why is the timer 8 minutes?

[Paju]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb2O_tsYqkE#t=7m22s

Well yeah that technically wasn't a timeout as bËst suicided on purpose with only 7 seconds left on the clock, but otherwisely it definitely would have been one. And I didn't even try to timeout him untill I noticed there was only like 50 left seconds on the clock... Which is exactly why I don't want the time limit to be lowered.

If the timer was set to like 4 or 5 minutes, it would actually force timeouts on some matchups (at least if both players have passive/defensive playstyle). I'd rather also have the option to kill my opponent 4 times than to always go for timeout. We've been using 7 minute time limit in Finland for some tourneys and even with 7 mins I sometimes struggle to beat my opponents (if they play floaty chars obv) within the time, especially on larger stages.

And like Armada said, lowering the timer would result in more timeouts and more camping and that is something I doubt most people want.

 

[DerfMidWest]

It might not have been fuzzyness, but it was definitely a falcon player (I watched the match a long time ago, so I forget who it was)

It was falcon v peach on kongo I believe?
I forget.
But both games timed out.
The falcon won.

 

[ph00tbag]

The cons for this is way worse and people that don't wanna see timeouts will see it so much more often and the game will become even more deffensive/based on timeouts.

But they're putting entertainment value over competitive value and logistics, which is a pretty scrubby way to approach the game. The competition is not there for the enjoyment of the viewers; it's there so the players can compare their skills. The impact on the competition of a shorter timer is that the game becomes easier for some players and harder for others. There's no net change in competitive value there. Meanwhile, match-ups that take a while aren't as much of a logistical nightmare.

 

[Mahie]

But they're putting entertainment value over competitive value and logistics, which is a pretty scrubby way to approach the game. The competition is not there for the enjoyment of the viewers; it's there so the players can compare their skills. The impact on the competition of a shorter timer is that the game becomes easier for some players and harder for others. There's no net change in competitive value there. Meanwhile, match-ups that take a while aren't as much of a logistical nightmare.

Without an entertainement factor, no competitive scene would exist ever.

If you think about SFxT, the game made a huge flop, because the scenario you're aiming to reach, where competition through timing out would be the main format was in effect for that game. No one liked that at all, though, and the game will probably never nurture a proper community.

A lot of floatier MUs break the 5 minutes mark easily, sometimes the 6 minutes one. If you want to emphasize timing outs, that's fine, but making it the sole strategy viable isn't the way to go. Lowering the timer by one minute should be enough to let players gun for time outs in the slower MUs, while retaining all the excitement from fast fallers MUs.

Like everyone else said, 8 has always been fine, 7/6 would be just as good, I assume, but anything lower would definitely be detrimental to the scene.

 

[Bones0]

This reminds me of that time when Cactuar suggested 2-stock matches.

The timer should be at least 10 mins because sets that last the full 30 mins would be extremely rare and still hardly slow down the tournament at all. We could easily use a 15 min timer and it would probably never come into play except in extreme scenarios such as with Hbox vs. Armada, and even with them, I think the only time one of their games timed out with 6 or some ridiculous number of stocks left was on KJ64, which is now banned in singles. Being at 8 mins is fine because most of the community isn't going for timeouts, but I think people would be surprised how much more often it would happen just by lowering the timer to 6 or 7 minutes. A minute of Melee is a HUGE difference.

 

[tm]

lowering by more than 2 minutes is begging for defensive / floatie / big stage sets to time out every time. If it will 'advance' the competitive play, what's the difference between doing 4 minute vs 2 minute timeouts, or one minute? Certain characters will get an advantage with 4/5/6 minutes as opposed to 8, but I don't think the scene wants camping to be a predominant strategy. That's why we're playing melee

The time limit is fine. If it should be lowered it shouldn't be lowered by more than 1 minute IMO, and that's only because I rarely see matches that take more than 7 minutes without going to time out, and because the number 7 is cool.

