Standardized Ruleset Development Idea

[Ulevo]

Saying that just because a player is either really good or a tournament organizer doesn't mean they are the best at crafting rulesets is like saying that just because someone is a surgeon doesn't mean they're the most qualified to perform surgical procedures. It's all in the experience. It's what they do. They may not be perfect, but they're the most qualified and credible to refer to out of the player base.

 

[LiteralGrill]

What is the point of making your text so small? Don't do that. That isn't a footnote. This is not a board for ants.

This isn't me being indiscriminate. I was accurate in describing the target, so I was perfectly discriminate. Please do not select words indiscriminately just to incite. This next idea isn't meant to be inflammatory, but you should definitely consider the context: A lot of people are stuck in the mental dark ages. They will easily confuse an adherence to correctness and accuracy with condescension and pomp. Just because someone had their ego bruised doesn't mean that anyone treated them badly.

I... have no idea how the text was small. I never told it to be. Weird...

(Edit: I had to edit this post because it did it again, no idea if it's a bug or not, but it's annoying.)

But I can easily agree with you here, but you must concede that many times people have gone and go far beyond ego bruising into the point of treating badly. Not saying you did so, but words like ilk don't help either you must admit. Why not drop the intensity of language both possibly inflammatory and complexity? When you talk this way, more people are likely to feel as though they are being talked down upon whether that is the case or not and raises more chances of the scenario you mentioned happening.

Okay, it doesn't mean they are the best at crafting a rulset, but how is not being one of the best players the best grounds for qualification in crafting a ruleset? They each know the limitations of the characters in the game, especially the limitations that can't be pushed with skill. They know you can spend all day trying to get back on stage with Ness and it won't work against another good player. They know about hitbox data, windup, animation length, every single sweetspot under the sun, knockback, hitstun, hitlag, di opportunities, everything. They know every single part of the stage where they can kill what character at what % with what move. They the gold standard for whether or not something is broken in the game.

Your soldier promotion analogy completely falls apart in the face of the fact there isn't a higher level of play than two or four people fighting.

Why do you keep insisting these TOs are biased? Sure, they're not incapable of being biased, but in case you didn't know, these people love this game! They love this game so much they often run events at their own expense! The integrity of this game is very important to them. Only in a few cases do they actually make any money from events, and that might be if they own the venue and sell concessions or something.

Well, I guess I would ask if they're not incapable of being biased, why wouldn't I worry about a possible bias influencing decisions negatively? I know most would never intentionally make decisions that would negatively impact the integrity of the game, but even if this is done on accident it hurts the game. Having a standard to hold to like this edict would help avoid even those accidental biases.

Here may be an example, many times data has come forth that could suggest Final Destination is more of a counterpick stage because of how much it can skew matchups (a quality you do not want in a starter stage) and PS2 was found to possibly be one of the most neutral stages in the entire game never skewing matchups. One is banned and the other is a legal starter now minus a few countries where it is on their starter list and had been incredibly successful doing so. I've noticed a lot of top players don't like that stage combing over old stagelist discussions though admittedly the backroom's last stance on it admitted it could very well be a starter. Why isn't it being used as such then? Without them telling us specifically after they themselves said they could support that notion seems to be the bias of people not liking it. And we must both agree you shouldn't ban things just because you don't like it.

Saying that just because a player is either really good or a tournament organizer doesn't mean they are the best at crafting rulesets is like saying that just because someone is a surgeon doesn't mean they're the most qualified to perform surgical procedures. It's all in the experience. It's what they do. They may not be perfect, but they're the most qualified and credible to refer to out of the player base.

I won't question their credentials, but I'm questioning what the culture of only combining these people together might create, or at times the fact that people could be chosen with an incredible bias but because they have credentials they might be let in anyways. With the backroom lacking even a small bit of transparency (is there a list of backroom members even? That alone would be amazing for many people so they knew who was making decisions and could ask and have questions answered.) it's hard to know either way.

What if decisions they made did hold a bias towards what they only want, instead of the community as a whole, that would be bad and potentially hurt the entire community couldn't it? Even if it happens unintentionally, that's bad.

 

[[Corn]]

There are also examples of the complete contrary to what you're saying. Prior to EVO, top players in Injustice were clamouring to have Scorpion banned because they were worried he was going to ruin the tournament scene and people were going to leave.

