Walkoffs

[cot(θ)]

Let's talk about walkoffs.

I know walkoffs have been banned for a long time. However, we all know that aside from a few isolated instances like Pikachu's infinite, the original reasons for banning walkoffs no longer apply. Smash 4 for the most part just doesn't have inescapable combos and chaingrabs that can bully people into the blast-zones from basically anywhere on the stage.

The other argument against walkoffs is the possibility of walkoff camping. This is a reasonable theory as to why walkoffs could end up being banworthy, however, I disagree that it is problematic, and insist that we should actually learn how to play on walkoffs effectively before passing judgement on overpowered strategies. The argument is basically that as soon as you get a stock lead, you can just camp the walkoff and force a 50-50 for the remaining stocks, which greatly increases variance, and is evidence of degenerate gameplay.

I strongly disagree that it really is a "50-50" for each of the remaining stocks. I would argue that in most matchups, the camper is actually at quite a disadvantage. The evidence for this comes from matches that occur on normal stages, where you want to get your opponent offstage. If camping right next to danger was really a good strategy, we would be seeing people camping the edges of the stage and then throwing them off the ledge. However, we really only ledge camping with a few specific characters/matchups, and even then, the camper usually tries to get away to the other edge of the stage when approached, instead of going for a back-throw to get the opponent off the stage.

Overall, I think the high variance we see on walkoffs is due to players not respecting them, and trying to use the same risk/reward calculations that have been drilled into them from years of playing on non-walkoffs. I think if we give everyone time to work with walkoffs in this new game, we may very well find that they are competitively viable. If it turns out they're not, well then they're not, but no amount of talking on the forums is going to prove it one way or another.

I'd also like to mention that it's essential that stages are unbanned until proven banworthy. It will be possible to prove a stage is banworthy if people play on it. It will be impossible to prove that stages are viable if nobody ever plays on them.

 

[TheKingWalnut]

I, personally, think walkoffs should stay banned. Characters that hit hard, but have a horrible recovery, for example Little Mac, would absolutely decimate the opposition. Little Mac hits hard and he has super armor, so the most effective way to beat him is throwing him off stage, which you can't do in a walkoff. Since Mac has the strongest ground game in most peoples opinion, he would win, provided the Mac player knew what he was doing. There are probably more characters like this, but Little Mac sticks out of the bunch.
On the point of banworthy stages, I agree for the most part. I think stages that are too large to actually play a good match on, looking at you Great Cave Offensive, or stages with crazy stage hazards, again Great Cave Offensive (lava things on the walls), they should be banned. The size of the stage should influence whether it's banned or not, mainly because the bad outweighs the good. A large stage, such as Palutena's Temple, can lead to a fun match but a long match.
(( Side note, I have no idea if my thinking is coherent at all in this entire post, as I am very tired. Apologies if this is too confusing to understand. ))

 

[IGottaStick]

What stages would you add in? The only stage that I can see this adding would be possibly Wii Fit Studio for doubles. Skyloft, , and are already in most tournaments already. Every thing else with walkoffs either has too many stage hazards, is too large, or has janky physics like Mario Galaxy.

 

[webbedspace]

I don't think anyone really thinks Mac will become invincible during perma-walk-offs. How's he supposed to beat a Sheik fair string that can now carry him straight to the blast line?

 

[TheKingWalnut]

I don't think anyone really thinks Mac will become invincible during perma-walk-offs. How's he supposed to beat a Sheik fair string that can now carry him straight to the blast line?

He wouldn't be able to, so that would be along the lines of an infinite combo, which doesn't help the argument that walkoffs should be allowed.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I, personally, think walkoffs should stay banned. Characters that hit hard, but have a horrible recovery, for example Little Mac, would absolutely decimate the opposition. Little Mac hits hard and he has super armor, so the most effective way to beat him is throwing him off stage, which you can't do in a walkoff. Since Mac has the strongest ground game in most peoples opinion, he would win, provided the Mac player knew what he was doing. There are probably more characters like this, but Little Mac sticks out of the bunch.
On the point of banworthy stages, I agree for the most part. I think stages that are too large to actually play a good match on, looking at you Great Cave Offensive, or stages with crazy stage hazards, again Great Cave Offensive (lava things on the walls), they should be banned. The size of the stage should influence whether it's banned or not, mainly because the bad outweighs the good. A large stage, such as Palutena's Temple, can lead to a fun match but a long match.
(( Side note, I have no idea if my thinking is coherent at all in this entire post, as I am very tired. Apologies if this is too confusing to understand. ))

A) I don't think anyone really considers Little Mac a top tier character to begin with so I'm not too worried as of now about him dominating. If he turns out to dominate hard in an environment where walkoffs are an option, then we can reassess, but speculation is rather pointless when the proposal is to actually try it out for real.

B) Walkoffs are fundamentally impossible for Villager to ledge camp, if you're going down the "tailor the stage list to encourage/discourage certain characters you like/don't like" route.

C) Speaking of disallowing stages on the basis of trying to curb a character's power, we tried that in Brawl and it gave us Ice Climber dominance. The Ice Climbers are admittedly not a thing in Smash 4 but the principle is the same, namely that it's possible for removing an entire subcategory of stages (shark-friendly stages in Brawl, walkoffs in 4) to heavily influence character viability. It's a delicate balance.

What stages would you add in? The only stage that I can see this adding would be possibly Wii Fit Studio for doubles. Skyloft, , and are already in most tournaments already. Every thing else with walkoffs either has too many stage hazards, is too large, or has janky physics like Mario Galaxy.

I'd think Wii Fit Studio, Coliseum, and Mario Galaxy would be the main 3 worth looking at. (Mario Galaxy's physics aren't as weird as you'd think, the weirdest thing is how some projectiles, mostly lasers and anything that homes, simply ignore the curvature. Also Windy Hill Zone features the exact same physics.)

 

[TheHypnotoad]

The blast zones on walkoffs are way too small. You'll be dying from forward smashes at 50% if you're near the edge of the stage. The only way that would happen on non-walkoffs (besides using a stupidly powerful attack on a light character) is by gimping/spiking, and those come with the risk of allowing your opponent to gain stage control or potentially SDing if you miss.

 

[Earthboundy]

Since Ness' forward throw has a set knock back, he can get kills on walk off stages so easily, no matter what damage your opponent is at. I killed a Wii Fit trainer with a forward throw from under the umbrella in Delfino when she was at 0%. It's a really cheap strategy and I'm for them staying banned. Plus, I'd really miss the ledge meta game. I'd feel like taking a really important part of the game out.

 

[Raijinken]

I only find walkoffs to be an issue since they overpolarize projectile matchups (i.e. it is entirely impossible for a reflectorless/absorbless/projectileless character to camp against a character who has one, and extra dangerous or risky for the lacking character to approach.). It creates some forced-approach scenarios that, granted, can be avoided outright with the right number of stage bans/strikes.

If we were to consider walkoffs, though, I'd primarily consider Coliseum, Fit Studio, and maaaaybe Boxing Ring.

 

[RedNova]

Then whay about allowing only one walk off? Like, Coliseum being the only legal walk off with all the other stages?

 

[Metarai]

The problem I see with walkoffs is that it changes the metagame too much. Ledgeplay has always been an important part of the Smash games, as well as aerials. Walkoffs change that too much, removing ledges and making it more ground based. This means that it would take a completely different play style and mentality to play on walkoffs. The character choice would also change, with strong horizontal knockback being more important than others like gimping moves. Temporary Walkoffs are okay, but the others are too different from the current competitive metagame.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

The problem I see with walkoffs is that it changes the metagame too much. Ledgeplay has always been an important part of the Smash games, as well as aerials. Walkoffs change that too much, removing ledges and making it more ground based. This means that it would take a completely different play style and mentality to play on walkoffs. The character choice would also change, with strong horizontal knockback being more important than others like gimping moves. Temporary Walkoffs are okay, but the others are too different from the current competitive metagame.

I could apply the same argument to Final Destination, just substitute "walkoffs" with "no platforms." Except walkoffs are actually more common than no-platform stages.

Also worth noting that literally every Smash game ever has had walkoff stages.

