Proposed Ruleset for Smash 4 Tournaments

[LiteralGrill]

And the merry go round keeps on spinning! I call the unicorn. Capps can be on a horse. Who wants the carriage!?

Screw the horse, I want on the Zebra!

(We actually have a Carousel in my home time, always rode the Zebra )

This isn't going very far at this point though I agree.

 

[hichez50]

We shouldn't arbitarrily limit statges before we have even played the game. These types of stages have been trouble in the past, but they shouldn't instantly be ruled out. Or if they are there should be a controlled testing environment.

 

[LiteralGrill]

We shouldn't arbitarrily limit statges before we have even played the game. These types of stages have been trouble in the past, but they shouldn't instantly be ruled out. Or if they are there should be a controlled testing environment.

Could both sides at least agree on that?

Also, 32 users and 71 guests viewing the thread as I type this, WOW. This seems to be something a LOT of people are thinking about.

Edit: WHY DON'T YOU PEOPLE START RESPONDING! Come on guys, you're all here, now is the time to take some action and see what we may be able to solve or at least finally explain before the game is out. Get on it!

 

[Mr.Showtime]

We are making history!

 

[LiteralGrill]

We are making history!

I could only hope. It'd be pretty cool to be a part of history right?

Anyways, RESPOND! Come on, I see previous and current BRoomn members, unity ruleset committee members, and top players in here right now. Let's get this thread going.

Edit: Right after the posts mentioning these people were here, TONS all of a sudden left. What? Come on, what the heck guys?

 

[Mormon Mammoth]

Mechanics in stages that randomly kill people are likely to be banned early on anyway. This doesn't include nonrandom mechanics that kill/harm people (Brinstar). Corneria wasn't an illegal stage for a while because people hadn't figured out how to use the crooked fin as a match deciding mechanic that couldn't be avoided. This was the reason it was banned, not the somewhat random arwings flying in and shooting characters or the great fox shooting lasers. This is a great example of why stages should be banned. Match deciding nearly unavoidable mechanics of a stage or random stage hazards should be the largest reason a stage is banned.

 

[Mormon Mammoth]

-this double post shouldnt have happened-

 

[LiteralGrill]

Mechanics in stages that randomly kill people are likely to be banned early on anyway. This doesn't include nonrandom mechanics that kill/harm people (Brinstar). Corneria wasn't an illegal stage for a while because people hadn't figured out how to use the crooked fin as a match deciding mechanic that couldn't be avoided. This was the reason it was banned, not the somewhat random arwings flying in and shooting characters or the great fox shooting lasers. This is a great example of why stages should be banned. Match deciding nearly unavoidable mechanics of a stage or random stage hazards should be the largest reason a stage is banned.

If we ban for random hazards we gotta prove they are random first. I remember when people thought PTAD cars were 100% random.

Now a stage with an over-centralizing tactic I do totally agree deserves a ban. Corneria was a prime candidate for that point, excellent example!

Now, if a stage ins't random, and is proven you can't just do one strategy only to win, legality needs serious consideration.

 

[SnatoWhato]

Agreed with OP.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Agreed with OP.

Why? Gonna back up your thoughts?

 

[SacaSuMoto]

Agreed with OP.


I will still play on all the dumb stages and dumb items and dumb gimmicks and bad characters for fun though.

 

[KrIsP!]

I disagree with hugs' guidelines but it really shouldnt take more than a day to be able to tell which stages are dumb or not. Sometimes stage hazards aren't nearly as bad as stage design.

Can I throw in **** 8 minute timers? The only time things ever go to time is when someone goes in trying to time out and I. Can't for the life of me understand why brawl didn't experiment with a lower time.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Agreed with OP.


I will still play on all the dumb stages and dumb items and dumb gimmicks and bad characters for fun though.

As I said previously to several other people, gonna back up WHY you agree? Can you defend your viewpoint?

 

[Citizen Snips]

ITT Melee has good times, Brawl doesn't get the joke

 

[Ghostbone]

Also, 32 users and 71 guests viewing the thread as I type this, WOW. This seems to be something a LOT of people are thinking about.

