The No-Johns Ruleset

[MasterShake]

Hacked melee is the future honestly.

 

[crush]

^ this.

 

[Brookman]

Ya, nintendo made an imperfect game and its up to us to make a better version.

 

[Doser]

If you're adding more counter picks add more bans. As was said before, if you have Mute City and Brinstar you are giving Puff and Peach a near auto win against opponents that are around their skill level. Same with Fox and Falco with Poke Floats, Rainbow Cruise, and Corneria.

 

[Sinji]

I think the counter picks should be leveled off like corneria, Mute City or Brinistar.

If you have Brinistar and Mute city together, the possibility of a floaty player winning a set is 100%.

 

[Rob_Gambino]

You only get 1 counterpick per round. Having 2 counterpick stages for a character does not win him the set, especially if you get to ban 1. I also believe brinstar is far from autowin for puff/peach unless you're playing IC or something.

 

[Sinji]

What I ment to say was having the option of picking either mute city or Brinistar gives floaty characters the stage advantage out of the whole set.

 

[ArcNatural]

Every currently available stage usually involves Fox or Falco as well.

Heyo.

No, but seriously. They're better characters across basically all stages. I don't disagree that some of the additional stages give them an arguable amount of a larger advantage in some matchups, but some of the additional stages also give them smaller advantages in some matchups. I have seen that Falco can be pretty effective on Brinstar and Fox can be pretty effective on Mute, though they are certainly disadvantaged to Peach/Puff and perhaps a couple others.

Does it overcentralize the metagame? I really don't think you'd see much difference compared to what you see now. Yeah, it does have an effect and it probably does make Fox/Falco a bit better, but you only get 1 counterpick a round, so it's not going to change things that dramatically. The first stage is still going to matter more than anything else, just like always.

Wall camping was never really used in such a way that made it inordinately good. I don't think it's that great of a strategy - it requires you to be too predictable and limits your own options. For that reason, I don't think that these stages automatically lead to longer rounds for the reasons you suggest. However, I do think that strengthening counterpicking does lead to longer matches, because they'll go 3 instead of 2 rounds more often.

The whole real problem is that Fox and Falco have inherent advantages on ALL or ALMOST ALL Characters across all stages. While I would like to think that increases the stages would also increase character usage, what really seemed to happen is people would just use Fox on counterpick stages (covers most stages/most options). In that case I really think outlier characters that are seeming to do better (Peach, Ice Climbers, Falcon) get shafted with more Fox/Falco oriented stages. Especially in longer sets. This is opinion.

Strengthening counterpicking stages is a double edged sword. Forget about longer matches, but what about actual matchups on said stages? There are more guaranteed wins with the increase of counterpick stages. Don't get me wrong I would love to see Armada somehow dominate on Green Greens or Corneria with Peach but it would be O_O.

It really comes down to if you value the ability to play multiple characters a defining skill trait in High Level play (something let's face it, every Falcon main in the world would struggle with). Or just having more balanced matchups in general.

Perhaps it is true that more people would pick Fox/Falco on certain CPs (indeed, on many CPs), but since Kish is also advocating a no-stage-ban system, you could always pick them to a stage they aren't as good as some other characters on. If anything this promotes knowledge of how to play multiple characters, which is a skill in and of itself and also ought to be respected.

I'm not sure how more stages "over-centralizes" gameplay. If anything, isn't gameplay already over-centralized on the proper way to play on neutrals? Obviously, this way of playing won't perfectly translate over to stages that are not as similar, but by encouraging people to learn to play different ways to adjust to different stages, aren't we just de-centralizing gameplay by making it more diverse and ultimately closer to what the creators of the game intended it to be?

This would be true if Fox and Falco weren't the best characters in the game and easily better than the majority of characters on most stages.

There seems to be this misconception that there would be more characters played with more stages. This is simply not true. All it does is change some top tier matchups, and makes all top tier characters even BETTER against the rest of the class.

All I'm trying to point out is that those changes in the top tier matchups become more HEAVILY favored on the additional stages. Which to me just goes back to whoever wins the first game gaining the benefit of a HEAVILY favored counterpick stage.

