Stage Analysis & Discussion Thread

[LiteralGrill]

I'm not exactly sure what the problems your stating are, or if that makes the stage bannable. If I must be honest, it sounds like you might have lost a few times on the stage in a way you deemed "unfair" and now you have strong feelings against the stage that might be a little misplaced. I don't mean to be rude (I know people don't usually enjoy being cold-read), but it's a strong vibe I'm getting from your wording, especially if this isn't your "usual motif."

Nah, it's usually because I've gone out to defend keeping KJ64 legal so it is VERY much against my usual motif. I didn't lose a single match on the stage this way, but I sure took quite a few from highly annoyed opponents!

Sharking isn't so great in this game. If someone grabs the ledge, goes to hit you under the stage, and then goes back to the ledge, they will not be invincible for the second grab (assuming you didn't hit them). This means you can run up to the ledge when they're on the way back and spike for a kill. With counterplay like this, I wouldn't call sharking "degenerate." Besides this, you can shark on like, 5 other stages, so I don't see why Kongo Jungle in particular should be banned because of this strategy.

I don't need to go back and grab the ledge, or I can even use the barrel to shoot myself and snap the ledge. I can stay at an incredibly hard to reach position and just keep sharking, and wait patiently for a chance to pop myself on the stage if I ever even WANT to. Come steal the barrel from me? GREAT! Now I get to come back on the stage for free! :D The stage isn't like usual stages, you have super easy back up to save yourself in the barrel, and just shoot yourself low or at an angle they can't go fast enough to punish to regain ledge invisibility. You don't even have to give you your invisibility for a LONG time if you just keep refreshing jumps in the barrel. I'm not even the best player, nor am I a Jigglypuff main so I can only imagine how much worse it would be with a true pro player playing to win hard.

I also don't understand why slow play on a single stage of a set would "seriously hurt" a tournament. The absolute worst that can happen is that a single game of a set takes a full 5 minutes. With many sets occurring at the same time, there's likelyhood due to variance that it might not even be the longest set in a tournament round, as the length of the other (up to) 2 matches in your set could not possibly take place on this stage

I don't care how long one match could take, the fact that we're keeping a stage with such degenerate play legal is the issue. If a player ever didn't ban KJ64 against me I will be pulling out Jigglypuff for sure and just being terrible. Basically I'm going to force you to ban a stage or enjoy a major time out.

OR if I was feeling particularly nasty? I just wouldn't even tack on damage before I went to camping. Worse comes to worse, I just keep tacking on a tie over and over and over stalling the event till the other guy gives up or I do manage to get a lucky hit in. Imagine a match possibly going to time ever in 1 stock 3 minute tie breaking matches MULTIPLE times. That would make an event go on a good while if both players really were playing hard to win.

 

[dav3yb]

So I've been helping a friend with an upcoming local tournament, and we've recently discussed stages. I had a few questions and wanted some insight on what people think and why some stages are less than favorable.

Luigis mansion: I have a feeling the main issue is that the active hurt boxes on the stage itself interferes with more projectile heavy characters. Is this accurate?

Kongo 64: pretty much what I've been reading on the last couple pages, some can barrel stall and camp under the platform to great advantage.

Pokemon stadium 2: is this the brawl one with electric and flying transitions? I know a few of the transitions make for some awkward play, but id like to know a bit more about the stage.

Skyloft: I filed this one under maybe. It seems remarkably similar to delfino and I'd say it's better to have it for variety.

Skyworld: other than smashing the platforms and leaving no edge to grab, what are the major issues with this stage?

Windy hill: this one seems fine overall, but too big for 1v1, seems fine for doubles. Anything glaring about this stage?

Port town aero: I can't say I've seen all the transitions on this one, does it do anything crazy like turn the electric floor into an electric wall or ceiling like Mario circuit?

And finally colosseum: I know it's a walk off, but we both like this stage, and it would the only one we include.

Thanks for any opinions and insight.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

After playing around a bit...

I'm with Capps.