It got linked on facebook so people are checking it out.

 

[LiteralGrill]

ITT Melee has good times, Brawl doesn't get the joke

Have anything to add other then trolling?

Hey, remember how I mentioned earlier in the thread how people don't actually argue, and this kinds crap happens?

Things never change huh? Still waiting for people to back up their beliefs too. Remember how that didn't used to happen?

Yep.

It got linked on facebook so people are checking it out.

Damn, that makes me happy to hear.

 

[Xyro77]

if only #2 were so simple.

people usually take #2 to the extreme the longer the game is out.

 

[Xyro77]

edit: wtf why is this a double post. I apologize

 

[T-block]

Only skimmed the thread, but I'd like to leave this here:

Stage Research and Guides Directory - http://www.smashboards.com/threads/stage-research-guides-directory.291618/

I saw quite a few falsehoods being stated as fact concerning several stages (Pictochat in particular) so UNLESS YOU'VE PLAY REGULARLY ON THE STAGE YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT PLEASE CHECK FOR A MECHANICS THREAD BEFORE YOU POST because it's genuinely painful to read.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Only skimmed the thread, but I'd like to leave this here:

Stage Research and Guides Directory - http://www.smashboards.com/threads/stage-research-guides-directory.291618/

I saw quite a few falsehoods being stated as fact concerning several stages (Pictochat in particular) so UNLESS YOU'VE PLAY REGULARLY ON THE STAGE YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT PLEASE CHECK FOR A MECHANICS THREAD BEFORE YOU POST because it's genuinely painful to read.

I love that thread, but it's missing tons of guides and it's seriously dated now. Somebody should sit down and get the thing fixed up and get guides and some other things out for bunches of stages, I'll volunteer if no one else will.

 

[False]

I just don't think it's wise to jump the gun and assume things. We should give the stages a try and allow the meta to evolve around that.

 

[Xyro77]

There are certain stages you should already know (based off of melee or brawl exp) will be banned.

 

[LiteralGrill]

There are certain stages you should already know (based off of melee or brawl exp) will be banned.

Like...?

If we got Temple, Wario Ware, New Pork City kind of things sure, but people will take that statement to an extreme depending. Where do you personally stand?

 

[SacaSuMoto]

As I said previously to several other people, gonna back up WHY you agree? Can you defend your viewpoint?

OP is self explanatory. but to satisfy you.

I'm willing to bet no proponent of items or oddball stages would be able to maintain dominance over the competitive community. Mastering these skills related to gimmicky item/stage practices do not translate to any type of fundamental fighting game abilities. You're all fooling yourselves if you think learning these skills are practical. Find me one player. One.

 

[LiteralGrill]

OP is self explanatory. but to satisfy you.

Overswarm was right in this thread. Top player in his community.

Self explanatory is never an argument btw, if you are asked you need to defend your answers, hiding behind the OP is bad.

 

[Overswarm]

If to was I around back then, then yes.

I would love to see the data/arguements compiled again as well.

I'm not going to go over it all again because it won't do anything, and I probably don't even have all the data anymore but:

MK usage statistics

Shows how often stages were used in relation to one another, separated CPs from starters.



This one was a fun one. Shows how often a match ended with a certain stock count. 0, 1, 2, or 3.

Mostly to show how incredibly similar Smashville (seen as one of the most balanced stages) and Rainbow Cruise (considered super janky) are. The red is for MK alone, the blue is for the same stage but NO MK, and the green is a combined ratio. Rainbow Cruise fits into the standard counterpick category where some of the numbers from "1 stock" is transferred to "2 stock", showing a slight advantage.

Here are the numbers that made it, I believe. I didn't crunch them to be sure. This may be an early version (or maybe updated?):

Oh, and found this while searching, courtesy of 2010:

:|

The stats are on your side, with the exception of Frigate; Frigate is one of MK's only losing stages at MLG (below 50%, the other is lylat). RC and Brinstar are both slightly above 50%, but Halberd and Delfino are up in the 70% range.

PS1 had 4% of its matches go to time out; the average is 1%. That is a huge, huge increase in comparison to most other stages.