 

[LuLLo]

I think walkoffs warp the game we're trying to play too heavily:

Cons:
- Camping the edge could become a strong strategy of the leading player decides to do so. It's character dependant, but essentially everyone can do it to a certain degree. This COULD lead to timeouts if one character simply can't approach another.

- Characters with forward moving strings are heavily favored.

- Speedy characters can outcamp the slow ones easily, since the walkoff stages are all really big.

- Characters with good projectiles can outcamp the other, same as above.

- Playing Smash has always been about having different skill-sets, footsies, combo's, reads, frametraps, (aerial) spacing, and among them, edgeguarding and recovering. Two important factors are getting erased from the game, which takes away from the game's essence of competitive Smash.

Pros:

None, all of the pro's you can think of can be opposed easily by the cons. If anyone can think of a positive aspect other then "it's different and fresh" I'd be glad to show you why it isn't.

 

[Metarai]

I could apply the same argument to Final Destination, just substitute "walkoffs" with "no platforms." Except walkoffs are actually more common than no-platform stages.

Also worth noting that literally every Smash game ever has had walkoff stages.

I was talking more to a stage list for competitive play, sorry for not specifying that. As for final destination, you can see that it does change the metagame quite a lot. Platforms, however, are not as game changing as ledges are. Platforms are very important to some characters, I agree with that, but they are not as drastic as removing an entire blastzone. That is why I think final destination is a counterpick while walkoffs are banned.

 

[Ulevo]

Here is my problem with walk off stages. The only merit or value walk offs bring to Smash is that we get a larger stage list. But if that is a reason for walk off inclusion, how does that not apply to any other stages with arguable problems?

So I ask, what do walk offs bring to Smash that is of any value, and how does that address all of the problems associated with walk off stages?

The idea that walk offs were banned exclusively because of Fox waveshine and chain grab walk offs in the past historically may have been accurate (I actually do not know if there were other reasons involved, or if the discussion stopped at this), but from a logic standpoint it does not matter.

If you get grabbed by King Dedede in Brawl on a walk off stage, you die. If you get hit by Fox's waveshine on a walk off in Melee, you die. Additionally, if you get grabbed by an opponent near a blast zone on a walk off in any iteration of Smash, you die. The only difference between the volatility here is that certain characters were much more successful in abusing a problematic case because they did not have to put themselves in harms way in order to steal a stock. But whether or not you get grabbed in the middle of the stage or at the blast zone is not the issue. The issue is that Smash should not consistently reward gameplay in which every time you get grabbed you lose. Brawl Ice Climbers anyone?

The fact that the blast zone camper is or is not at a disadvantage is irrelevant. It doesn't stop the strategy from being employed because the reward is far too great. A grab for a stock? I'll take that.

Speaking from personal experience, I had a roommate that just moved. We played friendlies quite often, and while he is good enough to compete with me, he's not good enough to beat me consistently. I am the better player, and if I am trying I would win anywhere between 8-9/10 games. One strategy he would always employ on me, since we played tournament format, is he would counterpick Castle Siege on me as Captain Falcon, regardless of who I would play. The reason for this is because he would sometimes be able to steal a game from me by camping the blast zone or zone breaking me in to a grab forward throw. And you know what? It worked. Not all the time, and especially not with Meta Knight, but if I was ever playing a character that couldn't just fly away when I had the lead, it was a strategy that at the time rewarded him with otherwise little risk to the alternative.

I don't have a problem with Castle Siege because this happens on a transformation. It goes away. This kind of thing is not okay as a static environment.

And what do we lose by allowing walk offs. Does anyone ever consider that? Where's the strategic edge guarding game? What do I as a player do against a character in a match up that would normally require me to prey on a characters poor recovery and ledge game in order to win in this instance? Is that option suddenly not available, or do I have to waste my bans on walk offs now? Is this going to make the neutral more interesting? Is it going to make the game more interesting to watch from a spectator point of view?

Are people really going to cheer at an event when the underdog throws ZeRo in to the blast zone to take the upset, or are they just going to moan about the fact that that is the consequence of the stage being allowed?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I was talking more to a stage list for competitive play, sorry for not specifying that. As for final destination, you can see that it does change the metagame quite a lot. Platforms, however, are not as game changing as ledges are. Platforms are very important to some characters, I agree with that, but they are not as drastic as removing an entire blastzone. That is why I think final destination is a counterpick while walkoffs are banned.

I could dispute that, actually. Depending on their placement and (sometimes) movement, platforms can greatly enhance a character's natural abilities. Rosalina loves Battlefield, for instance, because her already-amazing space control gets ramped up to insane levels when she can use the platforms to protect herself and set up landing traps. Donkey Kong also likes Battlefield (and Smashville, and Halberd, and...) so he can cancel Kong Cyclone more easily. Sheik and Pikachu can use the Smashville platform to extend their fair strings and get clean KOs at ludicrously low percents. Conversely, there are characters that don't get much out of platforms, Little Mac being the dead horse example but it works because he's so freaking polarized.

Ledge and offstage games are similarly mixed. You have the Sheiks and Pikachus of the world who can gimp basically the entire cast minus maybe a few exceptions. You have the Villagers that can recover from literally anywhere. And you have the Ganondorfs, the Dr. Marios, the Little Macs that are relatively easy to gimp for whatever reason and would LOVE the chance to play on a stage that removes one of their biggest weaknesses.

There's a valid discussion to be had about whether walkoffs make games too volatile and let the less-skilled player win more often than they should (which is not the same as them winning at all, since upsets can happen on "regular" stages too), but basing your argument on "walkoffs promote specific types of gameplay and benefit certain characters" opens you up to a rebuttal of "no ****, every stage does that to some degree."

EDIT @ Ulevo since you posted while I was typing this.

Given a sufficiently large stage list, I think it's reasonable to expect more than 1 stage ban, although IDK what the actual ideal number would be. With that in mind, it would be possible to ban all walkoffs for the counterpick phase with maybe a ban or two left over depending on the specifics of the ruleset. And if only 1 walkoff gets added to the list anyway then the number of bans doesn't even matter since you can just always ban the walkoff if you really don't like it.

Removing the edgeguarding game may actually be a plus against some characters that are normally ungimpable (or close enough as to make no difference). Villager, for instance, isn't helped one bit by his recovery on a walkoff. (As a bonus, customs Villager can't camp the ledge either because there isn't one to begin with.)

For your last question, yes, I'd cheer, although I'd also be wondering to myself why Zero let himself be grabbed since he seems to be on a level pretty well above everyone else at this point and I'd hope he has the awareness necessary to know that opening yourself to a grab near a walkoff is a Bad Idea(TM).

 

[Ulevo]

I would also like to add that upsets due to player skill are highly admired. Upsets due to non-player factors are not. And while there is some relative skill as to who got the grab or hit near the blast zone to take the game, the reward for doing such is so disproportional that no one is going to argue that that player deserved to win in that instance.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I would also like to add that upsets due to player skill are highly admired. Upsets due to non-player factors are not. And while there is some relative skill as to who got the grab or hit near the blast zone to take the game, the reward for doing such is so disproportional that no one is going to argue that that player deserved to win in that instance.

I could flip that and ask why the more skilled player let himself get grabbed that close to the ledge to begin with. If we accept that they're more skilled, it's not unreasonable to expect them to respect the sides of a walkoff, just the same as you'd respect the ledge on Battlefield or the shrinking blast lines on Delfino.

Also I made a large edit for you.

 

[Ulevo]

I could flip that and ask why the more skilled player let himself get grabbed that close to the ledge to begin with. If we accept that they're more skilled, it's not unreasonable to expect them to respect the sides of a walkoff, just the same as you'd respect the ledge on Battlefield or the shrinking blast lines on Delfino.

Also I made a large edit for you.

For one, you cannot do that if they have the stock lead. Even if they have the stock lead, it is likely they in turn might camp the blast zone and then we find ourselves by in the same circumstance again.

It is not a matter of respecting or disrespecting the ledge blastzone. Regardless of how good you are, you will be grabbed or hit eventually. The expectation that you play perfectly to avoid a stock on a single mistake is not a reasonable one within those given circumstances. Even the best players have routinely lost following this principle. How many times has M2K lost a game to Ice Climbers because he played perfectly most of the game, only to have a few lapses in judgement, or a slight error?