Kongo Jungle 64 is incredibly degenerate. Catching a stalling villager or DDD or Jigglypuff there is going to be damn near impossible for a lot of the cast, and very very risky to boot. This stage really is just that broken, unfortunately. Unless someone can come up with a counter for the strategy, I'm going to be replacing it with Mario Circuit 64 at my biweeklies.

So I've been helping a friend with an upcoming local tournament, and we've recently discussed stages. I had a few questions and wanted some insight on what people think and why some stages are less than favorable.

Luigis mansion: I have a feeling the main issue is that the active hurt boxes on the stage itself interferes with more projectile heavy characters. Is this accurate?

Not really. The main issue with the stage comes down to what we call a "cave of life" - the solid ceilings make it incredibly hard to KO someone who knows how to tech. This lowers the skill ceiling considerably, and is therefore considered degenerate. Similar problem with Skyworld and to a lesser extent Gamer. Hurtboxes on the stage usually aren't an issue in and of themselves (see also: Duck Hunt).

Kongo 64: pretty much what I've been reading on the last couple pages, some can barrel stall and camp under the platform to great advantage.

Pretty much. It's kinda busted.

Pokemon stadium 2: is this the brawl one with electric and flying transitions? I know a few of the transitions make for some awkward play, but id like to know a bit more about the stage.

It's not necessarily "awkward" so much as it is "different". I've made multiple writeups on the stage and how great it is, but the basic gist of it is that every transformation is interesting, different, and can be adapted to. None of them are real "hosers", none of them introduce degenerate or overpowered gameplay, and the very worst you can say is that people are going to complain because they're not used to it for a little while, then get over it.

Skyloft: I filed this one under maybe. It seems remarkably similar to delfino and I'd say it's better to have it for variety.

Definitely. It's a solid stage; Delfino 2.0 with more variety.

Skyworld: other than smashing the platforms and leaving no edge to grab, what are the major issues with this stage?

Cave of life effect again. The platforms don't stay gone long enough, and you can survive ridiculously long by teching everything.

Windy hill: this one seems fine overall, but too big for 1v1, seems fine for doubles. Anything glaring about this stage?

Way too big and easy to run away on in singles. Dunno about doubles.

Port town aero: I can't say I've seen all the transitions on this one, does it do anything crazy like turn the electric floor into an electric wall or ceiling like Mario circuit?

The main problem is the segment where the cars come at you from the right - there's very little warning, very little safe zone, and the cars kill ridiculously early (and break your shield). I love this stage, I want to see it, but it's never gonna happen.

And finally colosseum: I know it's a walk off, but we both like this stage, and it would the only one we include.

Walkoffs are super bad. Seriously, just don't. If you do, you deserve to have your opponent pick sonic and bthrow you all day long.

 

[dav3yb]

Thanks, that helps a lot. I forgot about solid platforms on mansion, and it makes sense for skyworld.

And I just never end up on port town enough to remember the section where the cars from the side. I always remember the melee one where they come from the background.

I'll revise my list accordingly.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

You actually have tons of warning when the cars come from the right; the first several cars have no hitbox and are the warning. IMO the bigger problem with PTAD is having no ledges; that's a really polarizing stage feature. It's a shame since if the main travel platform had ledges and the cars hit about half as hard it would be a top competitive stage...

Windy Hill Zone is legal here; it has a lot of running away mostly because we have one Sonic player who loves to cp it (best Sonic stage ever) but mostly it works out okay especially once players realize that the curved geography makes a large portion of its size an optical illusion. I think it's the 14th best stage and for the sake of making a list of 13 should probably be left out, but it's really not so bad.

We've had Kongo Jungle 64 legal locally since the beginning and haven't run into these issues at all. Camping below the stage is so incredibly "all or nothing". If your opponent steals the barrel from you at the wrong time or hits you with a meteor once, you lose a stock and the game. As a very defensive player, I can say that I had no appetite for that kind of risk; I just don't see how doing this is going to translate to wins unless the opponent is Little Mac in which case you can win easier just stalling up top on the platforms anyway (and being easy to lame out Little Mac is hardly a Kongo Jungle 64 exclusive feature). Not to just be dismissive toward players, but I'd really like to see strong players do this; I don't believe that against a player who knows what he's doing and has the confidence to make moves off-stage (translation: offline, no lag) that this is likely to work out at all.