(at MLG) PS1 has 4% timeouts compared to Norfairs 1.1% timeout (one game out of like 83 or 84). The one timeout was Wario vs. Luigi, last stock. The theory that Norfair is an "easy timeout stage" seems to be less reality and more "I saw this one guy time out TWO people on Norfair" anecdotes.

Because technically MK had a higher win rate on YI or something than RC and Brinstar.

Data is all out of context and timeframe, so can't answer too many questions on it unless I find one of the old posts.

 

[Johnknight1]

Basic summary of this thread and my opinions:

-HugS is right.
-Let's do reverse stage banning (start with a few stages with regional tournaments on up and gradually un-ban stages if they aren't ban worthy).
-Nobody who plays competitively and plays to win wants national tournaments on all those bad Brawl competitive stages again.
-You know, Mario Bros, Mushroomy Kingdom, Jungle Japes, Rumble Falls, Pirate Ship, the Bridge of Eldin Camping, Norfair, Flipping Crazy stage (aka Frigate Orpheon), Green Greens, Lylat Tilting Cruise, Pokémon Stadium 2, Sky Pillar, Port Town Aero Dive, Big Blue, Onett, The Summit, Flat Zone 2, Skyworld, Wario Ware, Distant Planet, Green Hill Zone, and Picto Chat.
-Before anyone says "oh, but I've never seen those stages legal in tournaments," dude, I went to tournaments before where any of those number of stages were from.
-Melee and Smash 64 > Brawl, and it's not even close.
-A game that is competitive amazing and growing > A game that is competitively stale and dying
-Melee and Smash 64 competitive players > Brawl competitive players in terms of the validity of opinion, their skill, their knowledge, their technicality, and their understanding of smash and smash fundamentals.
-People who have been around > People who are just tuning in.
-If you don't play smash competitive, you deserve no votes here (just like how non-American citizens don't deserve votes for American elections, for instance).
-We see competitive smash to see players vs. players, not stages vs. players vs. players.
-We want action, not 20 seconds of waiting because a stage is transforming, forcing stalling, or creates moments of stalling.
-The skill of the players should determine the outcome, not the stages random hazards or using the hazards to kill players (ie: hitting people into the Klap Trap for an insta-kill).
-Random non-threatening mechanics like Randall are okay.
-Whoever made Lylat Cruise a tilting stage is an idiot.
-Still, if you can't memorize a stage with no interferences like Rainbow Cruise and die due to lack of knowledge of said stage, it is your fault.
-Rainbow Cruise is my favorite stage, Peach's Castle 64 is my 2nd favorite stage, Delfino Plaza is my 3rd favorite stage, and Mute City is my 4th people stage, and if all those stages are banned in any smash game (well, maybe sans Peach's Castle 64... at least in teams), I am a-okay with it.

Some people may call this trolling, some people may call this blasphemy, and maybe they are right. But what I choose to call this... well, I call this my analysis and my opinions.

 

[Xyro77]

Like...?

If we got Temple, Wario Ware, New Pork City kind of things sure, but people will take that statement to an extreme depending. Where do you personally stand?

Those 3 are EASY to see why they should be banned. You wouldn't realize this had you never experienced melee or brawl. That is what I mean by exp.

And yes, like I said earlier, people will take #2 to the extreme. This generally happens after the game has been out for a long while. For example, look at apex or sktar. Those poo poo heads have butchered the stage list to almost nothing. That is an extreme.

As TOs, we gotta find a balance. Stages/rules that cater to all characters (or as many as possible) but not to the point of insanity aka extreme. Doing this keeps the game/results more fresh for longer periods of time. Having SV/FD/BF and 2-3 other stages literally caters to the top 7 characters in this game and that's it. It is TERRIBLE way to run this game and it only does harm. ive seen it in melee (after 2006-2007) and I am seeing it in brawl since pretty much 2010.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

That is precisely what the rule set will become, HugS. May as well skip to the good part this time.

 

[Xyro77]

edit: another accidental double post.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Basic summary of this thread and my opinions:

-HugS is right.

