Advocates for a More Open Stage List Unite!

[TheMasterDS]

People who are wrong don't have to be incompetent. And people who are arguing things don't have to think less of the pros, just of those who make snappy decisions on forums. Everything I've heard in streams suggests to me that they simply don't know yet what stages will be legal and are playing it safe until they do. Nothing I've heard suggests that they think Yoshi and Pokemon City will be it necessarily.

I think this is a reaction to other forum goers more than pros.

 

[Delzethin]

That's the only way to do it - you cannot browbeat people into changing the ruleset, you have to show us that your ruleset is superior and attracts high-level players, as well as an audience.

You mean like how you're browbeating everyone in here?

You're so adamant to the idea that any hazards whatsoever are detrimental to competitive play that you disregard any arguments or evidence to the contrary. You reference other, more traditional fighting games as proof, ignoring the fact that they offer little chance for stage hazards to even exist. You argue that those at the highest level of competitive play avoid anything that takes away from pure skill, and yet you refuse to acknowledge that some stage hazards work in a way that encourages skill and strategy the same way as Battlefield's platforms or Final Destination's lack of platforms.

But that's not the worst part. That would be your overall condescending tone. You act as if we're below you for wanting a wider stage list, that we somehow deserve to be ridiculed and talked down to. It stifles creative discussion and angers everyone involved. Most of this entire thread has been you shooting everyone down. What do you even have to gain from that?

Honestly...I think this community in general gets afraid sometimes. Characters get deemed overpowered before we have proof they are. Entire vocal minorities freak out when the newest game isn't exactly like the one they're most familiar with. And...occasionally, stages get quick-banned with little to no proof that they cause more harm than good. Even the greatest players can be afraid...as we've seen with M2K shooting his mouth off a couple times lately. They're human and they make mistakes sometimes; they're far from perfect, and they don't need to be.

We might have a few early tournaments with skewed results until we figure out what works the best...but those are growing pains. They'll help in the long run, if we just give them the chance to happen.

Otherwise, we risk stunting the metagame's growth and having high-profile tournaments with a miniscule stage list where only a few characters are viable and who cannot be counterpicked against, misrepresenting how good--and interesting--competitive Smash can be.

 

[Conda]

I have never argued against good hazards that are not over the top, and especially havent ignored platforms or the lack thereof. The posts I have reaponded to are largely those assuming that people are ban-happy and not able to be knowledgable about their decisions - past and future included.

 

[Delzethin]

And yet you seem to think those decisions are absolute and not to be questioned. If you acknowledge that hazards aren't inherently bad and that some are perfectly fine, then why have you such an adamant supporter of a ruleset that bans all of them? And you've responded to pretty much everyone here...surely not all of us want to allow even the overcentralizing or hax-heavy stages.

I don't get it.

 

[Piford]

A couple of you mentioned how other competitive fighting games don't have stage hazards. As far as I know, the only other 2 are Injustice:GAU and PSASBR, does anyone know how they deal with the stage hazards in these games? Just to see if comparing to other games is a legitimate argument.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I have never argued against good hazards that are not over the top, and especially havent ignored platforms or the lack thereof. The posts I have reaponded to are largely those assuming that people are ban-happy and not able to be knowledgable about their decisions - past and future included.

In that case, out of the 3DS stage list, which stages do you feel have "good hazards that are not over the top"? For stages with insufficient data, which ones do you feel have the potential to be good for competition, with whatever caveats you see fit?

Here's a stage list I refer to if you want to make sure you don't forget any.

And I think part of the reason a lot of us are being a bit pro-active and perhaps antagonistic is because in various forums, chats, etc. there have been people seriously saying the only worthwhile stages are Battlefield/Yoshi's/FD/Omega. Perhaps it's unfair to project that on everyone else but I, at least, am honestly worried that the noise will win out and most of the stages will be banned without ever actually having a few matches on them to make sure they're ban-worthy because yes, historically flat + plat is by far the runaway favorite stage type and 3DS doesn't have a lot of those.

(In retrospect, it feels almost like a political campaign...and isn't that a distressing thought.)

 

[Rakath]

To me, the only (new, not counting the repeated stages) stage that's pretty much no question a terrible idea is Spirit Train. Everything else, even things like Poke League and Gerudo Valley, needs testing.

Of the old stages, the one that needs the most looking into is Corneria (Wall Infinites are weakened, thus in need of testing). Jungle Japes has been legal before, but I'm not sure if the reasoning is no longer valid. Of course I'm not going to try to argue for Game&Watch or WarioWare. Because I don't like them... and they are evil.

 

[Plain Yogurt]

Well I suppose actually posting stage lists may better create constructive arguments then just talking about whether hazards are inherently bad or not. Figuring out what to test was the thread's original purpose anyway, yeah?

My personal stage list based on my extremely limited knowledge:

Should be legal:
Battlefield
Final Destination
Yoshi's Island
Prism Tower

Should be tested:
Reset Bomb Forest-Optimistic (First form looks fine: How bad is the second?)

Jungle Japes-Unsure (Klap-trap is mean, yeah, but...the stage just looks so normal otherwise...)

Brinstar-Pessimistic (Was this ever even banned for the lava? I thought for Brawl it was cause of some camping bull**** or MK was stupid on it or something. I personally think it's worth a shot, but it's definitely my most borderline choice).

Arena Ferox-Optimistic (How disruptive are the transformations?)