 

[Niko45]

It's not a coincidence that the lesser characters in the game have become more and more formidable as the stage list has continued to shrink. I think most people would agree that character diversity is more interesting than stage diversity.

 

[KishPrime]

I don't think that's an assertion that you can make. I think that Jigglypuff has gotten a slight boost from the stage list changes, but it's not that big. And every stage list change is going to make some characters better and some worse. I don't see diversity levels being that much different from the old days.

If you have Brinistar and Mute city together, the possibility of a floaty player winning a set is 100%.

I'm sorry, but this is most certainly hyperbole. I've played out close matches on these stages with Jigglypuff regularly against lots of characters, including Fox, Falco, and Ganon - BUT ONLY AGAINST PEOPLE WHO KNEW THE STAGE. And I've seen it happen in plenty of matches where I wasn't playing where a Ganon or Falco took control on those levels. Yes, I demolished a lot of people, too, who were clueless. They don't matter. Matchup-wise, they are comparable to stages like RC for Space Animals - where matches are either close or they can look really ugly. However, Mute/Brinstar seem to get more backlash because people expect the space animals to be better.

The whole real problem is that Fox and Falco have inherent advantages on ALL or ALMOST ALL Characters across all stages. While I would like to think that increases the stages would also increase character usage, what really seemed to happen is people would just use Fox on counterpick stages (covers most stages/most options). In that case I really think outlier characters that are seeming to do better (Peach, Ice Climbers, Falcon) get shafted with more Fox/Falco oriented stages. Especially in longer sets. This is opinion.

First of all, overall character balance is really irrelevant in the design of this ruleset. It's not a criteria, so it doesn't matter and it doesn't address it. The objective is to play Melee, as it is, including as much of it as possible.

Even then, I still think the argument that it makes Fox/Falco better is kind of weak. I just don't think Fox on PS or DL64 vs. Character A is that much different than Fox vs. Character A on Rainbow Cruise or Corneria. That's an opinion. And then, theoretically, forcing a Fox/Falco player to play on Mute/Brinstar is supposed to tilt the matchup against them more than usual, so that actually makes them less effective since without those stages they'd have a higher-than-usual chance of winning on the opponent's counterstage.

There's no question that counterpicking done right is more effective in this system - it fulfills the goal of rewarding "whole game knowledge." Does it go too far and make Fox/Falco the only viable characters, pushing the whole game knowledge required in the wrong direction? I don't really think it's much different, if at all, from neutral-stage only Melee, but you're free to disagree. You could use the every-round-stage-strike system if you think the swings are too large.

 

[Niko45]

A competent Peach/Puff will win on Mute City or Brinstar against the cast.

A competent fox will win on green greens, corneria, poke floats, and rainbow cruise.

These stages aren't really adding any depth to the game you're just turning best of 3 sets into best of 1s where the neutral is virtually deciding the entire set. So why not do an actual best of 3 where all 3 games are played on neutrals, since matchups don't change that drastically there and it's much more realistic to overcome the disadvantage you're facing on your opponent's CP and potentially win? That way outplaying your opponent over the course of 3 games is rewarded instead of outplaying your opponent for 1 game and then going through the motions on CP stages.

 

[ArcNatural]

First of all, overall character balance is really irrelevant in the design of this ruleset. It's not a criteria, so it doesn't matter and it doesn't address it. The objective is to play Melee, as it is, including as much of it as possible.

That's fine, You said you wanted discussion on the ruleset so I thought I would bring out my issues. I really don't see how you can claim character balance is irrelevant to this list as you used Fox in a lot of your examples to why you even had stages banned.

Even then, I still think the argument that it makes Fox/Falco better is kind of weak. I just don't think Fox on PS vs. Character A is that much different than Fox vs. Character A on Rainbow Cruise or Corneria. That's an opinion. And then, theoretically, forcing a Fox/Falco player to play on Mute/Brinstar is supposed to tilt the matchup against them more than usual, so that actually makes them less effective since without those stages they'd have a higher-than-usual chance of winning on the opponent's counterstage.