 

[Plain Yogurt]

Man I hope you're right Ampharos. Where the heck am I gonna counter vertical killers to if Kongo gets banned? Looked at the ceiling height thread and all the other stages typically have around the same height or lower...It had a pretty cool niche in that way...Plus I enjoy the stage layout personally.

 

[The_Jiggernaut]

Here's the problem. I play on Duck Hunt quite a bit. I don't see the difference. At all. I know it exists, because I keep hearing about it, but I don't see it. I don't experience it. For all intents and purposes, every single time I've tried and failed to spotdodge something on Duck Hunt, I was fairly certain that it was me mistiming it, and I would have gotten hit on any other stage as well.



It's only an unknown because nobody can tell. I can't tell you what the 3059th prime number is off the top of my head, but I can tell you right off the bat that it's not a small number. That's how I know they're slight - because they're barely noticeable in the first place. Maybe if they kept Wario's wonky spotdodge from Brawl, I dunno. If they're barely noticeable in the first place, then you should have no trouble adapting pretty quickly. Nobody is trying to do frame-perfect spotdodges. It's a fairly long window to dodge in, and unless you're trying to spotdodge a diddy fsmash (which is a terrible idea, by the way), a few frames on either end should not be the end of the world.

If it is significant, though, then we can see that, and we can start planning around that.



I don't think it was ever appropriate. We're talking about minor differences that clearly do not make much of an impact, and nothing which is degenerate and cannot be adapted to. The problem here isn't just "Duck Hunt is a phenomenal stage" (it isn't, it's kinda meh), it's "why do want it removed". The reasoning bugs me. Because we don't understand it yet? Well learn it on the fly, and the player who adapts best wins! And when would we learn it after it was removed? Of course, that's a rather extreme overstatement - "the player who adapts best" will get an extremely minor advantage that, in the long run, is almost completely negligible.

Meh. Well, it ain't getting banned, so, yanno. Whatevs.

You say yourself that on Duck Hunt you were "fairly certain" you missed the timing of a spot dodge and that's why you got hit. Such a statement directly implies you were not 100% certain you messed up the timing, which is exactly my point. Also, the very nature of a change that effects only part of the cast means it's possible you had this experience with one of the unaffected characters. An anecdote isn't exactly a proof either.

Can we lose the passive aggression and the superiority complex please? If you can have a serious discussion on these boards without every argument getting personal for you, I'm just going to have to ignore you. Honestly, I'm just too old to associate myself with a flame war. And if your first thought was "Great, I'll annoy them once more and then I'll win every argument by default" then maybe you have some growing up to do before you're ready to partake in serious discussions.



@Nintendrone
So I'm not quite sure how to say this but... I agree?

If you had been following the discussion, you would know that my stance is now that Duck Hunt should be suspended from play until we can get the information required to make an actual decision, and then we can put it back if the changes are indeed slight. Now that we know that list of differences might not show up any time soon, I don't think that suggestion is appropriate.

If you read the bold part, I actually say that I don't think it's appropriate in the sentence directly after stating I once proposed that.

However, there's serious problem with assuming that all changes worth discussing will make themselves known during tournament play. As it's impossible to tell with the naked eye if a spotdodge was simply mistimed or had missing frames, such a difference will never show up conclusively in a tournament setting. There are just some things that need to be discovered in the lab.

Nah, it's usually because I've gone out to defend keeping KJ64 legal so it is VERY much against my usual motif. I didn't lose a single match on the stage this way, but I sure took quite a few from highly annoyed opponents!



I don't need to go back and grab the ledge, or I can even use the barrel to shoot myself and snap the ledge. I can stay at an incredibly hard to reach position and just keep sharking, and wait patiently for a chance to pop myself on the stage if I ever even WANT to. Come steal the barrel from me? GREAT! Now I get to come back on the stage for free! :D The stage isn't like usual stages, you have super easy back up to save yourself in the barrel, and just shoot yourself low or at an angle they can't go fast enough to punish to regain ledge invisibility. You don't even have to give you your invisibility for a LONG time if you just keep refreshing jumps in the barrel. I'm not even the best player, nor am I a Jigglypuff main so I can only imagine how much worse it would be with a true pro player playing to win hard.


