Dabuz
Fraud at Smash
With EVO 2011 going down, and our community realizing it needs to step our game up and attract more popularity, there is one issue that should be addressed: HYPE!
HYPE! is not just seeing the underdog have a shot to beat established pros, but its also seeing crazy comebacks, and having exciting and fast matches. HYPE! is what makes an older game survive when there is less to learn about it. HYPE! is the reason traditional fighters such as blazblue, mortal kombat, street fighter, ect. get EVO. Brawl doesn't have enough HYPE! to guarantee it will be an interesting EVO game.
What i want to propose, for the purpose of raising HYPE! is reducing stocks to 2, and making every set best 3/5, and 4/7 for GFs.
The first reasoning behind this is that the longer a match in a fighting game goes, the less interesting it, from a spectators point of view, 4 minutes of diddy vs. snake on SV will get old by the third minute, and then we run into the problem of the same situation, on a different stage, again, and maybe even a third time. Within 12 minutes, the amount of variety will be very minimal, and that is a turn off to many spectators, even in our HYPE! matches, that can end up being a problem. By reducing matches down to two stocks, it cuts a match time by 1/3 in theory, which will keep sets more fresh and exciting for spectators. The point is, 2 stocks caters to the shorter attention spans of spectators, and stage variety makes a match more interesting.
Heck, this also reduces the snore-fest brawl can be when one player has pretty much guaranteed taking a match, but because there is still another stock or more to go, spectators have to endure watching another couple minutes of a match with a predictable outcome. Most matches are determined by the first person to take a second stock anyway, i don't remember who first made this observation, but, looking mid, high, and top level matches, most of the time, up to 90% of the time, the player who is the first to take off a second stock ends up winning the match, making the third stock pretty pointless. Two stocks allow room for comebacks and not being able to say for sure who will win a match is a driving force behind HYPE!
The second reason bringing brawl down to 2 stocks is that, from a player's point of view, it promotes being risky, going hard for certain kills, or large combos, and being a crowd pleaser. With less stocks, players need to put in less investment for each match, meaning taking a risk that potentially can cost a stock, is less of a price because with a higher quantity of shorter matches, a player knows they won't be completely screwing themselves over if they take the risk, unlike the current system that results in each of those stocks meaning a lot more in the long run. This promotes ballsy, aggressive, and HYPE! high risk-high reward moments, while not punishing players who prefer to be safe and camp it out whilst taking no big risks. The potential for increasing the excitement and gaining interest in the community will skyrocket, and thats what the community needs
EVO is eye opening in how matches are exciting because they are fast and anything can happen. Brawl can be like that without changing the fundamentals of our ruleset. Brawl has a lot of potential, what we need to understand is, brawl is not boring itself (with the exception of long lasting stalling tactics, AKA m2k style), what is boring is the length of which our matches last. To be taken as a HYPE! game, Brawl needs to be exciting and hard to predict, and our players need to have incentive to take risks and causing moments which can make spectators goes *Gasp*! The proposal of 2 stocks is an idea which i support for the sake of helping this community.
I want everyone who reads this to seriously consider the idea of 2-stocks in an attempt to make brawl a more HYPE! game.
Edit: Gifts pointed out the need to change the time to accommodate for less stocks. So i recommend a 6 minute time. Also, cut the LGL by 1/5th. (MK now has a LGL of 28, the rest of the cast has a LGL limit of 42)
Edit:
Questions? Comments? Opinions? Please post them
TL;DR version: Reducing matches 2 stocks, 6 minutes will increase the excitement of brawl matches, which caters to spectators who are the driving force behind a game picking up enough interest to be put on EVO.
Link to AIB blog about this: http://allisbrawl.com/blogpost.aspx?id=119918
HYPE! is not just seeing the underdog have a shot to beat established pros, but its also seeing crazy comebacks, and having exciting and fast matches. HYPE! is what makes an older game survive when there is less to learn about it. HYPE! is the reason traditional fighters such as blazblue, mortal kombat, street fighter, ect. get EVO. Brawl doesn't have enough HYPE! to guarantee it will be an interesting EVO game.
