Determining the procedure to pick stages in Smash 4

[Davis-Lightheart]

We don't have a problem with new players; last tourney I went to had a bunch of Brawl first-timers, striking was introduced to them as "taking turns turning off the stage you don't want to play on" and banning is as simple as "you pick one stage from these that we WON'T play on and I'll choose from what's left".

I'm not entirely opposed to a phone app for how easy it will be to use, but claiming that it will be better for casuals/new players is misleading.

What's the fraction against, if you don't mind my asking?

 

[Pazx]

What's the fraction against, if you don't mind my asking?

Honestly I'm against it being developed specifically for the new system as I don't think we need one. If someone were to develop an app that made our current striking system easier that'd be neat, but I personally wouldn't use it.

 

[BestTeaMaker]

Honestly I'm against it being developed specifically for the new system as I don't think we need one. If someone were to develop an app that made our current striking system easier that'd be neat, but I personally wouldn't use it.

It's not something that's mandatory honestly, but it can help. It's like how we're using Challonge to record most of our matches as it's a convenient bracket system to use. Having an app or some tool to help with stage selection can help.

 

[T0MMY]

Here is something very useful I came across for laying some foundation for any new Stage Selection Procedure. I figured it'd be helpful here so I thought I'd share:

Formal Rulescrafting

Concise. It must be simple enough to be used by new players as well as veterans who are used to another procedure.
Attractive. It must be different enough to warrant its use over any other procedure.
Strong. It must be perceived as "better" than the method already commonly used.
Functional. The system cannot have any errors which lead to disputes.
Fair. There should be no reason why advantage is given to a player/Team over any others.
Known. The system must be well advertised; a new, simple, and better method will be worthless if you don't tell anyone about it.
​

I have attempted to adhere to these above values when formulating my Standard of Stage Choice.
In addition to the above values, when going about the design I have personally kept in mind:

Understandable. That is to say the system should not use vague language or terms that cannot be found in the software itself or should give a clear definition of the words it is using.
Memorable. There shouldn't be any reason why the procedure cannot be recalled easily.
Inclusive. When designing I am looking at what options can be reasonably kept, not how to exclude all but "mine".
Autonomous. Everything you need should be contained within the software itself. This does not mean it would exclude such things as computer applications or other tools, but it should not require anything more than what is required to play the game.​

Not sure if these should be included in the above values at this time, but important to my thoughts in the matter. I will be musing over this and post more later.

 

[Bearbuddy4]

Every stage has an omega version.

problem solved, competitive players are ok playing on 1-3 stages
(final destination, battlefield 90% of the time)

at least with omega versions you'll get a different background to look at, it'll make watching much less boring.

 

[LiteralGrill]

I gotta chime in here part way through the tournament to test SSS. So far the feedback has been widely positive surprisingly! I'll be sure to come in here with everything I got from the after tournament survey, but as of now this is actually looking good!

 

[T0MMY]

Every stage has an omega version.

problem solved, competitive players are ok playing on 1-3 stages
(final destination, battlefield 90% of the time)

at least with omega versions you'll get a different background to look at, it'll make watching much less boring.

Although I would question where the "90%" is coming from, I'm going to assume it's just a figure of speech and the point of the matter is in competitions players would be more ok with just the one stage than having janky stages they do NOT like to use competitively forced upon them.
As a competitive player I agree with this - I hate being robbed of a victory through my own actions, that's so antithesis to competitions to have the stage win and I take the credit for it (no more different than another player doing so).

Now, in For Fun competitions, I don't care - it's a more casual and fun event with anything-goes.

 

[Uniit]

Deciding which stage is part of a competitively playable list is not the subject of this thraed, but i will be really disappointed if we're just going to play on Omega stages. Maybe some want it because it carry more diversity, but, hey, i never gonna happen.

Millions other thraeds and posts will say it better than me, but one flat terrain avantages characters over others. Just take the case of Little Mac, who's a beast on FD but struggle when many platform require aerial play. Competitively speaking, learning to play with the stage is part of learning the game and getting better at it, as well as learning other characters to be prepared to face them.

I don't want to play "No items, Fox only, final destination".

Back on the subject, I look forward to SSS experimentation results, even if i'm pretty against, i might be wrong on that.

 

[Thinkaman]

On the subject of an app:

It needs to be just a web app, usable in any browser.

There is no reason for such a program to need access to any phone-specific APIs.

If you want to compile to a platform-specific app for some reason, most good frames works can do that anyway.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Back on the subject, I look forward to SSS experimentation results, even if i'm pretty against, i might be wrong on that.

Well I'm back to give a report on how Simultaneous Stage Selection went! Just to get everyone on the same page in case you're seeing this for the first time, I ran a tournament on /r/smashbros to test a new stage selection procedure. You can learn more about SSS by checking out the ruleset. If you are interested in the results of the tournament, I have a thread up for that as well.

Anyways, we ran a survey after the event and got a lot of responses so I wanted to report back with both the impressions of the players, as well as the impressions I got from running the event.

