First of all I loved the handicap system in SSBM and think it was the perfect way to keep a fight featuring two experienced gamers and two casuals fair (what we have every week at my place). The system did it quietly in the background, and there wasn't any obvious way to expoit it.

SSBB, however, is becoming a growing problem in our group precisely because of how its handicap system works; by making it brutally obvious who is handicapped, and by how much there are hurt feelings in the group. Second of all in a group such as ours there is a very simple way that this system gets exploited by the very people it was meant to handicap. Myself and the other experienced gamer both know that we can usually kill the other in a single blow; so at the end of two minutes its not uncommon for us to have a huge nubmer of kills - almost all against each other.

The only solutions I can think of to this all involve creating teams - which isn't my first choice. If anyone else has suggestions please fire away.

It sounds like you play time matches?

If you play stock battles, the handicap system should be a bit better

Why are you playing timed matches? o_o

I agree, the system with the lighter chars was much better than the percent system, even if it kinda acts the same way.

Honestly, I don't see how this would be worse off than Melee's handicap system. Generally the same, people with handicaps get killed easier, you know who is handicapped in both games.

If it's that high percentages mark that's turning you off, then turn percentages off.

We decided years ago when playing SSBM that we preferred timed because that way everyone was always participating. We found that stock meant less fun for us. (players sitting around waiting for the current match to end)

I will explain again using sample numbers.

• Player A - wins about 45% of the matches
• Player B - wins about 40% of the matches
• Player C - wins about 10% of the matches
• Player D - wins about 5% of the matches

So at any given time the handicaps are usually:

• A - between 100 and 150%
• B - between 80% and 130%
• C - 0%
• D - 0%

The problem with this is that players A and B are the ones best able to take advantage of each others poor starting health. Invariably every match turns into A vs B who got more kills against the other. C and D get killed less, but the poor skills they have in the game leave them less able to take advantage of the massive handcaps A and B have then A and B themselves.

This problem did not exist in SSBM because the damage ratios did not make A or B nearly so vulnerable to each other.

The thing about melee's handcap system was it didn't ever seem to result in the insta-kills we get so frequently now. Its these insta-kills that are the huge problem. The players who score them all the time are the very players who are suppose to be penalized (scoring them against the other penalized player, but still). Its quite common for both of the high handicap players to end a match with more kills against the other handicapped player than the total kills scored by both casuals combined. It means that the two casuals have become irrelevant, every match is decided by which of the more experienced player kill the other more.

To be honest, despite playing the game weekly for three years, I don't think our two casual players ever got their heads around what the handicap system in melee meant (any time I mentioned something about it I always got a puzzled look). But seeing our health start at 100%+ and they still can't win really hits home with them.

As for turning the percentages off, I really don't want to do that, but if nothing better comes out of this thread its a given we're going to.

That would work if in every single match the two of them got equal kills, but it doesn't work that way; more often than not one gets two or three kills more than the other(our session last weekend featured a half a dozen times where one of the better players killed the other five times more than he was killed himself)

The win ratios have become incredibly lopsided since we switched to Brawl (its easy to look at our stats and see this is not just an illusion). And as for individual matches, often the winner could have won the match soley off of the match up with the other experienced player; commonly this accounts for +3 or more and our casuals typically score negative with the rare +1 or +2.

It may be best for you to move to a teams match, with one good player on each team, and the handicap turned on.

Alternatively, you could go to a stock match with the handicap on. At those kind of ratios, it doesn't sound like a match would last all that long anyway. The handicap should also even out the amount of time each of you sits out during your play time.