Ruleset Changes and Stream Discussion

[mixa]

I'm sure it depends a bit on the host, venue time, etc.

Yeah, I know it's besides the point, but I'm yet to see one that isn't bo1. At the last major one they didn't even do the 3rd place match for whatever reason.

 

[Fireblaster]

3-4)

1. Definitely don't think matches finishing on time is the only issue. Having fun tournaments that don't encourage people running away or running out the clock is also very important to me and likely many others. But for now lets just say for the sake of argument that we only care about matches finishing on time.

Most SSB64 matches do not take 8 minutes long, If you believe that simply having the timer there will actually make people want to run away in such a volatile game as this and that it'll be effective on non-broken stages, then you're saying this game is broken. Every single competitive fighting game game ever has a time limit and this game should be no different. We cannot be completely selfish as to say "we don't need a timer".

1. 5 stock matches are longer, on average, than 4 stock matches. How can you claim that switching to 4 stock matches doesn't "address the actual issue of matches finishing on time"?
2. Hyrule matches are longer, on average, than non-Hyrule matches. How can you claim that banning Hyrule doesn't "address the actual issue of matches finishing on time"?
3. I strongly believe that switching to an 8 minute timer would encourage more patient/campy/defensive play. 8 minutes is 4 minutes longer than the current average match length! Yes, maybe an 8 minute timer would cut down on the incredibly rare matches that are longer than 8 minutes, but this progress would be more than lost by priming people with the thought that they have 8 minutes to finish their match, thus increasing the time for games that would only take 4 minutes with no timer.

1) You could still end up with a kirby mirror match or something to that sort. Or you could end up with two players with M2K's playstyle. And since both players know they only have 4 stocks, they already played much more conservatively from the beginning. 4 stocks is objectively going to result in shorter matches yes, but it still doesn't guarantee that matches will finish under 8 minutes.
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxQ3-PDlIx4
3) This argument is moot as people have already played incredibly defensively and with great spacing to the point of running the match beyond 8 minutes, so to argue that "more poeple might completely change their playstyles to run away" is pointless. Matches will run longer than 8 minutes if not held back by a timer.

5-6)

1. Under this scenario how many ****ty tournaments do we have to sit through where everyone runs away on Hyrule until the clock is banned? I think even one is too many. Lets just ban Hyrule and ban the clock right now and get this over with (I agree with clubba's point that if you're going to make Hyrule a CP you might as well ban it). If we (i) ban Hyrule and (ii) run tournaments more effeciently, then we won't have to worry about time and tournaments will be much more fun. In short, Hyrule detracts much more than it adds to the tournament scene.

tl;dr: If you want shorter, more fun matches ban Hyrule and ban the clock. Might even get some more cool Japanese players to come.

In the FGC, they generally follow a very specific rule: Until something shows to be completely dominant and have no counter and therefore simplifies the metagame heavily, there is no reason to ban it and the community should let it rock. Just one tournament where hyrule is abused to its full extent is necessary evidence for hyrule not being allowed anymore. There is no point in "banning the clock" alongside hyrule because as I said before, banning hyrule alone does not address the issue behind matches running on time.

 

[Nintendude]

Hey Chibo, glad to see you posting here. I've been a big proponent of 4-stocks and that's going to be a rule in all of my tournaments going forward. Hyrule legality definitely should be looked at. I decided to keep it legal after a poll of back room members showed that the majority wanted the status quo. I do like chain-ace's ruleset where Dreamland is the 1st stage and Hyrule is a counterpick. I might start using that more.

 

[bloodpeach]

1. Most SSB64 matches do not take 8 minutes long, If you believe that simply having the timer there will actually make people want to run away in such a volatile game as this and that it'll be effective on non-broken stages, then you're saying this game is broken. Every single competitive fighting game game ever has a time limit and this game should be no different. We cannot be completely selfish as to say "we don't need a timer".

Timeout is currently not a viable strategy (cuz theres not timer...)
When a timer is instituted, timeout becomes signficantly more viable (infinity% increase!)
If a ruleset change makes a strategy more viable, more people will use this strategy.

It's a profoundly simple argument and I don't see anything that suggests the game is broken in it...

You dont even have to leave this thread to find evidence of this: clubba currently doesn't play keep away but said he would pretty much only play that style on hyrule if a timer is instituted. This is an extreme case as hyrule will inevitably be banned if a timer is instituted, but its foolish to think that no one will ever go for a timeout win on DL or Congo. If any single person ever goes for a timeout when previously they wouldn't have, the average length of matches will likely increase.

 

[Warrior of Zarona]

If most matches end in 5 minutes... why not institute a 5 minute timer instead?

 

[bloodpeach]

For the same reason melee and brawl don't.

 

[mixa]

^ cuz most matches don't end in 5 minutes

 

[Yobolight]

^^

Because we don't want a metagame that revolves around stall tactics and timing people out.

 

[clubbadubba]

I don't see timeouts being an effective strategy on DL, congo, or peaches.

So I kinda tried my experiment against sheer last night. The initial idea was to do 99 stock matches on hyrule with my pika/fox vs his ness/yoshi, and see how many times he could kill me. This would provide an indicator of how much of a lead would be necessary to guarantee a win from timeout. He didn't exactly understand the point of it or was messing with me, so we did 5 stock matches instead. The only one we did was on pika/yoshi. In 8 minutes, he killed me 3 times and I killed him once. One of my deaths came in the first like 30 seconds because I messed up an up-b, which I'm confident would not happen on console. Nor did I by any means perfect the stalling tactics, though, to be fair, he didn't perfect the chasing tactics either. Based on just that one match (which is a small sample size obviously), if you count the 1st KO I was able to survive 2-3 minutes per stock lead. If you only look at the final 7.5 minutes of the game, I lived for 3.75 minutes per stock. That's almost half of the suggested timer for one stock, and it wasn't hard. I'm conviced that for ness it would have been much, much easier.

Sheer thought this would be just as doable on DL, so we tried a few matches there as well with his fox/pikachu trying to time out my luigi. Both matches finished, my luigi won vs pika and lost vs fox. There were times vs fox where he could easily have killed me as well but used other moves to extend the time. Even with that, the match still finished with both of us going down to the last stock. The biggest difference between trying to stall on DL vs hyrule was that on dreamland it seemed that no matter what a confrontation would occur. On hyrule you could easily go minutes at a time without a single hit occurring. That is a pretty undesirable possible outcome that the combination of hyrule/timer creates.

 

[Sensei]

Clubba, what were stalling tactics with pika? How many times did you use quick attack within a given time, where was the change in position, etc.?

 

[KnitePhox]

yo if its able to happen via some hardcore gamesharking/rom address finding + edits...

would it be tournament acceptable to use rom patched carts?

mite be able to do lots of stuff cuz i know for sure i can backup and restore game roms to and from an actual 64 cart and hard drive via gameshark + windows 98 w/parallel port

LOL the idea....

**** , so many guides to make... : (

 

[clubbadubba]

One of the major problems with allowing gameshark stages is that no one ever gets to play on them on console except for a select few people who would be at an advantage in tournaments.

 

[Han Solo]

I don't think knitephox was talking about gameshark stages. I think you can actually do things like have an in-game timer on a stock match.