This is where we differ. The Mute/Brinstar reasoning only works for select characters that are already diversified enough with the current ruleset (namely Ganon/Peach/Jigglypuff, with some outliers). Fox/Falco still hold advantages over most of the cast on those and the rest of the stages. It isn't balanced because Fox and Falco already have small advantages on practically all the neutral stages to begin with. What your doing is reintroducing very strong counter stages again that work with a few characters. The rest of the character cast just gets more shafted. If you don't believe this to be true, then this is just a agree to disagree moment.

There is also the issue of certain matchups being heavily problematic due to the fact that their just weren't enough bans for certain characters to cover their weaknesses (Falcon FoD + Mute/Green Greens/Corneria) (Ganon FD + Mute/Green Greens/Corneria). And these are higher tiered characters. It gets only worse for lower tiered. Although you can argue that the lower tiered characters are pretty much irrelevant anyway since they don't really effect placements enough. Plenty of higher tiered characters get this effect as well.

Again you miss the great parts of a rule set like this, Mango doing the jab reset to upthrow tech chase rest on the airship in Corneria against M2k for one. Perhaps gaining some excitement over a fresh look on the game. It just always seems to me that a lot of the time when people remember the old way of things being "fun" they forget how quickly those things become incredibly lame to deal with.

 

[Cactuar]

Lol. Kish is an old geezer. Someone take him back to the retirement home.

<3


Edit: Niko's post highlights a very important issue. Stages that can serve to shift matchup percentages that heavily will drastically increase the importance of winning the first round. We do support the winner of the first game gaining a slight advantage, but not one that large.

 

[KishPrime]

Ah, retirement. Wait, I'm still in the home.

Niko/Cactuar, yes, they will win most of the time due to their natural advantages, but not all of the time. Competitive play is about who comes through when it matters, counterstage or not. I've certainly seen people pull off difficult upsets on opponent's counterstages to save a set, and you can have equally difficult matchups on "neutral" stages. Referring again to when these were common counterpicks, matches weren't exactly best-of-one then. Honestly, I found that there were a number of Fox/Falco players who I could handle easier on stages like FoD and Story, and I picked those stages against them as much as Mute/Brinstar.

I'm not convinced that Falcon and Ganon are horribly disadvantaged on Mute, though I'm agreeing that they'd rather play on other stages. Falcon/Ganon players will probably shoot me down, but I have seen it and I don't know that any of them practice for it anymore.

I don't mind discussing character balance. The listed criteria only refers to single-character brokenness, which it why it is referred to in my stage analyses. I can't and won't even pretend to claim that I (or anyone) can develop a ruleset where characters are "balanced," which is why the rules do not incorporate that piece as an end-goal. When people say that, they're usually only talking about the 4-5 characters that matter to them, anyway.

To your point about shifting character balance, I kind of agree with you that it changes, but also don't really care (don't take that the wrong way). If some characters are worse, then they're worse. It's just not the point of this ruleset. I also agree that sometimes things on those stages are "lame." So is Randall on YS, edges on BF, chain-grabs on FD, etc., at times and to some degree. People are just trained to react differently to them.

To me, the interesting question is the "trading stages for characters" question. Is that really true? Do we really have any evidence that this is the case? I mean, some characters get a little better and some a little worse, but we had lots of diversity back in 2005-2006 when there were lots of stages. We had Top 5 National placings for Falcon, Peach, Sheik, Puff, and Marth players then, too, just off the top of my head, and occasional low-tier players like G+W and DK making good showings (not anywhere near Top 5). It wasn't just Fox/Falco succeeding.

Theory-only, I agree with you that it seems like Fox/Falco get a bit better in this system. I'm just not sure that it's borne out in reality that they do.

 

[Kal]

With variation on rulesets some characters get better and some characters get worse, and you can theory-craft an argument in this fashion for both Kish's ruleset and the MBR ruleset. I think something concrete, in the form of several tournament results, should come out before we jump to the conclusion that a smaller stage list necessarily makes a significant number of characters more viable. Obviously, this would require a large number of players to play with the No-Johns ruleset, and to take it seriously over a long period of time, which I don't see happening.

I also feel that it's a bit out of place to suggest that we should make any attempt to balance the roster.

 

[Anth0ny]

It's sad how many stages are banned simply because of one character =(

That being said, I think I support this ruleset. This late in the game's life, I think it would be good to open up some stages again. It makes it feel fresh again.