Mute City-Unsure (Are the two constant platforms suitable for combat? Nothing else sticks out as being as crazy as Melee Mute City and PTAD)

Tortimer Island-Optimistic (What's the problem with it again?)

Tomodachi Life-Optimistic (People keep saying you can circle-camp it but since I've never actually seen it played...)

Honorable mentions to Distant Planet and Corneria. I think I'm already kinda pushing it with Brinstar though. Pessimistic for both.

Stages I don't know enough about cause I haven't seen them played enough:
Paper Mario
Gaur Plain (I've heard it's a walk-off?)

I'm pretty pessimistic about the rest. Shout outs to Yellow Devil and Flying Man for single-handedly killing perfectly good stages (granted I don't know anything about Flying Man, but what I've heard isn't great).

 

[infomon]

I just ask that anyone with the game, please post video examples of competitive play on every single stage. It really shouldn't be that hard to demonstrate "yes, walk-offs still suck in smash4". Then we can reduce the scope of our discussion to the stages that are more subjective.

 

[TheMasterDS]

This is what the second phase of Reset Bomb Forest looks like. Pretty nasty if you ask me. Looks like a bad custom stage. Just bits everywhere. I dunno if that's criteria enough to ban it but looking at it I certainly will be turning it off random stage select.

I'm optimistic about Jungle Japes, Arena Ferox and Tortomer Island. They seem normal enough especially relative to the rest. Jungle Japes doesn't do that "you float in the river" thing it did in Brawl last I heard too.

I think Mute City and Tomodachi are interesting and I hope the risks are manageable in them.

I think Rainbow Road, Paper Mario, Gaur Plains and Brinstar are possible but not entirely likely.

I also hope that default Final Destination isn't' the only one that's used. It's nice seeing the random variants of it in streams and such now. It would be nice if there was a way to include them in a fair manner.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

This is what the second phase of Reset Bomb Forest looks like. Pretty nasty if you ask me. Looks like a bad custom stage. Just bits everywhere. I dunno if that's criteria enough to ban it but looking at it I certainly will be turning it off random stage select.

I'm optimistic about Jungle Japes, Arena Ferox and Tortomer Island. They seem normal enough especially relative to the rest. Jungle Japes doesn't do that "you float in the river" thing it did in Brawl last I heard too.

I think Mute City and Tomodachi are interesting and I hope the risks are manageable in them.

I think Rainbow Road, Paper Mario, Gaur Plains and Brinstar are possible but not entirely likely.

I also hope that default Final Destination isn't' the only one that's used. It's nice seeing the random variants of it in streams and such now. It would be nice if there was a way to include them in a fair manner.

The solid walls in the upper left are destructible, if it makes a difference. (A Final Smash tore them apart in an early stream.) It is very haphazard looking, but I don't think that by itself would lead to degenerate gameplay?

I can't wait until October 3 so I can actually play and offer my own impressions instead of just interpreting what I watch online.

 

[Lozjam]

The reset bomb stage looks fine. Since the walls are destructible, there will be no infinites, and I believe it will make a good counter pick stage for Pikachu mains as there will be many opportunities to quick attack ledge cancel.

 

[T0MMY]

Essentially a long explaination of apex rules with the gentleman clause. If both players agree then other stages and items are fine. If both players agree.

Considering I've discussed rules with Alex Strife it's not surprising they are similar, though I believe my actual rulset is much more simple than the explanation of it (which happens to be "long" at just six sentences); the actual rulset is:

1) Agree to characters
2) Agree to Stage
3) Play the Game

Pretty simple, and it is this simplicity which focuses my attendees on having fun rather than counting the number of edgehogs while determining if their characters is lower tier to get an arbitrary win against another character who was suicided into a sudden death otherwise they get a 1-stock replay if Air Time is greater than Ground Time during the full moon which must be correspondent to K.K. Slider playing 2 A.M......... X^D

Succinctly put: Ever since my diversion from standard messy rulesets my attendees now can freely choose from plenty of stages and yet we still have competitive values AND we're ALL having fun despite our gray area of competitive subjectivities.

I do dislike the for fun and for glory names though. Feels like it implies only fun mode is fun and glory mode isnt when fun is subjective.

Speaking of subjective, opinion is just that.

 

[Boss N]

Couple things, I know a lot of people disagree with @ Conda but he's bringing up a lot of good points. If your local TO is going to stick to a small stage list at first, you can go up to them and request them to do side events or a special kind of bracket without the pool prize, or just have your friendly matches on the different stages and encourage others to do so. If the TO sees how popular they are with their attendees then it's only good business sense to include them in their official events.

& just to address, we're not here because we're assuming that the higher and more notable members of our smashing community are idiots, far from that. I just like anyone else here have deep respects for our champions whether it's Nairo, Zero, M2K or Mango, as well as the people hard at work like Wife, D1, Prog, and more who are trying to make smash into something even bigger, and people like TKBreezy who travel a lot to help run big events cross country. We're not assuming that they're automatically going to make bad decisions all the time. They're smart & reasonable people and they're great people all around.
But they're still human, just like the rest of us here.

