Smash's Longest Debate Ever 

"i counterpick mike haze" LMFAO

alternatively we could accept that Rishi's Jungle Jam is the ideal melee experience already smh

i counterpick mike haze has me dying rn

Toph's counterpick dream sounds like a deepleffen tweet lol

lol its that time of the year again

"1 minute 4 stocks so timeouts are the only viable win condition". RIP silentwolf

"I counter pick, Mike Haze" a custom map that looks like Mike Haze fades into frame

“Possibly unpopular opinion. This is how you know you’re in for some spicy goodness.” I love Toph

15:15 for me it isn't about patience, but rather that with less time there is less room to fuck up, so the player camping has a bigger edge over his opponent.

I honestly see both sides having an argument, but neither can be proven until it's tested on a significant scale

The fact that it hasn't even been considered is the reason we're having this conversation for the 30th time. If it gets tested and is bad, we move on and have data that says, "This is a bad idea."

"i counterpick mike haze" has to be one of the funniest scenarios ive heard of in a while

12:48 Toph: in order for a tourney to fall behind schedule... Me: we’d need TWO wizzy’s

I think this also ties really well into the "Player vs. viewer experience" where the player that's behind, being forced to make more interactions might feel a bit more shitty, but as a viewer this would just mean more interactions and timeout hype would come out of it. Definitely deserves testing

One argument I haven’t seen against shortening the timer is that players should have enough time to finish their games when neither player is camping, which can often take 6-7 minutes in floaty dittos

It seems that toph doesn't really have an answer to the argument that lower time makes camping stronger. Taking the peach ditto for an example, having a shorter timer would "Incentivize" the peach that is behind to approach more, but at the same time the peach already wants to approach because she is losing. The reason why she doesn't approach is because approaching is hard in the matchup, hence the camping. If we lowered the timer, the player already in disadvantage would have even less options because they would be forced to turbo engage, which would probably make it easier for the camper to predict their movements.

Here's the best way I think to test this: 5v5 round robin team tournament with 5 minute timers, Jiggs/Fox/Falco/C Falcon/Shiek team vs Ganon/Samus/ICs/Peach/Dr. Mario. Ganon/etc. team play as normal. Instruct the spacies players that they can *only* win by timing out the other player while having a stock and percent lead or if the opponent SDs their last stock. See how difficult it is for that condition to be met consistently. The real issue with the shortened timer isn't with top tiers vs top tiers but rather with a shortened timer giving an even easier route for fast characters to abuse characters with bad mobility, artificially improving the matchup in the favor of characters that don't need the help.

looking forward to the next vid in the toph discuses melee brain meme template series

If the 5th to last option was changed from "remove the time limit" to "hide the time limit" it would make some sense (so players have to track Randall manually, and if they want to camp to the end of the game they also have to keep track of the actual time on some external device or in their head which adds mental overhead to the difficulty of camping).

I think your peach example was great fot analyzing the repercussions of lowering the timer. I agree that lowering the timer in that peach example doesn't incentivise camping. But, it does make it stronger/easier for the leading peach. The losing peach will have to go for risky aggressive approaches that, especially for peach, are probably a pretty bad option. And she will most likely get blown up worse than if she had more time to work with. As a potential repercussion of leading being buffed, players might be able to turn smaller (and in my eyes more trivial) leads into big advantages. i worry for floaties in particular. their matches sometimes get close to 8 min even without any hard camping. this seems bad to me, but i totally agree that we should test things out and see. you can only theory craft so far.

"Leffen responds 'lmao'" Oh no.

Revisiting this due to the discussion that came out of the hour long Hbox/Llod grand finals set at Gigaschwab 3. Would be curious to see you revisit the topic in some sort of way, along with other proposed ideas for ruleset revisions (airtime limits, making Puff auto-lose timeouts, lowering the ledgegrab limit, ect.)