While this might fly in a format where incremental wins were rewarded, such as with Pokemon's online laddering system, fighting game tournaments are different. Every win, every loss, every move matters. Like all fighting games, you're rewarded for the incremental decisions you make in each moment that lead up to that win or loss. Being thrown or hit in to a blast zone does not confide in that model of competition because everything leading up to that instance is suddenly invalidated.

People always used to say "don't get grabbed" when it came to Ice Climbers. And yeah, that's fine from a competitive, play-to-win perspective. There's no use ******** about it because you're talking about how to win, not the design implications behind what is happening, and back then we had no way to hope for a patch so we were always in a "deal with it" circumstance. But we're not talking about that here. We're talking about the competitive morale legitimacy of the strategy that is being employed, and "don't get grabbed" isn't acceptable in this case. Ice Climbers were horrible in Brawl because the context of the environment favoured them heavily, and once they landed a grab it was over. The only real difference here with blast zone camping is that there may or may not be characters that can favourably take advantage of this environment, but that's not the inherent issue. Whether or not one character dominants blast zone play, or we get a cluster**** of results because no character reliably succeeds at it, is either instance desirable? Should games be decided on whether or not I back throw you twice in a game? Is this healthy for the scene?

For your last question, yes, I'd cheer, although I'd also be wondering to myself why Zero let himself be grabbed since he seems to be on a level pretty well above everyone else at this point and I'd hope he has the awareness necessary to know that opening yourself to a grab near a walkoff is a Bad Idea(TM).

Well then you'd probably be of the very small minority.

This game I got from a thread ongoing right now in the Brawl section aptly titled "Is Brawl Dead?"

I think it speaks for itself.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

For one, you cannot do that if they have the stock lead. Even if they have the stock lead, it is likely they in turn might camp the blast zone and then we find ourselves by in the same circumstance again.

Valid point, but there's also nothing stopping someone like Sonic from attempting to run away for the whole match after getting a lead on, say, Duck Hunt. (Other than the smallness of most stages making it difficult at best.)

It is not a matter of respecting or disrespecting the ledge blastzone. Regardless of how good you are, you will be grabbed or hit eventually. The expectation that you play perfectly to avoid a stock on a single mistake is not a reasonable one within those given circumstances. Even the best players have routinely lost following this principle. How many times has M2K lost a game to Ice Climbers because he played perfectly most of the game, only to have a few lapses in judgement, or a slight error?

I don't know the answer to that question since I stopped following Brawl quite a while ago, but the Ice Climbers can 0-death you from literally anywhere on the stage. Walkoffs are only dangerous near the side, so unless you're in a situation where you must be the aggressor then you can try and keep center stage and be relatively safe. (And I've noticed that players in the lead still tend to be vaguely aggressive, if less willing to take risks, so I'm not entirely convinced that walkoffs will start a rash of camping the sides the moment someone gets a stock lead. Not denying the possibility, just don't think it's a certainty.)

While this might fly in a format where incremental wins were rewarded, such as with Pokemon's online laddering system, fighting game tournaments are different. Every win, every loss, every move matters. Like all fighting games, you're rewarded for the incremental decisions you make in each moment that lead up to that win or loss. Being thrown or hit in to a blast zone does not confide in that model of competition because everything leading up to that instance is suddenly invalidated.

Also valid, although I want to point out that double elimination is the current standard and allows for one loss before you're actually in danger of getting knocked out. Also while immediate results at any given tournament of course matter hugely, I'm fairly certain that the top players will still maintain consistent W/L records over time. Zero will still be top, etc.

People always used to say "don't get grabbed" when it came to Ice Climbers. And yeah, that's fine from a competitive, play-to-win perspective. There's no use *****ing about it because you're talking about how to win, not the design implications behind what is happening, and back then we had no way to hope for a patch so we were always in a "deal with it" circumstance. But we're not talking about that here. We're talking about the competitive morale legitimacy of the strategy that is being employed, and "don't get grabbed" isn't acceptable in this case. Ice Climbers were horrible in Brawl because the context of the environment favoured them heavily, and once they landed a grab it was over. The only real difference here with blast zone camping is that there may or may not be characters that can favourably take advantage of this environment, but that's not the inherent issue. Whether or not one character dominants blast zone play, or we get a cluster**** of results because no character reliably succeeds at it, is either instance desirable? Should games be decided on whether or not I back throw you twice in a game? Is this healthy for the scene?

Only one way to find out, isn't there? I'll always advocate for actual data to back up theory. That's my primary motivation here. Even if the theory is 100% logically sound and irrefutable, a documented match or two demonstrating it goes a long way, especially on a subject like this that tends to crop up repeatedly. (Doesn't even have to be from an actual tournament, just an exhibition match or friendly or something where neither player is sandbagging.)

Well then you'd probably be of the very small minority.

This game I got from a thread ongoing right now in the Brawl section aptly titled "Is Brawl Dead?"

I think it speaks for itself.

I mean, I sort of get what you were going for by linking this video, but the Ice Climbers aren't in Smash 4 and chaingrabs are a thing of the past so while it's thought provoking, it's also somewhat outdated with respect to this discussion.

 

[Ulevo]

Valid point, but there's also nothing stopping someone like Sonic from attempting to run away for the whole match after getting a lead on, say, Duck Hunt. (Other than the smallness of most stages making it difficult at best.)

The circumstances are entirely different, and not really comparable as examples. I'm not really sure what you're trying to allude to here.

I don't know the answer to that question since I stopped following Brawl quite a while ago, but the Ice Climbers can 0-death you from literally anywhere on the stage. Walkoffs are only dangerous near the side, so unless you're in a situation where you must be the aggressor then you can try and keep center stage and be relatively safe. (And I've noticed that players in the lead still tend to be vaguely aggressive, if less willing to take risks, so I'm not entirely convinced that walkoffs will start a rash of camping the sides the moment someone gets a stock lead. Not denying the possibility, just don't think it's a certainty.)

I addressed this point further in to the post you quoted, but I'll address it again here for clarity. It does not matter whether or not you lose the stock from being grabbed in the centre stage or at the blast zone, the principle is the same. It's just that in one instance we have a character that is able to dominate the environment because they can safely execute their strategy from anywhere, while as other characters are susceptible only at the blastzones. But whether or not we have one or a select few of characters that remain powerful within this context or if everyone equally suffers is not the issue because it does not address the question: is it acceptable to allow a single grab or hit to decide a game, regardless of what may have transpired beforehand? If you believe the answer is no, it does not matter if it's Ice Climbers landing an infinite anywhere they please, King Dedede carrying you off in to the sunset from wherever he lands a grab, or someone being confined to only landing a grab near a blastzone. This is why it's called degenerative play. It's not about who comes out the victor so much as how the strategy works and essentially how lame it all is.

Also valid, although I want to point out that double elimination is the current standard and allows for one loss before you're actually in danger of getting knocked out. Also while immediate results at any given tournament of course matter hugely, I'm fairly certain that the top players will still maintain consistent W/L records over time. Zero will still be top, etc.

Well okay, sure. The best players in poker consistently win all the time. But who does and does not get knocked in to losers bracket when and how can drastically affect the entire bracket, regardless if that same singular player takes 1st every time. There are other implications to upsets than just who wins the tournament and how. What makes those upsets acceptable is of course the understanding that the upset happened because the player that won played better than the player that did not under a model of competition that rewards skill and strategic play.

Only one way to find out, isn't there? I'll always advocate for actual data to back up theory. That's my primary motivation here. Even if the theory is 100% logically sound and irrefutable, a documented match or two demonstrating it goes a long way, especially on a subject like this that tends to crop up repeatedly. (Doesn't even have to be from an actual tournament, just an exhibition match or friendly or something where neither player is sandbagging.)


I mean, I sort of get what you were going for by linking this video, but the Ice Climbers aren't in Smash 4 and chaingrabs are a thing of the past so while it's thought provoking, it's also somewhat outdated with respect to this discussion.

