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The Ultimate Smash 4 Ruleset Poll

W1m0

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There is no way to force every TO to make something an official ruleset. However I can hope this will help people who end up forming rulesets in the future.
Will it go on as the official ruleset for smashboards?(that's all I really want to know because that is what most regions follow)
 
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The biggest issue is the fact that 2 stock limits the amount of options players have. If a player accidentally suicides or has the first round go terrible then they have no wiggle room. 3 stock doesn't extend the match that much longer and if anything can make things more exciting with a larger window for come backs. The stage selection is also lacking and could easily be made larger. Thats my 2 cents anyway.
I feel using that example isn't the best reasoning alone for why 3 stocks are better than 2. I mean what if your opponent has 3 stocks still and you have only 2 and then you SD? Your essentially put in a much worse scenario where making that comeback is made all the more difficult. Sure you can say that if the comeback is made it shows a much higher degree of skill, but if your playing on at a much higher skill level to begin with you shouldn't really be SD'ing in the first place.

If anything 2 stocks makes the comeback factor an ever looming possibility as one slip up can lead to you losing your lead. Matches are lead to be much more of a back and forth this way. You also have to take into account how unlike previous games characters can recover much easier meaning the possible longevity of each stock is lengthened compared to stocks in previous iterations
 

Uffe

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I used to oppose 2 stock, 5 minutes, and I kind of still do, because timed out matches are no fun to watch. At least with 6 minutes, you get that additional time frame. 3 stocks, I feel, make the matches run on, possibly killing viewership.
 

YurtZoire

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In for glory, teams should be 3 stock, friendly fire on, and have platformed stages included (yoshi's story & battlefield) to further discourage camping and encourage team synchronicity. I think one on one could also benefit from platformed stages greatly in general, that way we'd see some projectile-less characters be actually valid. Other than that, I mean, no items is just fine, but you can add very weak items like the banana/superleafsuperleaf/sandbag to spice things up IMO. Just nothing that'll break the flow of battle, but this isn't important.
 

SpandexBullets

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Regulated custom stages should 100% be implemented. There are enough classic stages that can be recreated to warrant interest.
Go to the custom stage thread and take a few from my post - i got em roof blast line and size accurate.
Also, this stage list is boring - and even in PM, everyone picks smashville anyways, but these stages, while amazing, weren't imagined as diehard competitive.
 

Dr. Tuen

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@Cassio

Interesting stuff. However, your message brings up factors that are not relevant to the analysis of this sampling. For one, we shouldn't exactly be concerned about technological exclusion with this sample -- most tournament attending smash players will have a Smashboards account.

Interestingly, the real crux of the bias seems to be missing from your post. Voluntary response sampling yields more skewed results because it biases towards people with strong opinions. If 2-stock support was vocal, and 3-stock support was so-so, you'd get a result that says the community overwhelmingly supports 2-stock matches. This could be the result even if the community was split 50/50 on the issue.

I also wonder how this survey developed the questions they asked. Are these all the factors we need to be considering with respect to ruleset research? If so, who was asked?

This works OK as a preliminary search poll, but I hope @ LiteralGrill LiteralGrill understands the statistical pitfalls of this particular polling method. If this is to be used to guide future decisions regarding the preferred ruleset of the smash 4 community, I would recommend a more statistically grounded approach.

Side note - I would wager a guess to say that not everyone knows the ins-and-outs of each stage. Offering links within the poll that lead to an appropriately short summary of that stage's behavior would be useful. Similar to the effects of Mii weight/height, etc.
 
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L1GHT

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I am not looking forward to this poll. Still have PTSD from the Brawl MK Ban polls.
All it really does it paint a visual picture of the division of the Smash 4 community.
tl;dr Been here. See where this is going. Good luck, cadets.
I think you should just let the community figure its **** out
 

Splash Damage

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Here's something I wrote in the 'extra comments' section that I think could use some extra opinions:
"Due to how common many camping strategies/options are used successfully even against high-level players(See Nairo v ADHD), it may be a good idea to remove the timer altogether. This would remove any incentive to excessively camp, as doing so would simply waste time and not get you any closer to victory due to the fact that you wouldn't be able to win by time. This would require more active pool monitors and would be difficult to manage, but it would also completely remove all hyper-camp strategies from the meta and make the only way to win by elimination of your opponent's stocks, promoting an offensive metagame. Any and all camping strategies would be pointless unless to tack on damage, and even so it wouldn't be very effective or potent as rushing in and getting combos. This theory/idea is a very risky one and would require a large amount of testing at Locals before getting use, though it could potentially drastically change the meta for the better if it ends up working."
 

