Smashacre - Gluttony - 64/Melee/Brawl! - August 10th, 2013

[KoRoBeNiKi]

Thanks to everybody for coming out! Results will be posted soon!

BTW, M2K would not enter 64 Singles if I played pika against him.

For the community, go pikachu lolll

 

[SheerMadness]

Sounds like Sensei wanted m2k to join for some weird reason.

So you guys have him to blame.

 

[mixa]

I don't see a problem with M2K entering. It's actually really good that he did.

 

[Sedda]

Yeah I enjoyed his games on stream, but apparently his other sets were super long. I thought it was cool that he played anyway

 

[B Link]

- That was a little too much bias against M2K (That said, thank goodness we have SENSEI lol)
- It seems like people were pressured by that time limit
- Nice yoshi fireblaster

Also, if M2K goes to the Montreal tourney, then 1) I would be more inclined to go & 2) He should play Revan lol

 

[Cobrevolution]

okay so here goes this sans numbered shoutouts, also gonna be brief

this was a really fun tournament. i loved commentating as usual and i really thought it was great that two 10 year olds play this ****ing game.

so i've said before that it'd be great if more melee/brawl players joined and played. however, if they're like m2k and vex, i retract my statement. i'm sorry but a 35min hyrule winners round 3 set (or w/e) is just unacceptable and the stalling rule SHOULD have been employed. there should not have been a timer placed on the stranded/m2k match. it should not have become 4stock bo3. enforce this stalling rule, please.

the pause issue: for those of you who aren't aware of it, m2k holds the controller weird. like a clawhand thingy. so when he does attacks, his fingers drift across the start button. at the end of his game 2 vs han solo, he paused. when he unpaused, his fsmash came out and killed solo, who was chasing him on the left dL plat. immediately everyone said, that's two stocks. because as the rule stands, a pause is a stock, and if the opponent loses a life, it's two stocks. that would have put solo and m2k to a tied 1-1 set.
m2k's argument was that the move was already happening or that he buffered it or something, and others said solo was dead regardless. this lead to a redo of the game, which ultimately put m2k into loser's finals. i personally feel that it should have been 1-1, irrespective of those other issues. the rules are clear: pause, it's a stock. if the pause causes a stock, it's two stocks. there are no exceptions written, therefore there should be no exceptions forced.

the raffle: let's just say, i hope i don't get screwed out of my prize :D

the timer/4 stocks: stranded/m2k had a timer placed on their game after excessive stalling. no one else did. it wasn't there for jimmyjoe's game. decisions had to be made on the fly, though, and i guess for sake of time they worked out, but jesus.

i firmly believe it is not the stage's fault, it is the player's. if we examine all hyrule sets from this tournament and see the times spent there compared to the time m2k spent there, i think that's reason enough.

shoutouts to uncle lou. i had to play fireblaster 2nd round after a bye, then rapture, then han solo. so i'm like, second to last. probably 17th. wungh.

1. sensei: thanks for hosting 64 this time. did you randomize this bracket? most difficult i've ever experienced. yet fun.
2. m2k: i mean, you took a game off sensei, like steve said. that's not easy. good work.
3. fireblaster: great job. you did extremely well and i'm glad you decided to come. dunno why i went falcon that last match. woof.
4. solo: you've only broken my shield once. GOOD LUCK GETTING IT TO HAPPEN AGAIN.
5. maliki: this is a really impressive placing for you. you played great all weekend. you deserve it.
5. stranded: you don't. well maybe.
82: weedwack: you and nick left early i think, i couldn't find you ****s anywhere. stick to your guns meng, i keep saying it. ness all the way.
b. steve: that adapter though. thanks for housing us. shame you didn't like the black and orange. hopefully there's another tourney before apex. this was a fun two days.
horse. breakthrough/bloodpeach/shears: nice that you guys drove over. and really, i appreciate the extra recording setup. we have so much ****ing footage it's unbelievable.
broseph. jimmyjoe: COMMENTARYYYYYYYYYYYY. i can't imagine how exhausting the m2k match was. glad you stayed, can't wait to watch you/solo do grand finals.
newengland. smokey/jigglypuff from new hampshire: good to see you two. hope you enjoyed yourselves
ceasar. ceasar: i can't believe we played like all ****ing night jesus.
417. kerokeroppi: way to be in italy and not show up, nerd
clubba doesn't get a shoutout cuz he dipped from singles for a girl

i probably forgot people. it was great seeing everyone. lots of fun.