Well he got nerfed from being MK tier to A tier in that game very shortly after the complaints arose. It was painfully obvious that the character was OP but people just wanted others to wait and "see what would develop".

 

[LiteralGrill]

Also, this maybe be old but take a look at what the thoughts about the backroom used to be, even from a previous member (who was in at the time): http://smashboards.com/threads/stage-information-database-and-q-a.295737/page-6

Unfortunately, a lot of people felt/still feel that way, and rarely does the backroom defend themselves in any way over it or show any sort of transparency.

Whether these thoughts are right or wrong about them, this thread in general should almost be required reading for people who make rulesets, including the links and threads in the OP. There is SO much stuff in there that should been seen and thought about.

And for those mentioning that the top players always make the best decisions, that thread will show you how they've ignored the people with the most data on stages that probably know more then many of us, and that TOs have and do ban "just because they don't like it".

My worries on bias may very well be justified.

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

However, leadership of the elite does not and should not preclude the participation of the masses. Socrates carries his bigger voice than the village idiot because the whole village is listening to both of them, and they know who bears logic and who is indeed an idiot.

I don't think the governing body of the ruleset should be any less elite, but I do think that the need to be esoteric is unnecessary. If we do expand the governing body, it should only reach as far as people who have actually been to tournaments. Minor referendums and opinion polls such as "What would you like to see?" to the yet larger SmashBoards community to gather information to deliberate on are not out of the question.

 

[LiteralGrill]

I don't think the governing body of the ruleset should be any less elite, but I do think that the need to be esoteric is unnecessary. If we do expand the governing body, it should only reach as far as people who have actually been to tournaments. Minor referendums and opinion polls such as "What would you like to see?" to the yet larger SmashBoards community to gather information to deliberate on are not out of the question.

That would be great to see as long as we're careful about what the community says. Unlike top players or TOs random people are more likely to vote for what they want as they wont be held under as much scrutiny. I had a stagelist vote for PSAS that I had to throw out because people were on purpose picking terrible stages just because they could use that brokenness to win. Gotta have a level head about public polls.

Perhaps, you could have seats like some political systems. The top TOs vote 2 people to represent them, the stage list guros 2, top players 2, community as a whole 3 (want an odd number and this lets the community feel more involved) and let them vote. It represents all groups and doesn't ignore a segment of the community. You could even have one seat be for more conservative players and one for more liberal. Don't let people surround themselves by yes men, and allow revotes every year. Each reps would go to those who they represent to get opinions and present them for debate between them all.

 

[Jaedrik]

I say that Tournament Organizers should not be ousted in any way because they choose a different ruleset than some 'official' one.
I have the perfect solution. Do nothing.
Let Tournament Organizers choose the rules, the tournaments that have the most participants and favorable accounts will likely be followed in suit by other Tournament Organizers. This is not to say that we, as a community, cannot come up with a favorable ruleset without experimentation, but I would much rather the stream monsters/free market/the people decide rather than potentially disastrous self-regulation and standardization. But this is neither a form of populism, thankfully, if suddenly some new and innovative ruleset comes along it will not so easily be passed up. Though it is unlikely, it is not impossible, and it will happen quicker in cases where it is practical (four to three stocks, ledge grab limit to no ledge grab limit.) That is also not to say we haven't succeeded in the past with our rulesets, I simply mean there would be more efficiency, and there would be a wider appeal, and there would be all these other things, even in the limited scope of this game called Smash Bros.

 

[Dr. James Rustles]

Perhaps, you could have seats like some political systems. The top TOs vote 2 people to represent them, the stage list guros 2, top players 2, community as a whole 3 (want an odd number and this lets the community feel more involved) and let them vote. It represents all groups and doesn't ignore a segment of the community. You could even have one seat be for more conservative players and one for more liberal. Don't let people surround themselves by yes men, and allow revotes every year. Each reps would go to those who they represent to get opinions and present them for debate between them all.

There isn't really a need for a representative style, the nature of an internet forum allows for direct participation. The liberal and conservative group division is arbitrary; let them be considered by their appropriate voice size.

