will wait as long as possible to approach because there's no reason not to. And I'm not following why the camping player loses in situation B. The assumption is that your camping is not static, and that you are

4. I mean, what choices aren't arbitrary? I don't think that the longer the match the better, necessarily. There is a degree to which I think players should be encouraged to avoid making mistakes, and the longer the match, the lesser this degree. Hence the choice of a medium.

5. Why would I go Ganon on Onett?

 

[Cactuar]

Sigh. That Bones intentionally posts repeatedly to simply derail the thread and with no intent for actual contribution is enough to warrant infractions. That he made an entire post to brag about it? Downright stupid.

Your arguments are, simply put, absurd. Ganon on Onett as a counterpick AFTER you pick Fox. Are you ****ing kidding me? I'm not the infracty type, but I can see myself being convinced.

 

[Kal]

I think we should just infract everyone who posted in this thread, including the topic creator. And then we should burn some books.

Oh ****, idea:

We give Taylor Swift a copy of The Scarlet Letter, and then take away and burn it when she decides it's boring to read (i.e., immediately).

 

[VA]

I can see the speed up of 2 stock being brilliant for competitive play, altering a lot of tired and old viable strategies. When I get the chance (soon) I will run a tournament using an expanded version of this ruleset.

 

[Mr.Lemon]

I still don't see why faster is better? I mean if we all played two stocked matches, tournaments would end so quickly. I don't know about you guys but the longer I play the better. I want my matches to last as long as possible. I would feel cheated if i was eliminated from a bracket after a few 2 stocked matches. When it comes to SD's, everyone does it even the pros. It wouldn't be right to make one mistake and SD then having only one stock left to turn the match around. Also, having a game with less stocks seems as though it would give an advantage to characters who are good at gimping/ledge play. They could just get really good at getting players off the ledge and winning for it. Playing one match of 5 minutes gives you an opportunity to better read your opponent in certain situations which lets you prepare to punish them. If the match was shortened you might not get that opportunity anymore.

I understand why people would want to try this out, but the rule set was created like this for a reason, because it works. It's fine to mix things up a bit, but to change the way this game is played to such a drastic extent may alter more then what was initially intended.

 

[VA]

It changes the tempo of the match. The implications of which are very interesting. I want to play.

 

[Kal]

Mr. Lemon, this is why we are increasing the number of matches played. We're not just saying "cut all matches in half." We're basically cutting the matches in half and doubling the number of rounds.

 

[Cactuar]

@Mr.Lemon: What Kal said. The number of stocks you get is actually the same at minimum, and +2 at maximum. The only deviation is that you are forced into being exposed to a wider range of play, albeit shorter bursts of each of those differences.

And for those arguing that shorter matches increases possibility of an outlier output (the lesser player possibly winning a match), yes. You're right. It does. And we don't care. Because set outcome is the important factor. Dropping individual matches has reduced importance. Over the long term, the better player will win. All I have done is shift that away from being heavily frontloaded into match outcome and put the focus on set outcome.

 

[Kal]

I wonder if, instead of positing this as a ruleset, someone were to have simply mentioned that it's a lot of fun to play with two stock, would the reception have been better?

 

[Cactuar]

Meh. The seed of the idea is planted either way. I was never expecting 100% agreement. As long as a few people here and there at least try it out, I get what I want. Which is data. Not acceptance.

 

[VA]

It's just interesting. I actually used to play a game on temple which was 2 stock one minute where sudden death actually counted. I played it for HOURS against someone because it was interesting.

I will test it out but I want to discuss stages.

What stages would be viable? Honestly I don't see the need to expand it, I think reducing it could be better.

 

[standardtoaster]

The whole issue being taken with 4 stocks is that there is too much accident forgiveness, so 5 would just make that worse. This is Melee, not Allstate car insurance.

/Allstate

 

[Mr.Lemon]

Mr. Lemon, this is why we are increasing the number of matches played. We're not just saying "cut all matches in half." We're basically cutting the matches in half and doubling the number of rounds.

Then doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of making the game go by faster?

 

[Cactuar]

What? The point of this isn't to make the game go by faster...

 

[Kal]

Mr. Lemon, I would suggest a reread.

 

[Smasher89]

What if you add a rule, that if you switch character, you cant switch back to that earlier character during that set?

(a dynamic from that rule: Forcing "broken" foxes to play on like brinstar, or else not being able to have the next strong counterpickchoice for example)



EDIT: I do see timeouts being a legit strategy atleast in alot of matchups on "neutrals only) with just 3 min to 2 stocks. Floaties, ICs vs DK, puff vs anyone not named fox, falco, ic and possibly shiek. More stages make that less of a problem though thoug that exact strategy can be prevented with a smart counterpickchoice. Also, post count:

 

[Cactuar]

The proposed rule around that was actually directed towards Fox in particular:

A player may not switch to Fox on their own counterpick. If they choose to switch to Fox, they forfeit the stage selection to the other player.

Fox is, quite simply, ridiculously good with so many stages on. He doesn't require a secondary. He still suffers from having less than good matchups on many of those stages in specific matchups, but for general utility, he is number 1. Allowing a player both stage counterpick, and then character counterpick, opens up the ability for players to do things like the Hyrule circle run if they so choose. Removing their ability to choose Fox after seeing what character their opponent would select on such a stage hopefully nulls this.

That is, if we even made stages like that legal. It seems odd to have such a rule directed at a single character, but the rule does not harm Fox mains, while preventing a gamebreaking tactic.


Also: Nice post count! This day shall not be forgotten... in the next few minutes.

"Exhausting" a character out of your arsenal by switching away from them is actually a very interesting idea. This would make the series of counterpicks much more strategic, as you could attempt to force your opponent off their first character into another one of their strong characters, and then pick a stage that character is weak on afterwards, or in response to their own change in character for a specific stage/character combo. Nice man.

 

[trahhSTEEZY]

I get that time-outs are a fair and legit strategy, but do we really want to make it an encouraged strategy? If we are interested in the FGC caring about us(or any non-smasher for that matter), time-outs are not the way. If you guys watch marvel at all, you'll see a large majority of the fanbase don't enjoy watching dieminion at all (a top level time-out player who wins alot of tournaments with laming people out)

i agree with you that camping/keepaway is a skill that i myself can easily respect, but i wouldn't ENCOURAGE the idea with such a low timer ever. I haven't fully read the rest of the topic, and i know you said this is just something you want people to try, but just giving input anyways. so i apologize if you addressed this.

 

[Cactuar]

I think you guys really blow the timeout thing out of proportion. It is a legit strategy, but you act like it will happen every game. It won't unless both players are defensive, and defensive throughout the entire match as a strategy, such as Armada and Hbox.

3 minutes sounds short only because you are used to the 7-8 minute timer. It is a large amount of time with 2 stock, and it can be increased if people feel the need. Or players could agree not to play with a timer. Don't forget the power of gentleman's agreement.