 

[Nintendude]

So can someone summarize the drama? I was at Otakon and couldn't watch the stream.

 

[Sensei]

It is unfortunate that these events happen due to the game's limitations to disable pausing and apply a timer to stock matches. There were a couple pause incidents. There was one in GF for 64 doubles and loser's semis for 64 singles.

GF 64 Doubles included Me and Ceaser vs Clubbadubba and Han Solo. There was a point in our match where I died first and Ceaser still had two stocks left. Due to my impulsiveness to try and to get back into the game ASAP to assist my partner by taking his stock, I did not realize there was a few seconds of delay after you die where you are allowed to take your partner's stock without pausing. I accidentally paused once in attempt to take a stock. I unpaused and pressed start again to take the stock. Since I paused when I was already dead and then take my partner's stock, which player should forfeit the stock? Since I was already dead when I paused, should Ceaser be the one to forfeit his stock? And in the situation where I unpause and then take the stock, who should forfeit now? These situations need to made clear in teams as this is the first that has happened. We ended up redoing the match 1v1 with Ceaser and Clubbadubba with around the same percent.

The M2K vs Han Solo incident in loser's semis was interesting. We even had to use instant replay on Han Solo's recording setup to review it. Han solo had 1 stock left and I believe M2K had 2 stocks. It was on Dreamland and M2K's Kirby was on the left platform about to preform a forward smash while Han Solo's fox was jumping towards him. Han Solo was in mid flight heading towards when M2K accidentally paused. M2K unpaused and Kirby's forward smash hits Han Solo and KOs him. There was a lot of conservatory over this as Han Solo said the pause automatically causes M2K to lose a stock and since it caused him to die, M2K should lose 2 stocks thus allowing Han Solo to win that match. M2K's argument was that he already committed to the jump and he didn't cause him to lost a stock. Below are the additional rules for 64 that explain it, it's #3.

Additional Rules
1. Any stage may be played on if both players agree to it.
2. Alternate or custom controllers/adapters such as a keyboard, Gamecube controller or a Hori Mini Pad are allowed. Players suspected of using turbo functions or other macros are subject to immediate disqualification from the tournament.
3. If a player pauses the game, the opponent may deem that player’s current stock forfeit unless there was a legitimate reason to pause in between stocks. If the pause causes the opponent to lose their stock, the pauser loses two stocks.
4. Extreme stalling is disallowed. Any reported case of such will result in a warning, followed by automatic forfeit of the match as per the discretion of the TO. If there is no movement from either player, the losing player is considered to be stalling.

Looking back on it now, the pause didn't really cause Han Solo to lose a stock as he was already in the air about to get forward smashed. We couldn't come to a decisive call on the spot so they ended up doing a redo of that match. I might have to rewatch the video to finalize my decision, but as it stands, Han Solo lost that match because it didn't cause him to lose a stock and M2K still had two stocks left, thus the pausing would only have forfeited one stock of M2K.

 

[killa k]

This is why I removed my start button.

 

[Han Solo]

First off, let me just say that I don't have anything against mew2king. He wooped me fair and square.

Secondly, the pause thing in my set is a gray area. Mew2king input the buttons for an fsmash and immediately paused. All the while, I'm in the air going for a bair (I think) about to get hit. So, when does his stock become forfeit? Immediately when he presses start or after the fsmash is over?

 

[Karajan]

1) Sensei: Stop TOing cause you get less friendlies in. You better post the bracket somewhere, I only saw you play M2K and Fireblaster.
2) M2K.You are quite a character. Get your own damn controller.
3) Fireblaster: Good thing you did this good it would suck if you quit playing 64
5) Han Solo: Thanks for driving
5) Stranded: We were at your house and you didn't even introduce han to your sister wtf
The rest gets done when i see the bracket

 

[KoRoBeNiKi]

^^ Shoutouts to this guy for bringing along a keyboard

Something else meaningful for now.

 

[clubbadubba]

I didn't see any of the singles matches, but I'm confused about this stranded m2k timer thing. Shouldn't whoever was losing between the 2 of them just get called for stalling and have to forfeit a stock?

