As a competitor, this is something I personally would not take seriously over the traditional singles format, whether that be due to bias or me being the kind of person I am or w/e. But I can totally see this being a side event that I would probably enjoy participating in.



However, I find really troubling the thing you define as a "flaw" and how you attempt to "fix" it.



From how I interpreted your post, it seemed to me that you have the perception (or you think everyone else has the perception) that Smash is supposed to be a game that promotes approaching, attacking, making commitments, etc. And your ruleset where one wins by damage dealt certainly does incentivize people to at least make an attempt do those things. As much as I would like to see these things happening, your ruleset does not do service to the actual objective of this game which is to knock your opponent off the screen. This is the fundamental thing that Smash is about and has always been about regardless of the iterations of the game, regardless of the type of game modes (except for some, like Break the Targets and Coin Matches), regardless of whether singles, doubles, or FFA are being played, regardless of whether people are playing aggressively or camping for 8 mins, the one who knocks their opponent off the stage the most wins. That's the way the game was fundamentally designed.



Now we're free to alter the rules of the game to play it in whichever way we want. That was also by design, too. But when you create a ruleset that completely dumps and disregards the original objective of the game (winning by most damage dealt instead of by stock count), then you run into some serious problems:





1. There is no incentive to edgeguard opponents or getting kills. Why attempt to gimp someone or kill someone when that process will give you virtually no reward under the current ruleset? If anything, it rewards the one being gimped or killed, because after they die, they start their stock with invincibility and 0%, making it extremely easy for them to hit you and other players.



2. Speaking of being gimped/killed, what's to stop someone from constantly SDing to get invincibility and to re-spawn at 0% all the time?



3. Using evasive strategies is not discouraged but encouraged, imo. Hit-and-run strategies are incentivized far more than trying to get aggressive combos. If I saw someone comboing another player, that means that he's dishing out way more percent than me and it's in my favor to interrupt that combo. It's much more beneficial to commit to a hit-and-run strategy where I can maximize the amount of damage I do to other players while minimizing the amount they can do to me. And I was just thinking about projectile-less characters. Defensive, projectile characters may be OP in such a ruleset because they can dish out damage from afar and run away the whole match. Good luck seeing the next Wombo Combo or the next m2k vs Shiz 4 ever happening again.



4. The opportunities for collusion are limitless. What's to stop two players from teaming with each other to ensure that the other two players lose? How is that fair to those players? In fact, why don't you just play normal 2v2 teams instead of FFAs?







Those are just four examples off the top of my head where problems could arise with that ruleset in place. I think when you completely eliminate the stock element from Smash, especially in a FFA environment, then you are playing a fundamentally flawed game. If you want to win by dealing the most damage, play a game that was designed for that task like any traditional fighter. Or....



You could encourage this same ruleset on something like Stamina mode. By design, Stamina mode is made to give maximum reward to a person who dishes out the most damage and receives the least. And it does not promote SDing to gain invincibility and 0% because you will automatically lose the game. Maybe you can use stamina mode for this kind of ruleset. But then again, why wouldn't you just play Stamina mode normally?



Nice idea but I think it, at the very least, needs some tweaking.