Timeouts, Tiebreakers, and The Lead

[Lomogoto]

If the player with lowest total percent taken to peak percentage ratio won, i think that would sufficiently take survivability into account.
So if bowser kills jiggs at 60 and lives to 160, and the next stock ties with jiggs at 60 and boswer at 80 (120/60=2, 240/160=1.5), it still shows that the jiggs player is less likely to kill and the bowser has proven he could potentially kill at the buzzer.
If no stocks are taken the current rule would apply as neither character has shown they can kill early. If someone plays a light character but is really good at staying alive, we would not want to assume otherwise and discredit their skill.
Both total damage taken and peak damage are viewable on the results screen, though skiping it is still an issue apparently.
The players also have a pretty good idea of where they stand as well, knowing about when they died.

 

[1FC0]

If the player with lowest total percent taken to peak percentage ratio won, i think that would sufficiently take survivability into account.
So if bowser kills jiggs at 60 and lives to 160, and the next stock ties with jiggs at 60 and boswer at 80 (120/60=2, 240/160=1.5), it still shows that the jiggs player is less likely to kill and the bowser has proven he could potentially kill at the buzzer.
If no stocks are taken the current rule would apply as neither character has shown they can kill early. If someone plays a light character but is really good at staying alive, we would not want to assume otherwise and discredit their skill.
Both total damage taken and peak damage are viewable on the results screen, though skiping it is still an issue apparently.
The players also have a pretty good idea of where they stand as well, knowing about when they died.

Why use total damage over current damage?

 

[deepseadiva]

The rule is arbitrary, though. It's used for the sake of giving a rough idea who has hit their opponent with higher-value attacks a few times, or low-value attacks a lot, without killing them. Percent is only even close to an objective measure of "the lead" in Stamina Mode.

It basically amounts to "Percentage doesn't indicate who is going to win, until it becomes obvious that at least one player is running the clock. Then, and only then, does your percent lead (or deficit) matter."

Edit/Addition to avoid Double Posting:
My general assumption/knowledge is that the only thing seen as "uncompetitive" about Sudden Death is that it's raining randomly-spawned explosives past a few seconds. Someone correct me if I'm wrong on that point, because the rest of this suggestion depends heavily on that being the only problem with running Sudden Death.

Smash has an option that readily enables us to simulate the high-volatility of Sudden Death without bob-ombs. This can be done via Handicap. We can literally run a 1 stock handicap match (doesn't even take setup besides clicking the stock down and the handicap up) with the same or a reduced timer, and avoid everything that makes Sudden Death uncompetitive. And still gain match closure through stock-out.

To encourage players to still engage when a match is being taken to time, we could alternately start the Sudden Death at 125-150% (kill threshold for most characters) and then add damage approximating what the player ended the match with. Unfortunately, Smash4's handicap levels aren't very fine-grained, so we're limited to 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 80, 100, 125, 150, 200, and 300% intervals. We could round up, round down, whichever. This lets people keep their percent advantage, but doesn't default us so high that heavies lose their weight advantage unless they'd already taken most of it.

Thoughts on that?

Yooooo this is one of the coolest things I've read in this board.

Can we talk about this? You know I'm all about keeping the game as close to its natural state as possible, and this sounds promising.

 

[Lomogoto]

Why use total damage over current damage?

It seems to work better if a player was gimped or SDed in the first stock but then dominates the rest of the game.
Though i guess that just depends on how much the community values gimps and how punnishing they should be.

EDIT:
Also if both characters die early first stock and set new peaks the next stock, with the total percent method the death percents of the earlier stock are still relivant, as i think the should be.

 

[Charey]

If the player with lowest total percent taken to peak percentage ratio won, i think that would sufficiently take survivability into account.
So if bowser kills jiggs at 60 and lives to 160, and the next stock ties with jiggs at 60 and boswer at 80 (120/60=2, 240/160=1.5), it still shows that the jiggs player is less likely to kill and the bowser has proven he could potentially kill at the buzzer.
If no stocks are taken the current rule would apply as neither character has shown they can kill early. If someone plays a light character but is really good at staying alive, we would not want to assume otherwise and discredit their skill.
Both total damage taken and peak damage are viewable on the results screen, though skiping it is still an issue apparently.
The players also have a pretty good idea of where they stand as well, knowing about when they died.