Here's the rub. There are downsides associated with experimentation. I'm not one to dissuade from it. I promote it usually. But saying that we can just go and start testing stuff because 'why not' isn't that simple. There's a lot of scientific questions out there that we have yet to answer because morally and ethically we can't just go out and do them. The benefit of achieving the results we're seeking does not justify the process or the implications that come with conducting that due process.

Custom moves are an example here. Now, I don't think we were wrong in choosing to allow custom moves to become a standard format, or even the standard format for EVO. I'm not going to say it's going to go one way or the other for sure, but right now based on what tournament organizers and players are saying, custom moves are moving away from a standardized thing and becoming more of a novelty because of the problems associated with them, and are largely being played right now because EVO is using them and it's around the corner. All understandable. But we as a community chose to vote for customs to get in to EVO. And while this will all provide us with valuable information and experience, we can't just assume there's no consequences that come with this. What happens to our community if customs show up at EVO and it turns out that Villager camp is the dominant strategy? Or that we see top 4 is Donkey Kong thanks to Kong Cyclone? I'm not saying that this is going to happen or that it's even likely, I'm saying there's a risk associated with this and how it affects our community. If EVO turns out to be a big lame-fest then people might start viewing Smash as a game differently from a competitive perspective, and that might not be good for our community.

In turn, what would happen if we allowed walk off stages as a thing in tournament standard, and that wound up at major events? Do you think that would go over well if it turned out to be a bad idea? We've seen things like this happen before. Look at Scorpion and Injustice. To my knowledge, at the time of Scorpion's release, a lot of highly regarded, skilled Injustice players clamoured to have Scorpion banned for the tournaments leading up to and including EVO for fear that allowing Scorpion to be playable would ruin the integrity of the game and it would die out. A lot of people had a 'wait and see' mentality despite the glaring "theoretical" flaws that were apparent at glance, and that side of the community won out. Scorpion was played, and to my understanding it did not go over well. Where is Injustice now? It's not doing well to my understanding. Is this all exclusively because of the Scorpion situation? I don't think so, probably not. But it probably didn't do the community any favors.

As far as Ice Climbers are concerned, I think it's a very relevant analogy given everything I've just explained.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Here's the rub. There are downsides associated with experimentation. I'm not one to dissuade from it. I promote it usually. But saying that we can just go and start testing stuff because 'why not' isn't that simple. There's a lot of scientific questions out there that we have yet to answer because morally and ethically we can't just go out and do them. The benefit of achieving the results we're seeking does not justify the process or the implications that come with conducting that due process.

Custom moves are an example here. Now, I don't think we were wrong in choosing to allow custom moves to become a standard format, or even the standard format for EVO. I'm not going to say it's going to go one way or the other for sure, but right now based on what tournament organizers and players are saying, custom moves are moving away from a standardized thing and becoming more of a novelty because of the problems associated with them, and are largely being played right now because EVO is using them and it's around the corner. All understandable. But we as a community chose to vote for customs to get in to EVO. And while this will all provide us with valuable information and experience, we can't just assume there's no consequences that come with this. What happens to our community if customs show up at EVO and it turns out that Villager camp is the dominant strategy? Or that we see top 4 is Donkey Kong thanks to Kong Cyclone? I'm not saying that this is going to happen or that it's even likely, I'm saying there's a risk associated with this and how it affects our community. If EVO turns out to be a big lame-fest then people might start viewing Smash as a game differently from a competitive perspective, and that might not be good for our community.

In turn, what would happen if we allowed walk off stages as a thing in tournament standard, and that wound up at major events? Do you think that would go over well if it turned out to be a bad idea? We've seen things like this happen before. Look at Scorpion and Injustice. To my knowledge, at the time of Scorpion's release, a lot of highly regarded, skilled Injustice players clamoured to have Scorpion banned for the tournaments leading up to and including EVO for fear that allowing Scorpion to be playable would ruin the integrity of the game it would die out. A lot of people had a 'wait and see' mentality despite the glaring "theoretical" flaws that were apparent at glance, and that side of the community won out. Scorpion was played, and to my understanding it did not go over well. Where is Injustice now? It's not doing well to my understanding. Is this all exclusively because of the Scorpion situation? I don't think so, probably not. But it probably didn't do the community any favors.

I'm not advocating for walkoffs to be tournament standard, just for someone somewhere to play a serious match or two against a serious opponent on a walkoff and put the video(s) on Youtube so we can actually see what happens instead of talking in circles around each other. Because at this point it sounds like people are scared to try, even in a low-stress (read: non-tournament) environment and that irritates me a bit. As for customs flopping at EVO, we step back, maybe decide they're not worth it, switch back to defaults only, and life goes on.

(I suspect I have an unusually laissez-faire attitude compared to most people.)

I know exactly nothing about Injustice except that it's a bunch of DC characters beating each other up. (So where did Scorpion come from?)

 

[Ulevo]

I'm not advocating for walkoffs to be tournament standard, just for someone somewhere to play a serious match or two against a serious opponent on a walkoff and put the video(s) on Youtube so we can actually see what happens instead of talking in circles around each other. Because at this point it sounds like people are scared to try, even in a low-stress (read: non-tournament) environment and that irritates me a bit. As for customs flopping at EVO, we step back, maybe decide they're not worth it, switch back to defaults only, and life goes on.

(I suspect I have an unusually laissez-faire attitude compared to most people.)

I know exactly nothing about Injustice except that it's a bunch of DC characters beating each other up. (So where did Scorpion come from?)

Well, part of the reason this thread is a thing is it pertains to my thread talking about stage legality. So while it would be great to have some dudes somewhere playing on walk off stages, it's not really going to address the questions that need to be answered in order to talk about or legitimize walk offs for standard play for those discussions. For one, limited sample size, limited data. For two, different environment. If you're playing for money and you're playing to win, you're going to resort to strategies that people simply won't in casual play, and even if that were not the case, different people play differently, which comes back to my point about sample size and data.

And the short of it for Scorpion was that he was a character with a teleport punch that went behind the character in a game that requires you to hold back to block, while in Mortal Kombat block was always done with a block button. This, the fact that it was really hard to react to, and the fact that Scorpion was a really good character excluding said teleport, made him a really good, easy, and almost toxic character to play against. He was similar to Meta Knight in a lot of regards.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Well, part of the reason this thread is a thing is it pertains to my thread talking about stage legality. So while it would be great to have some dudes somewhere playing on walk off stages, it's not really going to address the questions that need to be answered in order to talk about or legitimize walk offs for standard play for those discussions. For one, limited sample size, limited data. For two, different environment. If you're playing for money and you're playing to win, you're going to resort to strategies that people simply won't in casual play, and even if that were not the case, different people play differently, which comes back to my point about sample size and data.

True, but it would still be a good starting point at the very least.

 

[Ulevo]

Something else worth noting is that you cannot consider things outside the context of their environment. We're talking about walk offs right now as if they're a separate entity, with no other problems associated with them outside of what's been covered. Let's look at all the available walk offs:

Mario Galaxy
Mario Circuit (Brawl)
Bridge of Eldin
Wooly World
Onette
Colisseum
Flat Zone X
Wii Fit Studio
Boxing Ring
Guar Plain
PAC-LAND

Exactly how many of these stages are devoid of major problems, all the blastzone talk we've had up to this point excluded? I am firm believer that there is such a thing as having too large of a stage. If you align with that belief, a lot of these stages are plagued by this problem. Then you have hazards, circle camp problems. Ask yourself, how many of these stages would be worth it to legalize?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Something else worth noting is that you cannot consider things outside the context of their environment. We're talking about walk offs right now as if they're a separate entity, with no other problems associated with them outside of what's been covered. Let's look at all the available walk offs:

Mario Galaxy
Mario Circuit (Brawl)
Bridge of Eldin
Wooly World
Onette
Colisseum
Flat Zone X
Wii Fit Studio
Boxing Ring
Guar Plain
PAC-LAND

Exactly how many of these stages are devoid of major problems, all the blastzone talk we've had up to this point excluded? I am firm believer that there is such a thing as having too large of a stage. If you align with that belief, a lot of these stages are plagued by this problem. Then you have hazards, circle camp problems. Ask yourself, how many of these stages would be worth it to legalize?

