After the SDCC tournament yesterday... I'm having doubts Smash 4 will be a good competitive game.

[HeavyLobster]

Even though I believe that Melee's top level play features more characters than Brawl's, it still bothers me to read because I feel like if Metaknight didn't exist Brawl would beat Melee in character diversity easily. Especially considering that the better Brawl characters are more diverse in weight, speed, and play style than Melee's better characters. Play style is a little more opinionated, but I feel like how Snake, Olimar, Ice Climbers, Wario, Falco, Marth, Pikachu, Zero Suit Samus, Diddy Kong, and to a lesser extent Dedede play offers something for everyone. The closest thing to not being represented is a direct offensive play style, but I believe Diddy Kong and Wario can be successful played on the offensive.

There are two problems with simply banning MK, the first being that he isn't really broken so much as he's just annoying and overcentralizing. The second is that MK is easily the best character at playing aggro, (though he's also great at camping) and getting rid of him runs the risk of making the game even more defensive. It's really a shame Brawl never got balance patches, as it would still probably have a decent scene if it only got a few balance tweaks.

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

There are two problems with simply banning MK, the first being that he isn't really broken so much as he's just annoying and overcentralizing. The second is that MK is easily the best character at playing aggro, (though he's also great at camping) and getting rid of him runs the risk of making the game even more defensive. It's really a shame Brawl never got balance patches, as it would still probably have a decent scene if it only got a few balance tweaks.

Wouldn't the fact that MetaKnight being the only character that can approach naturally make the game much more defensive? (Personally, this doesn't apply to me since I'm a naturally aggressive player)

Unless you're Meta Knight, why would you approach Meta Knight?

 

[Veggi]

There are two problems with simply banning MK, the first being that he isn't really broken so much as he's just annoying and overcentralizing. The second is that MK is easily the best character at playing aggro, (though he's also great at camping) and getting rid of him runs the risk of making the game even more defensive. It's really a shame Brawl never got balance patches, as it would still probably have a decent scene if it only got a few balance tweaks.

Yeah, I know. There are a lot of reasons to both ban MK and not ban MK. I think it's worth doing now just because Brawl took a steep drop off recently. Kind of like a "Might as well try it now since the new game is coming out soon." It's not a big deal though.

I sort of disagree on banning MK making the game more offensive. MK's kind of defensive play in specific was a lot of what people didn't like about Brawl. You're right that he can be played effectively on the offensive though.

 

[josh bones]

Wouldn't the fact that MetaKnight being the only character that can approach naturally make the game much more defensive? (Personally, this doesn't apply to me since I'm a naturally aggressive player)

Unless you're Meta Knight, why would you approach Meta Knight?

is the most agressive character in brawl, taking him out makes the game much more defensive.

 

[Eternal phoenix Fire]

is the most agressive character in brawl, taking him out makes the game much more defensive.

Will it though? Something like that isn't just self fulfilling. It will make the game much more defensive for the players who have played Meta Knight, as they can't just shut a character down for a stock or percentage lead and force the opponent to approach. I feel like if someone is playing against Meta Knight they would want to approach less because of the overwhelming number of options he has against some characters, and that no matter what, the game will always be more defensive because the game is naturally efficient in that regard.

I'm not pro banning Meta Knight at all, I just hard for me to believe that him not being in Brawl would hinder anything. lol

 

[SamuraiPanda]

Pipes was the Yoshi's Island with the spinny blocks; it had a hill walk-off (right side) and short ceiling.



I was in the BR when Mute City was first brought up for banning. It's reasoning was "Peach and Jigglypuff are too good on this stage", no joke. The best Jiggs at the time was KillaOR!

When Mute City eventually WAS banned, it was because, wait for it, "Peach and Jigglypuff are too good on this stage. Also cars."

Honestly, this is why I started caring less and less about making a "huge stage list" for people based on evidence and logic. Simply put, the vast majority of competitive players do. not. care. about having a large stage list. In Brawl, YOU were the only person we'd ever see in the Midwest actually choose stages like the F-Zero stage as a counterpick. The F-Zero stage was legal in the entire Midwest but we'd never see it. We'd never practice it. Because we never liked it.