 

[Nintendude]

I believe that, especially given the current MBR stagelist, 8 minutes strikes a good balance between not encouraging timeouts while providing a safeguard against excessively long matches. Anything less is a bit ridiculous since floaties matchups frequently hit the 5 minute mark. 6-minutes happens occasionally for matches involving Jiggs, Samus, ICs, Peach, etc. on Dreamland. If the timer was 7 minutes, then the strategy with these characters in these matchups would certainly shift.

 

[Cactuar]

The variables I defined in the 2stock ruleset thread were the important part to consider, not the ruleset itself. There's a huge amount of content regarding how the timer affects gameplay.

 

[Bones0]

How many Cactuars is name searching?

**

 

[Cactuar]

Haha, this was actually one of those rare non-namesearch instances. Just reading through the thread because Hax posted it.

 

[SleepyK]

i miss cactuar

 

[Hax]

all matchups considered, i can agree with 6 minutes. but i really don't understand the distaste for timeouts, a core aspect of fighting games that, if anything, add another layer of strategy. with the timer at 8 minutes, it still serves to force the losing player to approach, but it almost never actually threatens to time out like it does in other games.

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

There is a lot of misconception and speculation about what lowering the timer would do. For some reason everyone imagines that during a timer stall, the opponent would do nothing and resign themselves to their fate. In reality, the last few minutes of a time match are particularly intense as the losing player tries to regain the lead. Melee is such a good game that it doesn't need a timer to force people into action, but typically, in other games, a lowered timer means more aggressive and risky play.

8 minutes was chosen to essentially eliminate the timer from the equation; nearly no games go to time. Rather, players play in whatever manner nets them the most damage/kills. The trouble with this is that one-dimensional tactics can succeed, and a player doesn't necessarily have to be good at both offense (taking a lead) and defense (holding a lead).

Melee's current metagame is pretty ****ing awesome so we don't really need to change anything, but you guys are dismissing a real timer way too easily. At the very least we can all agree that Armada-Hbox would have been a lot better if it was 5 minutes per match rather than 8.

 

[KZEZ]

Just for the record one match did go to time at FC legacy in round 2 pools. CunningKitsune (fox) vs. Cosmo (zelda) on PS. The game ended with Cosmo having 1 stock and around 55 damage and CK having one stock and around 40 damage.

I am not exactly sure how this pertains to the discussion but this ended up being the deciding game of the set and I think it decided which of those two made it to bracket. The overall reaction seemed pretty mixed at the time it happened.

 

[DerfMidWest]

wow that sucks... poor cosmo having to play foxes...

 

[Hax]

another thing. please don't justify the 8 minute timer by saying "samus vs samus on DL64 usually lasts 6-7 minutes so the timer should be 8 minutes"

the timer should not be crafted for the longest matchup in the game, nor should time outs be frowned upon (which having a longer timer than the longest matchup in the game implies). the timer should take all matchups into consideration, and time outs should be viewed as completely acceptable as they are in other games

tbh, i'm thinking 5 minutes now. 6 still feels like Samus/Peach/Jiggs matches are having too much of an influence over the timer when plenty of games between fastfallers last between 1 and 2 minutes

 

[Habefiet]

We could easily use a 15 min timer and it would probably never come into play except in extreme scenarios such as with Hbox vs. Armada, and even with them, I think the only time one of their games timed out with 6 or some ridiculous number of stocks left was on KJ64, which is now banned in singles.

Just felt compelled to point out that the bit about HBox and Armada's game history is completely wrong. Their one game on KJ64 ended with a stock apiece and HBox at ~90%. They've had more than one game with two stock apiece on DL64 and their most-stock-left game happened on Stadium with a total of 5 between them. You may notice that both of these stages are still legal.

Stadium is kinda stupid in this regard because of the transformations, as Armada pointed out. Hell, just this weekend at FC I watched as the second match I've seen with Cosmo's Zelda versus a Fox on Stadium went to time without either playing even really trying to do so until the last minute or so (the Fox won this time, Cosmo won the other time I've seen it).