I don't care how long one match could take, the fact that we're keeping a stage with such degenerate play legal is the issue. If a player ever didn't ban KJ64 against me I will be pulling out Jigglypuff for sure and just being terrible. Basically I'm going to force you to ban a stage or enjoy a major time out.

OR if I was feeling particularly nasty? I just wouldn't even tack on damage before I went to camping. Worse comes to worse, I just keep tacking on a tie over and over and over stalling the event till the other guy gives up or I do manage to get a lucky hit in. Imagine a match possibly going to time ever in 1 stock 3 minute tie breaking matches MULTIPLE times. That would make an event go on a good while if both players really were playing hard to win.

Alright, interesting then. I'm not sure how all of this theory works in practice, but if what you're saying holds up, then it's certainly a problem.

My main question is: If you grab the ledge, drop into the barrel, and shoot to snap the ledge, do you get your invincibility back? If you're invincible for every grab then it's an infinite stall. If not, then everything you mentioned has counterplay.

Let's take the barrel's path for a moment. Does it move through the same set of angles throughout its path? If so, then it's very predictable when you will shoot out of the barrel and they opponent can move to the correct side to punish. If not, then the entire stall is completely unreliable.

I agree that it warrants some looking into, but I'll be able to make a personal decision if my above two questions are answered.

 

[Pazx]

There are multiple solutions.

Ban scrooging, ban barrel-assisted scrooging, enforce a ledge grab limit, simply ban stalling, etc. If we can ban stalling with Puff under a stage in Melee, we can ban stalling with Puff under a stage in Sm4sh.

 

[ATH_]

I'm all for banning scrooging or at least limitting it. Possibly that you can't scrooge more than once in a minute.

 

[Shaya]

So stages like Halberd which has long periods of time played on the 'traveling platform' is dangerous as we're approaching shorter and shorter match times (5 MINUTES; DIGUSTING) when there are characters with multi jumps (Kirby, MK, maybe Jiggs). I had the lovely experience at a tournament last night where I unfortunately lost my 80% lead to a rage fsmash in which in response my opponent then chose to attempt to time me out by 'scrooging' under the stage. Going from one side to the other seems to return your ledge invincibility and it's also incredibly easy to reactively just jump onto the stage if the opponent makes a commitment to chase you. Somewhat sour that the strategy exists and likely doesn't have viable counterplay by any more than 5 characters in the cast.

Up to this point I had only felt remiss by Villager's ability to stall (especially with customs) and how it may require the need to return an LGL, but now I'm skeptical of other character's + stage combinations that can have multiple minute (or more) stall outs without recourse.

 

[The_Jiggernaut]

I'm not sure, I would very much like to avoid banning behaviors during a match, as this becomes hard to properly describe and a huge pain to enforce. Ledge grab limit was a strong objective cutoff, but all in all it was really stupid due to being a single number. You can honestly be just as abusive with 49 ledge grabs as you could with 51. In Smash 4 I think either player can skip the results screen by pressing start, so it's no longer stat that can be checked reliably.

If you regain invincibility by alternating which ledge you grab, then this is a legitimate problem (and honestly Nintendo should patch something like that...). if you do not regain invincibility, then you're extremely vulnerable and there's plenty of counterplay to that. I understand that it's difficult to deal with, but unless there is consistent invincibility like in brawl, there certainly is counterplay that can be employed.

When it comes to Kongo Jungle in particular, if the only problem is going ledge>barrel>ledge infinitely, then we can specifically ban that. We just need to count it as "stalling", and we already have rules in place to deal with it.

 

[LiteralGrill]

There are multiple solutions.

Ban scrooging, ban barrel-assisted scrooging, enforce a ledge grab limit, simply ban stalling, etc. If we can ban stalling with Puff under a stage in Melee, we can ban stalling with Puff under a stage in Sm4sh.