That is what I think many of our arguments have always lacked in the past. The human element. Thats why I stress we should clearly define what we are trying to create with the next competitive Smash. If we define Smash as a game where you hit the opponents off the stage and try to prevent their recovery from either hitting them so hard they hit a blast zone or hitting them off the stage, then that would immediately mean stages where recovery is not used at all (i.e. Pipes, Mario Circuit, scrolling stages, etc) would not fit into that definition. We wouldn't need to debate this issue.

Popularity is important. My personal goal for Smash is to make a game with the longest longevity and largest competitive scene possible. If we achieve this through a huge stage list and custom special moves legal then I'm all for that. But through my experiences in the competitive scene and discussing with players, this is not at all the case for stages.

Stage hazards have been a part of competitive smash longer then they haven't; they add a lot of depth to the game and most are celebrated.

In Melee right now they have Battlefield's edges dealing more damage than any hazard, but it stays legal. PS1's transformations have walls that set up for infinites, yet, legal. Dreamland's wind hazard changes matches but is still legal. Yoshi's cloud Randall changes matches by a HUGE degree yet is still legal. Fountain of Dreams platforms change frequently and mess up technical play on game by game basis!

By the "ban all hazards" criteria the only stage left would be Final Destination!

Stage hazards are fine as long as they are not centralizing to the gameplay. If your entire strategy revolves around utilizing stage hazards and that devolves your gameplay into things like camping at a walk off or running away until Klaptrap is about to spawn, then I believe hazards are bannable. I also believe that random hazards should be banned in case of randomness where the random factor can play a large impact in the role of the game (where "large impact" starts is hard to say though; is 30% a large impact? A KO certainly is). I think clearly defining what makes a stage hazard bannable vs legal would be a great discussion to figure out before Smash 4 is out.

Personally, I think that Pictochat was actually a decent stage that I actually choose (because black hides Snake's C4 ) but I can understand why it was banned. Even though it wasn't random (set timer between transformations, set order of transformations once you knew what set it was locked onto which was evident in the first transformation), the burden of learning the stage was far too large for many players. Also, entire stocks could be lost if someone is thrown right as a hazard was being drawn, or when they were forced into a situation (like recovering) with no other option but to hit the hazard straight on. I still mourn the loss of that stage.

Plus I'd really not have another MK issue where a characters is really good on flat+plat stages but turns out to have some really bad stages (see: Jungle Japes, Pipes, Luigi's Mansion) and everyone says "you should ban those, they're lame" and then MK makes everyone stop coming to tournaments. -_-;;

I'm honestly not sure counterpicks are really as powerful as you make them out to be. Even if Japes/Pipes/Mansion is legal, the MK will just CP back to Battlefield or whatever stage he is supposedly so dominant in to win the set. If you have to rely on the stage to win your matchup, then you aren't going to win the full thing. You've always made a big deal about the "power of counterpicks" but you don't really mention how an unusual stage counterpick can only win you a single game.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I wanted to wait to get into this, but if everyone else is going to go, I suppose I will too.

I'm honestly not sure counterpicks are really as powerful as you make them out to be. Even if Japes/Pipes/Mansion is legal, the MK will just CP back to Battlefield or whatever stage he is supposedly so dominant in to win the set. If you have to rely on the stage to win your matchup, then you aren't going to win the full thing. You've always made a big deal about the "power of counterpicks" but you don't really mention how an unusual stage counterpick can only win you a single game.

This last bit is a point I think you're exactly right on, but I think it causes you to miss some other things about stages due to the implications of this. Against Mr. Game & Watch, Meta Knight's best stages are definitely the more tame ones while I'd always be countepicking either Green Greens, Norfair, or Rainbow Cruise as G&W since those were my best stages in the match-up (few MKs actually ever let me get GGs, but boy, it was beautiful when they did!). I had more than one set where I'd lose game one, I'd win by a huge margin on my counterpick, and then I'd lose game three. In any case where the gap of skill between my opponent and I was sufficiently large that my opponent could expect to win most of the time on the game one stage, my ability to throw out a hard counterpick did nothing for me. I was slow to catch on to this point, but most other players were apparently smarter than I am. They practiced exclusively on game one legal stages, always wanted to ban pretty literally every stage on the counterpick list, and when given a chance to counterpick those stages never did. Back in the day, it infuriated me, but now I see that it is actually just the smartest strategy to try to win. Counterpick only stages are of incredibly marginal utility to a player aspiring to become truly strong, and while such a player would prefer they be banned since his expected performance on those stages is low (due to hyper-focusing all of his practice on the stages that matter), he'll never prove how broken they are since the best strategy generally involves not picking them and relying on them is never a winning strategy.