 

[Mahie]

another thing. please don't justify the 8 minute timer by saying "samus vs samus on DL64 usually lasts 6-7 minutes so the timer should be 8 minutes"

the timer should not be crafted for the longest matchup in the game, nor should time outs be frowned upon (which having a longer timer than the longest matchup in the game implies). the timer should take all matchups into consideration, and time outs should be viewed as completely acceptable as they are in other games

tbh, i'm thinking 5 minutes now. 6 still feels like Samus/Peach/Jiggs matches are having too much of an influence over the timer when plenty of games between fastfallers last between 1 and 2 minutes

Stuff like Marth, or even Sheik vs Floaties, can take a while too, it's not just Samus/Peach/Jiggs.

Maybe people should pick a tournament at random and get the average game length for it for starters, or do that for a few tournaments, instead of trying to get an approximation based of memory.

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

I think 5 minutes for the neutrals and 6 for stadium would be really interesting.

 

[Beat!]

Or we could outright ban Stadium.

Yeeeeessssss.

Banbanbanbanbanban.

 

[Krynxe]

Essentially, the length of the timer only matters when you approach that time, and by redusing that time, that means it will come into play much more frequently. Players will camp more because timeouts become much more viable.

 

[Mahie]

Essentially, the length of the timer only matters when you approach that time, and by redusing that time, that means it will come into play much more frequently. Players will camp more because timeouts become much more viable.

Hax is kinda right when he says that the more the leading player tends to camp, the more the losing one will have to be agressive to even it out. That could prove to be interesting dynamics.

 

[ph00tbag]

Without an entertainement factor, no competitive scene would exist ever.

If you think about SFxT, the game made a huge flop, because the scenario you're aiming to reach, where competition through timing out would be the main format was in effect for that game. No one liked that at all, though, and the game will probably never nurture a proper community.

I call bull****. SFxT isn't dead because of timeouts. It's dead because the process of getting to those timeouts holds no value. If timeouts do so much to dampen the popularity of a game, tell me why this match got the crowd so hype.

 

[Mahie]

I never said it wasn't hype, I said something revolving only around one mechanic or way of winning won't be that interesting.

 

[Lovage]

it's hype once in a while lol....

it's super hype when two players were forced into a timeout just because of how close the match is (like in games with 99s timers)

it's very unhype and boring if you start seeing it in half the bracket matches, and people PLAN to never attack the entire match

4 mins way too short
6 mins is fine wouldn't change much honestly

 

[Wretched]

I think 6 minutes actually sounds okay considering the matchups that go 6 minutes are that way because of matchups and not because people are purposely trying to timeout.

 

[Nintendude]

So there's been a lot of talk about how timeouts aren't a bad thing and how they force people to be aggressive, but I feel like in Melee there's too much potential for running away and short term stalling in order to force a win by time-out. Like for example, a Jigglypuff can easily spend a minute jumping around being evasive and then spend the last 30 seconds of the match pound stalling far from the stage. We have anti-stall rules but they are incredibly difficult to enforce. You can't just tell a player that he's not allowed to run away in order to win by timeout, and the line between running away and legitimately stalling is very difficult to define.

 

[Cactuar]

5 minutes was my recommendation for 4 stock matches iirc.

 

[MikeHaggarTHAKJB]

tbh this thread is ****ing ********, 4 minutes would be broken as ****, people would go for timeout 100% of the time
wtf hax i cant fanboy you anymore if this isnt a troll thread

even 6 mins would suck ****
except vs ics those ***s deserve to get timed. like smasher89
flasher89 however, the ****ing saviour of the universe, would never do as such. he will **** any opponent under 30 secs

 

[Cactuar]

Yes thank you for that contribution. Moving on.