 

[Cobrevolution]

apparently it's much easier to just introduce a timer, reduce stock count, and reduce set length (none of which is included in the ruleset) instead of enforcing the stalling rule (which is included in the ruleset).

 

[Olikus]

apparently it's much easier to just introduce a timer, reduce stock count, and reduce set length (none of which is included in the ruleset) instead of enforcing the stalling rule (which is included in the ruleset).

Why ruining a good ruleset, with including timer and few stocks in a one hit leading to a kill game, just because a few people stall?

Its much better to start use The stalling rule more stricht than make The rules worse for everyone Else.

 

[Yobolight]

Stalling rule is too vague IMO. Timer and reduced stocks would be more fun IMO.

The truth is that some players just have a campy style.

If their style of play breaks the current rule-set, then the rule-set is flawed.

 

[clubbadubba]

^I like that for the last 2 lines. If a rule-set is breakable, its a bad rule-set. Its not the players fault for exploiting a bad rule-set. Rules either need to be changed, or we could just, ya know, enforce the current rule-set.

Not so sure that a timer would be more fun, because then people would start actively trying to time people out. If a timer existed, hyrule would absolutely have to be banned. In the current rules you gain nothing from running away as long as the opponent gives chase. If we added a timer, you actually gain something by running away, and there are too many flight patterns and too many match-ups that all of a sudden become pretty much unwinnable when coming from behind. I mean Ness vs anyone? Camp the top platform, escape to the top of the tent when ness approaches, repeat. Would be a ridiculous stage with the run away option available as a viable tactic.

So they actually changed it to 4 STOCK without any prior reference in the rules? That should not have happened.

On a lighter note, people might want to know that late Friday night/early Saturday morning Stranded tried to claim to me and Fireblaster that he was Smasherx74x. When we told him he was too young, he said "Smasher has only been around since 2012." We laughed so hard at his youthful ignorance.

 

[Han Solo]

Stranded vs M2K was still 5 stocks. They only changed to 4 stocks for top 3 due to time restrictions on the venue.

 

[clubbadubba]

Oh yea btw we were a pretty PRO team han. I enjoyed our dispatching of m2k and vex as well as our dousing of smokey and his source of life fireblaster, but I must say the most enjoyable set of the day was thrashing those little kids and having them scream in agony as we shryokened and rested them over and over again with each kill taking a bite out of their lifelong dreams.

lol when we were both luigi the luigi player screamed "I HATE THAT MOVE" (up-b of course), and his brother yelled out "YOU SHOULD BE USING THAT MOVE!" It made me laugh because it reminds me of a lot of discussions that are had here about rules and play styles and stuff.

 

[Olikus]

only saw WF, LF and GF and none of them had extreme stalling and gamebreaking stuff. Its not like we should aim for 30 seconds matchers. Theres a huge different between defensive spacing and stalling. Not approach every second like a headless chicken is not the same as stalling. I havent watches stranded vs M2k. But thats like 1 match out of a whole tourney. And if 5 stock no timer works for all the other matches except 1, thats no point in changing it. Cus then the rest would be worse. 4 stocks is very often too low.

But I finnally see what East coast has planned for the last years. They play prettu much DL only. Pretty much only pika and some falcon and kirby. Starting to reduce stock in a 02death game. And try to ban hyrule and putting on a timer. Best of 3 instead of beast of 5 for pretty much all the bracket. Its pretty obvious that the next of ninrtendudes crazy suggestions will be single eliminination.

I cant believe i was the first to notice that nintendude is actually a samurai who wants america to use the japanese ruleset.

 

[Yobolight]

Olikus have you ever played a console tourney in your life? Why is this relevant to you?

I think the Japanese ruleset is rather forward looking and possibly even the natural evolution for competitive Smash 64.

They have been running high level/ high turnout console tournaments for way longer than the US.

 

[Olikus]

im talking about the ruleset in general, and yes ive been to several tourneys on console, both europe and japan but thats not the point. But seeing now that you addmitting you like the japanese tourney ruleset just makes my point even clearer.