I don't think that leads to the conclusion that most people want smaller stage lists though. Like if I go to an event with Halberd banned and ask people what they think about that, most say they would prefer Halberd be legal. Even more, my experience is that most people fall in love with familiar stages and the status quo; Pokemon Stadium 1 objectively is a pretty mediocre stage gameplay wise, but because it's such a staple stage, most people seem to appreciate its legality. PictoChat is IMO a pretty objectively excellent stage, but because it's generally not game 1 legal (the kind that matters) and it's complicated, it inevitably grew to be widely disliked and banned. From what I've seen, most people would be maximally happy with more stage diversity to some extent (not stages like PTAD legal but stages like Frigate legal), but the rules have to be written in a way that actually using the stage diversity is rewarded instead of punished. That's the main but not only reason why I support every stage we have legal being legal for game one, and since striking from 20+ stages is not practical anyway, this also makes it a natural cull down to the stages that a majority of people will find fairly reasonable (11, 13, or 15 all seem like reasonable numbers that we could fully populate with relatively tame stages that still contain significant diversity). IMO if we take that road, we'll be making the game that will make most people happiest in the long run.

 

[josh bones]

Will it though? Something like that isn't just self fulfilling. It will make the game much more defensive for the players who have played Meta Knight, as they can't just shut a character down for a stock or percentage lead and force the opponent to approach. I feel like if someone is playing against Meta Knight they would want to approach less because of the overwhelming number of options he has against some characters, and that no matter what, the game will always be more defensive because the game is naturally efficient in that regard.

I'm not pro banning Meta Knight at all, I just hard for me to believe that him not being in Brawl would hinder anything. lol

There is a huge diffrence in offensiveness between and and that's just obvious I thin that without , we won't have as much as an offensive game, but that's just me.

 

[Xiaphas]

There is a huge diffrence in offensiveness between and and that's just obvious I thin that without , we won't have as much as an offensive game, but that's just me.

Here's the thing. If an offensively played is more effective than an offensively played , then the natural thing for to do is play defensively. This means the only character than optimally play offensively is MK and every other character must play defensively.

 

[san.]

I did not know Pictochat had an ordered list of transformations. That changes my view on it completely.

As long as we avoid repeating odd decisions such as banning Pokemon Stadium 2 and Pirate Ship globally, I will be happy.

 

[Xiaphas]

I did not know Pictochat had an ordered list of transformations. That changes my view on it completely.

As long as we avoid repeating odd decisions such as banning Pokemon Stadium 2 and Pirate Ship globally, I will be happy.

If I'm not mistaken, both of those stages had vertical wind effects that changed the way the physics worked, thus changing the core gameplay in ways that other stages did not (pictoChat included, even though it had a horizontal wind effect much like Dream Land).

 

[infomon]

If I'm not mistaken, both of those stages had vertical wind effects that changed the way the physics worked

So?

 

[Xiaphas]

So?

So, this is why the NFL doesn't play games underwater or on the moon...
but if you and your friends want to play football underwater or on the moon, nobody is stopping you.

 

[Bladeviper]

So, this is why the NFL doesn't play games underwater or on the moon...
but if you and your friends want to play football underwater or on the moon, nobody is stopping you.

it just seems dumb to ban one stage for something and not another that has the same mechanic on it

 

[Veggi]

I think that Pokemon Stadium 1 is worse than Pokemon Stadium 2. At least with Pokemon Stadium 2 players don't wait in some position on the stage and not move for long periods of time.

 

[Xiaphas]

it just seems dumb to ban one stage for something and not another that has the same mechanic on it

I was referring to the Pirate ship level and Pokemon Stadium 2. Are there other legal stages that have vertical wind effects that I'm forgetting?

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I was referring to the Pirate ship level and Pokemon Stadium 2. Are there other legal stages that have vertical wind effects that I'm forgetting?

Summit does during the sliding down portion. Of course, Summit as a stage has other critical problems anyway. Otherwise, the low gravity / "vertical wind" was indeed unique to those two stages... but I don't think it was nearly as bad as some people said.

