Thanks for Playing 2 - July 20th, 2013 - Ijamsville, Maryland (A$, Star King, Nintendude, clubba!)

[Cobrevolution]

see what i said above about hyrule. 4 stock falcon dittos on dL? a nonsense grab on peach's leaving you with a supreme disadvantage?

also think about what happens when you play some of the better players. that is, on average, i take 1-2 lives off sensei, for instance, for every 4 he takes from me. so i'll be down to a stock when he's got 4. all of a sudden we'd see a lot of games where a comeback is impossible because you have fewer lives with which to do it.

just enforce the stalling rule and we'll be good.

 

[clubbadubba]

This whole problem of match length would be solved if Hyrule was banned.

If Hyrule has to stay then I like 4 stocks.

Don't say this unless we actually have a time length analysis on a per stage basis. The only time I recall anyone doing this is when star king checked isai vs boom at genesis 2 and it turned out that they were about the same in average match length.

Also I don't see why the move to 4 stocks is necessary considering that I don't think we've ever had a problem finishing a tournament in a reasonable amount of time. Its really completely arbitrary how many stocks we use, but I think our goal should be as many stocks as possible without making the tournament go over time.

 

[Fireblaster]

5 is really just an oudated convention. It looks like Japan uses 4 stocks these days too.

Japan also does single round no loser's bracket tournaments.

 

[Sangoku]

Star king has an eye patch, a mohawk, and is a girl.

Really not what I expected at all.

What happened to the beard/neck tattoo combo? I guess it doesn't countradict your post, but it might be stranger.

 

[mixa]

Don't say this unless we actually have a time length analysis on a per stage basis

this


when star king checked isai vs boom at genesis 2 and it turned out that they were about the same in average match length

one set? not a time length analysis lol.

 

[Olikus]

as much as i like poking fun, he has every right to refuse to be photographed

especially since posting said pictures would likely result in crass jokes from people like you (or me) anyway

allright officer.

jokes from me? I never laugh at people. MATTS i cant promisse anything, I'll give you that. And Im gonna use the SK quote as a sig.

 

[Battlecow]

5 is really just an oudated convention. It looks like Japan uses 4 stocks these days too.

Bllllleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhh

"Melee does 4 so it must be right"

"japan does 4 so it must be right"

Saying 5 stocks is an "outdated convention" is ****ing dumb. It's a meaningless statement. Almost as useless as saying something is correct because japan/melee does it.

 

[clubbadubba]

oh btw nintendude is there anyway to get the tio file for the tourney so I can use bloodpeach's nifty file converter for the elo ratings? I haven't had an opportunity to use it yet.

Oh and while you're at it, bracket from the other MD tourney?

 

[Sedda]

I think you guys should try out the 4 stock model with more bo5 sets in a bigger tourney (maybe 30+ people if that's possible aside from Apex) to see how it turns out, but I agree with battlecow. If you're going to agree with japan on this, you have to do it all the way (bo1 sets) or it's not good enough of a reason. They play with 4 stocks because they're used to it. I don't think they've put as much thought about it as the US smashers have. They might only even do 4 stocks because they do it like that in Japanese Melee tournaments. Who knows!

 

[Nintendude]

There's no good argument for 5 stocks better besides that it's the way it's always been and that it alleviates some of the volatile nature of this game (which is a weird argument because that's like saying we should use stock count to fix a problem with the game). 4-stocks is also in response to complaints from Zenith saying that SSB top-6 or whatever took way too long.

I really liked using 4-stocks at this tourney. It definitely cut down on the tournament time without compromising the quality of the sets. I will continue to use this at events I organize.

 

[SuPeRbOoM]

great, now apex is 4 stocks

 

[Battlecow]

Scumbag nintendude changes stock count to 4 because he thinks there's been too much SSB played but keeps hyrule because that's the way it's always been

There's no good argument for 5 stocks better besides that it's the way it's always been and that it alleviates some of the volatile nature of this game (which is a weird argument because that's like saying we should use stock count to fix a problem with the game)

You realize, of course, that if your logic is correct we should play 1-stock games every time.

