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

[DMoogle]

4 stocks vs. 5
From what I've gathered the debate essentially comes down to this: does the time savings we'll get from moving to 4 stocks make up for the increase in variability? There is a pretty simple way to answer this. Look at the match length data and calculate how much longer a given tourney would take with 5 stocks vs. 4. Then poll the community (with votes visible) and see whether 5 stocks is overwhelmingly preferred. If 5 is the clear favorite and doesn't add much time, the decision should be obvious.

Of course, you could argue that Melee people complain that 64 takes too long, so even if everyone loves 5 and it doesn't add much time, we simply can't afford adding that small bit of extra time to the tournament. This is a legitimate argument since 64 has a much smaller following, share of venue fees, etc. Comparing 64 times to Melee times is counterproductive, as they probably "deserve" more time than us since they bring in more revenue. So then the question becomes: is there a way to make tournaments run faster other than moving to 4 stocks?.

It's not just about time savings. It's also about 4-stock matches being more exciting to spectate and (IMO) play.

 

[KeroKeroppi]

He has a history of going rogue and making decisions without caring about the community's opinion.

I've gotta cut you guys off for just a second and tell ya that I really love the word 'rogue'.

 

[Nintendude]

Keyboard legality traces itself all the way to the FGC where they allow almost anything from custom fight sticks to console controllers. Legalizing it resulted in consistency with the rest of the fighting game community, and by extension the rest of the Apex lineup.

I do care about the community's opinion, provided there are good points being made. The data breakdown of Apex 2013 was very helpful.

What you guys seem to be missing here is I am testing out this concept months in advance of Apex. When a change is proposed people say it needs to be tested it first. Well, I'm testing it and apparently I'm still in the wrong. It's kind of hard to take that kind of response seriously.

It's not just about time savings. It's also about 4-stock matches being more exciting to spectate and (IMO) play.

This. 7-minute slugfests make the game feel like Brawl at times. I would like more people to comment on this.

 

[prisonchild]

personally I wish every match was more like Peruvian falcon dittos

 

[Fireblaster]

After playing other fighting games constantly while practicing ssb, it does feel like 5 stocks takes longer than it should. And if people want to complain about outliers (falcon mirror matches), then adapt to the fricking matchup you fricks. Play more defensively or don't pick falcon knowing that you can get counterpicked into a falcon mirror. Matchups exist like that in just about every other fighting game but you don't see them increasing the overall match length or number of rounds required to win just because of a few matchups out of a hundred.

 

[mixa]

As I'm doing the data on Zenith I realize something: Knitephox where vids at

jk, what I wanted to say is: Pika dittos / long matches on Dream Land might elevate the DL average time, but campy players will be campy and those same matches would take even longer if they were played on Hyrule (see data).
Second, can't we divide time into these? And how much each one weighs into the overall time?

1. Game Time - what I did with some sets of Apex
2. Dead Time - time between games (some are hidden in the blue area of that spreadsheet)
3. Well I didn't hear the TO time - time players take to sit their ass down and play (time between matches)

I've never been to a tourney, but my guess is #3 is significant and can be improved.


Assuming time is an issue.

 

[TANK64]

Keyboard legality traces itself all the way to the FGC where they allow almost anything from custom fight sticks to console controllers. Legalizing it resulted in consistency with the rest of the fighting game community, and by extension the rest of the Apex lineup.

I do care about the community's opinion, provided there are good points being made. The data breakdown of Apex 2013 was very helpful.

What you guys seem to be missing here is I am testing out this concept months in advance of Apex. When a change is proposed people say it needs to be tested it first. Well, I'm testing it and apparently I'm still in the wrong. It's kind of hard to take that kind of response seriously.

Hmmmm.

I have to say, you kind of forcing this (to have a legit test in advanced) was kind of a nifty thing to do in your position.

Just as long as your are working with feedback before making Apex decisions; Not just like- oh, it's a time thing/immediate permanent change.

Similarly, I always said that if I ran a tournament I would have a strong personal influence on the stage list/rules and would essentially use the tourney to prove my ruleset to be not crazy and possibly influence future tourneys.

I think I'll start playing more with 4 stocks more now to test how much of a change it would really make.

