ESAM (Panda) · @imESAM
19th May 2015 from TwitLonger
Smash 4 Doesn't NEED a Unified Ruleset, Calm Down.
Smash 4 is 7 months old (minus 2 days). I repeat, the game is 7 months old. S E V E N M O N T H S O L D!!
In this time we have seen ridiculously huge numbers in attendance and interest in Smash4. Granted, some of this is clearly factors outside of Smash4 itself such as the growing eSports scene as well as the success of the game's predecessors....but still. Apex2015 had ~1000 entrants for Smash4 which is about 2x the size of ANY Brawl tournament and about 2x the size of any non-EVO tournament before Apex2015 (I think?). The point is that Smash4 has a HUGE attendance pool regardless of all the strife that is going around at the moment with customs vs no customs, 2 stock vs 3 stock, stage differences, etc. Florida had a 120 man tournament for an EVO flight even though a majority of the players dislike customs (And even MORE after the tournament ended). However...if we had another huge customs tournament with big rewards you are DAMN sure at least that many people would enter.
Huge tournaments are happening everywhere all the time regardless of ruleset and WILL happen regardless of ruleset. There are only a small percentage of people who will boycott tournaments based on rulesets alone and those people typically do not matter (Or unfortunately main Mii Brawler and that's it). But now, for the main point, time to head down memory lane.
Back in ~2011 there was a HUGE debate in Brawl over rulesets that ultimately "ended" with a "Smash Back Room Unified Ruleset" which was made by several top players and main TOs. The MLGs had a vastly different ruleset than the majority of the other nationals at the time and people wanted a ruleset that would unite people and "Bring Brawl together and let it shine. What it ACTUALLY did was sever the community even more because once the ruleset came out there were 2 separate camps. "This is what we have wanted" vs "Oh my god why would this be standard fuck this." It was supposed to bring the community under one roof but instead pushed the divide even further and essentially became ineffective within 3 months. THREE MONTHS even though EVERYONE was saying we need a unified ruleset. Granted, part of this was because of Metaknight controversy, but that was one of the reasons people WNATED a unified ruleset in the first place, but Brawl is a different game with different parameters.
However, the point still stands that NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO there will always be 2 sides (or in this case potentially 4 sides) to every argument. It doesn't matter if there is a "standard" because as of now we don't have like..Nintendo pushing a ruleset at us and saying "If you don't use this ruleset we don't sponsor you" so it is literally up to every TO to run whatever ruleset he wants, 2 stock, 3 stock, customs, no customs, FLSS, usual stage striking...you get the point. For reference, Melee really got a unified ruleset probably in the 2011/2012 area...11 years after the game was made. Corneria and Super Mario Bros 2, the stage with the birdo and 2 walkoffs were legal for like 6 years in that game.
Please do not expect a ruleset to quell the whining that everyone is doing. It won't. It'll just change it to "Why are we using THIS ruleset, what makes it so much better? Why dont' we have X and Y" blah blah you get the point. The problem with a big community is...well there are more opinions that are thrown around. You will NEVER be able to satisfy thousands of people with one ruleset, that shit is NOT possible.
My favorite time in Brawl in terms of rulesets was when there were nationals once every 3 months in completely different regions with different rulesets and we would have to adjust for each national in between the time of the other one. Genesis 2, Pound V, Apex, and SKTAR all used relatively different rulesets and we had to cycle through them to practice them. It made SENSE to do it because "This is what everyone is preparing for" and even the players that weren't going to those nationals were on board because as a community you should want your region to be as most prepared for an upcoming tournament as possible. I am not a fan of customs (As you may have read) but I am totally gonna play in every customs tournament until EVO because I need to be prepared. I am also going to be playing in every NON customs tournament until CEO because I need to be prepared. Regardless of the ruleset you should be on board for preparing for whatever your goal is (assuming the goal is larger than the local tournament).
TL;DR Having a unified ruleset won't change anything, people will just bitch about that ruleset and literally the same thing will happen. Nationals are ALWAYS what will drive rulesets and unless you are gonna host a national good luck having a say in the matter~