David Galanos

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I am not looking forward to this poll. Still have PTSD from the Brawl MK Ban polls.
All it really does it paint a visual picture of the division of the Smash 4 community.
tl;dr Been here. See where this is going. Good luck, cadets.
I agree. Sometime or another someone is going to have to lay down the law, like how EVO did, except, not as sudden and random haha.
Everyone is gonna have their opinions and preferences, but there has to be order and a reasonable ruleset decided. No matter what there's gonna be people unhappy with whatever happens, whether it's stock, time, stages, customs, etc.
Imagine if there were polls for the law, deciding if something should be illegal or not. I really hope this is not going to decide everything but just give an idea on where people stand, and it's not like once a ruleset is created it can't be tweaked.
 

HappyBear801

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I think stages should be:

Neutral-
•Battlefield
•Final Destination
•All Final Destination Forms of Stages
•Smashville
•Town and City
•Lylat Cruise

Counterpick-
•Delfino Plaza
•Kongo Jungle (64)
•Skyloft
•Castle Siege
•Duck Hunt
 

Riskman

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I want more legal stages that don't include Halberd. I feel like the only reason it's legal in smash 4 is because it was in Brawl.

I'd like to experiment more with travelling stages like Skykoft and MAYBE Mario Kart 8. Although they both need more testing, and MK8 might have a few too many walls and hazards. I would also love to get Gamer legal. I mean, let's be real here. If you are at all against any of these stages being legal, I'll tell you this.

If Halberd can be legal, Gamer can be legal.
Gamer's layout changes for the entire game every single match and most (if not all) versions feature a Cave of Life. All can be learned, yes, but when you choose the stage you do not know what you are going to get. Imagine a much smaller version of temple that chooses a random layout every single time, and if you are not behind something, often resulting in being in one of the caves of like, you are in danger of being hit by an obvious but deadly hazard with a range far greater than the claw on Halberd with more kill power and damage. Many of the layouts promote extreme camping and with the caves of life would most likely result in matches going to time thanks to everybody constantly hiding from the hazard and living thanks to the Cave of Life.

Totally cool with Skyloft though. I like Wuhu as well.
 

Iceweasel

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Here's something I wrote in the 'extra comments' section that I think could use some extra opinions:
"Due to how common many camping strategies/options are used successfully even against high-level players(See Nairo v ADHD), it may be a good idea to remove the timer altogether. This would remove any incentive to excessively camp, as doing so would simply waste time and not get you any closer to victory due to the fact that you wouldn't be able to win by time. This would require more active pool monitors and would be difficult to manage, but it would also completely remove all hyper-camp strategies from the meta and make the only way to win by elimination of your opponent's stocks, promoting an offensive metagame. Any and all camping strategies would be pointless unless to tack on damage, and even so it wouldn't be very effective or potent as rushing in and getting combos. This theory/idea is a very risky one and would require a large amount of testing at Locals before getting use, though it could potentially drastically change the meta for the better if it ends up working."
Interesting idea, but I see it failing hard. There's no incentive to camp for a win by timeout, but there's also no incentive to not camp. If your opponent is getting the better of you in a straight fight, you could win by camping them out and tacking on little bits of damage, then finish with a smash. With a timer, this is unfeasible. Without, it doesn't matter, because you can't possibly lose by timeout.
 

erico9001

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3 stocks and 8 minutes give players a chance get themselves together when they mess up. Not as much but a little. I personally never really fought a long match because I use Shulk and either my damage gets high quickly because I'm in buster or my opponent's damage is high because I'm in buster either way one of us dies quickly. 2 stocks games on average have been around 3 minutes. But that's just me.
Lol that's not the case if you use Monado Shield and Monado Jump a lot :p
 

Splash Damage

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Interesting idea, but I see it failing hard. There's no incentive to camp for a win by timeout, but there's also no incentive to not camp. If your opponent is getting the better of you in a straight fight, you could win by camping them out and tacking on little bits of damage, then finish with a smash. With a timer, this is unfeasible. Without, it doesn't matter, because you can't possibly lose by timeout.
Suppose you could be right. I'll push for it at my locals first to test and get proof.
 