PLEASE DO NOT MAKE A LEDGE GRAB LIMIT. It was such a terribly done rule in Brawl don't do it again just to keep a stage legal @_@

You don't HAVE to go back to the ledge ever. You could actually try to do this for a legitimate win too, not to stall to keep trying to snag hits, just staying in deep under the stage where someone has to come under to get you. I have learned Meta Knight makes this EVEN MORE HORRIFYING since his shuttle loop is just godly messing with this, not to mention the drill. Yes there could be counterplay, but focusing the entire match around just the barrel is pretty degenerate, and heck you might even be able to do it really well barely using the barrel even if you just practiced it.

If you are actually still using it to just tack on damage and make a match go slow no stalling clause is gonna cover it since you seriously are just fighting and using the stage to get to a better position for an attack.

 

[Piford]

So stages like Halberd which has long periods of time played on the 'traveling platform' is dangerous as we're approaching shorter and shorter match times (5 MINUTES; DIGUSTING) when there are characters with multi jumps (Kirby, MK, maybe Jiggs). I had the lovely experience at a tournament last night where I unfortunately lost my 80% lead to a rage fsmash in which in response my opponent then chose to attempt to time me out by 'scrooging' under the stage. Going from one side to the other seems to return your ledge invincibility and it's also incredibly easy to reactively just jump onto the stage if the opponent makes a commitment to chase you. Somewhat sour that the strategy exists and likely doesn't have viable counterplay by any more than 5 characters in the cast.

Up to this point I had only felt remiss by Villager's ability to stall (especially with customs) and how it may require the need to return an LGL, but now I'm skeptical of other character's + stage combinations that can have multiple minute (or more) stall outs without recourse.

I've seen much more scrooging under Smashville and FD (usually when it's Omega Palutena's) than I've ever seen on Halberd. Is there a reason stages that travel like Halberd are more susceptible to it. From what I've seen, it's actually easier to do it on a non-solid platform at least characters like Olimar and Villager because they can ride the stage for protection and efficiency, and it's harder for characters to punish since they can't use their up special to return to the stage from the middle.

 

[Pazx]

I've seen much more scrooging under Smashville and FD (usually when it's Omega Palutena's) than I've ever seen on Halberd. Is there a reason stages that travel like Halberd are more susceptible to it. From what I've seen, it's actually easier to do it on a non-solid platform at least characters like Olimar and Villager because they can ride the stage for protection and efficiency, and it's harder for characters to punish since they can't use their up special to return to the stage from the middle.

I imagine characters with multiple jumps would be more inclined to do it on Halberd because they can look to shark and if there's not a significant opportunity to do so they just go for the ledge, rinse and repeat.

 

[Piford]

I imagine characters with multiple jumps would be more inclined to do it on Halberd because they can look to shark and if there's not a significant opportunity to do so they just go for the ledge, rinse and repeat.

Isn't sharking more risky than avoiding conflict all together, because you might get hit by a down tilt or something?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I'm rapidly approaching the point where the remaining stages fall under the "who gives a ****" category, so unless someone expresses a deep desire to learn about, say, Flat Zone X, I'll probably skimp a bit on the detail going forward.

Have a thread on Boxing Ring. It's actually got a funny "when you see it" thing going on that I didn't even notice until I took the screenshot, see if you can figure it out.

 

[The_Jiggernaut]

Since there's a bit of a lull in the conversation, there's a topic I'd like to bring up: *Jerry Seinfeld voice* What's the deal with grass stages?

Some stages are covered with grass, a terrain type that halves the distance a character's initial dash travels. As it happens, no legal stages have grass (Duck Hunt's surface is considered dirt) so the only relevance grass has to the metagame is through Omega stages.

Some of the changes grass makes are: Jump canceled anything (including Glide Tosses), travels half as far, sliding is less effective, Foxtrotting is half as fast, and perfect pivoting distances are halved. I guess my question is, how relevant are these changes, and would anyone ever feel prompted to pick a grassy Omega as a counterpick?