Coliseum and Wii Fit Studio are the main stages I have in mind, with Mario Galaxy and Woolly World as secondary thoughts.

Coliseum: Platforms rise and fall from the ground.

Wii Fit Studio: Platforms descend from the ceiling. Note that even if you stand on one as it ascends again, it won't kill you. The mirror in the background lets you see a little bit past the camera boundaries.

Mario Galaxy: Completely static, a rather unique feature in Smash as a whole come to think of it. Nonstandard curved gravity that some projectiles ignore, mostly lasers and anything with homing properties.

Woolly World: Walkoff is only present 50% of the time. Platforms are still a concern due to keepaway potential by the likes of Pikachu.

 

[deepseadiva]

I'm glad this is being discussed!

I strongly disagree that it really is a "50-50" for each of the remaining stocks. I would argue that in most matchups, the camper is actually at quite a disadvantage. The evidence for this comes from matches that occur on normal stages, where you want to get your opponent offstage. If camping right next to danger was really a good strategy, we would be seeing people camping the edges of the stage and then throwing them off the ledge. However, we really only ledge camping with a few specific characters/matchups, and even then, the camper usually tries to get away to the other edge of the stage when approached, instead of going for a back-throw to get the opponent off the stage.

Camping the near the ledge and camping a walkoff blastzone are not at all comparable. Bad example.

 

[cot(θ)]

I, personally, think walkoffs should stay banned. Characters that hit hard, but have a horrible recovery, for example Little Mac, would absolutely decimate the opposition.

Even if you end up being right about that, a stage shouldn't be banned because of a theory that some characters will dominate there. It needs to actually happen, and after people have actually learned to play on walkoffs.

The blast zones on walkoffs are way too small. You'll be dying from forward smashes at 50% if you're near the edge of the stage. The only way that would happen on non-walkoffs (besides using a stupidly powerful attack on a light character) is by gimping/spiking, and those come with the risk of allowing your opponent to gain stage control or potentially SDing if you miss.

You can die from a jab if you're near the edge of the stage on a walkoff - what's your point? If you're that close to the edge of the stage and your opponent is pressuring you, you're in a bad position, and need to get out of there. It's essentially the walkoff equivalent of "gimping".

The problem I see with walkoffs is that it changes the metagame too much.

Please reconsider your premise that change is bad.

I think walkoffs warp the game we're trying to play too heavily.

Your cons can basically be summarized as "they're different from non-walkoffs", and "some characters/strategies will be too good." The latter argument is a fair point, if we actually try it and prove that those characters and strategies are too good. And that means giving good players time to get good on walkoffs, because it really is very different, and you need to look at your risk vs. reward in a new way.

Here is my problem with walk off stages. The only merit or value walk offs bring to Smash is that we get a larger stage list. But if that is a reason for walk off inclusion, how does that not apply to any other stages with arguable problems?

It does apply to every stage with arguable problems. Stages with definitive, unarguable problems should be banned. Stages that we're not sure about should be legal, so we have some real evidence to base our decisions on.

Speaking from personal experience, I had a roommate that just moved. We played friendlies quite often, and while he is good enough to compete with me, he's not good enough to beat me consistently. I am the better player, and if I am trying I would win anywhere between 8-9/10 games. One strategy he would always employ on me, since we played tournament format, is he would counterpick Castle Siege on me as Captain Falcon, regardless of who I would play. The reason for this is because he would sometimes be able to steal a game from me by camping the blast zone or zone breaking me in to a grab forward throw. And you know what? It worked. Not all the time, and especially not with Meta Knight, but if I was ever playing a character that couldn't just fly away when I had the lead, it was a strategy that at the time rewarded him with otherwise little risk to the alternative.

Frankly, most players are just bad at playing on walkoffs. I was not an exception before I played on permanent walkoffs several times. I doubt you are an exception either. I've been running weeklies with an expanded stagelist that includes walkoffs for a while, and the meta has basically progressed from super-early kill cheese -> everyone being scared ****less of the walkoffs and most kills being off the top -> people understanding the risk/reward associate with walkoffs, and respecting them, while still getting a few gimp kills like you might see from edgeguarding.

And what do we lose by allowing walk offs. Does anyone ever consider that? Where's the strategic edge guarding game? What do I as a player do against a character in a match up that would normally require me to prey on a characters poor recovery and ledge game in order to win in this instance? Is that option suddenly not available, or do I have to waste my bans on walk offs now? Is this going to make the neutral more interesting? Is it going to make the game more interesting to watch from a spectator point of view?

Those things don't go away. They just don't happen every game. Instead, sometimes you get super-tense walk-off near deaths, which is a whole new experience that plays a comparable role to edgeguarding and recovery on non-walkoffs.

Are people really going to cheer at an event when the underdog throws ZeRo in to the blast zone to take the upset, or are they just going to moan about the fact that that is the consequence of the stage being allowed?

Would you cheer at the event when the underdog gets a gimp edgeguard on ZeRo for the upset? Probably. Because they were playing in a super-high-risk part of the stage (off-stage, or close to the blastzones on a walkoff), ZeRo, took a risk that he knew / should have known could cost him the tournament, and the underdog outplayed him at that critical moment. It just seems like cheese to spectators who aren't used to playing on walkoffs, because they also don't have the mindset to recognize the current danger, so it looks like a cheap kill out of nowhere.

Here's the rub. There are downsides associated with experimentation. I'm not one to dissuade from it. I promote it usually. But saying that we can just go and start testing stuff because 'why not' isn't that simple. There's a lot of scientific questions out there that we have yet to answer because morally and ethically we can't just go out and do them. The benefit of achieving the results we're seeking does not justify the process or the implications that come with conducting that due process.

In my city, we have one weekly with standard rules, and another secondary weekly with an expanded stagelist. I'd recommend everyone try this out if they want to judge stage viability. We have a couple of big regionals coming up, so I won't have the chance for a couple of weeks, but I can try to capture some good matches on walk-offs the next time we run that ruleset.

Camping the near the ledge and camping a walkoff blastzone are not at all comparable. Bad example.

They are comparable. The only difference is what's at stake - is it a whole stock, or just damage, stage control, and an edgeguarding opportunity? From the perspective of whether it's actually a good strategy, the amount that's at stake is irrelevant - only your likelihood of actually getting your opponent behind you matters. And we see from current tournament play that while campers like Link and Villager are in a great position to push their opponents away, they have a somewhat harder time actually tossing them offstage and going for an edgeguard. It will be equally difficult to toss a competent player into the blastzone.

From the perspective of whether it can create upsets, obviously the high stakes makes it more likely to. However, it remains to be seen whether it's actually a good enough strategy to do so against walkoff-certified players.

 

[Deleted member 269706]

I personally would love to see certain walk off stages become legal. Here's the thing, so many of the "low tier" characters are low because they can be gimped easily. That's it. What happens when Little Mac, Ike, or Doctor Mario suddenly don't have the risk of being gimped? In this case, this really benefits these characters and will popularize other characters who were seen as low tier before. It's a perfect counter against the campy playstyle of the Villager, and I'm sure there are other characters in the higher tiers who would be hurt as a result of this availability to counter-pick walk off stages, making certain match-ups more even. Throws will become more hazardous, especially with so many of them being able to kill in this game, but players will learn to adapt to these hazards provided the chance. Just want to end by saying that anyone who thinks that we should keep them illegal because "that's how the game has always been played" needs to rethink the pros and cons of this. How can we be sure that this is a bad idea until we try it?

 

[srn347]

If walk-offs were to become legal, combos that only work on (or near) the ground could easily kill. This would significantly favor characters with great damage-building combos, as they could combo or kill the same way (similar to diddy prior to the patch). The upper blast line would get practically no use ever (and the lower obviously gets literally none). We don't need a ton of characters getting zero-to-deaths, as that creates a stale metagame.

 

[Metarai]

Please reconsider your premise that change is bad.

Its not that change is bad, I agree that the metagame should grow and change. When speaking in terms of a competitive mindset, however, the core playstyle mostly relies on off stage kills or off the top kills rather than killing horizontally from the stage. Sorry if I worded it wrong before, but it is not that changing the metagame is bad. It is more that the playstyle is too different than from what the current professionals play at. If people want to experiment and eventually implement it into the competitive ruleset after good research, I'm completely fine with that. I am just saying that at this current metagame, it is not going to be received well from the majority of the players and spectators.