 

[LiteralGrill]

There isn't really a need for a representative style, the nature of an internet forum allows for direct participation. The liberal and conservative group division is arbitrary; let them be considered by their appropriate voice size.

Fair on the last part, but I think I might not be understanding the first part. Are you saying the whole community would always popular vote on anything, or that more people related to things other then just TOs and top players should be in the backroom? (Or something else entirely?)

 

[Jaedrik]

They should vote with attendance. Good TO and tourney rules = positive feedback and future attendance, marketing would hold they post their rulesets before a lot of people sign up, meh TO and tourney rules means denouncing of the bad experience, and more TOs will stay away from that and the internet warriors that destroy their rulesets.
Oh, but where should the theorycrafting go? I leave that up to the big shots, I just see whether I like it or not
Granted there is something different about a community like this, less corruption than much heavier offices due to the nature and scope of the game, many people are very passionate about these things, and will indeed work their hardest to form the best possible rules, those tend to be the Backroomers.
Agh, now I'm just confusing myself, but the most appealing option to me ever more becomes doing nothing, personally, as a populace. Of course I'm a stream monster, I won't watch a tournament that uses items and one stock x.x

 

[LiteralGrill]

They should vote with attendance. Good TO and tourney rules = positive feedback and future attendance, marketing would hold they post their rulesets before a lot of people sign up, meh TO and tourney rules means denouncing of the bad experience, and more TOs will stay away from that and the internet warriors that destroy their rulesets.
Oh, but where should the theorycrafting go? I leave that up to the big shots, I just see whether I like it or not
Granted there is something different about a community like this, less corruption than much heavier offices due to the nature and scope of the game, many people are very passionate about these things, and will indeed work their hardest to form the best possible rules, those tend to be the Backroomers.
Agh, now I'm just confusing myself, but the most appealing option to me ever more becomes doing nothing, personally, as a populace. Of course I'm a stream monster, I won't watch a tournament that uses items and one stock x.x

It's honestly tough, with the biggest TOs established already, their events are already more likely to get attendance too so free market may not even be fair. I don't like it" which many TOs have done in the past eliminating depth and alienating people who work hard to learn every aspect of the game while rewarding those who don't want to which would in most eyes be scrub mentality yes? Yet it's been used and defended by TOs and top players alike which is wrong.

 

[Ulevo]

You become established as a TO by hosting tournaments. It's not hard. You don't even have to be good at the game, you just grow as an organizer the more you host and the larger your local scene gets. You can become really big if you host internationals as well. Heck, even I hosted a tournament once in a small town I used to live in.

If you want to be heard, you need to get your hands dirty. Theorycrafting only goes so far. There's no reason for you to have any less of a voice in this case then the pros and TO's who are already credible.

 

[Jaedrik]

It's honestly tough, with the biggest TOs established already, their events are already more likely to get attendance too so free market may not even be fair. I don't like it" which many TOs have done in the past eliminating depth and alienating people who work hard to learn every aspect of the game while rewarding those who don't want to which would in most eyes be scrub mentality yes? Yet it's been used and defended by TOs and top players alike which is wrong.

A free market is always fair, the biggest of giants can be brought down with the flick of consumer choice, toppled by their own weight. It is most unfortunate that TOs would do this, and I grieve, but nothing would be lost if it was free, someone would come up that values competitive play moreso, and that market would be brought to bear. Say's Law says supply is demand, in effect that if there is demand for something, someone will see the opportunity and supply. Or if there is overproduction of something, it will only be short, temporary, and mostly completely ineffectual, while those organizers adjust their outputs lower, in effect the supply. Just is the same, with little social hinderance on tournaments, if there is a demand for competitive play, which there is as I feel far more than casual play, people will supply.

 

[Reznor]

guys we all know what the rules will be
no items fox only final destination

 

[LiteralGrill]

A free market is always fair, the biggest of giants can be brought down with the flick of consumer choice, toppled by their own weight. It is most unfortunate that TOs would do this, and I grieve, but nothing would be lost if it was free, someone would come up that values competitive play moreso, and that market would be brought to bear. Say's Law says supply is demand, in effect that if there is demand for something, someone will see the opportunity and supply. Or if there is overproduction of something, it will only be short, temporary, and mostly completely ineffectual, while those organizers adjust their outputs lower, in effect the supply. Just is the same, with little social hinderance on tournaments, if there is a demand for competitive play, which there is as I feel far more than casual play, people will supply.