This thread is basically to ensure something like the whole Rainbow Cruise fiasco doesn't happen again. Like said, people will listen to the most influential people in the community, who are usually the players as they get the most spotlight, and when they say something the whole crowd usually follows en suite no matter the reasoning. My biggest concern is that there has never been an in placed system for stage banning, it's all usually opinion driven or spur of the moment. Now that spur of the moment mentality does catch things legitimate like when wall infinities on Corneria where discovered, and sometimes they… don't. Like Mute City. Basically these guys put it best:

And I think part of the reason a lot of us are being a bit pro-active and perhaps antagonistic is because in various forums, chats, etc. there have been people seriously saying the only worthwhile stages are Battlefield/Yoshi's/FD/Omega. Perhaps it's unfair to project that on everyone else but I, at least, am honestly worried that the noise will win out and most of the stages will be banned without ever actually having a few matches on them to make sure they're ban-worthy because yes, historically flat + plat is by far the runaway favorite stage type and 3DS doesn't have a lot of those.

(In retrospect, it feels almost like a political campaign...and isn't that a distressing thought.)

Well I suppose actually posting stage lists may better create constructive arguments then just talking about whether hazards are inherently bad or not. Figuring out what to test was the thread's original purpose anyway, yeah?

If there is a system already in place then we'ed love to hear it, but as it stands currently, one has never been presented to us, at least in public.

Also, right now there isn't much we can do to prove our position right now because we don't have the game or know anyone who does. Right now we're just bouncing ideas on the most logical and un-bias method of testing these stages so when the game does come out we can fairly test if our hypothesis stands. If it doesn't, then it doesn't. We admit defeat and life will move on.

Now back on topic, @ Piford did a survey not too long ago on the communities idea for legal stages. I'm always skeptical when it comes to surveys due to human psychology, but it's still interesting and might give us an idea which stages we should focus our attention on first.

Here it is:
http://smashboards.com/threads/smash-4-community-stage-survey-results.369406/#post-17636458

For those feeling lazy however, here's the breakdown. The results where divided into 4 tiers based on popular opinion, Tier 3 he describes is the area where we should seriously start considering legal play, and Tier 4 is especially worrisome.

Tier 3

Rainbow Road

Brinstar

Magicant

Reset Bomb Forrest

Paper Mario

Tier 4

Dream Land

Unova Pokemon League

Spirit Train

Pac Maze

Find Mii

This is only a Small portion of the survey, there are ALOT more interesting findings he made and I encourage you all to look at it. As for the list above, the most important factors that need to be found out about these:

- Walk off Camping: Test to see how easy it is for a gimp KO from a walk-off camp in the given stage by playing to that style. Someone who is very good at camping plays against a pro player, in that stage, and record/keep track of the results.
- Walls: Wall-infinites were a reason to remove stages like Corneria in Brawl, see if those can still be achieved in Sm4sh.
- Damage Hazards: Test how devastating the hazard is when it hits (Brinstar vs. Norfair), how predictable/readable the hazard is (any damage hazard vs. Warioware), and how commonly they happen. Not all hazards are created equally.
- Platform Hazards: Test how the hazards interrupt various easily gimped recoveries (Ness) and if they are actually a concern for most players. Usually they aren't but I have some doubts about Paper Mario's third form.
- Scrolling: In past titles the scrolling stages were moving too fast in places to allow combat (Rainbow Cruise), do any of the scrolling stages in Sm4sh move fast enough to unseat combat. Are the Blast lines too narrow and abuseable?
- Size: This is really the only one that can be... well, eyeballed. Most large stages allow for too much chase slanting the meta heavily in favor of fast characters doing hit and runs against slow characters. If a stage feels too Ridley big, then I can see that as a viable concern.

I'm thinking online is going to be THE place to test these, if people can get some friend codes from the 3DS thread and get friendly matches going, while being anonymous about the test, and either let the game play out or coax them into using abusive strategies and seeing if they succeed. The strategy would have to work multiple times with different people across a lot of games in order to be conclusive so a lot of people are going to have to be involved. What do you guys think of that method? If enough people are behind it then I'll start drafting a new procedure around it.

 

[Piford]

I'd like to say there was a 5th tier in my survey, it just had a lot of stages and the percents matched the percents for people who didn't want any stages banned. This was most likely due to some casual audience taking the survey which is why I included question 1. Tier 4 is the "hey this could work, but it might alienate the über restrictive players" compared to tier 5 which is "hey these actually don't work." Now of course I did my analysis based off the results and not my personal preference. I would probably put Boxing Ring and Magicant lower and Pac-Maze and Spirit Train higher.

 

[Rakath]

I'm thinking online is going to be THE place to test these, if people can get some friend codes from the 3DS thread and get friendly matches going, while being anonymous about the test, and either let the game play out or coax them into using abusive strategies and seeing if they succeed. The strategy would have to work multiple times with different people across a lot of games in order to be conclusive so a lot of people are going to have to be involved. What do you guys think of that method? If enough people are behind it then I'll start drafting a new procedure around it.

I would say the first two need actual specific testing (where the match is a method of playing out the situation) while the others just need to be played on to really work out how much a specific hazard can be abused. I'll gladly help with testing stages this way once the game is out (I'm not really good at camping or wall infinites, so I will leave that to professionals).

But yes, we can test these and figure out what we can do. The best testing would be if anyone has a Capture Card to record the results to have evidence of what's going on in these stages. To find out how much damage the destruct-platforms in Reset Bomb Forest need, to see how easy it is to camp on the lights in Boxing Ring, and whatever else needs testing.

 

[<π]

At top level hazards are SUPPOSED to be abused. The better player is using the hazard to improve his position or advantage.