 

[clubbadubba]

Japanese rule-set is perfectly fine except for bo1 and character lock

 

[Olikus]

even if it was( and IM not saying it is) bo1 and caracther lock is such big negativities that it sucks for that only. But again good to see another player backing up my suspiciousness.

 

[Cobrevolution]

Stalling rule is too vague IMO. Timer and reduced stocks would be more fun IMO.

stalling rule is fairly easy to enforce if you see how m2k plays. use that as a good frame of reference. and i've argued before that less stocks lead to more camping. and a timer is just wack cuz it's not in the game and you can't use it quite as accurately as you would be able to.

Its not the players fault for exploiting a bad rule-set.

uh

yeah it is haha. it's your choice to exploit something, is it not? and the ruleset has worked for how long?

But I finnally see what East coast has planned for the last years. They play prettu much DL only. Pretty much only pika and some falcon and kirby. Starting to reduce stock in a 02death game. And try to ban hyrule and putting on a timer. Best of 3 instead of beast of 5 for pretty much all the bracket. Its pretty obvious that the next of ninrtendudes crazy suggestions will be single eliminination.

I cant believe i was the first to notice that nintendude is actually a samurai who wants america to use the japanese ruleset.

hey now, don't generalize. just cuz nintendude reduced it to 4 stocks doesn't mean we all agree with him. this tourney had a timer on hyrule and a stock reduction cuz of time constraints, which were completely due to m2k's stalling.


character lock...i dunno. i'm not a counterpicking kind of player. i think it'd remove some diversity but maybe increase fairness. shrug.

 

[Sensei]

One of the original time limits that was in the ruleset for previous tournaments was 10 minutes for 5 stocks. This was back a few years ago when I ran monthly tournaments. However, theoretically it seemed difficult to enforce back then since there would need to be a timer set for every game, which seemed impractical, so it evolved to just enforce the "No Extreme Stalling" rule at the TO's discretion and do away with a timer. This rule was never actually tested to the extreme until recent events for certain players' styles (not necessarily stalling but campy). Since both players are not stalling but are making an effort to approach and attacking while maintaining good spacing, then this can result with both players not making contact for a while or trading hits or begin a combo that will either result in death or reset the player's back to the approaching position. This always carries the possibility of long matches when both players have good spacing.

Nobody was stalling on the long matches I saw at Smashacre, such as M2K vs Stranded or M2K vs Jimmy Joe. Just good spacing on both or lack of zero to death combos. The original 10 minute time limit for 5 stocks gives a margin of 2 minutes for each of the players' stocks. This should be more than enough time for 95% of matches. If you take a look at mixa's thread, the average match time is much less than that. As the rule stands, there is no time limit, which means some matches always carry the possibility of never ending !! (of course, theoretically, but still possible!) When matches reach a certain point, the winner should be determined by decision (i.e. remaining stock count and percentage, not TO's decision). This is analogous to a boxing or MMA fight with rounds and timers. The fighter can always knock out the other fighter and win before the bell. However, both fighters could be endlessly be beating each other to death or exhaustion until the bell rings, the rounds are over and a decision is made based on points for hits, knockdowns, etc. Otherwise, the fight could be never ending and boring.

I'm not implying we should use 4 stocks 8 minute time limit yet or ban Hyrule as we still have yet to fully test the 5 stock 10 minute time limit, but it should strongly be considered for large scale tournaments. As it stands though, SSB is the only game in the Smash Tournament Scene with a 10 minute time limit whereas SSBM, SSBB, and PM have 8 minute time limits. It would seem selfish for us to demand more time for our matches and take up more resources from a tournament where players are participating in multiple Smash games. We shouldn't rely on players to request for a timer before a match starts because by then, it will be too late, the match already has a possibility to overrun the time limit. The timer should be strictly enforced either by the TO's stopwatch or one of the player's stopwatch (most people have a smartphone with this function).

Please note that the main reasons we changed the ruleset towards the end of Smashacre (Loser's Finals and Grand Finals) is because the venue was going to shutdown in 25 min and Melee Finals have yet to be played and they were waiting for M2K to play for that and be on stream (there was only one streaming setup). Melee Finals didn't even finish. I am partly to blame for this as I planned to start SSB Singles around 1pm but it ended up starting around 5pm once SSB Doubles ended (I had a lot on my mind as being TO and entering in 4 Smash events). This of course is no excuse and I will make the necessary changes to make things run smoothly.

