why is the timer 8 minutes?

[Bones0]

Both players can decide to camp, but if that makes up 1% of the matches in a tournament, why should a timer be based around those scenarios? If Hax constantly played opponents who refused to approach even when they were losing until the final minute or 2, I could understand his frustration. But as far as I know, that's simply not the case...

 

[rawrimamonster]

Timing out is lame. Make it 6 minutes and make a new global rule for repeated time outs. You can time out, but another successive timeout in the next match will result in your forfeit of that match, when the next match is played without a timeout the next one after it resets the rule. This would effectively make more aggressive styles come out and force players to play an offensive game as well as defensive, i.e. less gay **** and a funner game for everyone. The only complaint against this is people that actually need a timeout...so at this point I'd ask..REALLY?! The point of a timer in any game is to finish functions/gameplay within that game within the set time limit, blame your lack of skill compared to your opponent if you cant finish them successfully within that time. At that point if you cant finish them off then you earned the loss from that rule, no more freebies after your first one.

/argument

 

[Kink-Link5]

Let's make our ruleset even more confusing. More convoluted rules forcing players to play a way you want is always the way to go.

****, let's just make each matchup have its own time limit, obviously. When that's not enough, let's ban tactics. Because that's a thing apparently and is something that gets done. You have to play fair and with honor or you face an onslaught of WAHHHs.

 

[Bones0]

Timing out is lame. Make it 6 minutes and make a new global rule for repeated time outs. You can time out, but another successive timeout in the next match will result in your forfeit of that match, when the next match is played without a timeout the next one after it resets the rule. This would effectively make more aggressive styles come out and force players to play an offensive game as well as defensive, i.e. less gay **** and a funner game for everyone. The only complaint against this is people that actually need a timeout...so at this point I'd ask..REALLY?! The point of a timer in any game is to finish functions/gameplay within that game within the set time limit, blame your lack of skill compared to your opponent if you cant finish them successfully within that time. At that point if you cant finish them off then you earned the loss from that rule, no more freebies after your first one.

/argument

This rule seems perfect. I can't wait to stall all match and then SD real quick so that they lose because they won game 1 when I was trying to time out but lost.

 

[rawrimamonster]

Let's make our ruleset even more confusing. More convoluted rules forcing players to play a way you want is always the way to go.

****, let's just make each matchup have its own time limit, obviously. When that's not enough, let's ban tactics. Because that's a thing apparently and is something that gets done. You have to play fair and with honor or you face an onslaught of WAHHHs.

Fair=\= stalling for a free win. Theres no skill in it, by the continuation of that logic we should unban items. No one is forcing anyone to play any which way, but winning a match by not fighting and simply running is nothing but a skill-less stalling mechanic and should be punished. It can only lead to the degrading of skill in the community. Whatever happened to punishments for stalling anyway, did the **** just vanish? christ...I know the known definition of stalling as it applies to known moves that can cause it is different than my application of the word here, but it goes to the same end. It ceases fighting, and causes a stall in the momentum of the match. Even if time limits arent changed I'm strongly for a change in rules applied to stalling.

@bones, thats no different than the option people who use timeout tactics have now, it's readily available to them. With the rule it would punish repeated attempts at this and hopefully move players away from ******** tactics like it. The difference here is theres no punishment for it now.

 

[Kink-Link5]

If you don't think there's skill involved in evading attacks and keeping a percentage or stock advantage you are extremely wrong.

No, not even extremely. An intensifier would only serve to devalue the word it is describing.

You're just wrong.

 

[rawrimamonster]

Stalling off stage really takes a lotta skill.

Really though keeping at the proper subject, the amount of skill required to win a match=\= running away and timing out. It's not about morals or even "HURR THIS IS GAY GAY THATS GAY EVERYTHINGS GAY" its about taking away skill from the game. Which is exactly what this does, and it propogates the babyish planky brawl mindset thats seeped into the community

 

[Kink-Link5]

What skills are taken away. Please do enlighten us.

 

[rawrimamonster]

What skills are taken away. Please do enlighten us.

The skills and matchup knowledge that those players obviously haven't developed or could develop by not timing out and running away.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Such as, and including [Blank].

 

[rawrimamonster]

Such as, and including [Blank].

That IS your blank, its a general observation of the community. Specifics shouldnt need be pointed out to you to satisfy your lack of knowledge in the subject. Just for you I'll give you something to argue back with.

The best reference in this scenario is of course the most obvious, Hbox vs armada at apex. Armada was a much better prepared player, he took in a alt in younglink and found a counterpick that worked. Hbox was left with nothing but stalling, camping and timing pokes because he either didn't take the time to learn the ylink matchup better OR didn't take the time to learn a secondary. Puff was all he had at the time and he got punished for it. That is the type of matchup experience you lose running away.

