So with 20XX:TE coming out soon and it's "frozen mode" stages I got thinking about RNG.
The goal of competitive melee is to become perfect. A human can theoretically always execute frame perfectly and always take the best options in every situation. Realistically humans will always make errors and even players like Armada are very far from perfect. But the point is that if we ever mess up it's always our own imperfection that we have to blame,. The tools are always there for us to play perfectly and it's up to us to use those tools right. This is the beauty of competing and what improving in melee is all about. Except there is one thing that derails the strive towards perfection: RNG.
Through the entire course of competitive melee history, wispy, shy guys, non-neutral starts, PS transformations and other RNG based mechanics have changed the outcomes of thousands of matches. I might play better than my opponent but one of these random elements could give them just enough of an edge to win the match. In the vast majority of cases the better player wins, but there will always be times when a push from wispy or an extended hitbox from a shy guy makes the difference. This, in my opinion, is unacceptable. How can we as a community consider melee a serious competitive game if it is fundamentally unfair on some stages? As a competitive player how can I feel good about my wins and losses if RNG could have swayed the tide of the match?
I think many people have the mindset of "I don't care about RNG because it has virtually no affect on games." But something as small as hitting a shy guy has a sort of butterfly effect on the rest of a match. Let's say you're in neutral and a shy guy happens to come by as you throw out an aerial. The aerial connects and there are maybe 8 freeze frames. Your opponent is on the other side of Yoshi's when this happens so from your point of view the shy guy made no difference. But now every subsequent action you take will be 8 frames later than if the shy guy hadn't been RNG'd into existence. So you might start dash dancing but because of those 8 frames your opponent manages to clip you on your dash back when they wouldn't have before. Now your opponent has gotten a hit entirely because of RNG and the entire rest of the match is altered. This same butterfly effect happens with other RNG elements and even if it doesn't usually result in the match having a different victor it's still affecting the game in an unfair way. Pokemon Stadium transformations are an even bigger deal as you're basically hitting the random stage button but with the PS transformations instead of all the stages.
Imagine if wispy was the difference between you getting 2nd and 3rd at your local. Even worse, imagine Leffen winning Evo 2016 over Mango in a super close last match simply because of a few shy guys. This kind of stuff could happen and has happened many times without people knowing. The problem is RNG interference is pretty much impossible to measure unless it's something obvious like wispy causing an SD. So we can never really know exactly how much or how little RNG is playing a factor. The only real solution is to get rid of RNG, which will make Melee a better game for competitive play.
So to bring it back to my opening thought, 20XX:TE is on the right track to de-RNG melee but 1. the frozen stages and neutral start are not enough and not implemented as well as they could be and 2. no RNG should be tournament standard
I think the best way to treat random elements is to keep the base mechanics but remove the RNG. Instead of removing shy guys and wispy blowing altogether by freezing the stage, put them on a timer that players can learn, like with Randall. Additionally a warning marker of some kind could be added to tell people when these things will happen to make it easier. Also for PS you could make the stage transformation be on a set rotation. Project M does a good job of this type of thing with the Brawl Yoshi's Island stage where they made the side platforms come up at even intervals and have a shy guy to mark when they'll arrive. Mechanics people enjoy can be kept and added to the tools players have access to by removing their RNG aspects and unfair nature. We'll still see wispy shenanigans and cool shy guy hitbox extensions but now they'll be more of a product of good timing and positioning instead of RNG.
If Dan Salvato could make these types of changes and add them to 20XX:TE I think they could, and should, one day become standard. I mean if it comes down to a gentleman's agreement I can't imagine many people saying "yes, I do want random stuff that could screw one of us over" when given the choice. I know that regardless of what is added in the future I'm always going to ask for frozen stages. I'd rather have no mechanic at all than a mechanic that takes away from my opponent and I's skill.
As a final thought, stages aren't the only random element in the game and I think things like peach's turnips should be normalized as well, perhaps they could be on a rotation of some sort too. This is much more controversial though and I think changing characters is probably going too far and is a path melee shouldn't go down. However we now have the power to remove other elements of RNG in stages (I'm sure I'm missing some of them) and I think competitive melee would be better if we did.
If anyone actually reads all of this I'd like to know if any people out there have arguments for why RNG is a good thing and how it adds to competitive melee as I can't see any. Also I'm not an expert in how exactly these stage mechanics work and I've heard that things like wispy are actually semi-random, so if you have more precise information that'd be useful. Thanks.
