Jack, you are way too idealistic.
Yeah, I get that a lot. Tell me that
someone shouldn't be idealistic, though. You say it like it's a
bad thing to have ideals. Also, I'm a philosopher by trade. Having ideals is sort of my job.
1. There is no reasonable, objective way of determining stage lists. Anything goes, as they say. There is no real reason to favour a large stage list over a small one, it's just preference.
Sure, there is. "Everything is allowed until it is determined that it either stops gameplay entirely or has no counters and thus becomes the only viable option, in which case it is banned." There, done. Now, it's just finding those things, which only happens by
playing with them.
2. Were you around for the melee to brawl transition? Your join date would indicate not, so I'll explain - people said the exact same things about Brawl that you're saying about Smash 4, and look what happened. What will be different this time? Sure, we don't have 'data' on Smash 4, but we sure as hell have data on transitioning from one Smash game to another.
Yes, I was there for the transition (I joined before the game was even released, dude). I'm sorry, Grim, but I'm the last person who's going to accept a self-fulfilling prophesy as evidence in a debate. "Oh, we said we would ban things and did! Look how perfectly we predicted the future!" Meanwhile, we're the MOST biased people in determining if that prediction is true. You predict the character list, then you've done something pretty impressive. You predict actions that you, yourself, not only decide to take, but decide how to take? That's not prediction, that's you doing what you said you were going to do. You approach the game with a ban-happy mindset, you're going to ban things; you just taught me the most obvious thing in the world, awesome. But, just because you banned something, that doesn't mean it was
worthy of a ban. Surely, you don't think that we made 100% perfect decisions with Brawl. If you do, you're irrational, because no one is perfect. You don't, then you agree with AA and me that there are things we could do better.
We're just saying that a change in mindset
really facilitates the whole "doing better next time" thing.
3. The idea that more stages = more competitive game completely ignores the influence of the player base; forcing people to play a game that they don't want to simply isn't going to work. It doesn't matter if we don't need a LGL, or a certain stage doesn't need to be banned - you need super strong campaigning to get players to like the stage, not to prove that it's competitively viable - do you think that is going to happen?
It works for Marvel. How many people WANT to play Chris G's stupid ass Morrigan? Filipino Champ's incredibly cheap Phoenix? Answer: no one. But, now Chris G's on the decline because people
were adults and found out a counter, even if that counter took months to find. I got the joy of seeing that stupid smirk wiped off F-Champ's face by a relative newcomer, which means that sometimes, the traditional wisdom is flat-out stupid. I'm not asking people to
like anything. When you play at the top level, it's not because you like it: it's because you're the best, and you're willing to do anything (within the rules) to win. Sometimes those things match up, and we try our best to make it so they do, but sometimes games have unfun things in them.
Someone who really loves the game works past those things and maybe has a hand in finding technology that turns something unfun
into something fun. Once we get a viable counter to Chris G's Morrigan, then fighting him will be fun, because it will be (as Yipes likes to say) a real match.
Why is everyone here so damn impatient? Jesus, are you all 15 year olds with no concept of delayed gratification? Take your damn time, smell the freaking roses. -_-