I'll disagree.

-Let's do reverse stage banning (start with a few stages with regional tournaments on up and gradually un-ban stages if they aren't ban worthy).

So they'll never be unbanned? That process doesn't work or more stages would be legal today.

-Nobody who plays competitively and plays to win wants national tournaments on all those bad Brawl competitive stages again.

Better be more specific on "those" stages, though if what you said below is all of them we have a problem

-You know, Mario Bros, Mushroomy Kingdom, Jungle Japes, Rumble Falls, Pirate Ship, the Bridge of Eldin Camping, Norfair, Flipping Crazy stage (aka Frigate Orpheon), Green Greens, Lylat Tilting Cruise, Pokémon Stadium 2, Sky Pillar, Port Town Aero Dive, Big Blue, Onett, The Summit, Flat Zone 2, Skyworld, Wario Ware, Distant Planet, Green Hill Zone, and Picto Chat.

Let's look at the bold. I'll mention VERY specifically Lylat, the stage were you can actually know the tilts, is non random, and legal in MANY areas still today. That stage is too terrible to be competitive? What?

Overswarm could and has shown some data on some of those other stages showing the actually don't cause problems. So...

-Before anyone says "oh, but I've never seen those stages legal in tournaments," dude, I went to tournaments before where any of those number of stages were from.

If Lylat is an insta ban stage that never should have been seen, and many stages never were actually a problem in the events they were in, this argument makes no sense.

-Melee and Smash 64 > Brawl, and it's not even close.
-A game that is competitive amazing and growing > A game that is competitively stale and dying
-Melee and Smash 64 competitive players > Brawl competitive players in terms of the validity of opinion, their skill, their knowledge, their technicality, and their understanding of smash and smash fundamentals.

So, Melee being "better" then Brawl is a reason for stage legality discussion?

-People who have been around > People who are just tuning in.

Huh, I remember seeing some veterans arguing against HugS in here. Weren't you a noob once too? We all had to sink our teeth in somewhere.

-If you don't play smash competitive, you deserve no votes here (just like how non-American citizens don't deserve votes for American elections, for instance).

Hey, I was in random tiny smashfests and such before this, never been a big player before. Key word. I am planning on investing a LOT of time competing in the next smash, I'm not going to let things just be done without any of what I think at least being displayed. I deserve influence in these decisions, and non American influence DOES effect election results in the US funnily enough.

-We see competitive smash to see players vs. players, not stages vs. players vs. players.

No matter what the stage will always play a roll in smash. Don't like it, why are you playing smash? Who is this "we"? I see many people disagreeing with you here.

-We want action, not 20 seconds of waiting because a stage is transforming, forcing stalling, or creates moments of stalling.
-The skill of the players should determine the outcome, not the stages random hazards or using the hazards to kill players (ie: hitting people into the Klap Trap for an insta-kill).

Huh, so if I set up my opponent to be killed by purposefully knowing stage hazards and forcing them into an exploitable position my skill had NOTHING to do with that?

-Random non-threatening mechanics like Randall are okay.

Randall isn't actually random

-Whoever made Lylat Cruise a tilting stage is an idiot.

Lylat also is not random. YI Brawl IS 100% random. Ban it?

-Still, if you can't memorize a stage with no interferences like Rainbow Cruise and die due to lack of knowledge of said stage, it is your fault.
-Rainbow Cruise is my favorite stage, Peach's Castle 64 is my 2nd favorite stage, Delfino Plaza is my 3rd favorite stage, and Mute City is my 4th people stage, and if all those stages are banned in any smash game (well, maybe sans Peach's Castle 64... at least in teams), I am a-okay with it.

But ban Lylat.

Some people may call this trolling, some people may call this blasphemy, and maybe they are right. But what I choose to call this... well, I call this my analysis and my opinions.

Well, respond, because you have a lot of problems in this post.

 

[LiteralGrill]

That is precisely what the rule set will become, HugS. May as well skip to the good part this time.

Oh look, this kind of post again. Read what I said to everyone else and back up your position.

 

[Thirdkoopa]

Rule #1: No Items

Rule #2: No dumb*** stages.