That dream you described might be the funniest dream I've ever heard of

There's a distinctive difference between trying to disincentivise time-outs and camping. If you out melee game on 12 stocks and 2 minutes, regardless of camping you're going to see timeouts. The question is are we trying to rid ourselves of timeouts all together? I think no timer, 2 stock or something is probably how that should go down. But youll see camping still. Want to get rid of camping? 1 stock, 60 seconds timer. You will see timeouts very frequently. Another thing complicating the equation is people not understanding the difference between camping and defensive play. Running away isn't necessarily camping but it will cause timeouts.

Taking a few hype examples of last stock time outs, doesn’t erase the multitude of depression inducing hopeless multi-stock lead timeouts. The boring ones don’t get the notoriety, but someone should really count how many have happened compared to the handful of hype endings.

That counter-picking timer reminds me of one of my dreams for the Ultimate scene, a Special Smash ruleset where after every game one player gets to select one change to the Special Smash rules. For example, MKLeo turns on franklin badges to make fighting Samus 100 times easier, Light turns on curry breath with his Fox so he can stay in his opponent's face and deal constant damage, etc.

Genuinely I think timeouts are fine, alternative win conditions are interesting and add dimensions to play

this is big brain! nobody talking about how hype timeouts really are for spectators often. it's the middle campy part running down the clock that is boring!

That dream is hilarious, its like crew battles but you counter pick players until 1 team wins the 2v2

im still dying at that dream, fucking funny

Comment for algo. Keep killing it on the RU-vid game Toph

If I ran seven tournaments back to back where I put 15k in the prize pot myself with a 5 minute timer people would eventually come around.

Would be cool if Fizzi added an experimental queue for Slippi to test something like this.

There it should be 3 tournaments by that rules, one with melee, one with P+ and one with ultimate just to see how it affects the meta on those 3 games

Longer timers mean more melee content. I personally like 7 minutes though.

Great content!!

I think timeouts are only lame because you had to wait 7 minutes to get there. This post was made by 3-minute timer gang

Another thing people - m2k - choose to forget is that the end of brawls era adopted a TEN MINUTE timer.

I am kinda new compared to the vets. The 1st tournament I watched was EVO 2013. But I have been paying attention to how long games--not a whole match, a single game--take because even then I thought 8 minutes was strange. So here's what I noticed. Games with characters that have a natural speed and aggression to them like spaces, Falcon and Marth are going to be quick, and it helps when the player has a natural aggression to their playstyle too. A game between spacies is 2 minutes and change like CLOCKWORK; for perspective, 1 whole spacies match can be finished before another finishes 1 game. But even when you get to slower matchups--Falco vs Sheik, Marth vs. Falcon, Yoshi vs Sheik, Peach/Puff vs anyone, they almost never go beyond 5 minutes like 99.99% of the time. So it is pretty apparent someone is going for the timeout by the 4-minute marker. Solution: yes, lower the time limit. But to what you ask. I say to 6 minutes at least. If the game is not halfway (i.e. 2 stocks each) by 4 minutes, someone's playing to timeout, and those additional 2 minutes are just wasting everyone's time players included. If we're daring, test out 5 minutes, but 6 definitely should be the time limit. PS. I don't care much for timeouts. I care for timeouts that should've been over yesterday. Defense wins championships.

If the goal is to minimize stalling and camping, we should be focusing on changing the rules to disallow methods of stalling directly (Ledge camping, platform camping, etc.). Only changing the timer will never be enough to eliminate these undesirable parts of the game without new rules being in place.

It makes me think about the coaching case and allowing a friend to coach inside a set. (at least in Smash 4). Lot of debates, then we tried once. Everybody hated it. Removed it. Case close. No more debate about that.

This has come up about once a year since I started in 2013 lmao

5 min actually sounds perfect. Most fast faller matchups still won't go to time I guarantee (However it is now possible which is interesting ) and mus where timeouts are probable a faster timer only benefits.

I use a lower timer in personal play, I like time outs as an occasional match result and 8 minutes deep you just don't see it or if you do, it was a slog to get there

M2K doesn't want lower timer because HE would definitively exploit the easier timeouts, but a part of him is kinda against it (but not enough to stop him from doing it anyway)

I think the possibility totally exists that a 5 minute timer might end up being not great, but like you said I ABSOLUTELY agree that this is something we should yknow actually test before throwing out the idea entirely. Weve got nothing to lose and everything to gain.