I'm still working on a formulation to make a short list of Omegas with strategic differences, (I've got the list down to 6, expect an update in my thread "Condensing the Omega Stage List" very soon) either for the purposes of simply easy education on the different stages or for the use in a proposed rule shift (which I feel I must say, is NOT going to be to make all 6 stages their own separate legal stages, Ban FD = Ban Omegas will certainly remain). For the purposes of this post, please assume the method while answering about grass. Direct any criticisms about my method to the mentioned thread.

I'm very much stumped on how to add grass stages into this formulation, which is why I'd like to ask for help on this matter. If there was a grass stage for each archetype, it would be a bit simpler. However, there's one for walls you can walljump from, one for walls you can't, and two more for stage-types that will not be included in the list (as other Omegas outclass them as options).

First option is to not include grass at all. If it doesn't make much of a difference to consider, then there's no point in highlighting it.

Another would be having a single grass stage as the only choice, mandated by the rules. Is grass important enough to include, but not important enough to have 4 choices dedicated to it?

Somehow mark what choices have grass options, sacrificing a bit of readability for fulling including grass?



Any suggestions and comments would be greatly appreciated!

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Does grass reduce the distance covered by a dashing usmash?

 

[The_Jiggernaut]

Yes, by approximately half

 

[Pazx]

Grass is worth including imo, I'd keep all of the grassy omegas as options. If 2 of them are outclassed by other options then they are almost interchangeable in terms of archetypes and the grass would be a significant factor in deciding which one to choose.

 

[The_Jiggernaut]

For clarification, is your last statement suggesting to allow the outclassed option as the alt grass stage for the stage type that outclasses it?

For instance, Overhanging Walls gets outclassed (in part) by Understage Walls, we should then allow Mushroom Kingdom U (an overhanging wall stage) as the grass option for Understage Walls?

Additionally one of these 4 distinct grass stages is Great Cave Offensive, which features grass only on the left half. Is this type of stage valuable to include?

 

[Pazx]

Yes to both.

If there was a stage falling in the same category as Great Cave Offensive that was entirely covered in grass then I'd probably turn GCO down, but I can't think of one.

I'm struggling incredibly to formulate my thoughts right now so I think it's time for bed, what I'm trying to say is GCO is worth including provided there isn't a functionally similar stage that's covered entirely in grass.

 

[The_Jiggernaut]

No problem, I'm getting what you're saying now. There's no full-grass option for Fat-Lip Floaters, like GCO. But if there were stages that outclassed GCO that both had grass on them, would you then suggest no including it?

So like, is half-grass only valuable because of the existence of some grass, not because a half-and-half stage is a particularly strong choice?

 

[TheEnderFriend]

I don't know if anyone said this already, but with the new update, Mario Circuit (Brawl) has no Shy Guys racing on the track with at least 5 players. If 2 players were to play on the stage normally, and 3 other people would just run off the stage, the Shy Guys would be gone with only two people playing. I guess there would still be a walk-off, but I don't think that's too big of a deal since there is an escape option (jump to the top platform or fall to the bottom). I think this stage could be tournament-legal. What do you think?

 

[Firefoxx]

Permanent walkoffs are bad. I wish I could give you a deeper explanation/examination of the stage, but that's really all it comes down to.

 

[The_Jiggernaut]

I don't know if anyone said this already, but with the new update, Mario Circuit (Brawl) has no Shy Guys racing on the track with at least 5 players. If 2 players were to play on the stage normally, and 3 other people would just run off the stage, the Shy Guys would be gone with only two people playing. I guess there would still be a walk-off, but I don't think that's too big of a deal since there is an escape option (jump to the top platform or fall to the bottom). I think this stage could be tournament-legal. What do you think?

The idea of using a stage from the 8-player stage list has been discussed here a little earlier. The general consensus is that it's too involved to be worth it.

For instance, in order for the stage to be readily selectable you would need 3 extra controllers at every station. You'd need to switch entire modes depending on the counterpick, which gets cumbersome and can lead to forgetting to set your tag/controls. You'd need people to operate the other controllers or to change the rules to 6 minutes and wait until the game counts down to 5 minutes. Otherwise, you wouldn't have a consistent match time limit.