While Jigglypuff normally kills late, rest gives her a kill option that is strong enough for Bowser to be at ko% at lower amounts then Jigglypuff so it's a one hit game for both players at that point.

Also a gimp means that you will almost garrenteed win at time, as they will be at peak damage at the time limit while you will most likely be at a lower% then peak.

 

[Raijinken]

Yooooo this is one of the coolest things I've read in this board.

Can we talk about this? You know I'm all about keeping the game as close to its natural state as possible, and this sounds promising.

The main drawback, as @ Touchebag mentioned, is that it adds a bit of time to an already timed-out match. It doesn't add as much as, say, an extra round in the set, since stage selection is removed and lethality is high, but it does take a moment to run from 0% to 150%+ handicap (depending on if you run a set percentage or do the end-percent-additive idea). Bumping the stock down by one is negligible. The real questions, logistically, become:
What time limit is set for the Sudden Death round?
What happens if THAT round times out? (Which, to be fair, is already a consideration for the "if percents are tied" 1s3m tiebreaker)

The current "tiebreaker" round is set to a 3 minute time limit on 1 stock, which is pretty generous. I don't think having such a high limit is necessary with each player fighting at a -minimum- of 150%, but I could be wrong. From a setup stance, it makes sense to leave it at 6 minutes or whatever the time was previously, but this runs the risk of still going to time (and taking THAT much longer).

My personal idea would be to set it to 1 stock, 2 minute. Even in "extreme" camping cases, the odds of someone failing to land a killing blow (of which there are many at 200+%) are pretty slim. Even Bowser will nearly die from a regular Spindash at 200%.

Of course, what time to set that limit to is very up for debate. 1 minute is probably still escapable in several matchups on some stages, and depending on 300%, 200%, or 150%+ disadvantage, certain characters can quite feasibly not be under a major threat for such a short timespan, and it's possible for certain players or characters to be reluctant to engage at those percents if the timer is close enough for a timeout to seem practicable. 3 minutes is really long but sets the stalling bar equally far. 2 minutes may be a decent middle ground in that case.

Of course, on the whole, it may not be any fairer of a resolution method. A Sonic timing out against a Bowser may enter the fight at 200 while Bowser enters at 300, and still end up winning while just drawing it out for another minute or so. Still, I think this idea lets us get closer to a meaningful resolution, without relying on complicated formula or running the risk of muscle memory skipping the results screen.

I would say the main problem is that it heavily favours characters with fast/ranged attacks such as Link and his bow. Since basically every attack will kill, slow, strong characters like Ganondorf have basically lost before the SD even begins.



If we ignore the fact that this takes more time (TOs hate everything adding to game time) I really like this idea. It's basically like overtime in many sports.

However, this begs the question of why we have the time in the first place. If we're just gonna continue a timed out game where it left off why not just turn off the time completely? The time limit is mostly there to ensure tournament matches take too long. This would essentially make time meaningless.

To be fair, counting by percent already favors fast characters and those with quick projectiles. However, swapping to Modified Sudden Death forces player versus player engagement, which isn't offered by the cat-and-mouse percent chases the current system causes.

 

[Lomogoto]

While Jigglypuff normally kills late, rest gives her a kill option that is strong enough for Bowser to be at ko% at lower amounts then Jigglypuff so it's a one hit game for both players at that point.

Also a gimp means that you will almost garrenteed win at time, as they will be at peak damage at the time limit while you will most likely be at a lower% then peak.

This is true but from the last stock in this senario we have no reason to believe the rest will connect since bowser survived to 160%.