“Leffen responds lmao” that’s the leffen.

ooooo fresh outro big t

On the shorter timeout incentivizes camping: Wouldn't that be matchup dependent? Like in the Peach ditto where they camp at 8 minutes already so nothing changes. Are there matchups where camping now becomes a viable strategy where it wasn't before? I'd think that if you can't camp to 8, you can't camp to 5 either. Unless the match naturally runs long like in floaty ditto, but then you're not really camping.

We should run fighting game-style rounds: 100-second timer, one stock. You play a Bo3 with these rounds, and that Bo3 counts as one game. Characters are locked within those Bo3 rounds. You play this way for a Bo3 of games and eventually Bo5 later in bracket.

we just need to test it

we must return to monke with rishi's jungle jam

14:32 that ad lib tho

Yo I was thinking is planking still legal? Did we ever even integrate a ledge grab limit or are we still just rocking on that trust system

the comparisons to brawl and 64 are very good context

5 minutes should be tested. its not that crazy. timeouts isn't a bad thing, and it won't shift the meta that much imo.

Time Mode actually might be an interesting one-off tournament idea.

The point being that there needs to be a balance between tournament time organization, incentivising interactive gameplay, hopefully keeping the spirit of a time-out situation, and etc.. The best way that i personally see it is that you dont touch the timer and instead change from 4 to 3 stocks. I like 4 stocks, but realistically, 3 stocks would make timeouts more impressive, shorten the time of games while making games longer for timeout attempts (more danger losing a stock), while still keeping tournament times the same or even shorter. Possibly this would work with even a 7 minute timer better.

My take is that if the timer is lowered to 5 minutes in melee, the stock count should also be lowered to 3. Keeping the game at 4 stocks would absolutely increase timeouts by a lot, plus the ratio of time per stock would be more in line with the round timers of traditional fighting games.

Someone should make a Summit Sketch out of weird Smash dreams

In singles it would be really interesting to allow counterpicking to a time match. Some characters obviously benefit from stalling so being able to switch from stock to time seems perfectly reasonable to me. If you do and lose the lead you'll still be in the same situation but at least you don't have to waste 8 minutes for one match, and on the other side I think its fair to make campers have to switch up play style if they are down in a shorter time match. Just like ptas said, worth trying things

Honestly I wouldn't lower it shorter than 7 mins because some low tier characters can struggle to kill and this would take them to time on a lot of games when normally that doesn't happen. For me playing Roy on slippi, I've had games where neither player camps go to the last minute since every stock can get to 200%+ and neither player can land their scuffed kill confirms🤣

All I know is we need to test SOMETHING, ANYTHING. I think both sides make good points and both have mostly sound logic, but we will never actually know how effective they are unless they are put to the test in real tournament settings. After all, say one actually does lead to more TOs and longer games in general, then now we know and don't use those timer rules anymore. There's nothing to lose by just trying it

that dream story is the funniest fucking shit ever lmaoooo

Try it out!! Does anyone think it will hurt top players or viewership to try it? 18:00 - I agree, however, I think the "against" reasoning targets the type of player who is too impatient for 8m but patient enough for 5m...so actually this might help Plup beat Hbox. 😂

Another important point is that a 5-minute timeout and an 8-minute timeout are not the same. The goal here isn't to reduce timeouts, but to reduce time spent with low levels of interaction. To that end, reducing the timer will force players to approach more against a campy player who is in the lead. Additionally, this will incentivize campy players who are behind to close the gap more quickly by taking more risks and approaching more. While this will speed up the pace of the game, this structure often rewards campy players in the lead who have little incentive to approach, since making the other player approach them is an important part of their gameplan. Moreover, having a shorter timer may possibly lead to players running away more to run out the clock, since their opponent has less time to cover the gap. The odds of going to time are much higher, so stalling strategies are rewarded more. One solution may be to have a stricter ledge grab limit. Still, one could argue that the "running out the clock" is a hype aspect of timeouts, and that there's nothing wrong with rewarding it as long as there's still a high level of interaction. Basically, there's a lot of tradeoffs to consider, but either way, it should be tested so we can put the matter to rest. My analysis suggests that lowering the timer would be better for spectators, but competitively would reward campy players more.