Also, the thing about Mario Circuit is that the cars aren't the worst part of the stage. That's certainly the walk-offs. Even with a top escape, permanent walk-offs are very bad for play. They encourage stalling, and can lead to "checkmate" scenarios when the character with a better grab range and/or kill throw leads in percents.

 

[TheEnderFriend]

-snip-

Okay. I'm new to competitive Smash, so I wasn't sure.

 

[hey_there]

For instance, in order for the stage to be readily selectable you would need 3 extra controllers at every station. You'd need to switch entire modes depending on the counterpick, which gets cumbersome and can lead to forgetting to set your tag/controls. You'd need people to operate the other controllers or to change the rules to 6 minutes and wait until the game counts down to 5 minutes. Otherwise, you wouldn't have a consistent match time limit.

I agree that the hazardless 8-player stages are impractical(though cool), but you don't actually need 3 extra controllers. It takes 2 players + 3 lvl 1 CPUs set to 300% handicap to swat them away easily. As for the timer imbalance, it's not much of a big deal I think, much like online tournaments with a spectator jiggs SDing at the beginning. Still, if even a single CPU gets a single hit in, the whole match has to be restarted and that's why imo they're too impractical to implement.

 

[The_Jiggernaut]

Okay. I'm new to competitive Smash, so I wasn't sure.

No problem! This thread is here for quick questions like that. Hope my answer was clear enough.

I agree that the hazardless 8-player stages are impractical(though cool), but you don't actually need 3 extra controllers. It takes 2 players + 3 lvl 1 CPUs set to 300% handicap to swat them away easily. As for the timer imbalance, it's not much of a big deal I think, much like online tournaments with a spectator jiggs SDing at the beginning. Still, if even a single CPU gets a single hit in, the whole match has to be restarted and that's why imo they're too impractical to implement.

On top of what you mentioned, actually hitting the enemies will stale your moves, which non-trivially changes the game. There's a bonus for the first time you use a move each stock, which would get used up on these computers, and besides this, there's still the problem with standard staling as well. Interesting that it can be done without extra hardware though, That's something no one has brought up before.

 

[ATH_]

Here's a short explanation why we need more than just the 3 starters that lots of people cling to (BF, FD, SV):

Captain Falcon is a character who benefits a lot off of grab combos and being up close. He has no projectiles. Battlefield is where he benefits for combos and the height of the combos are almost perfect for Knees and NAirs.
Falcon doesn't like FD very much, because without the platforms, it's a lot harder to rack up damage. Not to mention he suffers from projectile spam.
On Smashville, we reach a medium. He enjoys it and benefits from the platform and can retreat to it when there's spam.

+1, -1, +1 = 1

Link, a projectile heavy character benefits the most from FD, where his opponents have a harder time getting in on him. Not to mention when characters do get him, he has extremely good horizontal kill moves.
Link generally has a tough time on Battlefield due to having to orient more vertically, only really having bombs, Up Air, and things similar. No ZAir zoning.
Smashville, again, we reach a medium. Likes that he can still projectile spam, even though it isn't for as long. But also it more oriented horizontally.

+1, -1, +1 = 1

Finally, Ness is a weird character for these three. He doesn't benefit much on any of the stages due to him having many options for projectile spam and being up close. His back throw giving him confirmed kills really just doesn't make a good difference between stages either. I main Ness and I can back this up, as when I have to play on stage lists like this I literally just tell the person to pick the stage because I honestly don't care which it is.

If anything, Ness' string looks like this:
+0.25 - 0.25 + 0 = 0
As he does have very slight disadvantages and advantages that just aren't very note worthy. Whereas on Smashville he can't ride up the base platform when recovering, so he gets predictable with where he'll aim. On Battlefield juggling is easier, but it's not too different from FD.