This isn't like most markets through, for some it's almost like a job. I may want to go to tournament A more then tournament B because I like the ruleset better, but if B has a better prize pool and more people because it's more established and I can only chose one, which logically makes more sense? And not everyone lives near enough smashers to start hosting their own events either, or to travel to somewhere like Nova Scotia if I live in the US to support PS2 being a starter.

You also face a problem that many people would don't hold the same mindset of many players on here left long ago and are harder to find. And if I went and hosted events that are "too random" I might be labeled for life an crazy and not listened too in any way anymore. It's happened many times before in the smash community. Did you know someone proved the Mario Bros. stage in Brawl could actually be competitive? This my sound outlandish and silly, but what if I tried to host an event with Mario Bros. legal? Sometimes even if the logic behind things could be right, people wont be willing to even try them, and I'd be known as the guy who had Mario Bros. legal for the rest of my smash days and would no longer have my opinions remotely respected. The community discriminating against or labeling players for life makes a free market scenario not work as well.

(As a note, I don't think I'd ever host a real Mario Bros. legal event, however testing it could be kinda cool, and it may have ended up being a great stage somehow. See the Practice Large 2 example for PSASBR I posted earlier for that.)

 

[LiteralGrill]

guys we all know what the rules will be
no items fox only final destination

You are a bad person and should feel bad.

 

[Jaedrik]

This isn't like most markets through, for some it's almost like a job. I may want to go to tournament A more then tournament B because I like the ruleset better, but if B has a better prize pool and more people because it's more established and I can only chose one, which logically makes more sense? And not everyone lives near enough smashers to start hosting their own events either, or to travel to somewhere like Nova Scotia if I live in the US to support PS2 being a starter.

You also face a problem that many people would don't hold the same mindset of many players on here left long ago and are harder to find. And if I went and hosted events that are "too random" I might be labeled for life an crazy and not listened too in any way anymore. It's happened many times before in the smash community. Did you know someone proved the Mario Bros. stage in Brawl could actually be competitive? This my sound outlandish and silly, but what if I tried to host an event with Mario Bros. legal? Sometimes even if the logic behind things could be right, people wont be willing to even try them, and I'd be known as the guy who had Mario Bros. legal for the rest of my smash days and would no longer have my opinions remotely respected. The community discriminating against or labeling players for life makes a free market scenario not work as well.

(As a note, I don't think I'd ever host a real Mario Bros. legal event, however testing it could be kinda cool, and it may have ended up being a great stage somehow. See the Practice Large 2 example for PSASBR I posted earlier for that.)

Tournament C would soon spring up, featuring A's ruleset and B's prize pool, establishment means little, take for example that after a medical Intellectual Property patent expires you see on and off brands of the same exact medicine sitting side by side in a pharmacy store, the on brands certainly had the dominating market when it just had expired, yet as soon as it did there were people right there who kickstarted the competitor. A good ruleset is a desirable, so is a better prize pool, but a tournament with both would be without compare, and at that point tournament B could be far worse off than tournament A when facing competitor C. As well for the sake of argument I could just assume a variety of other opportunity costs tacked on to tournament B, such as the extra gas spent getting there as opposed to tournament A.

The problem you propose with social ousting would merely be replaced with 'official' or 'standardized' ousting, there is little to no difference other than one has a label which can now be rallied behind by their supporters, though comparatively insignificant because you can just label the freely chosen ruleset 'official by social norm'. I certainly believe that Mario Bros. stage can be competitive, I <3 it, look at the responses, that one guy gave up and turned good natured, the other guy was mostly 'no this is not competitive', then he turned 'Hneh I guess but the other borderline ones are better and it's still stupid', the other guy raised a valid point by saying 'hey, look, Smash competitive play should not be so overwhelmingly about stage manipulation'. Overall it just looks like 'hey I like it but no thanks becuz lol idk' (Edit: Now that I read more of this I may need to take that back, such hostility! Superedit: Now that I read even more, I see that it's not so bad as I thought, and that little conclusion can be drawn from the thread itself). If we were to propose that an 'official' ruleset were to 'enforce' this, then eh, I can see there being a big backlash, a negative thing for the community indeed.