.
.
@Clubba, Yeah my life stuff is crazy but my schedule is def more flexible than before. Hopefully will stream this week.

Also, I couldn't play Sensei on console this past weekend even though he was is Orlando >___>".
Sensei be like, "Yo wanna play in 5 mins?."
TANK be like, *>____>*, "Umm I'm in the bathroom"
^^obv exaggerating, but STILL

 

[Nintendude]

Points 2 and 3 are definitely bigger contributors than the extra stock, but that's irregardless of what game we're playing. It also doesn't matter as much as point 1 when it comes to the actual spectating / streaming.

 

[Yobolight]

I played some 4 stock matches last night. They feel PRETTY good, you just can't spend the first stock experimenting and feeling out your opponent. It feels a lot more intense.

 

[KeroKeroppi]

Points 2 and 3 are definitely bigger contributors than the extra stock, but that's irregardless of what game we're playing.

I like that word a lot too.

 

[Battlecow]

Of course, you could argue that Melee people complain that 64 takes too long, so even if everyone loves 5 and it doesn't add much time, we simply can't afford adding that small bit of extra time to the tournament. This is a legitimate argument since 64 has a much smaller following, share of venue fees, etc. Comparing 64 times to Melee times is counterproductive, as they probably "deserve" more time than us since they bring in more revenue.
\

Tournament quality is the baseline necessity; everything else is secondary. Tournaments have been going on for a long time, in a lot of different communities, and the FIRST THING they get down is how to run a tournament so that it's acceptable for the players involved. Then you move on to venue niceness or whatever.

Bottom line: 64 is capable of having acceptable tournaments. We could do it in someone's basement with our own equipment, or we could do it at the Apex hotel; we could have done it in 1999 and we can do it today. Whether we can do it at large melee tournaments is a valid question, but if Alex Strife (who I'm using only as an example; I've met the guy and I very much doubt he insists on four stock) decides that we can only play 64 under a certain set of suboptimal in-game conditions, getting on that stream and playing on that nice stage become secondary to having an actual 64 tournament. If Apex is one of our tournaments, whatever. Do your thing. Advertise the community. If it's our ONLY tournament, we should make sure that it or the alternative we choose is acceptable competitively.

tl;dr: we "deserve" the same thing that any community of any size deserves: a competitively acceptable tournament. Melee has fewer players than starcraft, but they don't compromise the quality of their events as a result of that.

 

[Kefit]

For the record, I don't really care about four vs five stocks, although I think that banning Hyrule would be a much more effective way to address match length issues. Especially after seeing the compiled Apex match length data. Note that it's missing me vs Sensei (cause the recordings never surfaced) and I'm pretty sure that set contained at least one 10+ minute Hyrule match lol.

Keyboard legality traces itself all the way to the FGC where they allow almost anything from custom fight sticks to console controllers. Legalizing it resulted in consistency with the rest of the fighting game community, and by extension the rest of the Apex lineup.

Keyboards for SSB64 necessarily convert analog input (control stick) to digital input (keyboard keys). Is there a prominent example of this sort of input conversion being allowed in the greater FGC? Movement input in traditional fighting games is digital, so the legality of custom fight sticks that still apply digital input isn't a good model for us to be basing keyboard legality upon.

 

[Fireblaster]

Keyboards for SSB64 necessarily convert analog input (control stick) to digital input (keyboard keys). Is there a prominent example of this sort of input conversion being allowed in the greater FGC?.

You mean the other way around right? Keyboards convert digital inputs into analog inputs. Because unlike this, the exact opposite happens in other fighting games. The console's regular controller joysticks are sometimes used and those inputs are converted to a digital input.

 

[Kefit]

Semantics aside, the point is that keyboards allow (require, even) digital input to be used in place of analog input. This has numerous meaningful effects on SSB gameplay, both negative and positive. The main issue we need to consider is that digital input for movement in SSB allows for far more rapid directional input than can be achieved by controller, leading to DI that would otherwise be impossible. Does this level of meaningful difference exist when an xbox 360 analog stick is used to play a 2d fighter with digital movement input, or does it simply result in the analog stick being "dumbed down" into an eight directional quasi-digital input?

My point is, while the opposite being common in the greater FGC may be a useful case to consider, it's not necessarily analogous (ha!) to our current situation.