 

[Hax]

people absolutely wouldn't go for timeout 100% of the time if it were 4 minutes. maybe 20-30% of the time in floaty vs floaty, 10-15% of the time in floaty vs fastfaller, and 5% of the time in fastfaller vs fastfaller

that's a bit too much for though for floaty vs floaty. i definitely like 5 minutes most right now

 

[Bones0]

I still don't understand how timeouts are ever better at determining a player's skill level. You are just forcing the losing player to play more desperately because the game is limiting how much he is capable of. So much shouldn't be riding on the first stock, or even first hit because that just means you are having a smaller number of trials to determine who is better. It's much easier for someone to get a quick lead and abuse their opponent's aggressiveness when the clock is super short. Let's say you go down 4 stocks to 1. It becomes sooooo much harder to make a comeback in that situation because there is only so much you can do to negate stalling opponents, and the few ways you do have to prevent timeouts typically require extremely desperate and risky strategies. This difficulty is already prevalent for slower chars like Peach, Ganon, and ICs on 8 minute timers. Faster characters are virtually guaranteed to burn a minute off the clock every stock vs. them, but the one redeeming factor has always been that the slower characters can take their time cutting off the staller in a fairly safe manner, and when they finally get a hit they can punish them enough that the lost time wasn't worth the lost stock. Reducing the timer fights against this natural balance.

I also don't wanna hear examples of other fighting games. First of all, other fighters are so much more limited in their stalling than in Melee that it's a ridiculous comparison. They don't have platforms, and the characters are usually just not as different in terms of speed as Melee's characters are. Secondly, I think the timer sucks in other fighting games too. Just watching this match, (albeit with very limited SF experience) I think the match would have been much better off just letting the two players finish. Perhaps if the timer was longer, instead of just sitting back spamming fireballs for chip damage, the players would actually have to engage each other because the chip damage would be a lot less important. Again, this is just my inexperienced opinion on that video, but I am confident this is the case in Melee.

 

[Beat!]

Are there any regions/TOs that would be willing to try this (5-6 min) out at their locals? I don't care much for all this theorizing, but I'm kinda interested in how it would actually work out in practice.

 

[Hax]

a timer does not serve to measure skill. a timer is necessary for there to be incentive to actually fight, so that there aren't endless standstills. at the moment, the melee timer doesn't do a very good job of this imo because it isn't actually threatening until several minutes have passed (which is why i think several minutes need to be shaven off).

an 8 minute timer serves virtually the same purpose as a 99 minute timer. this is because neither 8 nor 99 minutes are even remotely realistic amounts of time for a game of melee. when you're down by stocks or % on an 8 minute timer, being forced to approach probably doesn't even cross your mind. even if you don't approach, your opponent (unless its M2K) will almost always make contact with you sooner or later as to prevent the game from becoming absurdly boring.

what i'm saying is, a timer is a necessary feature of any fighting game that fails to do its job if its duration is far too long for its own game [because of human nature]. it makes no sense to have a 2-3 minute period before a timer actually becomes remotely threatening

 

[Froggy]

a timer does not serve to measure skill. a timer is necessary for there to be incentive to actually fight, so that there aren't endless standstills. at the moment, the melee timer doesn't do a very good job of this imo because it isn't actually threatening until several minutes have passed (which is why i think several minutes need to be shaven off).

an 8 minute timer serves virtually the same purpose as a 99 minute timer. this is because neither 8 nor 99 minutes are even remotely realistic amounts of time for a game of melee. when you're down by stocks or % on an 8 minute timer, being forced to approach probably doesn't even cross your mind. even if you don't approach, your opponent (unless its M2K) will almost always make contact with you sooner or later as to prevent the game from becoming absurdly boring.

what i'm saying is, a timer is a necessary feature of any fighting game that fails to do its job if its duration is far too long for its own game [because of human nature]. it makes no sense to have a 2-3 minute period before a timer actually becomes remotely threatening

God you're a biased ignorant fast faller main. The matches you're describing applies to Falcon and two other characters. The vast majority of the cast have much longer matchups. And in those matchups the 8 minute timer does it's job perfectly.

Any lower and then people will try to stall, because it becomes the most viable tactic. It's isn't at all uncommon for floaty matchups to go past 6 minutes, and just because you don't play floaty characters doesn't mean there matchups shouldn't be considered.