The only bad hazards (in my opinion) are random ones that have no tell. Hazards you CAN'T abuse. "Too this, too that" is all subjective and that where things get scary. How much is too much? Where do you draw the line? All the testing in the world won't help you draw that line, that's a personal preference thing.

 

[infomon]

I think videos really do help us draw the line. I had to acknowledge that some problems are actually way worse than I expected when I saw how competitive players could, and would, abuse them in tournament. I expect many others would respond similarly.

Other times it's quite possible for even competitive players to respond "omg this is too overpowered" when really they just haven't learned the ways to beat a hazard/tactic. With video evidence we can call this out when it happens.

We just need those videos. /brokenrecord

 

[<π]

My only thing is hazards shouldn't stop conflict. If a giant beam of light shoots down from the sky and stops you from fighting for 10 seconds THAT is a bad hazard.

The floor moving under you is not a hazard that prevents conflict. The road in mute city doesn't impede in conflict. The Ice and fire hazards in gerudo valley FORCE conflict. The stage changes in rainbow road FORCE conflict.

Video stuff is neat. I'll be uploading videos myself. but I don't think that they will be an accurate tell of what is and isn't reasonable because all of that is subjective. You'll have "anything goes you should have been more aware of the possibility" guys like me and "If it ain't flat it ain't plat!" guys. Neither of us are wrong we just have different views, and there will be all kinds of views in-between too my extreme and the Omega extreme.

 

[Boss N]

My only thing is hazards shouldn't stop conflict. If a giant beam of light shoots down from the sky and stops you from fighting for 10 seconds THAT is a bad hazard.

The floor moving under you is not a hazard that prevents conflict. The road in mute city doesn't impede in conflict. The Ice and fire hazards in gerudo valley FORCE conflict. The stage changes in rainbow road FORCE conflict.

Video stuff is neat. I'll be uploading videos myself. but I don't think that they will be an accurate tell of what is and isn't reasonable because all of that is subjective. You'll have "anything goes you should have been more aware of the possibility" guys like me and "If it ain't flat it ain't plat!" guys. Neither of us are wrong we just have different views, and there will be all kinds of views in-between too my extreme and the Omega extreme.

I hear what you mean, one of my favorite tactics whenever I play people on Port Town is lure them onto the ground and jump out of the way when the racers come, they never pay attention so they rack up so much damage ^_^

That would be an example of a hazard being fairly abused, the cars are actually telegraphed, so while you do take damage you can easily avoid it if you pay attention and don't let your opponent trap you in it, his creates a dynamic and exciting gameplay. But I do think there's a line that has to be drawn, particularly when something causes enough damage to cause near or garuntee death. Lets take a look at why wall infinities and wobbling where banned as an example:

Wall infinities aren't a stage hazard, they're a flaw in the stage design that top players figured out how to abuse. Now the common argument against wall infinities (as with normal stage hazards) is "well if you're aware about it then don't let your self get caught in it scrub." Fair enough, a smart player wouldn't let themselves be in that position, but the problem with Peach's castle in melee is that they're unavoidable, all it took was a grab and you where on your way to gaining a stock. And when the entire strategy of the stage is built around that, it becomes boring from an audience perspective, since more time is spent doing the same moves over and over to rack up damage instead of engaging in a fight. People like to watch a fight, not a beating.

Wobbling on the other hand is a trickier issue. One could argue that wobbling added tension to the match, especially from an audience perspective since they're on the edge of their seat wondering how the other player is going to go in and separate the climbers without getting the wobble on. But it was still banned for being called a 'cheap tactic'. But this decision honestly puzzles me because Mango had proven that a good player can still win against Ice Climbers, yet shortly thereafter it was removed from competitive play. Was it because at that point mango was the only person to beat him? (That would at least be a bit more understandable)

But I think what we can take from these two examples is that the line needs to be drawn between what defines SMART tactics, compared to CHEAP tactics.

 

[<π]

I fought my butt off to see port town legal people banned it immediately without playing it at all, literally right at the start of the game... it was a great stage that offered a lot of new things none of the other stages did. The cars were very strong though for that level, and they seem to have been toned down quite a bit.

Wall infinites don't happen in this game. you can tech big hits. Weak repeating hits that lock an opponent up will actually push you if your opponent doesn't move. You will literally start to move away from the wall if you are rapid jabbing someone into a wall. Chain grabs don't work anymore so they are out.
Even if someone does find a way to true combo into some repeating thing there are 0 stages that have walls that are there for the full duration of the stage... MAYBE golden plains but I don't even think that stage does.
I say this a lot, it might even be to early to... but it seems to me like they development team put a lot of effort into making sure that you can stall out matches. No one player seems to be able to steal another's ability to interact, or create situations where one player can't get to another (like air stalling) for a long period of time.

Wobbling was banned for a little bit. Back when it was discovered it was VERY controversial (back when I was playing melee pre-brawl) but they ended up letting it go through at most of the major events later on in melee's life time. (it was on at EVO and MLG this year)

 

[Unbounded]

My only thing is hazards shouldn't stop conflict. If a giant beam of light shoots down from the sky and stops you from fighting for 10 seconds THAT is a bad hazard.

The floor moving under you is not a hazard that prevents conflict. The road in mute city doesn't impede in conflict. The Ice and fire hazards in gerudo valley FORCE conflict. The stage changes in rainbow road FORCE conflict.