 

[ArstNeio]

I agree, I'm not sure that we are in a place where we can claim we should be legislating character balance. I'm of the philosophy that we shouldn't try to legislate things like this, and we should simply allow the game to develop as it is. We really don't know exactly what the character diversity will look like if we open up more stages, and just because we have an idea doesn't mean we can predict all of the metagame developments.

And indeed, why is it right to cut stages in order to achieve character balance, but not right to cut characters in order to achieve stage balance? We could clearly just ban Fox, and tons and tons of more stages become viable. I'm of the opinion that we shouldn't legislate either, because I can't think of the correct answer to this question, and so I take the opinion that we should take a less intrusive legislative presence by not doing either, because any reasons that one are bad pretty much apply to the other as well.

People will say that they prefer character balance to stage balance, but I don't think that's a fair standard to legislate by. I'm sure most of us (who aren't ICs players) prefer not to get wobbled to being wobbled, and we sure could make some low tiers a little bit more viable by banning the Sheik chaingrab on them. We don't do either of these things because preference isn't generally an accepted standard for legislating a game, so why do it for stages? Ultimately, why is it okay to create a stage list just because it makes a game that is ostensibly "more fun" for the community and conforms to "what the community wants" irrespective of what's actually fiar and balanced, when it is not okay to do so when legislating anything else in the game?


Cactuar:
Or, people could just pick up a multitude of characters and not be absolutely screwed on certain stages. I guess this makes some characters more viable and some less, but as I just posted, we 1. don't know for sure the exact way this will evolve and 2. shouldn't really be legislating these things in the first place. A wider stage list will be just as fair, include more content from the actual game, and also encourage people to learn to play different characters, none of which are bad and each of which has many merits.

 

[Wobbles]

Am I the only one who believes in the concept of a learning curve for stages? That maybe a matchup on a stage will change if you intentionally attempt to advance its metagame, rather than just ban the level?

I'm not crazy enough to say that Jigglypuff's inherent strengths on Mute, for instance, will disappear if you play against her enough. What I'm more interested in, however, is discovering the less obvious strengths and talents of other characters on these stages. Strengths you don't discover by avoiding a stage like the flipping plague.

I believe if you play on a stage for an entire day with the intent to discover things, you will learn stuff you never figured out in years of normal play. But most people only know things about the game that they hijacked from the few innovative players that figured it out before them. So yeah, hoping for any kind of majority support in this case will be fruitless until a crowd-favorite shows everybody what's possible.

 

[Teczer0]

^^^^^

Not really. I believe in it too.

But you're right for the most part, the main reason for the banning of a lot of these stuff is because of the majority which is unfortunate. Everyone has a mentality that we've discovered the 'correct' way to play, without giving much stuff a chance.

 

[Varist]

I want to see just one regional where people forget stage striking, forget neutrals, forget CPs and bans, and just press the random button and play whatever stage pops up.

It's foolish to try and squeeze in as much of the middle-ground as possible. Randomness built into characters is unavoidable, but we have a choice with stages. You either only play on neutrals, or you play on everything. It's like racism. It's either always okay, or it never is. Mixing in situations where racism is okay sometimes (like scholarships) on a foundation of non-racism causes arguments. It dredges up dissatisfaction across the board for the people who like to nitpick over these things.

If you take away this tug-of-war of which stages are probably okay and which probably aren't, the virtually limitless positions become only two positions. You've only got two sides to argue, and probably far less dissatisfied people. Those that want all the stages, and those that only want Battlefield and Final Destination. And maybe Dream Land. No, no see I almost did it. Just BF and FD.

That's what I think anyways.

Icicle Mountain Grand Finals

 

[Kal]

Varist, I don't follow your dichotomy. For one, what you call "neutral" is entirely subjective. For two, we're not attempting to reach a "middle ground." We're only banning what is broken, under certain standards. You've provided no reason for your dichotomy. It doesn't have to be "all or nothing."

And, as an aside, granting scholarships based on race is not so simple as "look, they're Black." It's a system integrally tied with class distinction, which has a lot to do with America's history of treatment of Blacks, particularly in the South. Whether it's ok to weigh the granting of scholarships based on race is, at the very least, open to debate, and it's very arrogant of you to assume that you've got it all figured out by calling it racism. You need to keep in mind that saying we have a foundation of non-racism is actually quite false; State Education is as segregated as ever (even though it's not mandated by law), and the Doll Test used in the legal case for Brown v. Board still has the same disturbing results when conducted today.

