<3 Competitive Stage Lists in Smash 4.

[Raijinken]

All this speculation is great and all, SSB4 is throwing us some big curve balls. FD mode and FD-focused balancing, stages generally being more extreme then before, (at least on 3DS,) the extreme nerfing of SDI, and what appears to be the end of chaingrabbing are all going to change our perception of legal stages.

I don't know, I'd prefer to stick to FD only or the neutral 3 because it's simple and easy. I just think it's alot of work for not much for making more stages legal. If we can get one stage without some kinda chaingrab nonsense or infinites I'd play on that all the time because it's consistent.

Your reasoning sounds, to me, feels like you'd rather sacrifice versatility for consistency. Which, while it's a valid approach to balance, I feel like it detracts from the point of having a large roster or a variety of stages. For instance, I find Melee very boring to watch because it's consistently the same six top characters, and the same essentially flat stages with dark backgrounds. It may be very competitive within that limited scope, but there's no reason to sacrifice the additional depth of content the game offers when there is time to make it more varied while maintaining fairness in a competitive setting. Variety also helps draw spectators, adding to the potential growth of the game as an esport.

Of course, as has been mentioned, there's always potential for different regions and TOs to run different rulesets. I just hope we avoid the mob mentality that can come with quick pruning of stages and declarations of bans without detailed analysis. I want the game to be as versatile and enjoyable to watch while maintaining that competitive fairness.

 

[topspin1617]

All this speculation is great and all, SSB4 is throwing us some big curve balls. FD mode and FD-focused balancing, stages generally being more extreme then before, (at least on 3DS,) the extreme nerfing of SDI, and what appears to be the end of chaingrabbing are all going to change our perception of legal stages.

I don't know, I'd prefer to stick to FD only or the neutral 3 because it's simple and easy. I just think it's alot of work for not much for making more stages legal. If we can get one stage without some kinda chaingrab nonsense or infinites I'd play on that all the time because it's consistent.

I think starting with 0 stages and deciding which to "make legal" is just the absolute opposite of how it should be done.

 

[san.]

I am fine as long as there is some logical consistency with the banning of stages that would make sense when laying out the facts.

For stage hazards, I don't mind it being random as long as there are clear tells that players can respond to. On Halberd, you can tell which player is targeted and it doesn't disrupt things very much. On Brinstar, the rate at which the acid rises gives you some information on how high it's going to rise. Pirate Ship has warnings. Punishment also shouldn't be overwhelming, such as guaranteeing a stock loss at most percents.

Lack of tells are also fine for hazards that don't deal damage. The durations for Frigate Orpheon's 1st and 2nd stages are random. Distant Planet has atmosphere changes. I would also put something like disappearing and reappearing platforms under this as well, as long as it's cycling through other neutral stage conditions. On the other hand, the rate that bomb blocks appear on Green Greens are worrying unless someone can prove there are safe methods around that or can prove that it's not much of an issue.

 

[<π]

Hmm... I think our goal as a community should be to grow. And I think the best way to do that is to have a very liberal ruleset. IF 20 million copies of this game sold (and thats not too far fetched at all) and we could get 10 percent of that group to actively participate in the competitive scene do you know what that would look like?

Spoiler

2 million people supporting large event could sustain an EVO like even with one game alone. (not literally all at the venue, but viewership like this would be eaten up by sponsors) By boxing up the competitive community and removing features that have driven these people to get the game you get a small fraction of what could be. We are alienating the core of the games player base.

Instead of a street fighter sized community (all of the streetfighter 4 games combined have sold less than what melee did alone) we should have people lined up at our tournaments. In fact lets look at street fighter; 2000 people went to evo to play street fighter this year, there is something we are doing wrong here if our goal is to get more people playing the game. Getting our foot in the door at these big events is awesome! but we can do so much more if we don't pigeon hold this idea of "competitively viable" so tight.

 

[LancerStaff]

I think starting with 0 stages and deciding which to "make legal" is just the absolute opposite of how it should be done.

You talking about my idea I mentioned elsewhere? Well, I never said I thought it through all the way. I just threw it out there to see if anybody thought it'd work. I figured since things get permanently removed from a stagelist that gets cut down, things would be permanently added to a stagelist that grows.

 

[Raijinken]

Hmm... I think our goal as a community should be to grow. And I think the best way to do that is to have a very liberal ruleset. IF 20 million copies of this game sold (and thats not too far fetched at all) and we could get 10 percent of that group to actively participate in the competitive scene do you know what that would look like?

2 million people supporting large event could sustain an EVO like even with one game alone. (not literally all at the venue, but viewership like this would be eaten up by sponsors) By boxing up the competitive community and removing features that have driven these people to get the game you get a small fraction of what could be. We are alienating the core of the games player base.