Done.

I just skipped 1 year of bull**** upon Smash 4's release, and saved everyone the trouble of hosting stupid *** tournaments with ridiculous rules only to end up at the point we know we're all going to end up at.

For one, a bunch of people think we need to test out stages before we write them off. I have a better system. Here's a quick guide on how to identify a bad stage right off the bat:
1. Is there **** that could kill you without directly coming from your opponent's body? Banned.
2. Can you walk off? Are you serious? Banned
3. Camera can kill you?? **** you, you're ruining tournaments. Banned.
1 year of your life back.

Oh we already know no item-

don't tell me people tried that with brawl

thank you based hugs

 

[Overswarm]

Wait, found it. I'll comment on unchanged post below.

Smashville - 834
Norfair - 81

3 Stocks:
Smashville - 71 or 8.5%
Norfair - 4 or 4.9%

2 Stocks:

Smashville - 315 or 37.8%
Norfair - 26 or 33.3%

1 stock:

Smashville - 448 or 54.79%
Norfair - 50 or 62.96%


Timeouts removed from equation, but not from total

This is showing how many 3 stocks, 2 stocks, and 1 stock finishes there were. The first numbers are how many games there were; so a total of 81 Norfair matches with 4.9% 3 stocks, and 834 Smashville matchups with 8.5% 3 stocks. Norfair typically had closer 1 stock matches than Smashville.

From here we can see there's actually a larger discrepancy in stocks when playing on Smashville than on Norfair. The only thing I can think of that could cause this discrepancy is that because Smashville was a common starter there were more matches there between strong opponents and weak opponents. It's presumable that there were SOME matches between strong and weak opponents on Norfair, but due to the stage striking system and Smashville being the "go to" stage, it's far more likely for that mismatch to occur on Smashville. This can't account for the whole divide, but it does account for some of it.

That said, as a "strong counter stage", Norfair SHOULD have a strong divide, just in the opposite direction. If it IS a strong counter stage, there should be a higher than average number of uses on that character for that stage (potentially a higher than average for those that do bad on it as well, as they would be taken there), and the stock amount at the end should reflect this if it is truly a uber counterpick. Given that Norfair's 1 stock remainder is well over 50% while Smashville is hovering more towards the norm, the stats seem to show that it isn't that strong of a counter stage. If anything, it is more of an equalizer than Smashville!

The premise here is that if a character is good on a stage, he'll pick it. Norfair's data suggest that it isn't a strong counter stage at all, but it hasn't looked into specific characters. If it turns out one is super good on it, we'll see it by looking at individual characters.

But let's look at actual characters.

There's some data to chew on! Keep in mind this is OCCURANCES of character, not occurances of a character in separate sets; a ditto (like the Zelda ditto on smashville, which is weird) will show the character on there twice. That information is relevant to us, so I kept it.

The "average uses" is kind of skewed a bit by MK, but that's okay for this discussion. We're looking to see who is the best on the stage to see if it is really a "uber counter", so if MK wasn't that great on it and someone else WAS, their numbers would inflate. Not completely scientific, but we'll make due.

Smashville Average uses: 45
Norfair Average uses: 4.47

Before moving on, try to interpret the data arbitrarily yourself. It helps to have an idea of what you're looking at before having it interpreted for you. Keep in mind that high occurrences doesn't mean the character does well, it just means he plays there more. It could be that people falsely think they do well OR it could actually be a CP against the character. You think Wario and Falco both have 10 uses on the stage for the same reason?

Characters that are at or go over the average on Norfair in alphabetical order:

Diddy
DK
Falco
G&W
Luigi (rounded down to 4)
MK
Olimar
Pikachu
Pit
ROB (rounded down to 4)
Snake
Sonic
Wario
ZSS

From this list, you should be able to see who is most commonly seen on Norfair as a whole.