 

[Battlecow]

analogous

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

 

[SheerMadness]

I'd be cool with 4 stock if more sets went to best of 5.

Otherwise I want to stay at 5 stock.

 

[Fireblaster]

My point is, while the opposite being common in the greater FGC may be a useful case to consider, it's not necessarily analogous (ha!) to our current situation.

If you want to talk strictly what one type of input can do that another cannot, then there are no real cases in other fighting games. There's a lot of things that are much easier and much more feasible to do on an arcade stick than a controller, but nothing IMPOSSIBLE.

Well, except for one case. There was a glitch regarding MvC3 when one played it with a hitbox. Because the hitbox allows you to hold multiple directions at the same time, it allowed certain hitbox users to automatically block in both directions and allowed them to constantly and perfectly maintain charge moves to do them faster than possible on other kinds of controllers. It also had some weird properties with specific moves that allowed for some weird option selects.

As far as I know this happened on the 360 version of MvC3 and only with hitboxes that were wired in a specific way. The community determined that these things were not gamebreaking or gave big advantages enough for them to be banned, so they just let them rock.

 

[The Star King]

This "keyboard DI that would be impossible on controller" myth needs to end.

Is good DI easier to achieve on keyboard? Perhaps. Slide/**** DI isn't very intuitive.

But does it achieve DI that's impossible on controller? No.

 

[NovaSmash]

It's not a myth, I've never seen a console match where someone di'ed as much as killer, legendary, or YAB etc.

 

[KnitePhox]

not a myth

hold one key and spam two others = insane di, nothing similar exists on joystick, at all, period.

3 fingers > 1 thumb FOR DI

ez example: hold down/up with middle finger and spam right and left with index and ring
you simply cannot reproduce that on joystick

 

[Karajan]

Ya'll should just map directional inputs to your d-pad or c buttons with the adapter. I'm sure the 2-3 frames of lag you'll get will be worth it.

Btw I am developing a cheaper, easier to use, lagless adapter. Gonna try to have it ready for killer at smashacre

 

[B Link]

Yeah I agree with star king's post. I'll also add that smart di is better than good, unsmart di. For example, one time I combo'd killer and his DI was insane, but it actually helped me finish the combo.
So the potential unfairness factor really depends on the skill level of the player, not the input device used.

 

[mixa]

hold one key and spam two others = insane di, nothing similar exists on joystick, at all, period.

I've been doing that for ever and it doesn't seem to work like you'd think it would.

 

[Kefit]

If you want to talk strictly what one type of input can do that another cannot, then there are no real cases in other fighting games. There's a lot of things that are much easier and much more feasible to do on an arcade stick than a controller, but nothing IMPOSSIBLE.

Well, except for one case. There was a glitch regarding MvC3 when one played it with a hitbox. Because the hitbox allows you to hold multiple directions at the same time, it allowed certain hitbox users to automatically block in both directions and allowed them to constantly and perfectly maintain charge moves to do them faster than possible on other kinds of controllers. It also had some weird properties with specific moves that allowed for some weird option selects.

As far as I know this happened on the 360 version of MvC3 and only with hitboxes that were wired in a specific way. The community determined that these things were not gamebreaking or gave big advantages enough for them to be banned, so they just let them rock.

Thanks Fireblaster, this seems like it might be a useful example. I'll look into it and see if I need to reformulate my stance on this matter with respect to bringing SSB in line with the greater FGC.

 

[Sangoku]

hold one key and spam two others = insane di, nothing similar exists on joystick, at all, period.

I've been doing that for ever and it doesn't seem to work like you'd think it would.

As I've been saying for some times, this is the best technique in theory, ie giving the best amount of DI per input, but maybe not the best number of input per unit of time (that would depend on the player).

 

[Kefit]

I've discussed the SSB64 keyboard issue vis-a-vis MvC3 Hitbox controllers with a couple friends of mine who are knowledgeable about the greater FGC. Here's my takeaway:

1) Hitbox controllers allow the player to do things in MvC3 that would otherwise be physically impossible. Specifically, it lets you block in both directions at once, greatly diminishing the threat of crossovers. It also lets you make use of a variety of glitches. However, directional input on a Hitbox controller is generally considered much more difficult and demanding than with a digital stick or pad. This is all directly analogous to keyboard SSB64 - keyboard allows for inputs that would otherwise be impossible (crazy fast directional mashing) but at the same time is considered inferior and somewhat limited for most normal movement and gameplay.