Seriously, think about what I'm saying for five minutes without posting then come back and respond. Your response should be something like "No, I don't think this game is significantly more volatile than melee" or "I don't think that the volatility of 64 merits more than 4 stocks." Both of those arguments are incorrect, but they make you look a lot better than when you say "sample size doesn't matter."

 

[SheerMadness]

Sigh. Nintendude making major decisions for the community again without giving a crap about anyone's opinion.

Good times.

 

[Cobrevolution]

who were the ssb64 players (not melee players, not brawl players, not project m players) who complained that top-6 took too long?

if i remember correctly and i am certain i do, the main complaint regarding top-6 was the amount of pika dittos. we all know people walked away from that or stopped watching the stream. but who honestly cares - or should care - if melee folk think our matches take too long? they aren't in our community. they aren't waiting to get on our setups. it's a safe bet that most aren't going to start playing 64 and such a thing is going to drive them away.

also, i think matches that would have 4 stocks at larger events like zenith would take longer, because you suddenly have one less stock to work with and you're going to be more cautious or campy. a 3 to 1 lead in a 7 stock game is different from a 5 stock game, which is different from a 4 stock game, which is different from a 3 stock game. players will recognize this sort of thing and their psyche will change.

i sincerely hope that apex will not be 4 stocks and that there will be a proper discussion about this between TOs and the community.

 

[Nintendude]

I don't really feel like debating this. I will also admit I'm absolutely terrible at debating lol. I've already made the points I'd like to make. The overall motivation for my decisions though is to save the scene. Alternate controllers allowed = more people willing to play. Slightly shorter game time = events more willing to add 64 to the roster & streamers more willing to give larger portions of our brackets major stream time. There's a lot of politics involved in the actual behind the scenes work of the Smash scene that contributes to some of these decisions. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices for the greater good.

 

[mixa]

Nintendude is preparing you all for the real world, where arguments don't matter and power does.

 

[clubbadubba]

There's no good argument for 5 stocks better besides that it's the way it's always been and that it alleviates some of the volatile nature of this game (which is a weird argument because that's like saying we should use stock count to fix a problem with the game). 4-stocks is also in response to complaints from Zenith saying that SSB top-6 or whatever took way too long.

I really liked using 4-stocks at this tourney. It definitely cut down on the tournament time without compromising the quality of the sets. I will continue to use this at events I organize.

-Way its always been is a horrible reason for any rule to exists, agreed

-We already do use stock count to "fix" a problem in the game. That problem is called variance. Otherwise, like battlecow said, we would just do one stock. We should be aiming to use as many stocks/sets as possible within time constraints, and since the last 3 major tournaments have been fine, 5 stocks seems possible.

-Who exactly complained? I (and most others) was definitely unhappy with the number of pika dittos that occurred, but I don't think the matches were insanely long.

As far as cutting down on time, it actually didn't cut down on much time, because the limiting factor through the first 3 rounds of losers was not match length, but the fact that Shears was playing brawl matches and so he couldn't play 64 matches. So any gain from the first half of the tournament was lost through that. This kind of stuff happens all the time at tourneys where things get held up more because people aren't on time than match length.

I think there are better ways to cut down on time than reducing stock count. We could organize the venue a bit better so that pools/brackets are more streamlined by designating setups and times where people have to play. I would be willing to help out in that regard.

And guys, before people jump over nintendude again, realize that he and chain-ace are the only two people running the tournament. They do everything for us, for no money, no reward of any kind. Put yourself in their shoes where they spend a lot of time during the weekends of these big events stressing out over making the tournament run smoothly instead of enjoying their weekend like the rest of us. Don't start being ***** to nintendude for trying to make his weekend a bit easier when the rest of us don't do **** but play smash the whole weekend. Instead, how about a few of us volunteer to help out and make the tourney run smoother.

 

[Battlecow]

So the new argument is: "I don't have a good reason for doing this, but for some ****ing reason I know a guy who knows a guy who runs a melee tournament and so I'm now your official representative in the super-secret smash illuminati and I decide what the rules are"

Do what you want at your tournament, but if Apex is your tournament and not the community's I'm sure as **** not going.