Characters that are at or go over the average on Smashville in alphabetical order:

Dedede
Diddy
Falco
G&W
ICs
MK
Pikachu
Pit
ROB
Snake
Toon Link
Wario
ZSS


Seeing some differences? How about similarities? Now that we have this list, we can figure some more stuff out! Seeing characters like D3 appear so often on Smashville but so rarely on Norfair is a good sign that D3 mains ban the stage or switch off it; he's probably not that great on it. Ditto with the ICs!

Man I love data.

But what about the characters that are both above average for both stages? It could be that they're just really popular; MK would be above average on both, wouldn't he? Just by sheer number! So let's account for popularity in a rough way.

Here's the characters that are above average for BOTH stage:

Diddy
Falco
G&W
MK
Pikachu
Pit
ROB
Snake
Wario
ZSS

This is only a direct comparison between the stages, so it isn't concrete, but I feel that we can safely say that Norfair can be considered a counter stage against characters like ICs. The same applies to other characters that would appear heavily on smashville but wouldn't be caught dead on Norfair, and vice versa. But to truly complete this we'd need data for ALL the stages and determine more from that, but I'm doing this sloppily by just using Smashville as a representative stage of the "non counter" stages since it was the most commonly played, and therefore has the least resistance overall by the cast.

I later did this again using Battlefield and achieved similar results, but have no idea where that post is. It might be in the BBR, I dunno.

Here's a pretty chart for the ratio of all the characters. It's not exact, but thie bigger the difference between the stages, the more likely that character is good on one or bad on the other (or both). Seeing ICs jump on Smashville and drop on Norfair is evident of one or the other, but not both, but through our experience we know it is both. You can learn some pretty neat things here. I never thought of Norfair as a counter stage for Peach or Toon Link, but they both dodge that stage like the plague!

Here's the data comparing the averages for the characters that are "above average uses" for each stage in the form of a pretty graph

See those lines? If a character has a bigger line in one stage than another, it's pretty safe to say they "like that stage more". Some characters, like Falco and Wario, are pretty close. Others like Snake and MK are farther apart.

Looking at this, Diddy mains seem to be taking a hint from AZ and not switching off on Norfair (or can't?), while Snakes seem more prone to switching. G&W, Pit, and MK are the only ones on this list that have enough difference to even suggest Norfair is a prevalent "counter stage" for them, at least compared to the rest of the cast. Snake is the only one on this list that could be said to be "countered" by Norfair.

If you want to go into the MLG data and figure out the win ratio, be my guest, but I'm more concerned about usage at the moment. It tells us more than enough.

I did this as well. Don't have the post. This dataset was primarily focused on usage as a clue to who does best and who wants most stages. It helps define what is considered a counterpick, even if the win rates don't match up. More importantly, slight changes in win % don't matter as much as people switching off stages. You should see roughly the same ratio unless you're being continually taken there or taking others there.

Norfair wasn't in MK's top win % stages. Halberd and Delfino were rocking the 70% range though, and Smashville and Battlefield were high up too. His worst stage? Frigate Orpheon. It was his only losing stage. You could still consider Norfair a MK counterpick because he technically counter-picked it, but his winrate was lower on that stage than on Smashville.

So far, I've seen no evidence for Norfair to be any different than any other stage as far as "countering" goes. While it may counter some specific characters harder (ICs, for example), the characters that are used most on Norfair have very similar stats for Smashville. If Norfair was really that divisive of a stage, you wouldn't be seeing things like this.

In a direct comparison between the two stages:

Those really hurt by Norfair are Dedede, ICs, Lucario, Marth, Peach, Fox, Toon Link and to a lesser extent ROB. Snake has a big gap between his usage on Norfair and Smashville, but he's one of the most played characters on Norfair; he's not hurting TOO bad!

Those really hurt by Smashville are DK, Game and Watch, Ganon, Olimar, Pikachu, Pit, Sonic, and to a far lesser extent Wario and ZSS. MK is in the same boat as Snake here; Norfair is obviously a better stage for him than Smashville, but he's the most played on both and successful at it so, eh. Norfair still a counter stage for MK though.

Do you see anything funny there?

9 hurt by Norfair. 11 hurt by Smashville. Give or take 2 on each if you feel that slight variations with the popular characters aren't relevant.