I’m surprised the chart didn’t mention other fighting games at all. But yeah, no harm in testing.

12:00 i like this idea lmao

Def should try 5 min timer. I agree with toph on this

I feel like no progress has ever or will ever be made by theorycrafting ONLY. We NEED to test the timer change. I doesn't have to be at a major or anything crazy, but it should get some press so we can see what the ENTIRE community thinks (the pros, commentators, spectators, everyone) and make a decision based on more educated opinions.

Just make every set bo1 99 stocks no timer

PracticalTAS said it best Do not fear the timeouts, embrace them Sure more timeouts will def happen but we dont know how far it will go if we never test it, plus ledge grab limit rule will be less of a niche situation and timeouts will be less dreaded if they arent as commonplace as people feared Id also say the Melee play has been optimzied to the point where top level doesnt seem to be as defensive as before, it may suck for anything below that though being the biggest con, Id really want to see a dip in the waters by doing 6 mins or a modded build with a 6:30 option

We need a fall speed event that works like weights in martial arts or boxing. I want to see the data for sets with only fast fallers and floaties. Does the melee audience as a whole like seeing floaty matches or fast fallers more? Do they only watch one to know who will be up against what in the next. Of course this will never be implemented but it's still food for thought. Personally I think there'd be a strong bias to fast and maybe mid fallers as they tend to have faster more chaotic matches. Where I'd cut the brackets would be as follows Falco to Roy are the 5 FF Marth to Ness are the 10 mids Mario to puff are the 11 floaties Though Mario doc and gnw do feel like mid fallers. Which would make the split 5 13 and 8. Which would make more sense as the extremes should probably have less chars in them. If we go off Zain tier list and the 5 13 8 split all those above weirdos which most would consider top tiers, the fast fallers would have 3 top tiers the mids would have two and floaties would also have two. Strangely enough there's no fast fallers in weirdos which I think highlights how balancing fast fallers is finicky. Unfortunately this does mean Zain will be crushing two brackets. Maybe he'd pull out the zuff to prove he can hold his own in all fall speeds. I do think marth borders between fast faller and mid faller but I couldn't resist joking about Zain taking it all. I'm not suggesting banning any characters just exploring more thought experiments to do with the game and potential rulesets. I guess we could make an algorithm to throw back data to us about what sets are watched on RU-vid.

I'd love to test out a 5 min timer since i'd give me a new win condition to play for against floaties as a defensive falco main. It'd be unironically refreshing.

I kinda like the idea of lowering the timer and having chat vote on who played cooler because it would have encouraged me to drop Lucas for Sheik two years sooner in Smash 4 and I would have enjoyed more time playing a cool top tier before everyone jumped ship to Ultimate because there's literally nothing I could do as Smash 4 Lucas that would stop people from voting to DQ me.

I don't understand why players are so against it when we have a ledge grab limit now

My biggest argument against a shorter timer in Melee is frequency of games that start with one person taking 2 or even 3 stocks right away, yet the other person is able to come back and take 4 stocks in a row. It happens too often to not take it into account. If a shorter timer was implemented, it would be easier and more tempting for the player with the lead to camp the rest of the match instead of being forced to engage and allow these great comebacks to happen.

How many matches of stalling/timeout did it take for one hype moment to argue in favor of timeouts? I can't help but agree with mew2king as a fan/watcher

Hard agree the middle chunk of timeouts are boring. The TO in me does want to DQ them both because I've got a bracket to run but I think we should test 10 minutes and 6:30.

Oh snap

Lower the timer to 3 minutes, but it only counts down if no damage has been dealt for 20 or more seconds. Or give both players a 3 minute chess clock that only counts down if they themselves haven’t dealt damage for 20 seconds, and a player loses if their time runs out.