But honestly, comparing ruleset design with racism is nonsensical.

 

[Cactuar]

Lol. Getting mad creative with these posts.

I'll just keep doing... what I'm doing.

**

 

[mers]

At first, I hated this thread. However, the more I've thought about it, the more I think it's (mostly) a good idea. My personal revisions to your stagelist:

Final Destination
Battlefield
Dream Land
Fountain of Dreams
Pokemon Stadium
Yoshi’s Story
Brinstar
Jungle Japes - I'm a little suspicious about this one.
Mute City
Rainbow Cruise
Kongo Jungle 64
Corneria - Not sure about this one either.
Poke Floats

I don't support MKII, Green Greens, Onett, or Peach's Castle.

I think I'll try hosting with this ruleset to see what happens.

 

[Kal]

We here in Austin will be doing at least one tournament with this ruleset. I think my nonstop *****ing has convinced those here to be excited about the new and exciting stages.

 

[Strong Badam]

it seems to be a misconception that the point of this ruleset is to give the fewest opportunities for johns. on the contrary, this ruleset has more opportunities for johns, but the phrase "no johns" actually is applicable because people aren't johning about their losses and rather are learning new stages and getting better.

 

[Doser]

it seems to be a misconception that the point of this ruleset is to give the fewest opportunities for johns. on the contrary, this ruleset has more opportunities for johns, but the phrase "no johns" actually is applicable because people aren't johning about their losses and rather are learning new stages and getting better.

Who thought it was about giving people less reason to complain?

 

[Strong Badam]

This is the HUGE JOHNS ruleset, not the No Johns ruleset.

looks like the mindset was more isolated than i thought.

 

[Doser]

If it had to be someone who doesn't understand the title, it WOULD be Roneblaster.

Spoiler

Although I think he was just joking

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

I'm gonna repost my idea from the other thread:

All bracket matches are bo5. Pools matches are bo3 and use the current ruleset/a 6 stage list.
G1 is to be stage-striked to one of 5 neutrals
The loser of the previous game counterpicks the next game
Each player is only allowed to choose a stage designated as a "counterpick stage" (a much larger pool than we have now) once a set, regardless of bans.
Each player can ban one neutral and one counterpick.

So sets could play out like this:
G1 neutral stage striked to by both players (P1 wins)
G2 counterpick stage chosen by P2 (P2 wins)
G3 counterpick stage chosen by P1 (P1 wins)
G4 neutral stage chosen by P2 (P2 wins)
G5 neutral stage chosen by P1 (P1 wins)

So, ultimately, the counterpicks don't matter as much toward the end result. Bo3 sets are the worst thing about our ruleset right now. Going into a Jiggs/Marth set, the Jiggs player knows that he already has one win notched up because the Marth can only ban one of Dreamland/Brinstar (assuming the players are of relatively equal skill). Jiggs only has to win one match on a neutral to win the set. Thus, we rarely see the matchup played for an entire set these days, though I guarantee under my proposed ruleset we would. The reason everyone wants to shrink the stage list so much is because of the bo3 structure; its gotten to the point that its problematic and a hindrance to spectators. The fact that some members of the community want only 5 or even 3 stages shows that we have gone a bit overboard.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the problem with our current system is that counterpicks are too powerful. Bo5 is the only way to fix that without reducing our stagelist drastically.

As much as I want to be old school and promote some of these wacky stages, I don't think it is fair considering the bo3 structure. It makes counterpicks even more powerful; sets would devolve down to bo1s.

 

[choknater]

i love this ruleset LOL

shoutouts to making people rage

 

[KishPrime]

As much as I want to be old school and promote some of these wacky stages, I don't think it is fair considering the bo3 structure. It makes counterpicks even more powerful; sets would devolve down to bo1s.

It does make counterpicks more powerful, but I don't think it necessarily devolves down to Bo1s. Still, if that's your fear, then that is a fine reason not to use this ruleset.