Those are completely different characters that are supported by this stage! If you take away Norfair, suddenly every character that I listed in the first group is HELPED and the second group is HURT. They can't get it back.

This is why you can't ban stages arbitrarily.

There isn't much of a significant difference in the above average characters played on both stages. There are 14 above average characters on Norfair, and 13 on Smashville. Smashville is no more "neutral" or "fair" than norfair is, and technically less as far as usage is concerned. Of those 14 and 13, a whopping TEN are shared as "above average usage". That's 17 characters referenced as being "above average" for the total, and only 7 that can't be considered above average usage on both. Freaking THREE above average used characters on Smashville can't just go to Norfair and say "uh, okay".

Meaning that the idea of "different stages help different characters to varying degrees" should be common sense now.

Because this is kind of rambly (but fun to read, ain't it?!), here's a recap of what we've learned so far:

1. There is a completely different set of characters that "do well" on each stage

2. There is a large overlap in the most commonly used characters on both stages, implying that the disadvantage that Norfair and Smashville gives is very slight in matchups involvings those characters

3. There are a lot of Meta Knights

4. The stock difference in the stages implies that Smashville, not Norfair, is more one-sided and allows for more extreme wins. This can potentially be due to Smashville being a starter and having more opportunities for heavy hitters to play lower level players, or Norfairs hazards making matches closer, or a combination of the two. Either way, Norfair does not allow for "easy" wins any more than Smashville does.


With me so far?

We've got ourselves a verified "okay stage".

And now for my FAVORITE PART.

Because it's fun, let's compare this to FD!

The "above average usage" characters on FD are MK, Snake, Falco, Marth, Dedede, Pikachu, Olimar, Sonic, ZSS, Diddy, G&W, Fox, ICs, and Pit

Are you seeing a pattern? :B

Here's a graph of all the characters.

Snake and MK seem to be the most telling; look at the complete inverse trend going on! G&W seems to do just as well on SV and FD, but excels on Norfair. Wario gets DESTROYED on FD. Seems like a lot of people do. Fox certainly does well there though.

But if you'll notice, almost across the board, FD and Smashville are the exact same as far as what characters will do well there. A few characters, like Fox, Olimar, and Sonic, really get hurt by that floating platform and prefer the room to move. (ICs always get it banned on them)

Norfair is almost the opposite in terms of what characters prefer it when compared to FD... and FD actually has MORE onesided matchups and more increases.

In other words, FD is more one sided and unfair than Norfair, so if you ban Norfair and not FD you're a bunch of hypocrites.

Here's the list of the characters that can are used "above average" on all 3 stages (you'll notice this list is getting shorter)

Diddy
Falco
G&W
MK
Pikachu
Pit
Snake
ZSS

And here's the graph:

it's important to note that Diddy isn't very common; this is due to the bans on FD, as one can imagine.

That's one of hte problems with usage. You have to correlate with bans which we could have done but would have taken forever. We were more concerned with other stuff. Whenever you're looking at "usage" data, always ask "couldn't this be because X?" and fill in the variable. You can always answer it with more data mining (and we did), but it's good practice.

Looking here we find that ZSS does the same just above everywhere, as does Falco. Diddy would at least do that if he didn't have FD banned, but he'd probably be there way more otherwise. G&W and Pit really like Norfair, Pika seems to like FD even more than Norfair, and MK and Snake have an inverse trend going on. It's like MK is all about mobility and Snake is all about controlling space. :B



To recap once again:


1. There is a completely different set of characters that "do well" on each stage

2. There is a large overlap in the most commonly used characters on both stages, implying that the disadvantage that Norfair and Smashville gives is very slight in matchups involvings those characters

3. There are a lot of Meta Knights

4. The stock difference in the stages implies that Smashville, not Norfair, is more one-sided and allows for more extreme wins. This can potentially be due to Smashville being a starter and having more opportunities for heavy hitters to play lower level players, or Norfairs hazards making matches closer, or a combination of the two. Either way, Norfair does not allow for "easy" wins any more than Smashville does.

5. There is a larger discrepancy in matchups with FD than there is with Norfair; it's a "stronger" counterpick than Norfair has ever been.