 

[Nintendude]

I think a clause should be added that states something along the lines of:

A player may non-disruptively pause the game to call over a judge to enforce the stalling rule. Of course "non-disruptively pause" can open up a big can of worms but it's something to think about. During most stalling / camping situations it should be pretty obvious what constitutes a non-disruptive pause.

 

[clubbadubba]

uh

yeah it is haha. it's your choice to exploit something, is it not? and the ruleset has worked for how long?

No it absolutely is not and that is the problem with what you're saying. I'll give you some basketball examples since I love them.

A long time ago they used to allow goal-tending. Then along came some guy called George Mikan. He was tall, and he was able to goaltend pretty much anything as long as he was near the bucket. Mikan was allowed to goal tend, so he did, and there is no reason he shouldn't have and no one has any grounds to say he is playing unfairly since he is only following the rules. The league decided to CHANGE the rule-set because it had shown that it could be broken.

Another example, also related to Mikan, is the invention of the shot clock. Because Mikan was so dominant in his era, one team decided the only way to beat his team was to stall. So stall they did, and won something like 20-16 in a full length basketball game. I'm sure people booed the stalling team, but they had every right to do what they did as that is what the rules allow. So the league created the shot clock.

In both cases the league didn't simply ask the teams to stop abusing the loophole in the rules, nor did it ignore the fact that the loophole existed simply because it was only one person goal-tending consistently or one team stalling consistently, it actually changed the ****ing rule-set. It didn't say "well the ruleset has worked for X amount of years, therefore it is infallible and never needs to change and anyone who is finding loophole's just needs to stop it!", it just changed the rules. Its that simple.

Not saying anything specific about the rule-set, just commenting on this incorrect idea that people should place rules on themselves that go above and beyond what the actual rules of the tournament are because that just isn't the way the world works.

 

[Cobrevolution]

shrug. i don't think mikan's a good analogy. there was no rule to prevent him from doing what he did. i get that they instituted it afterwards to prevent it from happening in the future and therefore fixed something that was wrong with the rules.

but here, we already have a rule that is supposed to prevent people from stalling, and it was not enforced. m2k chose to exploit its vagueness and nobody did anything about it.

i think our ruleset works fine. ya'll realize we had two instances of scrutiny involving this ****ing kid, right? with the pause incident and the stalling thing? both of which HAVE RULES and were not enforced as they should have been.

bah. whatever.

 

[Nintendude]

On the m2k pausing incident - it sounds like m2k f-smashed and then paused after the f-smash connected. m2k should have lost 1 stock for that.

 

[Sensei]

I think a clause should be added that states something along the lines of:

A player may non-disruptively pause the game to call over a judge to enforce the stalling rule. Of course "non-disruptively pause" can open up a big can of worms but it's something to think about. During most stalling / camping situations it should be pretty obvious what constitutes a non-disruptive pause.

This rule does open a can of worms. Since any sort of pausing can stop momentum or throw both players off. When one player sees a possible opening to attack or has a strategy in place and is about to implement based on his opponent's patterns, then all of a sudden a player pauses, which can "disrupt" the players' train of thought. Pausing by nature can be considered disruptive. The only way this could work if both players agree to pause once they are on opposite side of the stage, not just pausing at one of the player's discretion. However, the best way to solve this is to just implement the timer at the start of the match because at that point the players could have long been over the time limit and causing the tournament unnecessary delay.

 

[Cobrevolution]

On the m2k pausing incident - it sounds like m2k f-smashed and then paused after the f-smash connected. m2k should have lost 1 stock for that.

no

m2k was on left dL plat, solo went for a bair, m2k paused. we were like oh that's a stock. then he unpaused and his fsmash came out and solo died and we were like, oh that's two stocks, solo gets the game. instead, it was ruled to be a redo of the game.

 

[clubbadubba]

I think their should be a rule that you can't win off of your own pause. For example, say I was up 3 stocks to 1 on sensei in pika dittos. I get him off stage, and as he's trying to recover I pause at just the right moment so that he only does a single up-b and thus doesn't make it back to the stage. I lost one stock for pausing, and one for killing sensei, but I have one stock remaining and sensei has none. I won by purposefully pausing and messing up his recovery. Not cool. Maybe if you die from a pause you should get the option to either take an additional stock from your opponent, or get your last stock back at either 0% or the percentage you were at before you died. I would vote 0% because pausing is ****ed up.