Instead of a street fighter sized community (all of the streetfighter 4 games combined have sold less than what melee did alone) we should have people lined up at our tournaments. In fact lets look at street fighter; 2000 people went to evo to play street fighter this year, there is something we are doing wrong here if our goal is to get more people playing the game. Getting our foot in the door at these big events is awesome! but we can do so much more if we don't pigeon hold this idea of "competitively viable" so tight.

One issue with being overly liberal, though, is that you chance alienating existing skilled players, whose "endorsement", so to speak, can contribute well to the game gaining popularity. For instance, a lot of players interpret some of the top Melee players transitioning to PM as a sign that PM is as good of a game to play from that standpoint. Similarly, I like to throw around a quote by Ken about SSB4 that can be summed up as "It feels good and looks good, and the 3DS version was, too." Having the former King of Smash place his verbal seal of approval can make some people more receptive who would otherwise be more reluctant to change.

Another important way to grow, aside from simply having more stream presence, is to have varied content available. Some people don't like watching Melee (or Brawl) because they've got narrow stage lists, and narrow sets of viable characters. A lot of PM streams change up what stages are legal every so often, or one can simply find another stream with a different player group.

Similarly, Valve went out of their way during TI4 this year with what they called a "Newcomer Stream". Most Smash tournaments I've spectated seem primarily focused on commentating the action, without really explaining to potential newcomers what the action is consisting of, and why a particular action is so impressive. Of course, this sort of commentary shouldn't replace or even consume part of the time from a regular stream, but it could be helpful, at some of the larger venues, to run dual streams, with one oriented around explaining some of the mechanics and the finer points of the matchups. This, in addition to having varied rulesets (including some more liberal ones with some rather gimmicky stages) gives new viewers more to look for (and can, in some cases, help them understand why some stages are less popular than others, or why in conservative rulesets certain characters rarely appear), and more to look forward to. An exciting spectator experience is key for a game to grow as an esport.

 

[Shiliski]

Hmm... I think our goal as a community should be to grow. And I think the best way to do that is to have a very liberal ruleset. IF 20 million copies of this game sold (and thats not too far fetched at all) and we could get 10 percent of that group to actively participate in the competitive scene do you know what that would look like?

Spoiler

2 million people supporting large event could sustain an EVO like even with one game alone. (not literally all at the venue, but viewership like this would be eaten up by sponsors) By boxing up the competitive community and removing features that have driven these people to get the game you get a small fraction of what could be. We are alienating the core of the games player base.

Instead of a street fighter sized community (all of the streetfighter 4 games combined have sold less than what melee did alone) we should have people lined up at our tournaments. In fact lets look at street fighter; 2000 people went to evo to play street fighter this year, there is something we are doing wrong here if our goal is to get more people playing the game. Getting our foot in the door at these big events is awesome! but we can do so much more if we don't pigeon hold this idea of "competitively viable" so tight.

I'll admit that the absence of some of my favorite stages and items does kinda turn me off of the game competitively.

To use Brawl's item list as an example (I know S4's will be different), I'd rather have an items ruleset that looks like this:

Spoiler: long

Items on Medium

Allowed:
Assist Trophies- (Random, but usually can be dealt with)
Pokeballs- (Random, but usually can be dealt with)
Blast Box- (Actually takes a fair amount of punishment compared to containers)
Sandbag (Don't like it, but couldn't think of a good reason to ban it.)
Food
Dragoon
Warp Star
Metal Box
Bunny Hood
Superspicy Curry
Timer (Don't like it, but couldn't think of a good reason to ban it.)
Beam Sword
Home-Run Bat
Fan
Lip's Stick
Star Rod
Super Scope Six
Ray Gun
Fire Flower
Cracker Launcher
Motion Sensor Bomb
Gooey Bomb- (this is iffy because it can promote stalling, but not nearly as much as the Hammer, Starman, etc.)
Smart Bomb
Freezie
Smoke Ball
Pitfall
Hothead
Mr. Saturn
Green Shell
Banana Peel
Bumper
Spring
Unira
Soccer Ball
Franklin Badge
Screw Attack

Banned:
Smash Balls- Disrupts the match by forcing players to chase it in order to not lose.
Containers- Chance for random, unpreventable death on item spawn
Deku Nut- Chance for random, unpreventable long stun on item spawn
Maxim Tomato- Disrupts the match by forcing players to chase it in order to not lose.
Heart Container- Disrupts the match by forcing players to chase it in order to not lose.
Team Healer- Disrupts the match by forcing players to chase it in order to not lose.
Mushroom- Promotes Stalling
Poison Mushroom- Promotes Stalling
Starman- Promotes Stalling
Lightning- Promotes Stalling
Hammer- Promotes Stalling
Golden Hammer- Promotes Stalling
Bob-omb- Chance for random, unpreventable death on item spawn

I don't know how that will affect the stage list, but I do think that certain stages will be a lot more viable if everyone has access to throwable items, among other things.