 

[Nintendude]

we all know people walked away from that or stopped watching the stream. but who honestly cares - or should care - if melee folk think our matches take too long? they aren't in our community. they aren't waiting to get on our setups. it's a safe bet that most aren't going to start playing 64 and such a thing is going to drive them away.

This is a pretty narrow minded way of looking at the issue. What people outside of our direct community think of the game they are watching and organizing absolutely does matter. Obvious example: Evo. A big problem the FGC has with Smash is that the game takes too long, and this is Melee we're talking about, a game that takes less time than 64 and Brawl. We had to make some sacrifices (only GFs were best of 5, some ruleset changes, no round robin pools) in order to be a part of Evo. The result? Internet-wide publicity. Hoards of new players and spectators. Hype levels are off the charts. It's thanks to the people who don't play Melee that the scene benefited so much.

People outside of our SSB64 community have legitimate complaints about our game from a logistical standpoint and it's an obstacle to us getting the mainstream exposure that we need to actually remain sustainable. We absolutely should care about this and do what we can to address it.

 

[SheerMadness]

Lol why should we not jump all over Nintendude?

He keeps making huge community wide decisions without consulting or caring about anyone's opinion. Just because he can.

If that's not being a huge **** I don't know what is.

 

[TANK64]

Figured I would log into that one website I used to go to, and I found this lol. F'in' Gold xD.

 

[clubbadubba]

Just because he can.

Clearly this isn't the case if you're reading along with the thread. He's being reasonable, you guys are being sassy.

Nintendude I hear what you're saying but what is the end result of going 4 stocks? We get into a major event like EVO? Unlikely. I think our community has had good growth over the past 1-2 years, and I don't see how going to 4 stocks will help anymore. Maybe if there is some end goal you have in mind that going to 4 stocks will help accomplish? If its just picking up 1-2 more stragglers, I personally don't think its worth it to worsen our once/twice a year experience over. If there is some way that going down to 4 stocks would double attendance/community size, then yes I think that would be worth it. Lets not do it to please people who will probably never join the community though.

 

[Nintendude]

Let's plug some numbers here. Let's say that on average removing the 5th stock adds 45 seconds to the game.

For that 13-person bracket with winners semis and beyond as best of 5, it's optimized with 4 best of 3 waves and 5 best of 5 waves (assuming 2 sets of GFs). Assuming all the best of 3 waves were 2-0, and then taking into account that clubba vs. weedwack was 3-2 (edit: I might be wrong on this setcount), me vs. clubba was 3-2, me vs. SK GF1 was 3-2, and me vs. SK GF2 was 3-1, you get the following math:
(4x2)x0.75 + (5x5)x0.75 + (1x4)x0.75 = 27.75 minutes

So, 4 stocks saved close to half an hour from this tournament, for a 13-person bracket. This is even a conservative estimate assuming that all of the best of 3s were 2-0s which certainly was not the case (A$ vs. Justin comes to mind). Now imagine a 100-person event with bracket pools where the initial rounds need several waves since we only have 15 setups or so. That 1 stock certainly adds up.

 

[Nintendude]

Figured I would log into that one website I used to go to, and I found this lol. F'in' Gold xD.

Where dem doubles vids at?

 

[clubbadubba]

^Okay but we've already shown multiple times that 5 stock tournaments are very feasible, so it really doesn't seem like there's any need to shorten match lengths further. If the main reason for this is to shorten tournament run time, then honestly I don't see where this sudden need for 4 stock is coming from.

Math addendums: Shears held up bracket way longer than the ~10 minutes that would've been saved, so that time saving was useless. Not an uncommon occurrence.

45 seconds is quite the addition for a stock. Maybe for high level campy matches, but early on in brackets and pools when good players are playing bad players and there are lots of 2-0's, there is not way stocks take that long. 45 seconds seems more like upper limit to me.

Regardless, I get that it saves time, but what is the reason we need to save time? Tournies run on time as is. Is it tourney length, or publicity we are worried about?

Tank you done with IRL yet? When are you comin back for smash?