You wanna test it? What better time to do that than summit? Just make it a side event and see how it goes

Timer? but i barely know her 😔

Players play with a chess clock and hit their side of the clock when they approach

Testing both is a good idea. My intuition tells me a longer timer would be better because it would create a larger barrier for camping and intentional timeouts. It all comes down to mindset and I think there are few players who will make the effort to play campy and lame if the timer is longer because that's a lot of time where you have to acknowledge "wow I'm playing like a goober" but if we lower the timer it simultaneously decreases the barrier and more players will see it as a viable option outright or during the match.

At the end of the day I don't think there's any harm in testing it. At the very least it makes the argument (should it come up again) less based on conjecture.

Ic, fascinating.

Jokes aside, I think the real solution here is to normalize timeouts. We need to try a 4-6 minute timer.

ycz6 has been my hero for 13 years. He inspired me to stay in college and pursue engineering and math. I'm always so glad to see him still a part of the community.

If ledge camping becomes more degenerate, we can create new rules. For example, modding the game so that a character can only grab the ledge 20 times in a row before landing on the ground. This forces campers to commit to an option on stage if they want to keep ledge stalling. Even better, make it so that every time they grab the ledge, they lose one frame of invincibility

gameacho runs Virtua Fighter 3 on it's channel. that game has best of 5, 30 second rounds. game end in all the ways games can end, timeout, ring outs, and KOs. the frantic scramble as someone who is 30% down, and tries to land a throw, or 3 hits in 5 seconds is great fun. the only game i've seen allow infinite time rounds online is Dead or Alive. and what it does, being ahead means nothing, so there's no game management, you kill them or they kill you. there's no point trying to timer scam, or play differently, you keep going and you kill them, so rounds are really short (i think the infinite timer thing applies to fast fallers since their rounds are 1-3minutes, it's so rare to get them outside this range)

Whoop !

I’m also for testing a shorter timer. I do agree with Toph that 64 and Brawl showed that Smash players are definitely patient enough to camp regardless of a long/nonexistent timer, but Melee is a much faster game, with a slightly different playerbase. Therefore, the same may not apply. Ok then, how do we replace the “may” in that statement with “does”? Just test it, simple as that. Well, I call it’s simple, but unfortunately we are slow as balls at incorporating anything new into tournaments. My proposal is we only have one tournament series try a different timer; it’s much easier that way anyways. If a 5 min timer like PTas suggested sounds a bit much for the TO or whoever is in charge of the ruleset, maybe take babysteps over the course of a few years: 7 min timer for 1/2 years, then 6 min timer for another 2 years, etc. We’d still be going slow as all shit, but at least the changes would be constant over the years instead of arguing for X years and then suddenly having all tournaments abide by it. We did the latter option with wobbling, and look how the ICs players responded. TLDR: Yes, test shorter timer, just be really conservative about it.

My ideal ruleset is 2 stocks, 3/4 minutes, ft4/4t5

12:38 what if Wizzy is playing in said tournament?

Interesting

If the average game is 4-5 minutes, there's no point in having an 8 minute timer. Timeouts in a number of games are incredibly exciting and a relatively normal thing, the issue is when the timer is too long and nothing is happening. 6 minutes is fine in most cases, add in a ledge grab limit to prevent stalling. In Basketball there's a shot clock, in Boxing the ref breaks up holds, American Football has play timers so they have to start the next play rather than standing around doing nothing. A lower timer can reward camping for sure but we should also look at what matchups are even causing the timeouts in the first place: Peach-Puff is probably a big one, Sheik shino stalling against a number of characters, and other non-interactive styles of play are going to cause that but something like Fox-Falco or Fox-Falcon or Marth against Spacies is probably never going to go to time even with a 5-6 minute timer let alone an 8 minute one. Like I mentioned 6 minutes and a ledge limit is probably fine but if you don't want to do that much off the bat then 7 is probably fine to test, at the very least it means nothing happens for 1 less minute than current rules

how about make the timer invisible but still active so the players are deincentivized from camping due to the uncertainty of the timer

why fix what isnt broken

Yo Toph is a genius