It's true that this ruleset does nothing to legislate any kind of character balance. That's my disclaimer. It's about playing as much of Melee as possible under already accepted community standards (hence the "Turnip Threshold" concept) and testing players as thoroughly as possible under the harshest conditions. Fox or Falco may be completely ridiculous. Or it may be like 2006 where they aren't. I don't think anyone can say with certainty.

If someone wants to put together a "balanced characters" ruleset, I think that would be an interesting and excruciatingly difficult exercise.

 

[ArstNeio]

I'm gonna repost my idea from the other thread:



I've said it before and I'll say it again, the problem with our current system is that counterpicks are too powerful. Bo5 is the only way to fix that without reducing our stagelist drastically.

As much as I want to be old school and promote some of these wacky stages, I don't think it is fair considering the bo3 structure. It makes counterpicks even more powerful; sets would devolve down to bo1s.

This ruleset is inherently different because Kish's ruleset assumes that each of the 12 stages is just as acceptable as any of the other ones, whereas your ruleset assumes that some stages (i.e. the "neutrals") are better to play on than others (the"counterpicks"). What I'm taking from this thread is that that mentality isn't true when you have a strong standard to judge stages by, as Kish provided in the first post. Each of these stages are just as fair as any other stages, so there isn't really a mechanism by which we can divide "neutrals" and "counterpicks" to make your ruleset work, without making up additional arbitrary standards.

Ultimately, this ruleset is simply creating a stagelist under the core criteria of what makes a stage fair to play on, and isn't considering any of these other factors (character balance, counterpick strength, etc.) As far as I'm concerned, that's a good thing, because it's not our place to legislate any of these other things anyway.

 

[KishPrime]

Just to be clear, a rationally coherent doesn't mean it's a good ruleset. I could make a rationally coherent ruleset that say all characters with fur are banned. It also doesn't mean that it's a fun ruleset to play with, though I like it.

Still, I'm a fan of rational coherency because it doesn't discriminate, and I think the standards that this ruleset is based on are solid in the "fair" department, fair meaning that the rules apply to all players equally before any input is given.

 

[Doser]

because it's not our place to legislate any of these other things anyway.

Why is it not our place? I don't believe there is any reason to stop what we have been doing for 10 years, unless you want to kill interest in the game.

 

[ArstNeio]

Why is it not our place? I don't believe there is any reason to stop what we have been doing for 10 years, unless you want to kill interest in the game.

If it's okay to legislate a game based on all these other considerations, where do we stop? Why don't we ban Sheik, since she makes a large portion of the class basically unviable? Why don't we ban Fox, since he makes so many stages unviable all by himself? Why don't we ban Jigglypuff, since she's "unfun" for many players? There's no brightline to when it is okay and when it is not okay to legislate these factors, besides basically popular opinion, which in my mind isn't a very strong brightline at all. That's why I think that the only legislation we ought to be making is the minimum legislation so that it can be played in a competitive environment, which is what this ruleset tries to do and what the current stagelist is failing at (by being too intrusive).

And if you think about it, no other competitive game legislates as heavily as Smash does; there's probably good reason for that. Blocking both ways in Marvel vs Capcom 3 was legal at Evo because ultimately that's something that is the responsibility of developers, and it was not legislated out despite the player opinion that legislating it out would make for generally more fruitful gameplay, because it's not the player base's position to make these sorts of decisions.

 

[choknater]

shoutouts to the days when midwest got bodied by dope's falco on rainbow cruise

 

[HomeStylePie]

I know my words have absolutely no influence here but nobody wants to watch a defensive game. Why do you think nobody gives a **** about soccer? A ruleset should have two objectives- to make the game consistent (ie. more skilled players win more often) and to make it entertaining.

I'm not making any arguments that haven't already been made before, but seriously, the rules are fine the way they are. This bull**** debate is gonna happen after every tournament no matter what, because there will always be people johning about how YS is the only stage they lost on and Randall cost them so many games and blah blah blah. They'll never realize (like I have) that they just aren't that ****ing good.

 

[Life]

Why do you think nobody gives a **** about soccer?

inb4europe

 

[Jonas]

inb4 everywhere but USA.

 

[The Star King]

More like the world? Most popular sport?

Silly flopmericans