While I dont doubt it was hard for both sides, as keeping a player like armada out is probably one of the hardest things he's faced... Simply stalling is hardly skilled compared to winning the match without running. If a puff, peach or any other character with an abuseable recovery wants to camp, they're most likely going to get away with it despite the skill of the other player. Hbox made this apparent as he got away with it despite armada being the better player at apex.

tl;dr version

being good at running=\= being good at winning matches

 

[Kink-Link5]

"Can you give any specific examples of skills that get thrown out, in order to prove your point?"

"No, because my point proves itself. Any further proof is unnecessary because it's already true."


If you don't have any back up to your ***-pulled statements, that's fine, but don't try to bull **** me.

 

[Hax]

Bones, you're trying to argue that it's better for a timer to last an obscene amount of time that does not suit the game it's for whatsoever than it is for it to last a reasonable amount of time.

with a 15 minute timer, you'd have to be a complete f** to even consider timing someone out. as i said, with the current 8 minute timer, no one even looks at it outside of a select few matchups on DL64. we're essentially playing a game without an incentive to make a move; an inherently flawed game.

an absurdly long timer is essentially no timer.

also, "people" are not incentives to make an action, they are the players themselves. poker and RTS' have people too. antes and minions are aspects of the respective games that force you to make plays or lose. a timer is a fighting game's incentive.

 

[leffen]

tldr: Hax wants SFXT, when we have SF4



stupid, stupid hax

 

[FireBall Stars]

Prejudice against timeout are on every community and every game, "man dis iz ghey".

I can understand Hax's reasoning.

The timer can be there and not make much sense to be there, like in melee, or be a good balance to not encourage stalling while still being a threat, like in SFIV, UMVC3 and other fighting games.

Or, be extremely fast to the point that running away is the only really viable strategy as in SFXTK.

If you look at capcom games's timers, they're 99, but it takes about 3 seconds for the number to drop an unit, specially in Marvel, which has no rounds. In Street Fighter x Tekken it's actually 99 seconds, all players have sensed how big that difference is, the timer is extremely fast, it's far from balanced regarding to the game's mechanics.

In 3d fighters like VF5, Tekken and Soul Calibur, the timer is about 50~60 seconds, since, well, the damage is high and you have no way to run away.

All you have to do, is finding the timer that will be balanced for our game, that will cut the time available to camp. Keepaway is not that easy to do in smash. Unless the person has a big advantage, it's always risky to go for a timeout, it's volatile in a game fast as melee, damage advantage can rapidly change sides.

Timeouts will happen anyway and you can keep complaining that it's gay and that there's no Guile in the game, whatever, if players want to win they will do what they need to, even with 8 minutes.

 

[-ACE-]

Depends on what skillset you want to test for.

Shorter time
-who can get the lead first means more
-less consistent yet "streaky" players will do better
-more matches will come to time out, so we will see much more evasive (current winner) AND aggressive (current loser) play towards the end

Longer time
-endurance and consistency mean more
-ability to focus for longer periods of time means more
-matches will be played out, in most matchups the match ends as if there was no timer

There's a lot more to this obviously but Busch Ice has temporarily hindered my thinking ability. Actually you should probably only pay attention to the first sentence of this post, lmao.

 

[Bones0]

Bones, you're trying to argue that it's better for a timer to last an obscene amount of time that does not suit the game it's for whatsoever than it is for it to last a reasonable amount of time.

with a 15 minute timer, you'd have to be a complete f** to even consider timing someone out. as i said, with the current 8 minute timer, no one even looks at it outside of a select few matchups on DL64. we're essentially playing a game without an incentive to make a move; an inherently flawed game.

an absurdly long timer is essentially no timer.

also, "people" are not incentives to make an action, they are the players themselves. poker and RTS' have people too. antes and minions are aspects of the respective games that force you to make plays or lose. a timer is a fighting game's incentive.

If there's no incentive to make a move, then how come matches don't time out? How come there is rarely a 30 second period in any given match where the players don't touch each other? The incentive to move is to take space, and when each player continues to take or lose space, eventually you run out of stage to retreat to, and you must engage the opponent or walk of the edge and die. I'm not trying to sound condescending, but I am honestly baffled how you can be as skilled at this game as you are and not seem to value stage control the same as every other player. I can't believe for a second that any two top players play against each other that they are only approaching out of honor or something. They are approaching because sometimes approaching is the best choice, and even when it isn't the textbook best choice, it may still be in your best interests to approach.

Can a timer be used as an incentive to make players approach? Yes. I agree that reducing the time limit would force players to approach. What I don't agree on is that this is beneficial in any way. It may make matches end sooner, but it greatly reduces the complexity of Melee after the first stock has been taken because one player must resort to desperate approaches. If you truly believe approaching is as bad as you say it is, then surely you would desire a longer timer to artificially buff approaches.