 

[L9L]

I love all the thought put into this, and I definitely echo most of the sentiments in this thread regarding stage selection, banned stages, etc.

Perhaps it's unfair to compare apples and oranges like this, but I've always thought that Injustice: Gods Among Us and Smash share stage selection as an integral component in playing the game. In fact, you might even say that the stage takes the role of a third "player" in the match. In Injustice tournaments, the first stage picked is always random: sometimes it benefits you, sometimes it doesn't. Loser gets the option to counterpick. That way if the first stage was so incredibly horrible for you, no worries, you don't have to stay there.

Could Smash adopt a similar system as this one? While a select few stages would be perma-banned (in line with the OP's list regarding "good" vs. "bad" stages, ex. Flat Zone, Temple), the majority would be open for the initial random selection and subsequent counter-picks. I think this simpler system would help to promote both stage variety and speed up tournaments.

 

[Xiaphas]

Just saw this video about randomness and how it affects competitive play. I think it's worth a watch when considering stages with random elements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9ZI9kMsvRQ

 

[Sensei]

I love the fun aspect of including all the stages for casual play. There definitely needs to be some reasoning and consensus to determine which stages are fair. I don't want to speculate too much so I'll reserve my judgement until I play the game.

 

[<π]

Just saw this video about randomness and how it affects competitive play. I think it's worth a watch when considering stages with random elements.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9ZI9kMsvRQ

Great post. I've been watching a lot of extra credit lately these guys are amazing.

Smash is already set up in way such to minimize the effects of random, I think that stems back from the early days and was a very intention measure. Best of three double elimination are very common. And even back in the day with these liberal stage lists players like ken and Isai were consistently dominant.

 

[Raijinken]

Great post. I've been watching a lot of extra credit lately these guys are amazing.

Smash is already set up in way such to minimize the effects of random, I think that stems back from the early days and was a very intention measure. Best of three double elimination are very common. And even back in the day with these liberal stage lists players like ken and Isai were consistently dominant.

As mentioned in another EC, round robin can be a viable way to reduce randomness, though it will be less practical due to limited setups for the U version than for the 3DS version. Very impractical for large tournaments, unless you schedule them out over several days (always an option for smaller tournaments or tournaments not very concerned with the streaming and spectator aspects, and those can be led into following a round-robin elimination system).

 

[Second Power]

Very good read. I was told that walk offs were banned because they invalidated offstage play. I had no idea it started with individual character abuses, which is certainly not a valid reason.

 

[Jellyfish4102]

I feel like the best system would be to allow each player to bring five stages to the table. Each player then bans three of his opponents stages. At that point there is four stages left to be picked from. Random would then be used to decide which of these is used. I believe this system would allow a lot more stage variation.

 

[25%Cotton]

I feel like the best system would be to allow each player to bring five stages to the table. Each player then bans three of his opponents stages. At that point there is four stages left to be picked from. Random would then be used to decide which of these is used. I believe this system would allow a lot more stage variation.

i think there still need to be banned stages still, though. at least a few.

because what if the matchup is zero suit versus MK and the MK player picks the summit, port town, skyworld, green hill zone, and... idk, new pork city. every single stage is bad for zero suit samus here. the summit has no tetherable ledges, port town basically the same thing (though it has one spot with them), skyworld's tether-spots are destructable, green hill zone makes pretty much all of zss's arsenal useless with it's heavy slants, and NPC is great for MK to run away forever. even if zss removes three stages, the other two are still almost confirmed MK victories just from the stage.

 

[RascalTheCharizard]

Very good read. I was told that walk offs were banned because they invalidated offstage play. I had no idea it started with individual character abuses, which is certainly not a valid reason.

Who told you that? I always thought and heard that it was due to certain character abuses. But the removal of offstage play and especially recovery are still valid arguments. But the character abuses is more important. Can you imagine what Melee would be like with walkoff stages? Fox would be SSS tier lol.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

Who told you that? I always thought and heard that it was due to certain character abuses. But the removal of offstage play and especially recovery are still valid arguments. But the character abuses is more important. Can you imagine what Melee would be like with walkoff stages? Fox would be SSS tier lol.

That's easy enough. Ban Fox from Onett. Like how in 64 it was banned to take Ness to Saffron City, only in reverse.

 

[RascalTheCharizard]

That's easy enough. Ban Fox from Onett. Like how in 64 it was banned to take Ness to Saffron City, only in reverse.

That was done to protect Ness, wasn't it? Not to keep his (non-existent) waveshining under control. Also, I think I heard that that only applies to game 1 of a set. After that Ness on Saffron is fair game.

I think I speak for everyone when I say that overly-specific bans like those should be avoided.