THIS is how you decide whether or not you ban a stage. Not isolate incidences, not "well, I'm a PRO dammit and this is what I think", and certainly not the "that's gay" mentality anyone that lives near water seems to have.

Norfair is clearly not bannable. There's never been any data, ever, to show that it is over centralizing or even too good for a specific character. The ratios you find on Norfair can be matched with other stages (like FD) that are legal, and often characters that are played a lot on that stage (like MK) can be found to be just as common in others.


I've given some data over to whats his face (Twink? Twinkie?) whose name I've already forgotten, but this should be a good start. Hopefully he has more specific information, because that's something I avoided in this.


If you want to do MORE data mining on Norfair, here's what you can do:

Find out how often it was banned (already done search for dazwa's thread lol) and against what characters or by what characters

Find out what matchups had abnormally high win %

Collect data on length of matches

Collect data on damage done by hazards


Things like that.


I personally don't get hit by more than one hazard on Norfair a match, and that's generally because my opponent makes me get hit by it. I might be unique! If you had a tournament with Norfair legal and recorded each hit by the hazards, you could determine exactly how much damage Norfair does (this can also be done on the stats screen on the end, it shows damage given and damage received, if those don't matchup between two players the difference is Norfair + bubble damage). If it turned out taht Norfair did an average of 180% of damage, you could say "this is ****ing ridiculous" and have a legitimate complaint about banning the stage.

But "too good" for any character? Nah, FD's more a culprit.


Note: I haven't really reviewed this post, so whatever.

Hope this is educational and changes a few minds on how procedures should go.

 

[Johnknight1]

That is precisely what the rule set will become, HugS. May as well skip to the good part this time.

Oh look, this kind of post again. Read what I said to everyone else and back up your position.

Because your posts are the most important instead of people who actually played competitive smash for years and years.

Obviously you weren't here for the bad parts of competitive Brawl. Re-read the stage list of stages that were legal when I played competitive Brawl from 08-09. Melee was just as bad, if not worse, in the beginning.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Because your posts are the most important instead of people who actually played competitive smash for years and years.

Obviously you weren't here for the bad parts of competitive Brawl. Re-read the stage list of stages that were legal when I played competitive Brawl from 08-09. Melee was just as bad, if not worse, in the beginning.

I'm bad for asking him to back up his thoughts?

I saw some pretty terrible stages there. I also saw some stages that unless you have data to prove it, were never a problem.

 

[LiteralGrill]

TONS of stuff

Now, I read the whole thing, but a TL:DR version with what the data shows in the end might help.

If I got this right, FD is more polar then Norfair, yet we banned Norfair for polarization correct?

 

[trash?]

which isn't to say modern brawl sets are much better in terms of that. only three neutral stages is cramped as hell for choosing, and walk-off stages are still viable counterpicks.

honestly, I'm amazed this is actually an argument being had. people, hugs has been in competitive smash for longer than most of you have likely been alive, he's seen the dumb stages people have tried to justify over the years. step down and be humble for a sec will ya

 

[LiteralGrill]

which isn't to say modern brawl sets are much better in terms of that. only three neutral stages is cramped as hell for choosing, and walk-off stages are still viable counterpicks.

honestly, I'm amazed this is actually an argument being had. people, hugs has been in competitive smash for longer than most of you have likely been alive, he's seen the dumb stages people have tried to justify over the years. step down and be humble for a sec will ya

Now, he's played a long time, he's a decent guy, I know this. I've not been going nuts on him as of late have I?

Now, the problem I have is, does he have any data to back it up? Look at OS talking about FD, Norfair, and Smashville. Where is that from HugS?

 

[trash?]

he has a past where he had to play vs. peach players on mute city. if you understand what that means, you understand why he knows a good stage from a bad one. this isn't some dude talking out of his ass, this is a dude from an era when melee's yoshi's island stage was not only viable, but often used.

saying "well the proof's on HIM and if he doesn't say otherwise he's WRONG and BAD" isn't exactly helping your case. the lack of evidence doesn't prove the opposite