This thread is being taken too seirously.

 

[Bones0]

a timer does not serve to measure skill. a timer is necessary for there to be incentive to actually fight, so that there aren't endless standstills. at the moment, the melee timer doesn't do a very good job of this imo because it isn't actually threatening until several minutes have passed (which is why i think several minutes need to be shaven off).

an 8 minute timer serves virtually the same purpose as a 99 minute timer. this is because neither 8 nor 99 minutes are even remotely realistic amounts of time for a game of melee. when you're down by stocks or % on an 8 minute timer, being forced to approach probably doesn't even cross your mind. even if you don't approach, your opponent (unless its M2K) will almost always make contact with you sooner or later as to prevent the game from becoming absurdly boring.

what i'm saying is, a timer is a necessary feature of any fighting game that fails to do its job if its duration is far too long for its own game [because of human nature]. it makes no sense to have a 2-3 minute period before a timer actually becomes remotely threatening

The bolded part just doesn't make sense because less than 1% of Melee matches result in endless standstills. If the goal of a timer is to reduce timeouts, then the current timer is doing an stupendous job. This can be proved objectively by simply looking at how many videos of timeouts we've had. I think I've heard of about 10-15 timeouts EVER. Obviously there are others I haven't heard about, but I'd even go so far as to say that the only tournament I've ever been to that had a single match timeout is Apex (Hbox vs. Armada). Melee is just not a game that needs a timer because in the vast majority of cases, it is more beneficial to be trying to fight rather than trying to run or camp. barlw is a perfect example of the type of game that DOES need a timer because there are many times where it is less advantageous to approach than it is to camp (MK planking, etc.)

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

Pretty much the only characters you will ever see going past 6 min with decent players are Peach, Samus, and Puff. Sometimes Doc, and thats mostly because no one knows how to edgeguard him. Its not "only fastfallers." Its everybody but 3-4 characters. And even for those characters, its often just in the matchups against one another.

A lot of tournament matches nowadays don't even put the timer on. Except for Yoshis and cloud timing or whatever. The timer is essentially irrelevant. Some people like it that way, but I think its beneficial to discuss why.

 

[Hax]

God you're a biased ignorant fast faller main. The matches you're describing applies to Falcon and two other characters. The vast majority of the cast have much longer matchups. And in those matchups the 8 minute timer does it's job perfectly.

Any lower and then people will try to stall, because it becomes the most viable tactic. It's isn't at all uncommon for floaty matchups to go past 6 minutes, and just because you don't play floaty characters doesn't mean there matchups shouldn't be considered.

just as anyone who supports 8 minutes is a biased, ignorant floaty main? double standard. 8 minutes only makes even the slightest sense for a combination of Samus/Peach/Jiggs vs Samus/Peach/Jiggs (usually on DL64), and pretty much makes the timer completely irrelevant in any match that isn't between 2 floaties.

again, do not take the longest matchup in the game, add a minute to its average length and call it the correct timer duration. all matchups considered, i'd say the average game of melee is 3 minutes 30 seconds. why the **** should the timer be 8 minutes

The bolded part just doesn't make sense because less than 1% of Melee matches result in endless standstills. If the goal of a timer is to reduce timeouts, then the current timer is doing an stupendous job.

how can a timer, the feature that introduces timeouts, reduce timeouts..? @_@

Melee is just not a game that needs a timer because in the vast majority of cases, it is more beneficial to be trying to fight rather than trying to run or camp. barlw is a perfect example of the type of game that DOES need a timer because there are many times where it is less advantageous to approach than it is to camp (MK planking, etc.)

this is wrong on so many levels..

first of all, there is literally no way you can argue that there shouldn't be a timer. every single competitive game in history has had either a timer or another form of incentive for a reason. in poker, there are antes. in RTS', there are minions. in games without something of the like, there must be a timer. i'll let you figure out why

second, it sure as hell isn't advantageous to approach "the vast majority of the time" in melee. do you know how much worse Sheik, Marth, Jiggs and Samus are when they're forced to do the approaching? when i'm playing to win vs these characters, i'm always letting them make the first move when i have the lead. but nobody does with an 8 minute timer because it's too ****ing boring.