What i want to propose, for the purpose of raising HYPE! is reducing stocks to 2, and making every set best 3/5, and 4/7 for GFs.
The first reasoning behind this is that the longer a match in a fighting game goes, the less interesting it, from a spectators point of view, 4 minutes of diddy vs. snake on SV will get old by the third minute, and then we run into the problem of the same situation, on a different stage, again, and maybe even a third time. Within 12 minutes, the amount of variety will be very minimal, and that is a turn off to many spectators, even in our HYPE! matches, that can end up being a problem. By reducing matches down to two stocks, it cuts a match time by 1/3 in theory, which will keep sets more fresh and exciting for spectators. The point is, 2 stocks caters to the shorter attention spans of spectators, and stage variety makes a match more interesting.
Heck, this also reduces the snore-fest brawl can be when one player has pretty much guaranteed taking a match, but because there is still another stock or more to go, spectators have to endure watching another couple minutes of a match with a predictable outcome. Most matches are determined by the first person to take a second stock anyway, i don't remember who first made this observation, but, looking mid, high, and top level matches, most of the time, up to 90% of the time, the player who is the first to take off a second stock ends up winning the match, making the third stock pretty pointless. Two stocks allow room for comebacks and not being able to say for sure who will win a match is a driving force behind HYPE!
The second reason bringing brawl down to 2 stocks is that, from a player's point of view, it promotes being risky, going hard for certain kills, or large combos, and being a crowd pleaser. With less stocks, players need to put in less investment for each match, meaning taking a risk that potentially can cost a stock, is less of a price because with a higher quantity of shorter matches, a player knows they won't be completely screwing themselves over if they take the risk, unlike the current system that results in each of those stocks meaning a lot more in the long run. This promotes ballsy, aggressive, and HYPE! high risk-high reward moments, while not punishing players who prefer to be safe and camp it out whilst taking no big risks. The potential for increasing the excitement and gaining interest in the community will skyrocket, and thats what the community needs
EVO is eye opening in how matches are exciting because they are fast and anything can happen. Brawl can be like that without changing the fundamentals of our ruleset. Brawl has a lot of potential, what we need to understand is, brawl is not boring itself (with the exception of long lasting stalling tactics, AKA m2k style), what is boring is the length of which our matches last. To be taken as a HYPE! game, Brawl needs to be exciting and hard to predict, and our players need to have incentive to take risks and causing moments which can make spectators goes *Gasp*! The proposal of 2 stocks is an idea which i support for the sake of helping this community.
I want everyone who reads this to seriously consider the idea of 2-stocks in an attempt to make brawl a more HYPE! game.
Edit: Gifts pointed out the need to change the time to accommodate for less stocks. So i recommend a 6 minute time. Also, cut the LGL by 1/5th. (MK now has a LGL of 28, the rest of the cast has a LGL limit of 42)
Edit:
Something i want to address about set counts. Falln brought this up on AIB, we don't want to gimp the length of HYPE! matches, such as Trela vs. Esam, but after reading through comments, many people would prefer to stay Bo3, which does help to keep matches fresh. In order to get the best of both worlds, i was thinking that, going off the assumption of a 64 person bracket, every match up to winner's quarters and loser's semis is 2/3. Every match up to all the Finals would be 3/5. Then all the finals would be 4/7. This gets HYPE! matches more time, whilst still keeping a higher level of hype and not gimping the playing time.
For Brackets size 32 and less, we stick to 2/3 until the finals, which all get 3/5
Opinions?
Questions? Comments? Opinions? Please post them
TL;DR version: Reducing matches 2 stocks, 6 minutes will increase the excitement of brawl matches, which caters to spectators who are the driving force behind a game picking up enough interest to be put on EVO.
Link to AIB blog about this: http://allisbrawl.com/blogpost.aspx?id=119918