One of the things we discussed was stage variety. Were all of the stages getting played on and which were most popular? Each player told us the stages they played on during the tournament. Here's a graph showing the percentage of players who played on these stages at least once in tournament:
[collapse= Stage Use Pie Chart]

[/collapse]

Considering the stages available on the 3DS to play on this looks to be a very healthy variety with even some of the rarer counterpicks getting played. (For those curious, the "Other" was for Mute City of all stages!) So this system does help to promote variety on which stages get played on in a healthy manner.

We also asked if learning the system was confusing to some players. 80% of players had NO issues what so ever and though the system was easy to learn. Out of the remaining folks, 15% said it was only confusing during the first round of play or was confusing until they read our example in the rules. Only 5% of players said it was too difficult for them to understand.

In short: 95% of players thought this was easy or learned/picked it up quickly.

I more then think that means the system is easy enough to learn as well!

We asked if players would be willing to enter another tournament that used SSS. 94% of players said they would play in another event using SSS. (To make a odd but worthy note: all of the players in the "no" category just were insanely rude about the entire experience of the tournament in any way. I'm not sure I'd even WANT them to come back to another event I ran TBH. The obscenities in the surveys they used would get me banned here if I repeated them and broke our Code of Conduct.)

In short: A large majority enjoyed the system.

Now to the interesting part of this. We asked what people enjoyed about the system. This one was overwhelmingly positive. a large majority found it faster then the usual stage selection process, found it to be fair, and simply enjoyed using the system. I also learned something REALLY cool that may help with this system in the future. Many players were simply copy/pasting their selection into every match since they knew which stages they wanted on the most. What this means is that if done right many players would have a pre-designed list and have no need to even write down stages every match. So the worries of having to write things down over and over again in a real life event may not be as bad as we all think.

This also however shows how this system works especially well in online events, and in ways doesn't. When we asked what players would improve, the response we saw most was that simultaneously showing lists online wasn't perfect since they couldn't always perfectly coordinate it to go at once.

What this tells me: This REALLY could use testing at a live event. With the time concerns kinda wiped away (this went much faster for most people and honestly was one of our fastest events) and the issue of showing off the lists at the same time removed at live events, this could seriously work.

The only other major complaint was a lack of variety on stages, but with that complain most people admitted that was the fault of the 3DS stagelist and not the system itself. A small number wished tie breakers were handled a bit differently, but those complaints could literally be changed by adding one line to the ruleset that is very simple. Also, you are telling your opponent what stages you like the most, so you know what to ban for counterpicks a bit more. However once more stages are added in the wii u version that would be cut back on slightly.

One more note though: This showed me how much people in the end will more then likely just do to one of the tame starters though. From what players personally told me, Battlefield and Final Destination were their top most matches the majority of the time. So we need to ask: is it worth making a new system when most matches are honestly going to take place on said starters anyways?

TLDR: A large majority enjoyed the system, it was easy to learn for the majority, it was faster then what we used currently, and it should definitely get some live testing as it showed a lot of promise. It also has raised interesting questions to consider.

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

Well; live events might be a step far for now. We should at least have another test online to see what we see, but this is promising.

 

[popsofctown]

The point of the system is speed. FLSS and SSS might both bring two players to battlefield but SSS gets them there faster and gets the tourney rolling down the road. I thought that was the point.

 

[Piford]

If people generally picked Battlefield and FD then it was likely because its been ingrained in the communities mindset that those stages are starters and the first game should usually be played there. Over time, if this method catches on, then hopefully people would start to realize that it could be best for them if the first game was played on different stages like Halberd or Skyloft depending on the matchup.

 

[LiteralGrill]

The point of the system is speed. FLSS and SSS might both bring two players to battlefield but SSS gets them there faster and gets the tourney rolling down the road. I thought that was the point.

You know you raise a very fair point. Again, this was just something I was thinking on, and I think that about fixes that thought.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

The point of the system is speed. FLSS and SSS might both bring two players to battlefield but SSS gets them there faster and gets the tourney rolling down the road. I thought that was the point.

It's one of the major points. The other being fairness.

I'm really glad everything worked out well in the test event and these numbers are extremely encouraging to say the least. I'm really hyped to see how this would work in the Wii U version or even Project M. (Project M's in-game striking really helps SSS)

Kinda unrelated, but how did people react to the Custom Moves?

 

[LiteralGrill]

It's one of the major points. The other being fairness.

I'm really glad everything worked out well in the test event and these numbers are extremely encouraging to say the least. I'm really hyped to see how this would work in the Wii U version or even Project M. (Project M's in-game striking really helps SSS)

Kinda unrelated, but how did people react to the Custom Moves?

We've had custom moves legal in our weeklies for a while now. So far it's been nothing but positive.

 

[BestTeaMaker]

We've had custom moves legal in our weeklies for a while now. So far it's been nothing but positive.

To add to that, we enacted a rule in which custom moves could be counterpicked and must be announced, similar to how character changes and stage selection is announced. People have really been enjoying custom moves in general.