 

[Xiaphas]

Summit does during the sliding down portion. Of course, Summit as a stage has other critical problems anyway. Otherwise, the low gravity / "vertical wind" was indeed unique to those two stages... but I don't think it was nearly as bad as some people said.

Is Summit legal?

 

[san.]

That's the problem. People came up with excuses that simply boiled down to a simple preference against a stage. That's fine, but then it was shoved down people's throats that liked other stages, because other people just didn't want them.

Pirate Ship was eventually banned because of a combination of small factors. A few characters could glitch under the stage, but it's more easily enforced than IDC, and solved in-game with offscreen damage and the ship lifting off. Some people were even foolish enough to argue that one could stall in the water, even though the game has built in mechanics against such a tactic. The cannonballs are also telegraphed with safe zones and can easily be defended against.

Pokemon Stadium 2, like many others, was banned because the stage had an unfamiliar mechanic. It didn't matter how good or bad it was, it was something different that people had to get used to. Pokemon Stadium 2 was lucky to become legalized later on in Brawl's life, while other stages like Distant Planet remained banned.

I still think that we will have the same problems with stages in Smash 4 because a sizable amount of the community tend to prefer certain stage styles, even though stages seem to be going to greater lengths to avoid exploitable behavior outside of the obvious like permanent walkoffs.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Is Summit legal?

I read right past the word "legal" in your question, sorry. Summit is very not legal for a lot of reasons, and it's the only additional stage at all that has that effect other than PS2 and Pirate Ship (I think Rumble Falls has a very mild version as well during Speed Up, but it plays a bit differently and Rumble Falls is also legal nowhere).

 

[infomon]

So, this is why the NFL doesn't play games underwater or on the moon...
but if you and your friends want to play football underwater or on the moon, nobody is stopping you.

This isn't relevant.

"The stage is different" is not a reason for it to be disqualified. We need principled reasons for stage-bans. "It sometimes has different physics" is insufficient, because anyone could use an equivalent argument to ban anything.

If the physics actually has something wrong with it that makes it difficult to compete, then that's what we need to know. Otherwise it sounds like it's just a preference.

 

[mimgrim]

Man. The funny thing about PS2 is that it is probably the most fair stage in Brawl. It isn't a strong counterpick for any character and no character is destroyed by the stage. Yet it is mostly banned, mainly looking at the bigger named tournaments here, because of how the transformations affect with the physics. Completely stupid reasoning imo, but eh it's what happened.

But that's all going kinda off topic lol.

 

[Xiaphas]

This isn't relevant.

"The stage is different" is not a reason for it to be disqualified. We need principled reasons for stage-bans. "It sometimes has different physics" is insufficient, because anyone could use an equivalent argument to ban anything.

If the physics actually has something wrong with it that makes it difficult to compete, then that's what we need to know. Otherwise it sounds like it's just a preference.

For the purpose of a competitive, level playing field where core skill with the game engine determines the winner, it is relevant.

To be fair, this brings up the debate of "what does it mean to be good at smash bros?" If Hungrybox could have counterpicked a currently banned stage with different mechanics that would have given him an advantage over Mango, does that mean he deserves to be the EVO 2014 champion?

 

[infomon]

And that's the importance of not banning things like stages too early in the life of the game. If PS2 were a legal stage with some novel yet competition-appropriate attribute (e.g. sometimes it changes vertical fallspeed), then both Mango and Hungrybox should be expected to know how to play on it.

Yes, we are raising the question "what does it mean to be good at smash bros". The answer is different for each game in the series. You are good at smash game x if you can win across the diversity of all its stages, barring the ones that are non-competitive (over-centralizing problems like circle-camping, glitches, time-out problems).

 

[Overswarm]

Popularity is important. My personal goal for Smash is to make a game with the longest longevity and largest competitive scene possible. If we achieve this through a huge stage list and custom special moves legal then I'm all for that. But through my experiences in the competitive scene and discussing with players, this is not at all the case for stages.

No it isn't. Popularity isn't important at all.

Why would it be?

If it was, we'd have banned Snake before we even talked about banning MK. We'd ban all sorts of things.

The 'popular' vote is always going to be for the status quo except in one special case: "when it benefits me".