 

[Bones0]

how can a timer, the feature that introduces timeouts, reduce timeouts..? @_@

Obviously no timer at all would completely eliminate timeouts, but no one in their right mind is suggesting we take off the timer. By making the timer longer, you not only have less timeouts, but less campy game play in general. Some sets would even go on LONGER with a SHORTER timer because players would try to get an easy win through timeout rather than fight normally and get outplayed. When you use a 10 or 15 min timer, stalling becomes unrealistic because you are bound to screw up and get punished for it.

this is wrong on so many levels..

first of all, there is literally no way you can argue that there shouldn't be a timer. every single competitive game in history has had either a timer or another form of incentive for a reason. in poker, there are antes. in RTS', there are minions. in games without something of the like, there must be a timer. i'll let you figure out why

second, it sure as hell isn't advantageous to approach "the vast majority of the time" in melee. do you know how much worse Sheik, Marth, Jiggs and Samus are when they're forced to do the approaching? when i'm playing to win vs these characters, i'm always letting them make the first move when i have the lead. but nobody does with an 8 minute timer because it's too ****ing boring.

Poker has antes. RTS has minions. Melee has the opponent. I am by no means saying it is always advantageous to approach. What I am saying is it is more advantageous to be constantly looking for openings than it is to simply run away 100% of the time even after you have the lead. Your argument seems to center around the fact that the game gets boring because you just end up waiting longer than necessary for losing opponents to approach, but the simple fact that there is more time for them to approach means they are more likely to bait a false reaction from you or find an opening because you made a mistake while waiting. If you force losing players to literally rush for kills, you are making them more predictable. If a player is down 3 stocks to 1 with 2 minutes left, their opponent is much more likely to correctly predict their approaches than if there are 10 minutes left from the simple logic that they HAVE to approach soon. This form of forcing approaches based on the clock seems unnecessary and excessive considering almost no Melee matches go more than 30 seconds without players making contact (not even counting projectile contact).

If we had PP and Armada going 30 seconds at a time without approaching each other every time they were on their first stock, I would agree that a timer to force these approaches would be necessary. As I see it now, however, matches just don't play out like that. If you think approaching is always that bad of a choice (which seems to be the root of our disagreement), then for you, the only downside of an 8 minute timer vs. a 5 minute one would be that you will spend (at most) 3 more minutes simply waiting for your opponent to approach. And since 99% of the community never waits more than 30 seconds to approach, it would never even take that long.

 

[Mahie]

Obviously no timer at all would completely eliminate timeouts, but no one in their right mind is suggesting we take off the timer. By making the timer longer, you not only have less timeouts, but less campy game play in general. Some sets would even go on LONGER with a SHORTER timer because players would try to get an easy win through timeout rather than fight normally and get outplayed. When you use a 10 or 15 min timer, stalling becomes unrealistic because you are bound to screw up and get punished for it.




Poker has antes. RTS has minions. Melee has the opponent.

Well, minions and antes have something similar in that they are completely dependent from the game and the players involved.

Now if both players decide to camp, what's to prevent them from doing so? Nothing, if not the timer, which is the case in most other games, and the goal in Melee as well.

Think of Hbox vs Armada. Those last few seconds on DL, you can see both players getting really tense, their eyes so focused on the screen, just going as far as they can to get those couple % that'll win them the game. That kind of behavior didn't happen until the very end of the timer, because it was a moment in which is was sink or swim, hit or lose.
It's pretty obvious that if the timer was four minutes, and Hbox was down like a stock, he wouldn't have taken his time to approach, and would have approached right away to reduce the lead.

I genuinely think Hax has a point, though I'm not sure how many minutes would have to be shaved off. Then again, it's also true that thus far, it wasn't really an issue, and that most Melee veterans value agressiveness , or at least, actively defensive playstyles.