If you are gimped early you will probably set a new peak damage in the next stock, so the other player will still have to work a little for a time out win but you still have to come back considerably, as you should have to.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

Mimicking Sudden Death via Handicap is still a bad idea because it rewards the person who is losing. If I'm at 120% and the opponent is at 20%, it becomes in my best interest to avoid contact to time out, so that the rules can equalize it. That's not fair and we shouldn't award players who are behind like that.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Mimicking Sudden Death via Handicap is still a bad idea because it rewards the person who is losing. If I'm at 120% and the opponent is at 20%, it becomes in my best interest to avoid contact to time out, so that the rules can equalize it. That's not fair and we shouldn't award players who are behind like that.

I had an idea about starting each player at the closest multiple of 10 to their ending damage, but that would just be a literal extension of the match.

Hypothetical idea: If the timer was disabled exclusively for these 1-stock finishers, in order to remove running the clock as a win condition ad infinitum, would that go anywhere productive?

 

[TheReflexWonder]

How does a 1-stock finisher come up? Having the same amount of stocks? Same percents?

Taking the timer away in that situation would accomplish the same thing as taking the timer away in normal play. It would encourage some people to camp indefinitely if they think it's in their best interest to make the opponent come to them. As a Wario player, I would camp as long as it takes to get the Wafts necessary to win.

 

[Raijinken]

I had an idea about starting each player at the closest multiple of 10 to their ending damage, but that would just be a literal extension of the match.

This was the idea that made me think of percent-added sudden death.

An interesting part of this is that if you're losing by percent (and thus want to stall until time to "even the fight"), you're still going to be penalized to a higher degree than your opponent. I think the "winning" player's sudden pressure to close the stock would be both more effective and more fun to play and watch than the "losing" player's present need to take further risk to attempt to catch a character who can run circles. It forces mindgaming into an eventual interaction, instead of evasive cat and mouse play.

The real trick is determining what's a fair amount to add, especially considering Smash4's gaps in handicap range. Especially depending on rounding, if you start at 100%, a player with 101% either goes to 200% or 300%, nothing in between. If you start at 50%, a player at 100% only goes marginally further into the kill threshold.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

My first thought on that would be to do higher% - lower% and round it to the closest amount. Say I'm at 100% and my opponent is at 62% when we time out. In the 1-stock thing, 100 - 62 = 38. I would start with 40% while the opponent starts with 0%. The problem is that this could technically loop if percents keep getting close and players time out repeatedly.

 

[Wnyke]

Well in my opinion we could make a list with the strongest attack of each character, along with the speed of the move, and a weight value. Using some kind of formula like this one:

St.Atk+2 Atk.Sp-1.5 Op.Weight+(1.5User.% × Op.%)/200

The attack speed cause I believe it has a lot to do with who would be more likely to hit and is a bigger decisive factor than attack strength, the weight the higher the less likely to get a kill, User % because rage, along with Opponent %...

So we could make a list with the best kill options considering knockback/damage/speed assign a proper value and use the values in the formula...

I'm not saying we should use that one but considering only % without thinking about the characters specifications is bad...

 

[deepseadiva]

Well in my opinion we could make a list with the strongest attack of each character, along with the speed of the move, and a weight value. Using some kind of formula like this one:

St.Atk+2 Atk.Sp-1.5 Op.Weight+(1.5User.% × Op.%)/200

The attack speed cause I believe it has a lot to do with who would be more likely to hit and is a bigger decisive factor than attack strength, the weight the higher the less likely to get a kill, User % because rage, along with Opponent %...

So we could make a list with the best kill options considering knockback/damage/speed assign a proper value and use the values in the formula...

I'm not saying we should use that one but considering only % without thinking about the characters specifications is bad...

This gets so precise I LOVE IT

I mean the data is all there...

 

[Charey]

I don't like it, you have some extremely fast and strong attacks that are very situational like Waft, Rest, Bucket, and Judgement that would get an extremely strong rating under that system that would not get their drawbacks factored into that formula that would throw off those calculations. Also what about Smash Art Vision, what would that be rated as? countering a fully charged smash would give it the highest kill rating it could but is unlikely to happen most of the time.