 

[Cobrevolution]

this is Melee we're talking about, a game that takes less time than 64 and Brawl.

i went ahead and looked at the videos from apex 2013 and here's what i came up with

apex 2013

melee
wsf - pp m2k 11m
wsf - armada hbox 35m
lsf - mango m2k 13m
wf - pp armada 21m
lf - pp m2k 22m
gf - pp armada 53m

total: 155m, or 2hr 35m


64

wf - isai kikou 20m
gf - isai kik 42m
lf - isai boom - 15m
lsf - boomfan ruoka - 10m

total: 77m, or 1h 17m

brawl
wsf - salem mike 34m
wsf - anti m2k 37m
wf - salem m2k 26m
lsf - nairo oto 33m
lf - m2k otori 35m
gf - m2k salem 50m

total: 215m, or 3hr 35m


you may notice that we are missing two wsf rounds. that's because they were completed the day before the stream. because, as i recall, we were all told to hurry with our matches because only top 4 would get streamed. that isn't very fair, now is it?
you want us to be more exposed but we get our top players' matches cut from stream. melee and brawl get two extras. what about ours?

i found our wsf matches on youtube (boom/kikou and isai/ruoka), and combined, they add 35 mins to our total time. bringing us up to just under 2 hours.

just how long do you think our matches should last, total? top 4 should only take half an hour in your mind, to make room for the 3 hour meleefest? come on mike, you know that isn't fair to us. and we should be the ones you're worrying about first, NOT potential players. i am not saying that we should completely ignore newcomers, but that active players should be given priority.

We had to make some sacrifices (only GFs were best of 5, some ruleset changes, no round robin pools) in order to be a part of Evo.

ask hungrybox if he only liked gf being best of 5.

as it stands, i'm sure the melee community is extremely grateful to evo for having their game there. but i doubt they are all satisfied with the rule changes.

People outside of our SSB64 community have legitimate complaints about our game from a logistical standpoint and it's an obstacle to us getting the mainstream exposure that we need to actually remain sustainable.

i'd like for you to tell us what kinds of complaints people have. i am honestly curious.

but let's be real - this game is very dated. it's experiencing a rise right now for some reason - we can only speculate what caused so many more people to become active this year. think about how many tournaments have happened post apex - red bank march, brooklyn april, red bank may, zenith june, thanks for playing july, smashacre august, thanks for playing 2 august, and that's just east coast. sweet was in march, too, i believe, and who knows what west coast tournaments went on.

that being said, this surge happened WITHOUT the help of the fgc. it happened WITHOUT melee players moving over. it happened WITHOUT us getting funding or big sponsors.

honestly, if anyone thinks 64 will reach the level of melee in terms of exposure and players, they're sadly mistaken. and that isn't me being pessimistic - that's the reality of it. practically all dated games' sequels fare better than their originals, and the dedicated players are the ones who keep the original alive.

i have much more to say on this subject, including why people would gravitate towards melee vs 64 if both are seen side by side, the kinds of people who do elect to play other smash games over 64, and the ways in which we can bring in more people, but this is already a fairly lengthy post, so i'll end here.

hopefully, my points are clear and not muddled.

edit: to address clubba's and bcow's posts

Instead, how about a few of us volunteer to help out and make the tourney run smoother.

i volunteered months ago. anything mike and dan need me to do - get on a megaphone to harass people to play their matches, go find players, label setups, record information into the bracket, etc - i am willing to do.

Do what you want at your tournament, but if Apex is your tournament and not the community's I'm sure as **** not going.

i'm in agreement. not about not going but about something as empirical as Apex being 'our' tournament, as a group.

keyboards, xbox, and ps3 controllers being allowed to bring in other players - i agree. changing stage rules (the idea of removing hyrule, all dL, dL first, etc) - i agree, maybe something needs to be done about the stage list, if it will bring more players in.

making the game take less time to bring in players? i do not think that would work at all.

 

[Battlecow]

If we get into Evo, I'll go down to four stocks without a complaint. But the melee peeps are NOT adopting bracket pools or bo3 winner's finals for their actual melee tourneys. They're not ****ing with the integrity of Apex or Big House or whatever in order to make it sexier to spectators. And they sure as **** didn't go down to three stocks so that evo would look better.