2) Both friends stated that Hitbox's are legal in tournaments but that no top players use them.

3) One friend feels that Hitboxes are absolutely fine and no different from allowing people to use either a digital pad or arcade stick. The other friend feels that the pad vs stick comparison is way off base, that Hitboxes are degenerate, and that the MvC3 community simply doesn't care because they aren't used by top players.

So yeah this sounds like a perfect mirror of keyboards and SSB. Especially the drastic disagreements between parties. I can only conclude that, given the legality of Hitboxes in MvC3 tournaments, allowing keyboard use for SSB64 tournaments would in fact bring SSB in line with the greater FGC.

I'll still always object because I've played this game in its natural state for far too long and am a god damn purist. But the FGC argument upgrades my acceptance of a potential keyboard legal tournament from "angry" to "grudging."

 

[clubbadubba]

I really don't think we should be basing important rule decisions off of the FGC community. Kinda like I don't think we should base our rulesets strictly off of melee. We're allowed to be logical and think about it on our own instead of doing something because "they do it".

Not saying that other communities are wrong, but there's no reason we can't differ from other games in our rulesets.

 

[SheerMadness]

Our community should decide the ruleset for our community.

Not ONE TO. Not the FGC. Not the melee community.

Just us. Together.

 

[The Star King]

Yeah, and the community voted for keyboard legality.

 

[SheerMadness]

And I'm fine with that.

 

[Kefit]

I'm afraid I don't trust the group of random people who access this board and felt the need to vote in that poll to accurately represent the competitive community. I would give much more stock to polling the Apex top 32 or something along those lines, but that's probably not feasible.

A decision by an effective backroom would also be acceptable, but HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA the ssb64 backroom.

This matter will only be resolved in a fair and equitable fashion if the SSB64 High Cabal (Isai, Gerson, Josuke) confers at the deepest hour of the night to render a final verdict.

 

[Sedda]

Kefit

That's why you should make polls public on here, and then you can just ignore the randoms. I didn't vote on the keyboard thing because I'm super new and I don't go to tournaments, so it would've been unfair for me to vote (I don't mind keyboards btw). While I agree that there are some people that probably voted for the heck of it, it wasn't the case for everybody... not by a long shot.

I also think it's really unfair to say that it's all up to the best players to decide (the ones you named being Isai, Gerson and Jousuke) if they don't even post on here as often (or at all) as people like Clubba or Sheer and never participate in these discussions. At least that's been the case while I've been here. It's also real crappy to say that someone like Isai should be one of the people deciding on the keyboard issue while knowing that he doesn't want keyboards in tournaments, but you never hesitate to completely ignore his opinion when you're pushing the Hyrule ban.

Come up with your own criticisms, man. You've done it very efficiently before, even on this thread where you listed and thoroughly explained your point of view. The thing is that every time you (and others on here) decide it's a good idea to bring in someone else's opinion on ONE issue, it makes your whole argument look terrible. If you're going to endorse someone's way of thinking for one issue, it's pretty clear that that issue is connected to others within the context of the game, so you should only be able to endorse the whole package. Of course no one would ever do that, because nobody is the same, and THAT'S why you have to leave other's opinions out of it.

 

[Kefit]

The issue I'm now addressing is not "should keyboards be legal" it's "who should decide if keyboards are legal." My suggestion of Apex top 32 was an attempt to include a widespread and relatively diverse base of players who all demonstrably understand the game at a competitive level.

Also I'm totally dead serious with any proposal that includes the phrase "High Cabal."

 

[EggSelent]

Would it be possible to just poll people as they pay for and attend the tournament? That'd be the fairest way to do it. I guess logistically it might be tough to organize without knowing how long the tournament might take, but you could do it at one tournament and then use the results for a year or so. An annual poll could decide the rules for the year. I think Kefit reasonably explains why it's a bit unfair to leave it up to a poll on here. I also think it's unfair to leave it up to a tiny, exclusive group of players though. Allowing a couple top players to decide the rules seems a bit too oligarchic. It's arbitrary and erodes respect for other tournament competitors who will probably lose anyways.