The other problem is how complicated that system is, even if it is better if the rule is too complex for the average tournament player to know who is winning at a glance. So they don't have the information to know if they need to attack or defend as the timer gets close to over. When time is about to happen you need to know absolutely 100% who is currently going to win if timeout happens or you cannot make a good decision on if you should approach.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

There's no way to quantify a character's best move in that manner. One character may be all about using a couple really good moves, while another might have a set of okay moves that go incredibly well together, while another might just have really awesome physics.

 

[dav3yb]

Just a random thought about the percent lead stuff... In tennis, you have to win by 2 matches, so would it worth exploring requiring players to have a certain percent lead to be declared the winner based on said percent? If they dont, they could go into the 1s3m game, and that can then be determined by percent lead at any level. IDK, random thought on it.

 

[TheReflexWonder]

What's the point of playing an extra bit of game if you're going to tack on the original rule to that? Either you think it's an adequate way to determine who should win or you don't. Putting it off doesn't change that.

 

[Wnyke]

Well then let's keep using % knowing that a tilt from bowser would kill jigglypuff, but jiggly has less %...

Isn't this kind of thinking the reason this thread is opened?...

It is a suggestion to change the game rules a little as I said the formula would change depending on the factors that we consider... maybe put a restriction to some attacks or a different modifier value... and if TO have access to tvs and wii u s... couldn't they get a calculator?... also you can have at least a little approximation once you are familiar with the values...

Anyhow I just posted again cause you are invalidating stuff without a counter proposal... just saying no won't help to move the game forward...

Maybe we could consider the damage given whoever has the least damage given is more likely to take a stock at early %... so he/she should win... but suicides and stuff...

 

[Sixfortyfive]

It's worth noting that even in other fighting games, a difference in remaining health is not necessarily a clear indicator of "who is closer to death." In a game with 1000 HP and in situations where time-outs are not a concern, there's effectively no difference between a player with 1 HP remaining and an opponent with 10 HP remaining; each player is 1 hit away from a KO.

It's even more muddied in games with huge combo potential. A battle between two anchor characters in MvC3, one at 20% health remaining and the other at 100%, is arguably an even game with the prevalence of 100% combos, except when time is a factor.

In short, I basically agree with this:

Proved time and time again, Percentage leads is far from optimal but is the less-worse of the available options.

Once someone told me that "Percentage does not indicate who is closer to die, but it clearly shows who is farther from the starting point (0%)", and to this day is the best comment I've heard about it.

There just seem to be too many drawbacks with any other proposed criteria.

 

[Raijinken]

I'm currently still leaning towards 80% handicap plus previous match percent. It's enough to make a previous lead relevant, but not so much that a heavy who hits 150% will be handicapped to 300 (takes 170). Still working on a way to solve people timing out the tiebreaker, even though I think it generally less likely when everyone starts at/near kill percent instead of fresh.

 

[MrGame&Rock]

I kinda like the idea of a tiebreaker one stock game to determine who won, with a handicap of something like 50% with maybe the percent lead added on. That would speed up the "pseudo sudden death." In part thats because I think that in a 2 stock match, you shouldn't win unless you took two stocks off the opponent

Edit: whoops didnt realize there was a second page

 

[Touchebag]

I'm currently still leaning towards 80% handicap plus previous match percent. It's enough to make a previous lead relevant, but not so much that a heavy who hits 150% will be handicapped to 300 (takes 170). Still working on a way to solve people timing out the tiebreaker, even though I think it generally less likely when everyone starts at/near kill percent instead of fresh.

"Less likely" still means it can happen so there must be a backup. What if we simply go back to use the percentage then? Stalling is still a possible tactic but with 80% added onto your damage your opponent often only needs to land one hit to take you out. I.e. this would practically never happen (still better than it does currently).