I like new players, but I don't want to sacrifice the actual tournaments in order to have better tournament participation. And I think that switching to 4 stock would get us something like .7 new players over the course of the next 11 years.

 

[SheerMadness]

Being reasonable would be to consult with the community before making decisions like this. For some reason Nintendude keeps thinking his lone opinion is always what's best for us. Pretty selfish.

Cater to your own community before trying to please everyone outside of it.

Like battlecattle, If Apex ends up being 4 stock despite the majority community being against it then I probably won't go.

 

[clubbadubba]

So 64 5 stock is for sure shorter than brawl 3 stock. I think a lot of the melee sets went to more game 3's/5's than the 64 sets, and if armada doesn't play hungry box we could subtract 15 minutes from that total (though that matchup happens quite often in melee tournies) so its not QUITE analagous, but at the very least it seems 64 takes the same amount of time as melee. Plus we have way less entrants so our time is already wayyyyyyyy less than melee/brawl for total tourney time.

Questions for people:

If Apex staff said we HAD to go 4 stock in order to get pools, is it worth it?

If we would get more stream time (2-4 more sets) at Apex if we did 4 stock, is it worth it?

If we could get more stream time by making streamed matches 4 stock (leaving everything else 5 stock), is it worth and and is that fair?


Not going to a tourney because its 4 stock, really? Even though most of what you get out of tournaments is the friendlies after it?

 

[Yobolight]

I mean if nobody goes to Smash tournaments because they are boycotting 4 stocks then the scene is going to die and you will be inadvertently killing the thing you claim to be protecting, just saying.

 

[The Star King]

personally I think people who say "I won't go because of x rule" are full of **** and it's also a bad thing to say

but yeah I don't see how changing to 4 stocks is beneficial. thanks for adding up the times cobra, good stuff

 

[Cobrevolution]

So 64 5 stock is for sure shorter than brawl 3 stock. I think a lot of the melee sets went to more game 3's/5's than the 64 sets, and if armada doesn't play hungry box we could subtract 15 minutes from that total (though that matchup happens quite often in melee tournies) so its not QUITE analagous, but at the very least it seems 64 takes the same amount of time as melee. Plus we have way less entrants so our time is already wayyyyyyyy less than melee/brawl for total tourney time.

i'll look at apex 2012 later tonight if i can find videos. it'd be best to see how the two compare.

If Apex staff said we HAD to go 4 stock in order to get pools, is it worth it?

that depends. are we doing pools of 5 players? and if so, are only top 2 advancing again? or are we actually doing pools the right way, and building a seeded bracket from them? because i mean, zenith's bracket was very small, and a lot of good players didn't make it for one reason or another (knitephox, i'm looking at you). and in my case, i got 2nd in my pool behind boomfan, and then had to play sensei first round. like, what? almost as bad as having to play a$ right away in losers (jokes).

If we would get more stream time (2-4 more sets) at Apex if we did 4 stock, is it worth it?

if we were on equal footing with melee from the beginning it'd be worth it. if our 5 stock matches with two extra sets take as long as melee top 6, i don't see why we would need 4 stocks.

If we could get more stream time by making streamed matches 4 stock (leaving everything else 5 stock), is it worth and and is that fair?

not fair at all to the rest of the players. you can't have different stocks in a tournament.

 

[Nintendude]

The reason we get games cut from stream is that there isn't enough time. Cutting a stock is a step towards solving that issue. There's a whole lot of hyperbole going on in there that isn't worth dissecting and also you aren't taking into account all the down time in between games.

Also just to clarify a point, I'm saying that more streamlined tournaments = we get more tournaments, a side effect of which is that we get more players. Want to know why Smash 64 at The Big House 3 was canceled? They said it would take too long. You cited that the community has been seeing more activity over the past 1-2 years with " red bank march, brooklyn april, red bank may, zenith june, thanks for playing july, smashacre august, thanks for playing 2 august." Well, Red Bank was chain-ace, brooklyn was chain-ace, red bank may was chain-ace, zenith was me, and thanks for playing was run/promoted by me. Basically, the only reason you guys have tournaments is that me and chain-ace are stepping the **** up for you guys. There's no magical growth going on here. What happens when me/chain-ace decide to move on and you guys need to convince TOs to have 64 at their events?