 

[Ulevo]

It does apply to every stage with arguable problems. Stages with definitive, unarguable problems should be banned. Stages that we're not sure about should be legal, so we have some real evidence to base our decisions on.

Well this is a little ironic because we know that walk offs are a problem. A small minority just think we don't know because they assume we banned them under pretentious reasons, or reasons that were relevant in older iterations that no longer apply. This is naive. Do you think this discussion has not been done before?

I hope you can bring some new evidence or perspective to the table.

Frankly, most players are just bad at playing on walkoffs. I was not an exception before I played on permanent walkoffs several times. I doubt you are an exception either. I've been running weeklies with an expanded stagelist that includes walkoffs for a while, and the meta has basically progressed from super-early kill cheese -> everyone being scared ****less of the walkoffs and most kills being off the top -> people understanding the risk/reward associate with walkoffs, and respecting them, while still getting a few gimp kills like you might see from edgeguarding.

You missed the point of my anecdote. The point was not whether or not I had poor match up experience on a stage with walk offs. The point was that Castle Siege's second transformation illustrates a picture of what can happen in static walk off environments, and how it is detrimental. Yes, there were times that I lost a stock at low %, and that was obviously my fault. There were other times the opposite happened, and I won it even faster. That isn't the point. The point is that my roommate counterpicked this stage, out of any other stage, because he knew it was the only viable way to produce an upset. Not because the stage inherently favored his character, or impeded mine, but because that is the very nature of walk offs. It can produce inconsistent results, and if I am consistently winning nearly every game, it make no sense for him not to choose it.

That is not a good competitive model.

Those things don't go away. They just don't happen every game. Instead, sometimes you get super-tense walk-off near deaths, which is a whole new experience that plays a comparable role to edgeguarding and recovery on non-walkoffs.

You kind of dodged the question I was alluding to
. I was being rhetorical because I know exactly where those elements go when you pick a walk off stage.

I'm asking you: what do walk offs bring, why is that important, and how would it benefit the competitive Smash metagame to include them? Do these benefits outweigh the potential flaws of walk offs?

If you can't answer these fundamental questions then really this whole discussion falls apart.

Would you cheer at the event when the underdog gets a gimp edgeguard on ZeRo for the upset? Probably. Because they were playing in a super-high-risk part of the stage (off-stage, or close to the blastzones on a walkoff), ZeRo, took a risk that he knew / should have known could cost him the tournament, and the underdog outplayed him at that critical moment. It just seems like cheese to spectators who aren't used to playing on walkoffs, because they also don't have the mindset to recognize the current danger, so it looks like a cheap kill out of nowhere.

Yes I would cheer for an underdog getting a gimp on a skilled player, especially in Smash Wii U, because it's hard as hell getting a gimp in Smash Wii U. You think it's hard to back throw someone at a blast zone? It's not. It's just a question of who back throws who.

I don't know how you can argue that spectators who aren't used to playing walk offs would be ignorant and lack the mindset to understand the dangers of a blastzone. That's honestly silly. It's a blastzone. You kill people by sending them in to these things.

They are comparable. The only difference is what's at stake - is it a whole stock, or just damage, stage control, and an edgeguarding opportunity? From the perspective of whether it's actually a good strategy, the amount that's at stake is irrelevant - only your likelihood of actually getting your opponent behind you matters. And we see from current tournament play that while campers like Link and Villager are in a great position to push their opponents away, they have a somewhat harder time actually tossing them offstage and going for an edgeguard. It will be equally difficult to toss a competent player into the blastzone.

From the perspective of whether it can create upsets, obviously the high stakes makes it more likely to. However, it remains to be seen whether it's actually a good enough strategy to do so against walkoff-certified players.

They are not comparable at all. The reward versus the risk is practically what this whole discussion is about, and you cannot compare the risk reward ratio of edge guarding someone in Smash Wii U versus blast zone camping them for a kill. Regardless of who is successful at securing a kill, you shouldn't be able to secure a stock by just a single throw or hit without any other prior conditions being met.

 

[cot(θ)]

Well this is a little ironic because we know that walk offs are a problem. A small minority just think we don't know because they assume we banned them under pretentious reasons, or reasons that were relevant in older iterations that no longer apply. This is naive. Do you think this discussion has not been done before?

I hope you can bring some new evidence or perspective to the table.

Naive? Then perhaps you'd like to direct me to all the tournament footage of people camping walkoffs that led people to decide it was a degenerate strategy. Oh wait - it's all Marth ken-combos and Dedede chaingrabs into the blastzone. If you're going to try to claim some kind of "high ground" of "we've been over this before", you'd better have some proof that we actually have in a way that's relevant to this game. The only evidence you've provided so far is exactly the type that doesn't pertain to this game.

You missed the point of my anecdote. The point was not whether or not I had poor match up experience on a stage with walk offs. The point was that Castle Siege's second transformation illustrates a picture of what can happen in static walk off environments, and how it is detrimental.

I think you may have missed the point of my response, which is that you suck on walkoffs, just like every other competitive player who doesn't play on them regularly. Do you think the exact same thing wouldn't happen if only walkoffs were legal, and your friend took you to battlefield and edgeguarded you?

You kind of dodged the question I was alluding to
. I was being rhetorical because I know exactly where those elements go when you pick a walk off stage.

I'm asking you: what do walk offs bring, why is that important, and how would it benefit the competitive Smash metagame to include them? Do these benefits outweigh the potential flaws of walk offs?

If you can't answer these fundamental questions then really this whole discussion falls apart.

Why do you need anything more than "they're part of the game, and they shouldn't be removed unless they're shown to be problematic"? What they add from a gameplay perspective is a different situation - fights near walkoffs, which as your anecdote demonstrates, is a part of the metagame sorely in need of development. It is a situation that is interesting and intense in a similar, but also very different way than offstage gameplay. From a non-gameplay perspective, it's very refreshing to play competitively on a greater variety of stages, listen to a greater variety of music, and represent more franchises.

Yes I would cheer for an underdog getting a gimp on a skilled player, especially in Smash Wii U, because it's hard as hell getting a gimp in Smash Wii U. You think it's hard to back throw someone at a blast zone? It's not. It's just a question of who back throws who.

That's silly. Of course it's difficult to land a kill move on someone who knows what they're doing. If you're near the blastzone, you should be playing safer, and being more aware of your opponent's kill options.

They are not comparable at all. The reward versus the risk is practically what this whole discussion is about, and you cannot compare the risk reward ratio of edge guarding someone in Smash Wii U versus blast zone camping them for a kill.

They are comparable in the sense that your likelihood of winning the encounter is the same. I agree they're not comparable in terms of risk vs. reward. However, the fact that the camper is less likely to win the encounter than if he engaged his opponent in the middle of the stage, with full freedom of movement, means that between players of equal skill, walkoff camping is actively hurting your chances of winning. The camper needs to be a certain amount worse than his opponent to actually improve his chances of winning through walkoff camping. I think there's a good chance that when everyone is actually good at playing on walkoffs, this gap will be large enough that it won't end up being a problem.

Regardless of who is successful at securing a kill, you shouldn't be able to secure a stock by just a single throw or hit without any other prior conditions being met.

You have met the conditions though - you met the conditions of getting your opponent in a position where you can kill them with a throw. That doesn't happen "magically" or "by accident" unless your opponent isn't respecting the walkoffs at all.

 

[cot(θ)]

Accidental double post.

 

[Ulevo]

Naive? Then perhaps you'd like to direct me to all the tournament footage of people camping walkoffs that led people to decide it was a degenerate strategy. Oh wait - it's all Marth ken-combos and Dedede chaingrabs into the blastzone. If you're going to try to claim some kind of "high ground" of "we've been over this before", you'd better have some proof that we actually have in a way that's relevant to this game. The only evidence you've provided so far is exactly the type that doesn't pertain to this game.