 

[clubbadubba]

Being a top player should be a qualification for being part of designing a tier list. What I think of a tier list/matchup chart is meaningless next to that of someone who can 5 stock me. However, being a top player has no effect on a persons judgement on what is fair or competitively balanced. Just sayin.

 

[Sedda]

Whether or not you were serious, I didn't lie or misinterpret anything that you said, and I was just pointing out how you do tend to bring in other people's out-of-context opinion in your own arguments too often. I was just saying...

Anyway, I think EggSelent's idea could work at the very least to learn what the general consensus is. It could be done as people register/arrive to a tourney or something, and names shouldn't be kept secret unless there are people on both sides of the argument (whatever that might be) gathering the votes.

--clubba, I agree, but that doesn't change the fact that those top players, from what I've seen so far, are never part of these discussions while others go at it with interesting perspectives. It would be kinda unfair to relinquish all of that just because they decided to step in for ONE particular issue in the ruleset, all while the rest of you are the ones that are keeping this whole thing alive.
I just wanted that bit of what I've been saying to be clear.

 

[Cobrevolution]

kefit, tourney placement should not factor into this kind of thing.

if the top 32/96 at apex vote on on an issue nearly unanimously, and the remained 64 vote in the opposing manner, do those people who placed higher matter more? (their opinions, that is)

i mean, jel placed 49th. is his opinion irrelevant because of his placement? or is it cancelled out by his longevity? and if longevity is the defining factor, then what about the newer players who will be entering more tournaments than the older ones?

actually seems like this was addressed in the previous three or four posts. whatevs i've been drinking.

the community as a WHOLE should have a voice, NOT one group over another.

 

[Battlecow]

OK but who's in the community? Not G_mang (inb4 sk or aa making the joke), and probably not someone who joined smashboard 3 days ago and hasn't been to a tourney or played online.

There's a line somewhere

 

[The Star King]

yeah idk wtf Keft thinks skill level has to do with deciding keyboard legality

I mean a tier list or something would make sense

but this? no

 

[Kefit]

the community as a WHOLE should have a voice, NOT one group over another.

What constitutes "the community" and how are we going figure out what its voice is?

Is "the community" everyone who travels to national tournaments? That's something we can pin down, at least. But then what, we have 96 players if we consider Apex 2013 alone? Do we consider the Melee and Brawl players who signed up for SSB64 because why the **** not?

Everyone who still plays SSB64 for whatever reason? There are tons of people out there who still semi-actively play SSB but aren't on a national standard of skill and don't have any online presence whatsoever. But they nonetheless help keep the game alive at smaller local events.

Everyone who just so happens to post on Smashboards and feels the desire to write out cogent arguments or vote in low visibility polls? It's clear from our userbase that the mere act of posting on this board isn't indicative of competitive understanding of SSB64.

Do we care about what Brazil, Peru, and Japan have to say about this matter? Are they part of "the community?" If so, how do we get them to participate in our decision making process?

My point is that "the community" is an extremely nebulous term that can and does mean a lot of things to different people. It's not something we can pin down and extract a voice from in any reasonable fashion. If we want to to reach a reasonable consensus on these matters - perhaps not something we all agree on, but at the least something we won't ***** at Nintendude for deciding upon as the ruleset of a major international tournament - then we need to make use a of a reasonable, measurable, authoritative representation of our competitive community. Melee and Brawl solve this issue with backrooms. We don't have that much structure, which is why I've suggested a quick and objective method of selecting our representative base.

In the end, Nintendude and his fellow organizers are going to have the final say on our rulesets. I think it would be great if he had a concrete, objective, and meaningful basis upon which to make his decisions. Then maybe we could get over our butthurt and spend our energy enjoying this great game.

yeah idk wtf Keft thinks skill level has to do with deciding keyboard legality

I mean a tier list or something would make sense

but this? no

Any decision affecting the competitive nature of our top level tournaments demands that we only consider input from people who understand SSB64 on a competitive level. "Apex top 32" is a reasonable and objective manner to isolate a measurable and diverse sample of players who demonstrably understand and appreciate our compeitive scene. There may be other methods of producing a diverse, measurable, and authoritative sample. I'm open to suggestions.