I'm going to echo something chain-ace said awhile ago which is that it's ridiculous that people are claiming they will skip Apex due to petty issues like controller rules and stock count. You are the guys who are keeping an insanely old game alive out of pure love for the game. All of a sudden you want to abandon ship due to a minor logistical change?

 

[Nintendude]

cobr you have no idea how pools work and what the purpose of them are. I suppose Evo does pools wrong as well? Also Apex 2012 isn't good data because Armada vs. Hungrybox was a 2-set GF. Though, I think SSB64 still might have taken close to the same amount of time. I already laid out some of the time savings logistics from Saturday though. There is clearly a noticeable time savings even for a very small tournament.

 

[clubbadubba]

What kind of pools do you want? Maybe 3/5 instead of 2/5, but pools aren't supposed to be easy to get out of. It's supposed to be an accomplishment. I imagine at Apex we might get multiple rounds of pools, where the 1st round will be more like what you want with all the "good" players making it out, but the second round narrowing it down significantly. Bracket pools would be pretty sweet as well.

Knitephox didn't make it since he went 2-2 in pools because he ****** around.

cobr you were right when you mention that 64 will never be as big as melee, but we should also realize that means we shouldn't have an expectation to get the same focus as other games. At big tournaments, 64 is closer to a side even than a main event, and that's just the reality. I think expecting to get equal treatment as melee is not realistic. So if we get the same amount of sets, but our sets have to be shorter than other games, that wouldn't be a crazy thing to have happen.

Edit: NIntendude, what if instead of shortening to 4 stocks for Apex, a tournament we are already involved in, we only shorten to 4 stocks for tournaments that refuse to have us unless we do 5 stocks?

Kinda of like melee for evo, they agreed to do bo3 all the way up to gf, but they will be going back to regular bo5's when they get the chance.

 

[Sedda]

Umm you guys are arguing about **** that doesn't matter, honestly. You're bringing all this outside evidence and ****, but none of that really matters since you haven't tested the 4-stock rule in a bigger tournament.

I will repeat what I said before. Try it out a couple of times first. You may even like it more than 5 stocks, but you guys are talking about stuff that might or might not affect our community from outside or from within and making crazy assumptions. Test that **** out, make a poll before Apex to see what people prefer (if videos of these tourneys are available for the 64 community to see), and then make a decision as a group.

Nintendude, I think you're amazing. You do a lot for the community, and if there were some sort of "representative" that we could look to, it would be you. However, you HAVE to listen to what the players of the game are saying and only take outside suggestions into consideration AFTER you've had a discussion with all these guys. If anything the only type of advice you should be taking from people like Chibo or GIMR or maybe Melee players should be more about how we present ourselves with commentators and stuff like that.

 

[Yobolight]

Does anyone know if this will fly with Isai (The heart that pumps the blood of the 64 scene)?

 

[SheerMadness]

I wouldn't skip Apex just because I dislike 4 stock matches.

It would mainly be because I don't want to support a selfish TO who has 0 interest in his communities opinion.

If we made a poll and a large part of the community supported a 4 stock format I would be fine with it. But as of right now you refuse to even hear anyone's opinion on the subject. And I really don't want to support a TO with that mind set.

 

[Battlecow]

I'm already iffy about Apex and apex-like events, I'm not sure they're the best way to have 64 tourneys (even if they do get more nubbish entrants than 64-only tourneys). I'm not gonna skip out because of 4 stock vs 5, but I might if I was afraid that the people running apex were going to kill competition in order to have brawl players pick up 64 once a year. JUST TO CLARIFY

Nintendude is right about one thing, though: he and chain-ace have been running the tourneys. Peeps need to create and run good 64 tourneys if they don't like the way we slobber on random melee players' scrotums in order to get half an hour of stream time (and they shouldn't).

 

[SSB64-Jel]

4 stocks... What's next Mushroom Kingdom and Sector Z stages only???