Video stuff is neat. I'll be uploading videos myself. but I don't think that they will be an accurate tell of what is and isn't reasonable because all of that is subjective. You'll have "anything goes you should have been more aware of the possibility" guys like me and "If it ain't flat it ain't plat!" guys. Neither of us are wrong we just have different views, and there will be all kinds of views in-between too my extreme and the Omega extreme.

I can agree with this.

Any hazard that somehow forces the players to actually fight eachother can only be a good thing and makes the match way more hype in my opinion.

Thing is, that'd require a bit of testing. If it's found that certain stages with hazards more often than not have less camping going on, however, I feel they'd at least deserve a shot, if nothing else.

This would go for stages like Find Mii stage where the platform is destroyed, the OOT stage where half of the map is literally taken out, etc etc.

 

[Boss N]

ONLY 1 MORE WEEK GUYS!!!!

So that means we must have something ready to go as soon as possible, now here's what I think the breakdown should be (as always it's always open to criticism)

So from the sounds of it Wall infinities are impossible to do in this game, however just to be safe it wouldn't hurt to give this a test. To test wall infinities will require a friend, purposely walking both of you over to a corner where you think it's possible, and the "Attacker" will do a bunch of tilts and other attacks to see how long they can keep the "victim" inside their barrage. Meanwhile the victim has to try to escape in a reasonable amount of time. If they are successful within 5-10 seconds then the stage is still viable, anything over 20 seconds should be questionable and anything over a minute is without question ban worthy. Tester must record how long they kept their victim in the combo and their percentage when they escaped. Procedure must be repeated at least 3 times with different opponents each time.
In case of event that such a stage is presented, another test must be performed to see how easy it is to abuse this area. Players will get a friend code from the forums and challenge their respective player. They must remain anonymous about the test until all the other testers have completed their experiments. Then they must lure their opponent to the corner. If they are successful multiple times, consistently across various opponents then the stage should be banned. Players MUST present video evidence!

Now for everything else:
Simply gather friend codes from the forums, once again remaining completely anonymous about the experiment. As you fight, observe the tactics of your opponent and how the stage is used.
+If you are the superior player and your consistently winning, then the stage is balanced.
+ If you're the superior player and matches are coming close to even, then the stage is questionable.
+ If you are the superior player and your losing more matches than you should be, then the stage should be "considered" for ban evaluation.

If the latter happens then here is the criteria to be considered officially ban-worthy:
First the tester must eliminate the possibility that their opponent is actually the superior player, in which case they must look at their player records on the 3DS and observe their win/lose ratio (if it's possible in 'with friends' mode') or contact them through smash boards and ask about their smash history & experience. If they are indeed the better player then the stage is balanced.

Observe what tactics they're using, if their strategy utilizing stage involves them using stage hazards or gimmicks then the strategy needs to be countered someway to be still considered viable, unless said strategy requires little effort and huge reward for the player. Stage hazards should be considered ban worthy if they follow all the following:

Hazards are too hard to avoid and aren't telegraphed at least 5 seconds before the event.

Hazard causes immediate and drastic changes in the game (ex. 0-KO)

Hazard are too inconsistent to be reliably utilized by a player without casing damage to themselves (like trying to lure a player on the bulborb but then suddenly eating the player out of nowhere)

Video evidence must be presented of multiple instances of unfair stage conditions being utilized.

I know I'm missing a lot more, I'm going to look through the thread again later today after homework and released a revised addition, as well as any of your input guys. Just wanted to keep the conversation going on this thread.

Also, how many hands are willing to perform these experiments? If you are please announce so in the comments, even if you already did earlier. The more hands we get on this means more data and more good for all of us!

 

[Saikyoshi]

While I do support a more open stage list, I won't accept any list that allows a walk-off stage, because of the danger of grabs there.

No stage should ever give players a OHKO option with no chance of recovery.

 

[infomon]

But why were you standing near the walk-off, waiting to get grabbed? Just don't go there.

 

[Saikyoshi]

But why were you standing near the walk-off, waiting to get grabbed? Just don't go there.

Pressure from an advancing opponent, usually.

 

[Thinkaman]

It's important to separate walkoffs that force an approach (flat permanent ones) to ones that do not. (transformations, Distant Planet)

The critical difference is if you can demand your opponent to fight you by the walkoff.

 

[Saikyoshi]

It's important to separate walkoffs that force an approach (flat permanent ones) to ones that do not. (transformations, Distant Planet)

The critical difference is if you can demand your opponent to fight you by the walkoff.

Pretty much. That's why Castle Siege was often a counterpick in Brawl and likely will be again in U.

Distant Planet had other reasons for being banned, though; projectile-stopping onions, OHKO Bulborb...

 

[Thinkaman]

I don't think permanent walk-offs are actually broken per se, but there seems to be a broad consensus that the winning player should not be empowered to "ante up" that much--regardless of how good or bad the strategy actually is.

 

[TheMasterDS]

My thoughts on walk offs are simple. They can cause uninteractive gameplay wherein someone can avoid conflict until the enemy meets him where he can kill them from nothing. It's unfun when one player has very little recourse but play the instant kill game the enemy wants to play.

 

[Wazygoose]

Haven't read the whole thread, just the first page, and don't know if this has already devolved into a preaching to the choir thread where the only people left are those who agree with the OP.