So what's the issue?
This is unbalanced and in general, a very boring stage list. And no, I'm not saying that Ness, a high tier character, is imbalanced so therefore it's bad. Look at the Link and Falcon match ups, if they were to verse each other, the fate of the match at a top level is almost SEALED from the first stage! Because no matter what, they are on a stage they like, or don't like. Ness is in the position that people THINK all characters are like. Neutral on SV and only slight differences on the other two. Smashville is NOT neutral, people.

Solution?
Have more starter stages to ensure that match ups are balanced.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

How bad is 11 stages really? I mean, sure, the problem of "striking last is an advantage" is still there, but doesn't it become less of an issue with time? Like, if you strike 11 stages 1-2-2-2-2-1, how big of an advantage does P2 get here?

 

[ATH_]

How bad is 11 stages really? I mean, sure, the problem of "striking last is an advantage" is still there, but doesn't it become less of an issue with time? Like, if you strike 11 stages 1-2-2-2-2-1, how big of an advantage does P2 get here?

I personally prefer 9 starters as optimal, then just 2 counterpicks would work. How does striking last give an advantage btw? You get to pick of two stages? I don't believe that can be fixed. If it can, please tell me.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I personally prefer 9 starters as optimal, then just 2 counterpicks would work. How does striking last give an advantage btw? You get to pick of two stages? I don't believe that can be fixed. If it can, please tell me.

Basically, the later you strike, the more advantage you have, because you get to see what your opponent has struck. In large stagelists, this can be an issue - after all, why should I strike Wuhu if my opponent is going to anyways? 13 and 9 fix this by having the same player strike first and last - 1-2-2-2-1 and 1-2-2-2-2-2-1 respectively. That way, the advantage of striking last is somewhat mitigated by the disadvantage of having to strike first. Not totally, but it's better than 11, where you strike first or strike last. Also, we have 12 stages. Was 13, but Kongo's out and they aren't buying Mario Circuit. I'm searching for a 13th, but so far... No luck.

 

[ATH_]

Basically, the later you strike, the more advantage you have, because you get to see what your opponent has struck. In large stagelists, this can be an issue - after all, why should I strike Wuhu if my opponent is going to anyways? 13 and 9 fix this by having the same player strike first and last - 1-2-2-2-1 and 1-2-2-2-2-2-1 respectively. That way, the advantage of striking last is somewhat mitigated by the disadvantage of having to strike first. Not totally, but it's better than 11, where you strike first or strike last. Also, we have 12 stages. Was 13, but Kongo's out and they aren't buying Mario Circuit. I'm searching for a 13th, but so far... No luck.

Huh okay, this is really useful to know.
Thank you!

 

[Pazx]

Kongo is not out. KJ64 is in the top 7 "most likely to be legal" stages in my eyes.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Kongo is not out. KJ64 is in the top 7 "most likely to be legal" stages in my eyes.

Barrel stalling man. :/ It's really really stupid.

 

[Piford]

11 stages isn't awful because by that point you really should've stiken the stages you want to go to. Not as optimal as 9 or 13, but not terrible. Project M uses 7 starter stages and it works (I don't know why as they have like 30 legal stages, could easily make 9 starters or FLSS from any amount. Some people claim that 7/7 is the perfect balance for competitive play but thats BS).

 

[smashmachine]

if you get to strike 5 stages and still end up on a bad stage for you on game 1, you either suck at stage striking or you just have a really ****ty matchup, so....

 

[The_Jiggernaut]

Barrel stalling man. :/ It's really really stupid.

No one has ever bothered to clear this up, so here goes again. Does going Ledge>Barrel>Ledge grant invincibility again?

if you get to strike 5 stages and still end up on a bad stage for you on game 1, you either suck at stage striking or you just have a really ****ty matchup, so....

Eh, It really depends on what the stages are. As it stands, there's a surplus of static stages, which aren't as fair and balanced as everyone loved to claim they were in the past. Part of increasing the starter pool beyond 5 is to add in stages that don't favor a certain kind of character so heavily.

 

[Pazx]

Barrel stalling man. :/ It's really really stupid.

Not a reason to ban the stage. We already have rules against stalling, and we could have some tailored specifically to KJ64 in this game. I think KJ64's biggest issue is it's runaway potential, and to me that's a very, very minor issue.