Really, I'm no expert on sociology (the science of human action that I neglect the most maybe), but it seems like there would be little difference between our models, now that I think about it, than what just a couple of people say is official, and a bunch of people saying what is recommended because of the big tourneys. The 'official' scenario would flub harder than the 'free market' (I just realized I should put this in quotations too ) scenario because labeling and discrimination would be supported by a band of merry men who call themselves official, which would actually likely happen in my 'free market' scenario too, I mean, we're not holding people at gunpoint like a real government .
I guess that just turns it into a world of ideals, and I'm much more inclined to strive for a place free of the inevitable.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Tournament C would soon spring up, featuring A's ruleset and B's prize pool, establishment means little, take for example that after a medical Intellectual Property patent expires you see on and off brands of the same exact medicine sitting side by side in a pharmacy store, the on brands certainly had the dominating market when it just had expired, yet as soon as it did there were people right there who kickstarted the competitor. A good ruleset is a desirable, so is a better prize pool, but a tournament with both would be without compare, and at that point tournament B could be far worse off than tournament A when facing competitor C. As well for the sake of argument I could just assume a variety of other opportunity costs tacked on to tournament B, such as the extra gas spent getting there as opposed to tournament A.

The problem you propose with social ousting would merely be replaced with 'official' or 'standardized' ousting, there is little to no difference other than one has a label which can now be rallied behind by their supporters, though comparatively insignificant because you can just label the freely chosen ruleset 'official by social norm'. I certainly believe that Mario Bros. stage can be competitive, I <3 it, look at the responses, that one guy gave up and turned good natured, the other guy was mostly 'no this is not competitive', then he turned 'Hneh I guess but the other borderline ones are better and it's still stupid', the other guy raised a valid point by saying 'hey, look, Smash competitive play should not be so overwhelmingly about stage manipulation'. Overall it just looks like 'hey I like it but no thanks becuz lol idk' (Edit: Now that I read more of this I may need to take that back, such hostility!). If we were to propose that an 'official' ruleset were to 'enforce' this, then eh, I can see there being a big backlash, a negative thing for the community indeed.

Really, I'm no expert on sociology (the science of human action that I neglect the most maybe), but it seems like there would be little difference between our models, now that I think about it, than what just a couple of people say is official, and a bunch of people saying what is recommended because of the big tourneys. The 'official' scenario would flub harder than the 'free market' (I just realized I should put this in quotations too ) scenario because labeling and discrimination would be supported by a band of merry men who call themselves official, which would actually likely happen in my 'free market' scenario too, I mean, we're not holding people at gunpoint like a real government .
I guess that just turns it into a world of ideals, and I'm much more inclined to strive for a place free of the inevitable.

I'm glad you actually looked at the thread a bit, apparently the Finland scene tested it and actually showed the points were right even, but obviously the outcry kept it banned. It blows my mind the thought of money matches on Mario Bros. and serious testing, if it was a legal CP anywhere I'd drive there just to see the insanity ensue!

And I guess you are right, either side could hold social stigma; Unity Ruleset and BBR Recommended Ruleset 3.0 (so bad 3.1 had to be released immediately thereafter with explanations) would point towards this. Too bad somehow we can't always all just get along right?

I can't exactly blame you for having that idealism though. If it worked out that way perfectly we'd have an awesome scene.

 

[smashbrolink]

I don't really care how it goes down so long as we don't have any more cases of "No items, Fox only, Final Destination" going around over and over.
This series has more content to play around with than the majority of traditional fighters on the market today.
I say we should take f***ing advantage of all of that by ENCOURAGING some different rule-sets and widening our scope of what is and isn't allowed, for the sake of bringing more fun and hilarity into matches, instead of scorning things for being random or whatever other excuse people come up with, thereby further perpetuating the notion that Smash should be played as close to a traditional fighter as possible for the sake of constant competition even when it's not in a tournament setting.

I mean, yeah, I get it; people play for money, they want the best chances to win.
But it seems like that's how the majority of matches end up being played these days even outside of damned tournaments.
It's depressing to see it leak out into becoming the norm for the majority of Smash matches, and frankly, it's gotten stale and boring to watch, even during Melee where the speed is so much higher.