But, my bro and I have been talking about this in depth in regard to Halo5. We both are in the gaming industry, and in particular for this topic, he is currently working exclusively on Halo5 multiplayer. This is going to sound a bit harsh, but I don't know how to say it another, less offensive way. Just want to say that, in my and that of my brother's opinions, we think that players who dislike "random" and "intrusive" stage elements, which in reality are not random and do not by themselves severely influence the outcome of a match, are being extremely unsportsmanly. And they often can come across as a bunch of whiners who have never played a real sport.

Real sports have random elements. The weather is random, the crowd is random, the referees are random. They can all have a huge impact on the outcome of a game and be biased towards one team over another. Different teams have different budgets massively disproprtionate to one another, and that is hardly fair. And yet, hundreds of millions of dollars go into just a single season of a professional sport, thousands of dedicated professionals spend their entire careers working in the sports industry, and countless fans worship their teams like a religion. It's not unlikely that more money has been spent just building a single football/soccer stadium than has been spent by all competitive smashers and TOs worldwide in the last ten years combined. And yet, while the core game rules always remain the same, and no one will deny that environmental conditions can often favor one opponent over the other, people still love it and play it and watch it.

Since at least the previous installment, Halo developers have sought the input of top Halo competitors when developing multiplayer. Competitive players always say the same thing, which is typical and not even really unreasonable for gamers: they despise whatever they deem a "random" map element. Real example, they didn't like steam coming out of a pipe on a level because it could potentially obstruct their view. Now a random rocket launcher spawning in someone's loadout is understandably bad, but our point of view, complaining about steam is just so whiny it should be embarrassing, but they have no qualms about it.

We are convinced that it's just gamer culture to be such poor sports. It's the rage quit culture. I think what people consider to be fair and unfair in smash is a little arbitrary, and the only reason why random elements need to be removed is because the only way for gamers to not complain about unfairness is to literally make everything as bland as possible. Many serious smash competitors often lack the maturity to gracefully accept a loss even on battlefield. If it's not the stage that is cheap, the opponent is cheap, certain moves are cheap, certain game mechanics are cheap, anything they could blame they will blame.

From our point of view, if stage elements exert only a little influence, then that is perfectly acceptable. I've tried talking to competitive smashers and they vehemently disagree, and this post probably pisses them off. To be fair, they invest more into the smash scene than I do. But I think the main issue is a difference in culture and what constitutes sportsmanship, which will probably not change. So, I won't respond to replies positive or negative to this post, because the rules of the smash scene are more or less democratically determined and I'm in the minority.

 

[<π]

I don't think permanent walk-offs are actually broken per se, but there seems to be a broad consensus that the winning player should not be empowered to "ante up" that much--regardless of how good or bad the strategy actually is.

I think the longer we have walk off avalible the more people will come to understand the edge is a very bad spot to be (maybe for certain match ups it won't be but in general it is) Would you stand near the edge of FD and wait for a grab? No, because that is just a very poor place to be. you gain a little advantage in that you are closer to the blast zone. IN fact you get access to the ledge making arguable making stage lip camping more powerful than blast zone camping... but the trade offs are terrible. You can only advance which limits your options IMMENSELY.

Lets give a more real world example. Lets say standing near the edge is like the equivalent of IC climbers chain grab. they grab you you lose a stock period. Even in top level play where Ic climbers can kill from anywhere on stage people can force them to move by applying safe shield pressure be it through projectiles, safe on shield pokes, even just threatening them with zone control.

Gaining a lead and holding an advantageous position is going to happen with or without walk offs. Ironically though on walk offs blast zone camping is not a strong position at all.

Once the game comes out I'll be more than happy to play anyone on any walk off stage. You can pick my character and try to prove to me how powerful walk off camping is, and I will show you why it is not a powerful position.

 

[Conda]

Haven't read the whole thread, just the first page, and don't know if this has already devolved into a preaching to the choir thread where the only people left are those who agree with the OP.

But, my bro and I have been talking about this in depth in regard to Halo5. We both are in the gaming industry, and in particular for this topic, he is currently working exclusively on Halo5 multiplayer. This is going to sound a bit harsh, but I don't know how to say it another, less offensive way. Just want to say that, in my and that of my brother's opinions, we think that players who dislike "random" and "intrusive" stage elements, which in reality are not random and do not by themselves severely influence the outcome of a match, are being extremely unsportsmanly. And they often can come across as a bunch of whiners who have never played a real sport.

Real sports have random elements. The weather is random, the crowd is random, the referees are random. They can all have a huge impact on the outcome of a game and be biased towards one team over another. Different teams have different budgets massively disproprtionate to one another, and that is hardly fair. And yet, hundreds of millions of dollars go into just a single season of a professional sport, thousands of dedicated professionals spend their entire careers working in the sports industry, and countless fans worship their teams like a religion. It's not unlikely that more money has been spent just building a single football/soccer stadium than has been spent by all competitive smashers and TOs worldwide in the last ten years combined. And yet, while the core game rules always remain the same, and no one will deny that environmental conditions can often favor one opponent over the other, people still love it and play it and watch it.

Since at least the previous installment, Halo developers have sought the input of top Halo competitors when developing multiplayer. Competitive players always say the same thing, which is typical and not even really unreasonable for gamers: they despise whatever they deem a "random" map element. Real example, they didn't like steam coming out of a pipe on a level because it could potentially obstruct their view. Now a random rocket launcher spawning in someone's loadout is understandably bad, but our point of view, complaining about steam is just so whiny it should be embarrassing, but they have no qualms about it.