Popularity isn't a good metric.


Besides, if we went based on what was popular we'd have items on in tournaments. Not joking on that, there are way more of them than there are of us by a magnitude of 10 or more.

Stage hazards are fine as long as they are not centralizing to the gameplay. If your entire strategy revolves around utilizing stage hazards and that devolves your gameplay into things like camping at a walk off or running away until Klaptrap is about to spawn, then I believe hazards are bannable. I also believe that random hazards should be banned in case of randomness where the random factor can play a large impact in the role of the game (where "large impact" starts is hard to say though; is 30% a large impact? A KO certainly is). I think clearly defining what makes a stage hazard bannable vs legal would be a great discussion to figure out before Smash 4 is out.

Disagree. There's no difference between your strategy revolving around a platform, a ledge, or a hazard.

Literally none.

They're all just different aspects of a stage that are studied and utilized by the players to gain an advantage over the opponent.

Smashville's balloon was a hazard that randomly killed Ness and Lucas but we didn't ban it. Smashville's balloon also gave players the ability to refresh their moves, something other stages didn't. Those both have pretty large impacts in the grand scheme of things, but Smashville still shouldn't be banned for it.

"This hazard sometimes appears and saves you"

So does randall the cloud, roger the ghost, Fountain of Dream's platforms moving up/down, Dream Land's wind, whatever.

"This hazard can kill you!"

So can a platform that sets up for a Marth tipper, or Randall coming in and letting your opponent edgeguard you from farther away.

It's impossible to look at hazards one at a time and say "I like this" and "I don't like this" and assume a logically consistent outcome.

The only way hazards should ever be the reason a stage is banned are:

• The hazard itself is the stage, thus making gameplay revolve entirely around it (and any attempt to not do so results in a loss) [currently no known examples, but Port Town Aero Dive was close, New Pork City's chimera was close, Summit's Fish is really close, but all of these are easily avoidable even with an opponent attempting to use them against you]
  
  
• The hazard is entirely unpredictable and/or unreliable, so that a reasonable person cannot ascertain exactly what will happen or why, despite experience and study of the stage [Example: Wario Ware's reward system]
  
  
• The hazard itself creates variance despite player experience, resulting in a truly random or largely skewed result [Example: Summit]
  
  
• The hazard itself causes long lulls in combat and/or mandatory inactivity [See: Bridge of Eldin. PS1 could also be banned for this reason, as could PS2 due to wind transformation's permanent rise]
  
  
• The hazard alters or changes actual game input and rules in a way that is unrelated to the majority of other stages [See: Spear Pillar flipping the camera]
  
  
• The hazard, while minor, arbitrarily targets only one participants and gives them an unfair advantage or disadvantage that is large enough to potentially grant or deny victory. [Example: Wario Ware's stomping foot, Halberd's targeting system/claw]
  
  
• The hazard tests a skill set that isn't inherent to smash, but otherwise completely removed. [no known examples yet, but consider a stage that has math problems that heal health]

That's really it. Severity and frequency and amount you need to learn before you can understand it fully doesn't even come into play. Obviously simply being on the list above doesn't mean auto-banned, otherwise we'd have banned Halberd immediately. We saw the issue, it just didn't actually have an effect on results.

And really, that's the biggest thing. Does it change results?

Distant Planet has a OHKO with its animal thing on the right hand side... but it's impossible to be hit into it against your will and it is only triggered if someone gets in its mouth. The OHKO is irrelevant, that shouldn't ban the stage despite its severity.

Pictochat had a new hazard every so many seconds, but it was a really good stage that added a lot to Brawl. The frequency of the transformations didn't change anything; they only make the results of the transformation more apparent.



It is suuuuuuuuper super important that we don't take the approach of "Here's what we want the game to be" before the game comes out but to instead embrace the game as it is and let it grow organically. I still see people saying "ban walkoffs", but we have no idea how the walkoffs even work in this game.

What if there's way more space on these stages, thus allowing more room, and forcing those who want to camp the edge to consistently take % damage?

What if ther'es a way to break out of grabs instantly in Smash 4 that we have yet to discover?

What if it turns out 100% of the cast can attack someone shielding by teh edge of the stage with impunity, thus making it a losing strategy?

Everything should always be tested.