Cedy

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I'd like to experiment more with travelling stages like Skykoft and MAYBE Mario Kart 8. Although they both need more testing, and MK8 might have a few too many walls and hazards.
MK8 has too many walls. I once landed a rest with Jigglypuff and the person bounced 3 times without dying.
 

Omegascizor456

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I prefer three stocks by far... it makes matches way more intense and the mind games are even stronger... due to people having more time to adapt and learn their opponent!
 

W1m0

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im in favor of skyloft being legal and i believe that pilotwings is a lot more fitting than wuhu island because of the random walls and ness down throw glitch.
 

Aninymouse

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This is still being filled out by a lot of VIEWERS that don't actually play the game at tourneys / weeklies and so on, It also is extremely easy to vote multiple times.

I think this poll should be taken all over the world upon registration to smash 4 events by PARTICIPANTS to see what the people playing actually want and not what the viewers want to see necessarily.

Edit: Basically, the results of this poll are useless.
Exactly.

I just play Smash casually, and I watch other people play. Why should I be allowed to vote in this poll? If my vote swayed opinion on future rules, how is that fair for the people who are actually putting in the work and travel needed to win tournaments?

This poll will be ultimately useless. The Smash 4 rules we have now at most events have been mostly fine. It isn't like there are any glaring flaws, or moral judgments to be made, here.

I'd wager you're going to get a lot of people who don't even play in tournaments who will vote for rule changes JUST BECAUSE of the novelty factor. Too many times I've seen people on Smashboards treat Smash like it's their religion. In other words, they always are looking for the fresh, new thing. They can't be content because their happiness rides on the winds of hype. I pity people like that, but there are a lot of NEETs on here that think that way.

Just my two cents.
 

LiteralGrill

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Exactly.

I just play Smash casually, and I watch other people play. Why should I be allowed to vote in this poll? If my vote swayed opinion on future rules, how is that fair for the people who are actually putting in the work and travel needed to win tournaments?

This poll will be ultimately useless. The Smash 4 rules we have now at most events have been mostly fine. It isn't like there are any glaring flaws, or moral judgments to be made, here.

I'd wager you're going to get a lot of people who don't even play in tournaments who will vote for rule changes JUST BECAUSE of the novelty factor. Too many times I've seen people on Smashboards treat Smash like it's their religion. In other words, they always are looking for the fresh, new thing. They can't be content because their happiness rides on the winds of hype. I pity people like that, but there are a lot of NEETs on here that think that way.

Just my two cents.
You can filter the results to only show tournament goers, don't worry on this one. With proper data mining this stuff could be very useful in the end.
 

kesterstudios

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too bad theres no such thing as a 2.5 stock game. im seriously caught in the middle. 3 stock might be better but im afraid some matches will go on for too long. I don't know.

I think we should experiment with windy hill. its too big for singles but for doubles this could be a good counterpick stage...
 

Gooey Pojo

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I kinda want to keep 2 stock, 6 min; however, maybe we could change the number of games played per set; 3 out of 5 for normal sets and 5 out of 6 for semis/finals. With this, you get the best of both worlds potentially. Idk though.
 

kesterstudios

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I kinda want to keep 2 stock, 6 min; however, maybe we could change the number of games played per set; 3 out of 5 for normal sets and 5 out of 6 for semis/finals. With this, you get the best of both worlds potentially. Idk though.
that's actually not a bad idea, but I think for semis/finals it should be 4 out 7 games instead of 5 out of 6. maybe we should experiment with 3 out of 5 for normal sets with the same 2 stock 6 min games
 

BuTTNutz

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too bad theres no such thing as a 2.5 stock game. im seriously caught in the middle. 3 stock might be better but im afraid some matches will go on for too long. I don't know.

I think we should experiment with windy hill. its too big for singles but for doubles this could be a good counterpick stage...
the reason 3 stock takes long is that people are playing defensively, having more stocks means that players should take risks and go on the offensive. thats my opinion on the subject but just like you, I'm right in the middle
 

Loup

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I personally like full stage striking, customs on, and 2/56. but I think majority of the stages in this game are jank and are trying to kill the fun of the game before it starts.

Surprised it mentioned Kalos PK League and not even Pyrosphere .
 
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