We are convinced that it's just gamer culture to be such poor sports. It's the rage quit culture. I think what people consider to be fair and unfair in smash is a little arbitrary, and the only reason why random elements need to be removed is because the only way for gamers to not complain about unfairness is to literally make everything as bland as possible. Many serious smash competitors often lack the maturity to gracefully accept a loss even on battlefield. If it's not the stage that is cheap, the opponent is cheap, certain moves are cheap, certain game mechanics are cheap, anything they could blame they will blame.

From our point of view, if stage elements exert only a little influence, then that is perfectly acceptable. I've tried talking to competitive smashers and they vehemently disagree, and this post probably pisses them off. To be fair, they invest more into the smash scene than I do. But I think the main issue is a difference in culture and what constitutes sportsmanship, which will probably not change. So, I won't respond to replies positive or negative to this post, because the rules of the smash scene are more or less democratically determined and I'm in the minority.

This is not about players not liking random things. It's about players being smart and thoughtful enough about considering random degenerative events into their competitive tournaments that are competed in for money and organized by professionals and commentated by professionals.

When we go home and play smash with buddies, we play with the random stuff sometimes too. We don't want sakurai to have 'removed' these elements from the game, because we enjoy them greatly ourselves. But we recognize, as people who aren't wholly selfish and can empathize with other people, that a competitive ruleset has to be one of compromise and logical common-sense limitations.

The same way pro-level basketball can't have cars driving in the middle of the court to interrupt a play. Just because that's what happens in street basketball doesn't mean we should bring that element into the professional scene that we spend money on organizing, traveling to, and competing in on (hopefully, eventually, if we treat ourselves with enough professionalism) a professional level.

Discipline is what a competitive community has to have, and it is good to be intelligent enough to disallow things that are similar to what professional sports and other competitive videogames would not allow.

 

[TheMasterDS]

There are plenty of sports/eSports with random elements. Poker, any CCG, Golf to a certain extent with the wind, Wrestling with all its admittedly scripted nonsense. These things don't stop people from competing for an audience and they don't stop audiences from enjoying the hell out of them.

Stages that allow for strategies that allow for uninteractive strategies where one player is able to indefinitely avoid conflict until it suits him (eg circle camping or walk off camping) should be banned. Stages that have severely unfair random or disruptive elements (e.g. Warioware or Flat Zone 2) should also be banned. Other than that I feel bans are very debatable.

 

[Conda]

There are plenty of sports/eSports with random elements. Poker, any CCG, Golf to a certain extent with the wind, Wrestling with all its admittedly scripted nonsense. These things don't stop people from competing for an audience and they don't stop audiences from enjoying the hell out of them.

Stages that allow for strategies that allow for uninteractive strategies where one player is able to indefinitely avoid conflict until it suits him (eg circle camping or walk off camping) should be banned. Stages that have severely unfair random or disruptive elements (e.g. Warioware or Flat Zone 2) should also be banned. Other than that I feel bans are very debatable.

Poker's entire competitive format is about how well players manage luck. It is a card game, and 'luck management' is the prime skillset that you must master, which branch into many skill subsets that players utilize which characterize their playing and betting style.

Poker started as a simple gambling game. The 'skillset' people ended up improving at and mastering is understanding the math, odds, and mindgames you must employ that let you consistently get ahead of others over a period of time and many draws, even if you have bad cards. Professional poker players care less about their individual 'random' hands, and more about how they are managing their bluffing, reads, chips, bets/calls/folds ratio, and so forth.

When players use Poker as a justification for randomness in all other competitive sports/games, it speaks of the lack of knowledge of what makes individual games/sports competitive for different reasons. You can't just roll them all into one thing, as each competitive sport/game focuses on different skills.

Smash is a fighting game, and as a competitive sport focuses on dexterity, combat tactics, and control mastery. Discussing if we should add 'luck management' to that pool of skills is the discussion this thread is actually having.

Whether it should be more like poker or more like StarCraft/LoL is an easy choice for many, but not so easy for others - some of us feel that luck management may be an interesting skillset to have in the competitive smash scene. And that is totally cool. But debatable, and that's what we're doing here.

 

[Unbounded]

The same way pro-level basketball can't have cars driving in the middle of the court to interrupt a play. Just because that's what happens in street basketball doesn't mean we should bring that element into the professional scene that we spend money on organizing, traveling to, and competing in on (hopefully, eventually, if we treat ourselves with enough professionalism) a professional level.

Thing is, stage hazards are more akin to the weather, rather than a random car driving into the court.

The random car driving onto the court would be more comparable to a random clown doing cartwheels in front of the TV while both people are playing.

 

[Conda]

Thing is, stage hazards are more akin to the weather, rather than a random car driving into the court..

No, only if the weather you're referring to would be a lightning storm. Otherwise, weather has a consistent effect that is agreed upon to be negative for sporting events and avoided if possible (stadiums have invested in technology for retractable roofs, for example). Thus, weather only truly affects soccer, baseball, football, and other outdoor sports in stadiums that dont have retractable roofs.

And when weather gets too bad/invasive, the game is postponed. Because, if a sport can avoid weather having an effect on the competition, they do.
Your argument kind of falls apart here, as you're relying upon the fact that "sports like having random weather effects, so smash should be cool with similar random effects." But sports aren't cool with random weather effects. If anything, they put up with them when they are forced to, but would negate them if they had the choice.