You're the one going against the grain here, not me. I'm far too lazy to bother trying to look for evidence that would be severely dated by now just to prove a point that's blatantly obvious to most people when I have no need to do so.

I think you may have missed the point of my response, which is that you suck on walkoffs, just like every other competitive player who doesn't play on them regularly. Do you think the exact same thing wouldn't happen if only walkoffs were legal, and your friend took you to battlefield and edgeguarded you?

That's a really stupid comparison. The conditions to edge guard someone successfully in to a kill are far harder to achieve than a simple blast zone kill. If you can't acknowledge that then I'm not going to debate you over it. You also presume I'm bad at dealing with walk offs with very little evidence outside of what I've told you, which is a rather convenient way to look at it. Maybe it's not that I am bad at walk offs and walk offs happen to be toxic gameplay that results in inconsistency? Or is that consideration an impossibility for you.

Why do you need anything more than "they're part of the game, and they shouldn't be removed unless they're shown to be problematic"?

Well the vast majority of people decided that 75 M was nonsense upon Brawl's release without extensive testing. You're right. Their common sense is obviously lacking. It's part of the game, so we should obviously put it to the test despite any apparent flaws it presents.

What they add from a gameplay perspective is a different situation - fights near walkoffs, which as your anecdote demonstrates, is a part of the metagame sorely in need of development. It is a situation that is interesting and intense in a similar, but also very different way than offstage gameplay. From a non-gameplay perspective, it's very refreshing to play competitively on a greater variety of stages, listen to a greater variety of music, and represent more franchises.

Different is not synonymous with beneficial. I asked you what benefits walk off stages bring to the competitive Smash scene. If I want something different, I'll go play Street Fighter. Refreshing? Brawl was refreshing for the first month before people realized it was a trash heap. Representing more franchises? What are you, Nintendo's marketing advisor?

These are not valuable reasons for stage inclusion in competitive Smash, I'm sorry.

That's silly. Of course it's difficult to land a kill move on someone who knows what they're doing. If you're near the blastzone, you should be playing safer, and being more aware of your opponent's kill options.

The irony. There's no such thing as playing safely near a blast zone.

They are comparable in the sense that your likelihood of winning the encounter is the same. I agree they're not comparable in terms of risk vs. reward. However, the fact that the camper is less likely to win the encounter than if he engaged his opponent in the middle of the stage, with full freedom of movement, means that between players of equal skill, walkoff camping is actively hurting your chances of winning. The camper needs to be a certain amount worse than his opponent to actually improve his chances of winning through walkoff camping. I think there's a good chance that when everyone is actually good at playing on walkoffs, this gap will be large enough that it won't end up being a problem.

And who says the blastzone camper is less likely to succeed? Even if this is true, why does this matter? It still does not address why being able to end a stock by simply throwing someone in to a blast zone at minimal % is acceptable.

You have met the conditions though - you met the conditions of getting your opponent in a position where you can kill them with a throw. That doesn't happen "magically" or "by accident" unless your opponent isn't respecting the walkoffs at all.

Don't waste my time with this crap. You know what I meant. If you want to play semantics and go off technicalities, Ice Climbers 'met prior conditions' by shielding at the right time in order to shield grab for a stock. They 'positioned correctly'. Does this make this fair, or competitively healthy? No. It's nonsense. Players should work for their kills by adding the % necessary to secure a stock, or by preventing them from returning to the stage, both of which require significantly more skill and effort than a mere blastzone kill.

 

[cot(θ)]

You're the one going against the grain here, not me. I'm far too lazy to bother trying to look for evidence that would be severely dated by now just to prove a point that's blatantly obvious to most people when I have no need to do so.

"More people agree with me by default, so I'm not going to bother finding any evidence to support my opinion."

It's common knowledge that walkoffs have been banned due to chaingrabs and inescapable combos. You're making sweeping claims that the reasons walkoffs are banned also applies to Smash 4, and that it's been discussed to death, but you can't seem to back up your claims. In a game where the primary reason for banning walkoffs no longer exists, walkoffs should be tried again before being dismissed.

People are generally averse to change, and most players are too lazy to learn new stages or change the way they play to respect walkoffs. As a result, the bulk of the support from the playerbase will be for keeping as many stages banned as possible. That doesn't give you license to be lazy with your arguments because I'm "going against the grain". (Not accusing you of being lazy or fundamentally averse to change, just pointing out that that's where most of the support for conservative stagelists comes from, and the fact that you have that support is a lousy excuse to not do your homework.)

That's a really stupid comparison. The conditions to edge guard someone successfully in to a kill are far harder to achieve than a simple blast zone kill.

This coming from someone who's literally never played against someone experienced on walkoffs. Someone used to playing only on walkoffs could just as easily say "the conditions to force someone into the blastzone on a walkoff are far harder to achieve than killing them while they're trying to recover with no ground underneath them."

Well the vast majority of people decided that 75 M was nonsense upon Brawl's release without extensive testing. You're right. Their common sense is obviously lacking. It's part of the game, so we should obviously put it to the test despite any apparent flaws it presents.

If someone can present a plausible argument as to why circle camping might not be a problem on 75 m, I'd be happy to give it a shot. However, I think people pretty much agree that it would be a problem, and it wouldn't be too difficult to find matches that exploit it on, say, Temple (and it would be easy to produce such matches on 75 m itself). Contrast with walkoffs, where people are arguing for their legality, and you can't even find a single high-level match where walkoff-camping was a problem.

Different is not synonymous with beneficial. I asked you what benefits walk off stages bring to the competitive Smash scene.

It doesn't matter. If you don't already agree that every competitively viable stage should be used for competitive gameplay, our viewpoints are irreconcilable.

The irony. There's no such thing as playing safely near a blast zone.

Coming from someone with no real experience playing on permanent walkoffs. "There's no such thing as recovering safely." "There's no such thing as edgeguarding safely." Nonsense. The point I'm trying to drive home here is that you're claiming to know what the peak of the walkoff meta is when you've barely dipped your toes in it. We need to see good players playing on walkoffs for a few months before we can get an idea of where it's going, because we've never had walkoffs in a game where you weren't at risk of getting combo'd or chaingrabbed into the blastzone from basically anywhere.

And who says the blastzone camper is less likely to succeed? Even if this is true, why does this matter? It still does not address why being able to end a stock by simply throwing someone in to a blast zone at minimal % is acceptable.

I already explained why the blastzone camper is less likely to succeed. And why it matters. As for why simply throwing someone into the blastzone at minimal % is acceptable, it's for the same reason gimping someone at low % is acceptable. They commited to a high-risk situation, you outplayed them in that situation, they lost the stock. Hopefully they learned their lesson.

Spoiler: Recap/Elaboration

We see evidence from play on non-walkoffs that players camping the ledge for a back throw are putting themself at a disadvantage, and are at high risk of getting sent off the stage themselves. This is why stage control is so important on non-walkoffs. There's nothing different about standing with your back to a walkoff, at least in terms of how likely you are to succeed. That's why the blastzone camper is less likely to succeed.

If the blastzone camper is less likely to win the engagement than in the middle of the stage, then if the fight is evenly matched, the blastzone camper is hurting his chances of winning. i.e. staking everything on two 40% encounters is worse than staking everything on (say) twenty 50% encounters. likewise, two 39% encounters is worse than twenty 49% encounters. You have to get to a certain skill differential before it becomes beneficial to camp the walkoffs. So for example, staking everything on two 30% is much, much better than staking everything on twenty 40% encounters.

I think it's possible that by the time the skill differential is large enough that it's actually worth it to try to go for the walkoff kills and get the upset, the skill differential will also be large enough that the better player will still be able to win most of the time. In other words, walkoff camping might not end up being a problem.

Don't waste my time with this crap. You know what I meant. If you want to play semantics and go off technicalities, Ice Climbers 'met prior conditions' by shielding at the right time in order to shield grab for a stock. They 'positioned correctly'.

I'm not arguing from technicalities at all. Getting a grab at sometime during the game a la ICs doesn't really qualify as "skillfully outplaying them". To actually get someone in a position where you can land the early kill on the walkoffs really does require you to outplay them, provided they're actually putting in the effort to avoid those situations.