When you start off with "here's what we plan on getting out of the game" you can end up completely eliminating entire playstyles and altering the tier list artificially. People still think Falco is good in Brawl and he is absolutely terrible. We artificially made him good!

I'm honestly not sure counterpicks are really as powerful as you make them out to be. Even if Japes/Pipes/Mansion is legal, the MK will just CP back to Battlefield or whatever stage he is supposedly so dominant in to win the set. If you have to rely on the stage to win your matchup, then you aren't going to win the full thing. You've always made a big deal about the "power of counterpicks" but you don't really mention how an unusual stage counterpick can only win you a single game.

You're arguing against yourself. If MK has such a huge advantage on Battlefield or whatever stage and has an advantage, that is his counterpick. Ergo, counterpicks are powerful.

Smash isn't like pokemon; you don't win certain matchups just by picking certain characters. Matchups are slight, typically. 60/40. 70/30, maybe. A few 80/20s. It depends heavily on the stage.

If you are of equal skill with a player and you hone a counterpick that is either bad for your opponent's character or good for your character or, if you're lucky, both, that gives you an advantage in the set you otherwise would not have. G&W's matchup on Green Greens, for example, is markedly different against MK. Wario beats MK on Brinstar. The tier list with a Brinstar/Rainbow Cruise/Green Greens starter list would have been remarkably different.

This is important because not all characters excel on flat/plat stages; some focus almost exclusively on mobility. When we take that away, we just arbitrarily decide "it is you who will not be good". That's lame.

Not only are having a wide variety of stages important for pools (featured in virtually every tournament), but its also important for standard sets.

If I can win a game on your best stages, the flat/plat stages, even 40% of the time then having a strong counterpick gives me a balancing factor.

If you remove the other types of stages then you're essentially only giving one type of counter-pick. It's not different than banning Battlefield, Smashville, and the other flat/plat stages and saying "Those flat/plat stages can only win you a single game anyway, you'll still lose the set".

A wide variety of stages is incredibly important for character diversity because stages directly impact the viability of the character.

If the starter list is only one type of stage then, by default, it's a bad starter list. The original starter list had Castle Siege, Delfino, Halberd, Smashville, FD, Battlefield, Yoshi's Island (Brawl), PS1 (sometimes 2), and Lylat as options as one of the varieties and even then it was only an 'okay' list.

Characters like Falco had trouble during this time period because people would strike FD, Battlefield, Smashville, and PS1 and Falco would be stuck with Yoshi's Island (Brawl), Lylat, Castle Siege, or Delfino depending on their preferences. It created a more even matchup.

When the stage like shrunk from well-meaning but ill-informed TOs to a whopping "Smashville, Battlefield, FD, Yoshi's Island (Brawl), Lylat" and sometimes "Smashville, Battlefield, FD", Falco got to just strike YI and Lylat and would end up on smashville or battlefield against everyone.

He got to start on a counterpick.

Counterpicks are super powerful and always have been. Why do you think all the Brawl characters that did well towards the end of the game were all flat/plat characters who had better matchups against MK, despite MK having losing matchups on certain CP stages with certain characters? We made some counterpicks mandatory and some counterpicks banned.

 

[Octillus]

So, this is why the NFL doesn't play games underwater or on the moon...
but if you and your friends want to play football underwater or on the moon, nobody is stopping you.

Not to be that guy (i.e. a prick) but they do play baseball in various altered conditions, and they do play baseball in Colorado - which may as well be the moon. People adjust.

 

[josh bones]

No it isn't. Popularity isn't important at all.



So does randall the cloud, roger the ghost, Fountain of Dream's platforms moving up/down, Dream Land's wind, whatever.

Wait, the ghost has a name?

 

[Road Death Wheel]

i think walk off should be reconsidered for legal stages since chain grabs dont seem to be a thing.

 

[Johnknight1]

Having too many stages that don't belong in competitive play honestly hurts the competitive scene.

It's all about person vs. person, not person vs. stage. Nearly universally players want to see the best player win because they outplayed their foe, not let a stage KO their foe.

It's no surprise that when certain regions with Melee did that those regions got a lot better.

If we want a game with lots of life, we only owe it to ourselves to take some time to explore.