What we're looking for is a quick tiebreaker. Emphasis on quick. How about a single game in a Bo3/5/whatever that times out is a draw. No player gets the point. If one player then manages to win two games in a row then great, no tiebreaker. If the score at the end of the set is tied only then do we do a tiebreaker. The problem here would be what percentage to use for the handicap. The highest percentage of all three games? The percentage in the tied game? What if all three games were tied?

Or we could just try to find a single "neutral" setting for a quick 1-stock tiebreaker. Like 50% or something on Smashville/Battlefield (as an example).

 

[Raijinken]

"Less likely" still means it can happen so there must be a backup. What if we simply go back to use the percentage then? Stalling is still a possible tactic but with 80% added onto your damage your opponent often only needs to land one hit to take you out. I.e. this would practically never happen (still better than it does currently).

What we're looking for is a quick tiebreaker. Emphasis on quick. How about a single game in a Bo3/5/whatever that times out is a draw. No player gets the point. If one player then manages to win two games in a row then great, no tiebreaker. If the score at the end of the set is tied only then do we do a tiebreaker. The problem here would be what percentage to use for the handicap. The highest percentage of all three games? The percentage in the tied game? What if all three games were tied?

Or we could just try to find a single "neutral" setting for a quick 1-stock tiebreaker. Like 50% or something on Smashville/Battlefield (as an example).

I wouldn't mind that system, actually (treating it as a no-score draw unless the set becomes tied). It saves people having to do the tiebreaker in an otherwise-uneven set, but at the same time, in a 2/3 it means you'll always need the tiebreaker if a game goes to time. Also, how would you determine who "won" for stage picking, character swap order, etc?

The quickest player-involved tiebreaker is actually Sudden Death, since it involves no setup time (the game runs it for you) and even if you wait around bombs will start falling. But the very thing that makes it quick is what makes people hate it as a resolution method.

 

[Touchebag]

I wouldn't mind that system, actually (treating it as a no-score draw unless the set becomes tied). It saves people having to do the tiebreaker in an otherwise-uneven set, but at the same time, in a 2/3 it means you'll always need the tiebreaker if a game goes to time. Also, how would you determine who "won" for stage picking, character swap order, etc?

How about forcing double blind characters? And for the stages we could pick the three standard starter stages. Each player gets to (blind) pick one stage. If they both pick the same stage, play on that stage. If they pick different stages, play on the third stage (so neither player gets their "first" pick).

Maybe not optimal but it's still a clear ruleset, no subjective stuff. I'm sure there are better solutions for the stages but blind character pick solves that part at least.

And the part about always tiebreak if the set ties. It will only happen if one game ties and then the players win one game each. Considering how uncommon (at least compared to the number of games) regular timeouts are and that you still need to tie the rest of the set before a tiebreaker would occur it would probably be even rarer with ties than it is now.

 

[derp90]

I had an interesting thought on this, What about a stamina match, with your health set to your peak damage from the previous match?

 

[Raijinken]

I had an interesting thought on this, What about a stamina match, with your health set to your peak damage from the previous match?

Unless you made a specific custom stage to keep the players from possibly being able to run away from each other, this still carries the same issues the other methods have, plus higher setup time.

As much as I love Stamina, I have a hard time finding good places to plug it into competitive rulesets.

 

[Sodo]

We already have arbitrary, outside the game rules for suicide moves at most majors (except Bowser for some reason, which makes it even more ridiculous). The percent lead isn't perfect, yeah, but it's the "less worst" of all the options we have available like others in this thread have mentioned. The formulas you guys are creating would be more suited towards match analysis, rather than deciding who wins the game. There are instances in real life where teams outplay their opponent and still lose. You could create a following by crafting these advanced stats and applying them to your analysis of a game or a player as a whole, but to decide a game's outcome? Unnecessary.

 

[Raijinken]

We already have arbitrary, outside the game rules for suicide moves at most majors (except Bowser for some reason, which makes it even more ridiculous). The percent lead isn't perfect, yeah, but it's the "less worst" of all the options we have available like others in this thread have mentioned. The formulas you guys are creating would be more suited towards match analysis, rather than deciding who wins the game. There are instances in real life where teams outplay their opponent and still lose. You could create a following by crafting these advanced stats and applying them to your analysis of a game or a player as a whole, but to decide a game's outcome? Unnecessary.