 

[Ulevo]

"More people agree with me by default, so I'm not going to bother finding any evidence to support my opinion."

It's common knowledge that walkoffs have been banned due to chaingrabs and inescapable combos. You're making sweeping claims that the reasons walkoffs are banned also applies to Smash 4, and that it's been discussed to death, but you can't seem to back up your claims. In a game where the primary reason for banning walkoffs no longer exists, walkoffs should be tried again before being dismissed.

People are generally averse to change, and most players are too lazy to learn new stages or change the way they play to respect walkoffs. As a result, the bulk of the support from the playerbase will be for keeping as many stages banned as possible. That doesn't give you license to be lazy with your arguments because I'm "going against the grain". (Not accusing you of being lazy or fundamentally averse to change, just pointing out that that's where most of the support for conservative stagelists comes from, and the fact that you have that support is a lousy excuse to not do your homework.)

I'm not looking for threads that discussed this that I vaguely remember from around 2007-2008. You can if you like. You're not worth it for me to do that. The reasons are really that simple.

This coming from someone who's literally never played against someone experienced on walkoffs. Someone used to playing only on walkoffs could just as easily say "the conditions to force someone into the blastzone on a walkoff are far harder to achieve than killing them while they're trying to recover with no ground underneath them."

You're trying to discredit my opinion by saying I have no experience with walk offs to cover up the fact that the situations revolving around blast zones and the situations revolve around ledges, especially ledges in Smash IV, are very fundamentally different. I'm not arguing with you over this point anymore because I've made my case and now it's become circle talk.

If someone can present a plausible argument as to why circle camping might not be a problem on 75 m, I'd be happy to give it a shot.

Except they won't.

However, I think people pretty much agree that it would be a problem, and it wouldn't be too difficult to find matches that exploit it on, say, Temple (and it would be easy to produce such matches on 75 m itself). Contrast with walkoffs, where people are arguing for their legality, and you can't even find a single high-level match where walkoff-camping was a problem.

You can find evidence with how there are problems associated with walk offs on the stages that are legal now. You can't camp them for an extended period of time, but there are likely matches that illustrate what could be possible if that situation was static. Again, I'm not going to go and dive in to YouTube looking for them.

It doesn't matter. If you don't already agree that every competitively viable stage should be used for competitive gameplay, our viewpoints are irreconcilable.

Oh no, on that we agree. We just don't agree on what is competitively viable. Nice try though.

Coming from someone with no real experience playing on permanent walkoffs. "There's no such thing as recovering safely." "There's no such thing as edgeguarding safely." Nonsense. The point I'm trying to drive home here is that you're claiming to know what the peak of the walkoff meta is when you've barely dipped your toes in it. We need to see good players playing on walkoffs for a few months before we can get an idea of where it's going, because we've never had walkoffs in a game where you weren't at risk of getting combo'd or chaingrabbed into the blastzone from basically anywhere.

What I'm reading here is an attempt to discredit me based on lack of experience with a meta essentially no one plays because your logistics have very large holes in them.

For the record, you're making assumptions about exactly how much experience I have with walk offs. I've played on them. Not competitively, but I have in friendlies. If you think that you setting up little tourneys with players that probably aren't notable equates to anything that much greater then that's your prerogative.

I already explained why the blastzone camper is less likely to succeed. And why it matters. As for why simply throwing someone into the blastzone at minimal % is acceptable, it's for the same reason gimping someone at low % is acceptable. They commited to a high-risk situation, you outplayed them in that situation, they lost the stock. Hopefully they learned their lesson.

Gimping someone is significantly harder than tossing someone in to a blast zone. I'm not arguing this point further because it's like trying to argue the rules of arithmetic. It does not lead anywhere meaningful.

Regardless, we're not talking about how dominant of a strategy this is or isn't for the more skilled player. We're talking about whether or not the strategy is acceptable in a competitive context for producing consistent results.

I'm not arguing from technicalities at all. Getting a grab at sometime during the game a la ICs doesn't really qualify as "skillfully outplaying them". To actually get someone in a position where you can land the early kill on the walkoffs really does require you to outplay them, provided they're actually putting in the effort to avoid those situations.

And yet your only retort when I point out that a grab under either circumstances results in a stock lost regardless of % is that a gimp could amount to the same thing, yet you ignore the difficulty or ease of any of these scenarios. I cannot argue with someone if they can't acknowledge the parameters that define what constitutes the risk reward in the first place.

 

[cot(θ)]

Your argument can be summarized as "it's not suitable for competition, because it's much easier to get the kill on walkoffs". Yet you have no evidence to back up your claim ("I'm far too lazy to bother trying to look for evidence"), no sound reasoning as to why that should be the case and instead act as if it should be taken for granted ("If you can't acknowledge that then I'm not going to debate you over it"), and no competitive experience with permanent walkoffs ("I've played on them. Not competitively, but I have in friendlies").

I'm not trying to argue that walkoffs are necessarily competitively viable, just that there's an argument to be made that they might be, and we will need to seriously play on them competitively before we can say for sure. You, on the other hand, are claiming that we can already know for certain that walkoffs are uncompetitive despite no tangible evidence, no logical arguments, and no competitive experience. If you have nothing more to add, then I await further respondents.

Oh no, on that we agree. We just don't agree on what is competitively viable.

I'm glad we can at least agree on one thing.

 

[Ulevo]

You kind of dodged the question I was alluding to.
I'm asking you: what do walk offs bring, why is that important, and how would it benefit the competitive Smash metagame to include them? Do these benefits outweigh the potential flaws of walk offs?

If you can't answer these fundamental questions then really this whole discussion falls apart.

Why do you need anything more than "they're part of the game, and they shouldn't be removed unless they're shown to be problematic"? What they add from a gameplay perspective is a different situation - fights near walkoffs, which as your anecdote demonstrates, is a part of the metagame sorely in need of development. It is a situation that is interesting and intense in a similar, but also very different way than offstage gameplay. From a non-gameplay perspective, it's very refreshing to play competitively on a greater variety of stages, listen to a greater variety of music, and represent more franchises.

Different is not synonymous with beneficial. I asked you what benefits walk off stages bring to the competitive Smash scene. If I want something different, I'll go play Street Fighter. Refreshing? Brawl was refreshing for the first month before people realized it was a trash heap. Representing more franchises? What are you, Nintendo's marketing advisor?

These are not valuable reasons for stage inclusion in competitive Smash.

My transactions with you on this topic are nicely summarized by the above dialogue.

You conveniently ignored this repeatedly, even though this is one of if not the most important part of this entire debate. If you're done talking about how I have no credibility, maybe you'd like to justify why we should even consider your position? Exactly what validity is there in your argument that does not hinge on dismantling mine?

If you're going to brush this off again then yeah, I think I'll wait for further respondents.

 

[TheAnomaly]

And yet your only retort when I point out that a grab under either circumstances results in a stock lost regardless of % is that a gimp could amount to the same thing, yet you ignore the difficulty or ease of any of these scenarios. I cannot argue with someone if they can't acknowledge the parameters that define what constitutes the risk reward in the first place.

Ok, let me try then. First let me say that I am on neither side of this argument for the moment because I am interested in the debate but I can understand what @cot(θ) is saying. An ice climber player in brawl had his win condition set at 3 grabs(1 per stock with both Ice Climbers present.) This is degenerate gameplay. On the other hand if walkoffs were legal in smash 4, the win condition in this game would be to first attain the % lead and then camp the walk off looking for the grab. This would result in 3 situations:
1) Projectile character camping a projectile character.
2) Projectile character camping a non-projectile character.
3) Non-projectile character camping a projectile character.
Of these situations #2 would seem to be the most terrifying on paper. Now while the non-projectile character has to worry even more than usual about approaching his reward on a successful approach is now an easy kill. This would apply to the last stock as well should the projectile character attempt to camp the walkoff on his final stock. He could potentially gain an easy kill by camping the walkoff or he could lose his stock just as easily by attempting to zone out the non-projectile character and failing. This differs from Brawl Ice Climbers in the fact that one player willingly put himself in danger in order to attain an easy kill whereas Brawl Ice Climbers can just do anything until he gets that grab on any part of the stage as long as the second Ice Climber is close enough.