Just don't legalize crappy stages like Mario Bros., Green Hill Zone Port Town Aero Dive, and 75M like some Brawl tournaments I went to did.

I still remember some Ike player counter-picked my Toon Link with Mario Bros., and I just went full a-hole mode, camped like crazy, and let the stage NPC's KO them each time into a 3 stock, lol.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

Having too many stages that don't belong in competitive play honestly hurts the competitive scene.

It's all about person vs. person, not person vs. stage. Nearly universally players want to see the best player win because they outplayed their foe, not let a stage KO their foe.

It's no surprise that when certain regions with Melee did that those regions got a lot better.

Just don't legalize crappy stages like Mario Bros., Green Hill Zone Port Town Aero Dive, and 75M like some Brawl tournaments I went to did.

I still remember some Ike player counter-picked my Toon Link with Mario Bros., and I just went full a-hole mode, camped like crazy, and let the stage NPC's KO them each time into a 3 stock, lol.

but whats wrong with the new wiiu fire emblem stage for the wiiu other than walk off witch dose not seem to be an issue yet since nobody how played the demos said chain grabbing possible.

 

[Johnknight1]

but whats wrong with the new wiiu fire emblem stage for the wiiu other than walk off witch dose not seem to be an issue yet since nobody how played the demos said chain grabbing possible.

It's gigantic, it promotes camping, and honestly, grab throws are probably gonna be like 64.

Plus, again, too big.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

It's gigantic, it promotes camping, and honestly, grab throws are probably gonna be like 64.

Plus, again, too big.

so counter pick.
and wasent 64 imfamous for chain grab shenanigan

 

[Senario]

so counter pick.
and wasent 64 imfamous for chain grab shenanigan

It won't even be a counter pick. The stage is too big and the grabs launch you insanely far in this game. Basically if you pick this stage gameplay will boil down to projectile spamming at the edge and when the opponent comes close you grab them and throw them into the blast zone for low percent kill. It overcentralizes the game around that strategy and that is why walk offs are generally banned.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

It's gigantic, it promotes camping, and honestly, grab throws are probably gonna be like 64.

Plus, again, too big.

so counter pick.
and wasent 64 imfamous for chain grab shenanigan

It won't even be a counter pick. The stage is too big and the grabs launch you insanely far in this game. Basically if you pick this stage gameplay will boil down to projectile spamming at the edge and when the opponent comes close you grab them and throw them into the blast zone for low percent kill. It overcentralizes the game around that strategy and that is why walk offs are generally banned.

i see i thought it was because of chain grabs. but from what i do know projectile camping has been nerfed if that means anything.

 

[Senario]

so counter pick.
and wasent 64 imfamous for chain grab shenanigan

i see i thought it was because of chain grabs. but from what i do know projectile camping has been nerfed if that means anything.

well it still does damage right? Projectile camping will always be effective in these situations as long as they do damage and have trivial amounts of lag(which is true of all smash games). There is no real way to solve the overcentralization problem walk offs have. People will use any means necessary to win and on walk offs that happens to be staying at the edge and waiting for an opponent to approach then toss them into the blast zone ): regardless of character either of you are playing. In melee the strategy worked too despite the lack of brawl style chaingrabs, except that you got thrown and comboed into the blast zone (and by combo usually one or two hits extra lol). This time grabs just send you so far it is hard not to see it being a problem. Even in stages where only part of it is a walk off, action will likely stop during those sections until the stage transitions to a regular platform based type stage.

Just isn't very interesting for competitive play you know ):? When both players are trying to stay at the edge and toss people into the blast zone just because it is the most efficient way, banning the tactic is just plain silly as it is the optimal way to play on the stage so the problem lies in the stage itself.

 

[Plain Yogurt]

It's all about person vs. person, not person vs. stage. Nearly universally players want to see the best player win because they outplayed their foe, not let a stage KO their foe.

But if a player forces their opponent into a stage hazard with good timing, would that not be outplaying them?

I mean, obviously I wouldn't ever want levels like Mario Bros. and 75M legal, but like say, Halberd's laser or Japes's Klap Trap.?