Is there a problem with end-percent-based Sudden Death without bob-ombs aside from it taking longer than using a method that doesn't reflect at all on the actual likely outcome of the match?

 

[Touchebag]

Is there a problem with end-percent-based Sudden Death without bob-ombs aside from it taking longer than using a method that doesn't reflect at all on the actual likely outcome of the match?

As mentioned previously even if we ignore the extra time (which I honestly believe is the main reason for the current system) it still favours lighter characters over heavies. A Bowser can kill Jigglypuff With pretty much any attack whether she is at 70% or 150% but Jiggs gets a huge boost in KO power if Bowser gets 80% extra from 60% to 140%.

 

[M15t3R E]

As has been hinted upon, we don't need an additional factor to judge the winner during a timeout. Just stock, and if the same, then move on to the 1 stock tiebreaker game. Making it a handicap game could work out well. And this could be extended to kamakaze attacks that end in sudden death too, like Ganon's side B.
How common are timeouts anyway? I never see it happen.

 

[Sodo]

Is there a problem with end-percent-based Sudden Death without bob-ombs aside from it taking longer than using a method that doesn't reflect at all on the actual likely outcome of the match?

Not sure what your question is asking, could you rephrase it?

The ideal is that a timeout results in a one stock overtime, starting at 0%. Basically the game would "run it back" with one stock and no Bob-Ombs. Obviously this doesn't happen so we created an arbitrary rule to circumvent it. Take FIFA, for example... I don't know how top level players do it, but my friends and I don't play penalty kicks. It's pretty luck-based and we'd rather just run it back and stop after the first score, golden goal style. The equivalent in Smash would be what I suggested, a run back with one stock at 0%.

Of course, this would promote one player going for time out rather than a finish at high percents, but what we see now is the same thing for a player but at low percents. There is no perfect system.

 

[Touchebag]

Not sure what your question is asking, could you rephrase it?

The ideal is that a timeout results in a one stock overtime, starting at 0%. Basically the game would "run it back" with one stock and no Bob-Ombs. Obviously this doesn't happen so we created an arbitrary rule to circumvent it. Take FIFA, for example... I don't know how top level players do it, but my friends and I don't play penalty kicks. It's pretty luck-based and we'd rather just run it back and stop after the first score, golden goal style. The equivalent in Smash would be what I suggested, a run back with one stock at 0%.

Of course, this would promote one player going for time out rather than a finish at high percents, but what we see now is the same thing for a player but at low percents. There is no perfect system.

Raijinken is talking about his idea of an "overtime" stock. Both players keep their percentage but add say 80% to each player to ensure the tiebreaker finishes quickly instead of starting the stock over. Basically it would be similar to your scenario with equalising the stock but at kill percent instead of 0%.

 

[Sodo]

Raijinken is talking about his idea of an "overtime" stock. Both players keep their percentage but add say 80% to each player to ensure the tiebreaker finishes quickly instead of starting the stock over. Basically it would be similar to your scenario with equalising the stock but at kill percent instead of 0%.

I see. Thanks for the clarification. I am not sure about adding the 80%, but I would definitely like to see how that process worked in a competitive environment. What do you think?

 

[Zonderion]

Just adding my 2 cents. I like the overtime sudden death style match. Normally, if we decide by % then the player at 50% loses to the player at 49%. Plain and simple. Rather than adding a certain amount (80%), what if we had tiers of percent for the sudden death?

<50% = Start at 100%
>50% and <150% = Start at 200%
>150% = Start at 300%

The purpose is to find a way that determines the best player, not character, in the least amount of time.

Thoughts?

Edit: the percentages are just an idea, not to be taken literally.