As far as people being incentives, YES, they can and are. Poker needs antes because otherwise people would check/fold all day until they have the perfect hand. Melee doesn't need a timer (outside of logistics) because players aren't going to just DD camp all game because DD camping does not trump everything else in the game. Any time you choose not to approach, your opponent can simply take more space and more stage. Eventually you get to the point where you either have to choose to attack them or they are so close they can attack before you are able to react. This is the entire basis for all discussions pertaining to neutral. More than half of the theorycraft on these boards is about to eliminate your opponent's options so that you can approach safely or force them to make a move of their own. You can stall eternally in poker, but you can't in Melee.

Even if I'm just being a noob who doesn't know what he's talking about, and DON'T APPROACH is the law of the land of top level Melee, if NO ONE in the community plays like that, then what's the point of enforcing a timer based on that assumption? We could try to prevent a million things based on theory bros, but since not everyone agrees with those theories, we wait until they come into practice before acting on them. If the next tournament I saw had 25% of its matches reduced to BOTH players stalling for even 10 seconds at a time, I would heavily consider changing the timer. Until defensive-based gameplay becomes the norm because engaging is so rarely beneficial (barlw), there is absolutely no reason to lower the time limit.



FOLLOW-UP QUESTION:
What do you think would happen if a tournament full of only top players ran with 4 stocks, no time limit, and every single player was cheesing as hard as they could as if their life was on the line?

 

[ph00tbag]

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

Thank BasedGod Melee doesn't revolve around one mechanic or way of winning, then.

 

[leffen]

tldr: 8 mins is enough of an incentive to make ppl approach

whychangeit.com

 

[Bones0]

Really short leffen post. I wish I knew who he was insulting.

 

[Warhawk]

You could always highlight his post and find out lol

 

[-ACE-]

Really short leffen post. I wish I knew who he was insulting.

LOOOOOL true

Leffen, how often do you feel as if you have to approach because 8 minutes is almost up??

 

[Hax]

you're taking this way out of context. responding to what you're saying at this point is a waste of time because the point i'm making is:

an in-game timer should suit the game it's in. it should only threaten to time out matches that last an above average amount of time, but not last long enough to the point where time outs are unheard of. 5 or 6 minutes suits melee far better than 8.

 

[DerfMidWest]

But hax is silly.
8 minutes is cool.
6 works, but is a lot sillier for MUs that involve floaties and characters not in the top 7 and stuff...
In low tier MUs, the average game tends to be 5 or 6 minutes...

 

[MikeHaggarTHAKJB]

Didn't fuzzyness (or some other euro falcon) time some peach out at some point?

that was flasher89, saviour of the universe

 

[Deleted member]

its worth testing 7,6 , then 5 minutes i dont see whats wrong with trying it out

7 minutes feels meaningless tho

 

[ShroudedOne]

So, can I ask what type of benefits to the game (metagame development, efficiency, etc) do you think lowering the timer will bring, Hax? From what I've read so far, you seem to want to introduce an incentive to move, but that doesn't seem to be a problem with Melee so far (most, if not all people want to move).

This was one of Bones's points, I believe, but I'm not sure if you answered it. I mean, I hate to use it, but the maxim "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" fits really well here. For a game like Melee, you're right, 8 minutes is essentially playing without a timer. But those 8 minutes give enough freedom for playstyle/MUs to play out how they will, without putting pressure on people who don't want to time someone out. And at the same time, if a match is taking way too long, or people just aren't approaching, there IS still a timer, so there is still an incentive for them to approach, albeit one that isn't as urgent.

I mean, the timer change in either direction would really only affect characters with notoriously long MUs (Peach, Samus, Puff, etc). Spacies/Falcon/Marth and Sheik in some MUs don't really care.

I dunno. While I'm not against timeouts as a strategy, it seems like you want to force them. I don't want to only get to play 6 minutes of Peach/Samus (I'm weird, I love this MU) because it's an inherently slow matchup, and now the timer constricts my strategy.

I realize that's a subjective point. But if there is something to be gained that would improve the quality of Melee (as free from bias as feasible), I'm all ears. But know that us floaties want our full matches, too.

 

[Armada]

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

Seriously a MU between floatys would go to timeout around 85% of the time if we only have 4min. Even when me/Mango (by many called the most aggresive player) played at Genesis 1 4 out of 7 matches were longer then 4 min. And two of those were so close to 4min that if the timer were there the person in the lead would time the other person out for sure and this is against the MOST aggresive player. 20-30% is so far from the truth it can be.

The question we all should ask ourself is if we wanna see a game that people have to play based on the timer in every single match (especially if you are a floaty). 4min will just mean that players need to play stupid if they are behind. The timer is for sure way to short (if we have 4min) and it is tons of examples that proves 4min is way to short when a lot of matches is longer then 4min and most of the other matches that is below is way to close so timeing out will be a stupid strategy that becomes way better.