Also, basketball is hosted in indoor stadiums because the court is small enough to make roofing the stadium easy. Basketball stadiums are generally smaller than those designed for football fields (barring multi-purpose stadiums in some cities). Same with hockey - when you play hockey on a lake, the ice is randomly bumpy. But we host games indoors so the ice can be consistent and not lumpy, and we keep them even with machines. Controlled environments are the most ideal in all competitive games and sports.

 

[Unbounded]

Weather only affects soccer, baseball, and other outdoor sports in stadiums that dont have retractable roofs.

So that leaves us with...

Golf, tennis, archery, horseback riding, biking, volleyball, field hockey, rowing, sailing, as well as a plethora of other olympic level sports.

And when weather gets too bad/invasive, the game is postponed. Because, if a sport can avoid weather having an effect on the competition, they do.

But the weather inherently has an effect on any sport ever unless it's indoors, which a more than significant number aren't. Wind speed alone is a factor that absolutely must be accounted for in around half of those sports. That's not even counting the little things that could affect the outcome such as the weather affecting players psychologically and such.

Which is why basketball is indoors - the court is small enough, so we host games indoors to avoid any random weather effects that aren't part of the sport.

Basketball has a number of reasons why it's played indoors, few of them are necessarily because of randomness. The court getting wet is a danger to the players(running and jumping on a wet floor is a terrible idea.), it being too cold could be a danger to players, (it's a winter sport.), among a few other reasons.

Same with hockey - when you play hockey on a lake, the ice is randomly bumpy. But we host games indoors so the ice can be consistent and not lumpy, and we keep them even with machines. Controlled environments are the most ideal in all competitive games and sports.

Or it could be so you could actually create a field to play hockey at on a whim. The sport wouldn't have gotten very far if we relied on mother nature to actually be able to play it whenever we wanted. I'd assume it's played indoors less so because of a random environment, and moreso because people want to be able to actually play it. In regions where a frozen lake isn't exactly a common thing, (you know, anywhere south in the US.), it'd be impossible to play if it wasn't indoors.

 

[Conda]

So that leaves us with...

Golf, tennis, archery, horseback riding, biking, volleyball, field hockey, rowing, sailing, as well as a plethora of other olympic level sports.



But the weather inherently has an effect on any sport ever unless it's indoors, which a more than significant number aren't. Wind speed alone is a factor that absolutely must be accounted for in around half of those sports. That's not even counting the little things that could affect the outcome such as the weather affecting players psychologically and such.



Basketball has a number of reasons why it's played indoors, few of them are necessarily because of randomness. The court getting wet is a danger to the players(running and jumping on a wet floor is a terrible idea.), it being too cold could be a danger to players, (it's a winter sport.), among a few other reasons.



Or it could be so you could actually create a field to play hockey at on a whim. The sport wouldn't have gotten very far if we relied on mother nature to actually be able to play it whenever we wanted. I'd assume it's played indoors less so because of a random environment, and moreso because people want to be able to actually play it. In regions where a frozen lake isn't exactly a common thing, (you know, anywhere south in the US.), it'd be impossible to play if it wasn't indoors.

Yes.

My point it sports opt for weatherless play when it doesn't affect the sport positively. Tennis and Golf, for example, include weather/wind as a crucial element of play. It is random, but managing the weather/randomness is part of the skillset. Similar with poker.

Thus, I've stated already that those who want a more inclusive hazards-legal stagelist are actually saying they want a competitive Smash that relies on a different set of skills. It's like paintball versus archery. Archery is all about managing random wind conditions, while paintball is not. Smash, as a fighting game, is more along the lines of the skillset requires in paintball and other non-weather(aka random)-based sports and other non-card(aka random)-based games.

Games with random effects are not bad, but games whose skillsets do not revolve around 'randomness-management' - whether that be wind, card draw, or whatnot - generally try to avoid the inclusion of randomness. This is why most physical sports limit the effect weather has - because the sport is not about the weather and how players manage to win despite the weather. Tennis, golf, and other sports very much are, so obviously they wouldn't try to avoid them.

Smash is a fighting game, and thus like boxing and ufc do not generally benefit much from random effects. UNLESS we decide that smash WOULD be better if the competitive pro players had to also be skilled at luck management (like poker or gold or whathaveyou).

THAT is the debate, and we have to stop pretending it's about TOs and pro players being ban-happy bad guys and the good-guys 'advocating for a more open stage list.' It's about keep Smash as the type of competitive game it is now, or turning it into one where luck/randomness-management is a crucial skillset.

 

[Noa.]

The problem with trying to equate weather to stage hazards is that weather is an outside factor that influences the game. It is not built into those sports and they would avoid it when possible.

There are lots of random variables at smash tournaments that are comparable to the weather for an outdoor sport. How big are the TVs? Is your opponent's seat closer to the tv than yours? Is the venue really hot or really cold? Do you preform better or worse when you're hot or cold? Are you feeling bloated from having eaten a big lunch or are you starving because your match got called before you got a chance to eat?

Those are all random factors that affect smash players and that are extremely difficult to control with a ruleset. Those kinds of things are comparable to weather in outdoor sports. These are factors that are not a part of the game itself, but they exert influence on the field. Something comparable to stage hazards in American football would be stone pillars that rose up and into the ground at intervals.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with having a more open stage list though. You'll just be appealing to a different audience of tourney goers. A lot of them don't mind but there is a significant portion of the community that doesn't like gameplay centralized around stages.