 

[Overswarm]

That's a little ridiculous, what would strategy games be without variable terrain, or Pokemon without the luck-risk factor some moves have? Do these people hate anything that falls outside of 'conventional fighting'? I just don't get how you can be OK with someone surviving certain death due to the cloud on Yoshi's Island, but get angry at someone knocking you againist Klaptrap so you die, if that player was that good, then they wouldn't have let themselves get knocked into Klaptrap. Also, as long as the hazard doesn't overcentralize the match, there's no problem, Klaptrap comes once in a while, and most people take stocks when Klaptrap's not around, it's just another tool at your disposal to KO your opponent :/

I think most people who complain about being killed by the other player through hazards are just Johning.

For a lot of people it is really only about their perception of control.

The cloud on Yoshi's Island is very simple. It follows a path you can see. If it saves or kills you, you move on. You can easily understand what happens and why.

The klap trap on Japes is simple only after you know how it works. To the untrained eye it can seem random; random things can deservedly be looked at closely and often banned.

So while those with knowledge may say "well, you should have known better" many people simply don't and make up their mind then. Others say "I shouldn't have to learn that, I don't want to test those skills".

Watching this game, for example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO1cBuxIlxo

This is a tough stage for MK and it shows, but there's a lot of unusual material in this game. Despite it being only a year into the game's lifespan, strategies were already emerging and you'll notice I pick certain sides of the map based on my % and when I get a % lead I force my opponent to approach me aerially to the side platforms. Both my opponent and I know when the klap trap comes and you can see us waiting for it, then attacking right before it appears, then backing off to bait an approach hoping the klap trap will get them. It's strategy.

Some people say "you shouldn't have to test those skills"; I disagree entirely, but it's how they feel.

 

[Overswarm]

Wait, the ghost has a name?

http://www.mariowiki.com/Roger_the_Potted_Ghost

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

To me, Smash Bros is unique from other fighters because the stage exists. That is, it's not just about beating the stuffing out of the foe and launching them over a blast line. It's about using the stage to your advantage to do so. To that end, I would say stage hazards shouldn't really be an issue unless they themselves are the match (example: Mario Bros) or there's a high chance of an instant KO should you be hit. It's also about timing: Is there sufficient warning for you to evade or arrange for your opponent to be hit? Does it appear on an exact timing basis?

For example, I'd say Hyrule Castle in 64 is a good example of such, though I am unfamiliar with the timing for the tornado. That tornado is a very potent tool to start or extend a combo, but does not cause a KO by itself and appears easy enough to avoid.

As for Coliseum in Smash 4, the blast line was pretty far out to the sides in the demo. You could actually be in footsies-range with your opponent and have both of you entirely off-screen. So yes, if you wanted to camp the edge with grab + throw tactics, your opponent needs to be at 60%-ish or higher for you to get a guaranteed KO without camping off-screen. 60% isn't unmanageably low, not like the ridiculously close border on 75M, for instance. And yes, you can edge camp all the way over, but then all the foe has to do is poke you with projectiles and/or wait for your percent to naturally rise. You can't force an approach when your percent is constantly building due to you being off-screen.

Also, many projectiles no longer have trivial amounts of lag, and for those that do, avoiding them is trivially easy for most of the cast. Spot dodges are faster. Rolls are faster. Crouches tend to be lower and going into/out of crouch is faster. Some characters have crawls that previously did not. Dashes tend to be lower to the ground. All of these things contribute to the overall nerf to projectiles, on top of them having very low priority in general. (Mega Man's FSmash clashes vs. Mario's jab.)

On another note, every stage in existence is a counter-pick for someone. Some characters are fragile speedster types that revolve around their extreme mobility. These characters have an inherent disadvantage on otherwise "neutral" stages because their mobility cannot be used to their advantage in such a way as to make up for their other flaws.

 

[Johnknight1]

But if a player forces their opponent into a stage hazard with good timing, would that not be outplaying them?

I mean, obviously I wouldn't ever want levels like Mario Bros. and 75M legal, but like say, Halberd's laser or Japes's Klap Trap.?

The Haleberd sometimes has the laser modded out via light mods. Regardless, that's sometimes donned not too interfering. I honestly don't mind it too much.

The Klap Trap is another story. That can turn the game in an instance in a stupid way. If you play to win, you'll have a boring as crap, campy, stall-heavy match no matter what the case is or what game it is.

Quite frankly, that brand of Smash doesn't gets attendants, doesn't get viewers, and doesn't get anyone hyped.