 

[Raijinken]

Just adding my 2 cents. I like the overtime sudden death style match. Normally, if we decide by % then the player at 50% loses to the player at 49%. Plain and simple. Rather than adding a certain amount (80%), what if we had tiers of percent for the sudden death?

<50% = Start at 100%
>50% and <150% = Start at 200%
>150% = Start at 300%

The purpose is to find a way that determines the best player, not character, in the least amount of time.

Thoughts?

Edit: the percentages are just an idea, not to be taken literally.

That's essentially my "add 80 and round" idea with different ranges. (shown below)

Yours would have, instead, three distinctive levels instead of six more precise levels.

As mentioned previously even if we ignore the extra time (which I honestly believe is the main reason for the current system) it still favours lighter characters over heavies. A Bowser can kill Jigglypuff With pretty much any attack whether she is at 70% or 150% but Jiggs gets a huge boost in KO power if Bowser gets 80% extra from 60% to 140%.

This is true, but while Jigglypuff's aerial mobility is pretty good, I'm having a hard time imagining a Jigglypuff escaping from a Bowser of comparable skill long enough to enter overtime, without taking a killing blow or managing to get an offstage string going against Bowser. Compared to the current system, the Jigglypuff player (regardless of percent) will eventually have to confront Bowser and risk that stock. It's entirely her choice if she wants to bet it on a solid read/killing blow, or is really willing to risk it on essentially any non-firebreath move in sudden death. That level of strategic tradeoff, and the eventual forced confrontation, seems preferable, in my opinion, to encouraging flighty play any time you have a 1% lead.

It essentially turns Time Out into a gamble to up the stakes on all hits, from a "you can't catch me so I win" resolution. And while I can't speak to the Jigglypuff matchup, it becomes a lot more dangerous for Sheik, Villager, or Sonic to run to time when their kill moves are significantly more limited.

 

[Touchebag]

This is true, but while Jigglypuff's aerial mobility is pretty good, I'm having a hard time imagining a Jigglypuff escaping from a Bowser of comparable skill long enough to enter overtime, without taking a killing blow or managing to get an offstage string going against Bowser.

While a fair point, we're discussing what would happen if we time out. We need to assume that this could happen (with any matchup) and for the purpose of this discussion it is going to happen.

However, I still don't see why Jigglypuff would have a better chance of winning by trying to force something with Bowser rather than timing out and put both characters in KO range instead.

 

[Raijinken]

While a fair point, we're discussing what would happen if we time out. We need to assume that this could happen (with any matchup) and for the purpose of this discussion it is going to happen.

However, I still don't see why Jigglypuff would have a better chance of winning by trying to force something with Bowser rather than timing out and put both characters in KO range instead.

She probably wouldn't (she's designed around the idea of never taking a trade and he's designed around trading, anyway). But if she can't manage to find an opening against Bowser's relatively high comboability and poor recovery during the match, then I'm not convinced the same player would be willing to risk walking into a Bowser ftilt at kill percent.

 

[Touchebag]

She probably wouldn't (she's designed around the idea of never taking a trade and he's designed around trading, anyway). But if she can't manage to find an opening against Bowser's relatively high comboability and poor recovery during the match, then I'm not convinced the same player would be willing to risk walking into a Bowser ftilt at kill percent.

Ok. Let's try a hypothetical scenario. Let's say Jigglypuff is at 80% and Bowser at 85%. She is already at kill% while Bowser is still a way off. With the current system Jiggs would actually gain something from running away and time out (assuming she could pull it off). With your proposed system she would also gain something. In the tiebreaker she would still be at kill% but so would Bowser all of a sudden.

I do like your system (and I certainly would prefer it to what we currently use) I'm just saying that it doesn't completely fix all problems. They're still there, just less prevalent.

Which brings me back to my previous proposal of only running a tiebreaker if the set is tied. Then you would gain pretty much nothing from timing out a game other than not letting your opponent get a point.

 

[Thinkaman]

The ideal winner of any timeout should be the player who spent the most time closest to the center of the stage, possibly weighted towards the end of the match.

Alas, it is not to be.