ShroudedOne did a really great post with a lot of usefull information. Like he said those 8 min gives every player/char a chance to play their game (their choice if they think it is to boring or not) but if the game is takeing to long eventually the timer is there and will stop ticking if both are to deffensive. This gives us a game that teach us about EVERYTHING that is possible to do in this game and we can for sure understand more why some stuff is better then other stuff. By reducing the timer those possibillitys are not there anymore and the matches would become more boring and some chars becomes even more useless then they already are.

 

[DerfMidWest]

that was flasher89, saviour of the universe

Ah I see...

 

[Hax]

I took back 4 minutes shortly after suggesting it. You vs mango isn't just floaty vs floaty though, it's peach/samus/jiggs vs peach/samus/jiggs which would definitely go to time often with 4 minutes.

Me initially proposing 4 minutes should tell floaty players something though. It should tell them that a lot of people are used to 1:30-2 minute matches, and that an 8 minute timer doesnt make any sense for us. A 4 minute timer would be entirely fair for most matchups involving fox/falco/falcon, but to accommodate floaties it should definitely be 5 or 6, prob 6.

Does anyone seriously mean to tell me 8 minutes is a better timer for melee than 6? It's starting to seem like whenever change is proposed on this forum it's immediately shot down

ShroudedOne I'll get to ur post later

 

[-ACE-]

It's starting to seem like whenever change is proposed on this forum it's immediately shot down

^^ This.

Spoiler

Unless cactuar proposes it, I mean

 

[Froggy]

I took back 4 minutes shortly after suggesting it. You vs mango isn't just floaty vs floaty though, it's peach/samus/jiggs vs peach/samus/jiggs which would definitely go to time often with 4 minutes.

Me initially proposing 4 minutes should tell floaty players something though. It should tell them that a lot of people are used to 1:30-2 minute matches, and that an 8 minute timer doesnt make any sense for us. A 4 minute timer would be entirely fair for most matchups involving fox/falco/falcon, but to accommodate floaties it should definitely be 5 or 6, prob 6.

Does anyone seriously mean to tell me 8 minutes is a better timer for melee than 6? It's starting to seem like whenever change is proposed on this forum it's immediately shot down

ShroudedOne I'll get to ur post later

What exactly is your problem with the current timer?

You have made it clear that your matchups end in around 3 minutes, so when has an 8 minute timer been a detriment to you? Other than it just not being mathematically sound(in your opinion), what are the negative aspects of the 8 minute timer?

 

[Prince_Abu]

6 is fine but i dont think going any lower will be good

 

[Krynxe]

Okay guys clearly the answer is the create an algorithm that determines the timer for every match based on character, stage choice, and region.

For instance, two west-coast fast-fallers on Yoshi's Story would be a 1 minute timer

Two east-coast floaties on dream land would be about... 14 minutes

 

[Froggy]

6 is fine but i dont think going any lower will be good

6 minutes is not fine. At Apex Armada vs Vanz, and Shroomed nearly went to times in more than 1 match. 7 minutes should be the absolute minimum. In fact if it wasn't for matches like Armada vs Hbox, I'd argue that the timer should pushed up to maybe 10 minutes.

 

[Battlecow]

lowering the timer to 6 minutes means that you'll have fewer comebacks because the player who's behind has to jump in recklessly and unsafely. I think we can all agree that comebacks are exciting and camping is not exciting; watching the winning player camp to get to time and the losing player rush in and fail to come back would be less enjoyable, then.

 

[DerfMidWest]

Guys keep in mind, we have a timer to allow for enough time to play a standard match, but low enough to keep the tournament running quickly.
7 would be fine, 6 would be functional, anything lower would be bad.

And Hax, the reason change appears to be shot down is because the reccommended change is just... Unneeded... There has been no problem with the current timer.

 

[Divinokage]

I guess it depends on the matchup for me playing Jiggs/Ganon or even more Peach/Ganon will generally last close to 4 mins so I think that's way too short. There's just certain matchups where patience and slowly taking your time to eat space will be needed even more.

And there's also matchups where it will drag on no matter what just because of their character physics. For example, a Marth trying to kill a player at high %, that might take a LONG time.

 

[Dr Peepee]

endurance+adapting mid-game+painful timeouts vs streaks+adapting between games+more(but easier to handle from crowd perspective) timeouts

not sure which I'd prefer, but the comment about change is a good one

 

[Jockmaster]

I was just never under the impression that the 8 minute timer caused any problems

It's not like making a stagelist, where there will always be people clamoring for more or less stages...the timer is just the way it is and the time limit we have been using has simply been integrated in to the metagame. Changing it just seems pointless.