 

[thegreginator]

I've always thought it was dumb how the stalling rule is never enforced but I guess it's just too much of a grey area between playing campy and stalling.

Never thought I'd actually say this, but I think I am officially in the "ban Hyrule" camp now.

 

[Nintendude]

no

m2k was on left dL plat, solo went for a bair, m2k paused. we were like oh that's a stock. then he unpaused and his fsmash came out and solo died and we were like, oh that's two stocks, solo gets the game. instead, it was ruled to be a redo of the game.

I'd need to see the replay to make a proper call on that.
clubba that's a good point that I hadn't thought of before.

 

[Warrior of Zarona]

Hey guys,

I want to officially apologize about changing the rulesets on you for the finals matches, especially since, if you've read my results thread rant, we didn't NEED to leave at midnight - some bar patrons were messing around with us and throwing threats at my face that ended up being nothing more than a bluff. However, I'm more upset at the fact that the patrons also shut off our WiFi a couple of times during the event, one of which occurred exactly at midnight, and it explains why we lost the stream for the final stock. I'm sorry for those who were watching the stream but didn't get a chance to see what happened. The issue is being resolved where the bar patrons are not allowed to bother us again. Again, so sorry for any inconvenience. I had a great time speaking to a lot of you guys and watching your games, and I hope I get to see more of you in our future events. Thanks!

- WoZ

 

[Sedda]

I don't think the stalling rule is a grey area if those M2K sets were as long as you guys claim. What's the problem with just enforcing the rule? No explanation has been offered, and you keep on getting around the question by offering analogies and stuff.
If so many of you complained about M2K's long sets, that should be a good indicative that the rule should've been enforced. If anything, this tournament serves as a good precedent for the rule due to the extreme stalling/camping, so just keep an eye out next tourney and address it directly to see how things work out.
And please don't ban Hyrule because of this tourney. Apparently M2K's games on Dreamland (the ones that weren't streamed) were super long too, so I don't see how that could be a good solution.

 

[Sensei]

This is the last post I'll make about this for a while until I speak with the other TOs about this.

I did not see any obvious stalling in the SSB matches, just campy play styles from BOTH players. Stalling is consistently avoiding your opponent without making any effort to approach, which I did not see from anybody. Unfortunately, there is some bias agaisnt M2K since he has a "gay", campy play style with Kirby, similar to the jigglypuff Melee player, Hungrybox. Since M2K has this play style and has good spacing and knows how to punish and edgeguard effectively, this forces his opponents to play similarly as any mistake could mean a stock. This is similar to my pika dittos with Kefit.

 

[Olikus]

hey now, don't generalize. just cuz nintendude reduced it to 4 stocks doesn't mean we all agree with him. this tourney had a timer on hyrule and a stock reduction cuz of time constraints, which were completely due to m2k's stalling.

Good to see people stepping up. I dont really like the way nintendude is taking the ruleset, so nice to see someone from the area state theyr opinions.

This is the last post I'll make about this for a while until I speak with the other TOs about this.

I did not see any obvious stalling in the SSB matches, just campy play styles from BOTH players. Stalling is consistently avoiding your opponent without making any effort to approach, which I did not see from anybody. Unfortunately, there is some bias agaisnt M2K since he has a "gay", campy play style with Kirby, similar to the jigglypuff Melee player, Hungrybox. Since M2K has this play style and has good spacing and knows how to punish and edgeguard effectively, this forces his opponents to play similarly as any mistake could mean a stock. This is similar to my pika dittos with Kefit.

I agree allot with this. As i mentioned, I didnt watch the stranded M2K games, but the ones I saw, M2K played very well and nice baiting and spacing. Defensive yes, but not stalling at all.

 

[Sedda]

As I said before, I enjoyed M2K's sets on stream. He was as efficient off the stage in 64 as he is in Melee, and it was super fun to see him play. I was just saying that getting rid of certain stages wouldn't solve any problems that originate because of someone's playstyle. I didn't see any of his other sets, so I was referencing the people who were complaining here.