The goal of competitive melee is to become perfect. A human can theoretically always execute frame perfectly and always take the best options in every situation. Realistically humans will always make errors and even players like Armada are very far from perfect. But the point is that if we ever mess up it's always our own imperfection that we have to blame,. The tools are always there for us to play perfectly and it's up to us to use those tools right. This is the beauty of competing and what improving in melee is all about. Except there is one thing that derails the strive towards perfection: RNG.
Through the entire course of competitive melee history, wispy, shy guys, non-neutral starts, PS transformations and other RNG based mechanics have changed the outcomes of thousands of matches. I might play better than my opponent but one of these random elements could give them just enough of an edge to win the match. In the vast majority of cases the better player wins, but there will always be times when a push from wispy or an extended hitbox from a shy guy makes the difference. This, in my opinion, is unacceptable. How can we as a community consider melee a serious competitive game if it is fundamentally unfair on some stages? As a competitive player how can I feel good about my wins and losses if RNG could have swayed the tide of the match?
I think many people have the mindset of "I don't care about RNG because it has virtually no affect on games." But something as small as hitting a shy guy has a sort of butterfly effect on the rest of a match. Let's say you're in neutral and a shy guy happens to come by as you throw out an aerial. The aerial connects and there are maybe 8 freeze frames. Your opponent is on the other side of Yoshi's when this happens so from your point of view the shy guy made no difference. But now every subsequent action you take will be 8 frames later than if the shy guy hadn't been RNG'd into existence. So you might start dash dancing but because of those 8 frames your opponent manages to clip you on your dash back when they wouldn't have before. Now your opponent has gotten a hit entirely because of RNG and the entire rest of the match is altered. This same butterfly effect happens with other RNG elements and even if it doesn't usually result in the match having a different victor it's still affecting the game in an unfair way. Pokemon Stadium transformations are an even bigger deal as you're basically hitting the random stage button but with the PS transformations instead of all the stages.
Imagine if wispy was the difference between you getting 2nd and 3rd at your local. Even worse, imagine Leffen winning Evo 2016 over Mango in a super close last match simply because of a few shy guys. This kind of stuff could happen and has happened many times without people knowing. The problem is RNG interference is pretty much impossible to measure unless it's something obvious like wispy causing an SD. So we can never really know exactly how much or how little RNG is playing a factor. The only real solution is to get rid of RNG, which will make Melee a better game for competitive play.
So to bring it back to my opening thought, 20XX:TE is on the right track to de-RNG melee but 1. the frozen stages and neutral start are not enough and not implemented as well as they could be and 2. no RNG should be tournament standard
I think the best way to treat random elements is to keep the base mechanics but remove the RNG. Instead of removing shy guys and wispy blowing altogether by freezing the stage, put them on a timer that players can learn, like with Randall. Additionally a warning marker of some kind could be added to tell people when these things will happen to make it easier. Also for PS you could make the stage transformation be on a set rotation. Project M does a good job of this type of thing with the Brawl Yoshi's Island stage where they made the side platforms come up at even intervals and have a shy guy to mark when they'll arrive. Mechanics people enjoy can be kept and added to the tools players have access to by removing their RNG aspects and unfair nature. We'll still see wispy shenanigans and cool shy guy hitbox extensions but now they'll be more of a product of good timing and positioning instead of RNG.
If Dan Salvato could make these types of changes and add them to 20XX:TE I think they could, and should, one day become standard. I mean if it comes down to a gentleman's agreement I can't imagine many people saying "yes, I do want random stuff that could screw one of us over" when given the choice. I know that regardless of what is added in the future I'm always going to ask for frozen stages. I'd rather have no mechanic at all than a mechanic that takes away from my opponent and I's skill.
As a final thought, stages aren't the only random element in the game and I think things like peach's turnips should be normalized as well, perhaps they could be on a rotation of some sort too. This is much more controversial though and I think changing characters is probably going too far and is a path melee shouldn't go down. However we now have the power to remove other elements of RNG in stages (I'm sure I'm missing some of them) and I think competitive melee would be better if we did.
If anyone actually reads all of this I'd like to know if any people out there have arguments for why RNG is a good thing and how it adds to competitive melee as I can't see any. Also I'm not an expert in how exactly these stage mechanics work and I've heard that things like wispy are actually semi-random, so if you have more precise information that'd be useful. Thanks.
