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

[Yodude57]

Can't wait till sm4sh haters see how awesome this game will be so they can stop saying "brawl 2.0" and other nonsense.

 

[Johnknight1]

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

No, that's Brawl. Brawl is the one with the "chain grab shenanigans".

64 is known for their Killer Instinct like super combos and insane momentum swings.

Smash 64 almost had a 5 stock Falcon ditto comeback at APEX 2014 last year.

 

[Yodude57]

No, that's Brawl. Brawl is the one with the "chain grab shenanigans".

64 is known for their Killer Instinct like super combos and insane momentum swings.

Smash 64 almost had a 5 stock Falcon ditto comeback at APEX 2014 last year.

I know its unrelated to the topic but will you be posting info and vids when sm4sh comes out?

 

[SamuraiPanda]

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



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.

I definitely see your reasoning that because people focus all of their training on neutral stages to guarantee themselves the first win and so they would rather not learn the complicated counterpicks. But the fact of the matter is that competitive players dislike and ban stages they don't enjoy playing on. Those that are overly complicated or require too much adjustment to play on. Is it a bad thing those types of stages are banned? It focuses more of the gameplay on combat rather than stages, thats for sure.

But what is a practical solution to the issue you've presented? I remember doing tournaments where the full stage list was strikeable. Those took WAY too long. Then we had tournaments where the entire stage list was condensed for the striking procedure. Besides taking too long, the trend ended up becoming the same. People eventually started striking down to neutrals only. Even with Castle Siege, Halberd, and Lylat on the strike list people continued to strike down to classic neutrals.

Is that because the striking system was introduced too late into Brawl's lifespan? Maybe. Regardless, the issue is that most competitive players don't like counterpicks that change core gameplay too much.
Why?
1. Best solution is to only practice neutrals. The 1st pick is a limited stage selection to "normal" stages and because the final counterpick can go back to a neutral again.
2. Competitive players have a preconceived notion of what competitive Smash "should" be like, and don't like when this is challenged
3. Encourage "annoying", "stale", or "boring" gameplay like camping walk offs.

Are there any other core reasons why competitive players don't like unusual counterpick stages? Let's try to identify all the issues why they don't like them, then tackle how to make a solution to each one.

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

Why would it be?

You are taking the "popularity" statement I made out of context and applying it to things outside of the scope it was used.

Popular means more people playing the game. The most important thing about making a ruleset is about attracting the most competitors for the longest period of time. Am I correct in that assumption?

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.

I fundamentally disagree with this statement. When your strategy revolves around stage gimmicks, the match no longer becomes... well, a fight. It becomes something much different. Is that a difference that people want (establishing that what people want = increase tournament goers) or is it a difference that makes them dislike playing it? I think to a certain point that overly changing the element of the game is a fundamentally bad plan.

Take, for example, stages like Rumble Falls. Why are they banned? While I do recall us saying "Oh this stage hazard is broken so lets ban it," nobody particularly fought for the stage. These sort of stages fundamentally change the paradigm of competitive Smash.

Personally I find that a bannable offense. And one of the ways to shift the paradigm significantly is to allow stages that have a strategy that is so dominant the focus no longer because targeting your opponent as much as it becomes utizing that stage hazard. Its a difficult balance to define that, however, and becomes a stage-by-stage analysis.

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]

I can agree to this list.

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!

You're correct in that. But at the same time if we make our definition of "What competitive Smash should be" to be broad enough, we could still allow for testing. Even if there is more space on the stages and allowing more room, do people still want walkoffs?

The question I used to ask myself is "What evidence do we have that this stage is bannable?" Now the question I ask myself is "Would more people come to a tournament because this stage is legal, or would they complain about it and not come because the stages are too dumb?"

I am wholly focused on the community for Smash 4. Not the game itself per se. If that makes sense.

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.

I was using the word counterpick to mean counterpick-only stages in this context. Battlefield is a "neutral" thus not a "CP-only stage" so would not fall under this category.

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.

Single free win stages would be banned by the player. MK players would always ban Brinstar vs Wario. Matchups won't change because of single stages. I still think you dramatically over-state the importance of single stages, especially in certain matchups.

Also, MK was amazing on Rainbow Cruise. I remember Judge and some other players showing me a bunch of stupid tricks MK could do on it.

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".

You would need 2 of every "genre" of stage in order to make a difference for matchups. Say Wario beats MK on "stages that get progressively smaller," then he would need BOTH Norfair and Brinstar to be legal in a tournament because MK would ban one or the other.

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.

On one hand, I completely agree with this statement. In order to achieve character diversity, flat+plat stages shouldn't really be the only choices on a starter list.

On the other hand, I believe that competitive players find flat+plat stages to be the stages they enjoy the most. These are the stages in highest demand in tournaments. The stages we look for when Sakurai announces a new stage. Earlier in my statement I mention we should figure out WHY they like flat+plat stages and fix that before we expand the stage list. Shoving stage variety down the throats of players is a HORRENDOUS idea. Thats a great way for the BR or any unified (or near unified) stage list to be shunned completely. Nobody will follow an overly lax stage selection, especially in the beginning of a game's life.

Our community needs unity. We will be scrutinized and watched from every angle in the future. Nintendo, Twitch users, and the internet in general will be watching how Smash 4 turns out competitively. If we get our ducks in a row from the get go, we can make the ripple of Smash 4 become a tidal wave.

 

[SamuraiPanda]

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

Amen.

 

[Johnknight1]

Amen.

I will say that stages like Mute City, Delfino Plaza, and Haleberd don't necessarily fit into that.

Rainbow Cruise/Ride probably does.

I say that and Rainbow Cruise/Ride is my favorite stage, Mute City is my 2nd favorite stage, and Delfino Plaza is my 3rd favorite stage!

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I definitely see your reasoning that because people focus all of their training on neutral stages to guarantee themselves the first win and so they would rather not learn the complicated counterpicks. But the fact of the matter is that competitive players dislike and ban stages they don't enjoy playing on. Those that are overly complicated or require too much adjustment to play on. Is it a bad thing those types of stages are banned? It focuses more of the gameplay on combat rather than stages, thats for sure.

But what is a practical solution to the issue you've presented? I remember doing tournaments where the full stage list was strikeable. Those took WAY too long. Then we had tournaments where the entire stage list was condensed for the striking procedure. Besides taking too long, the trend ended up becoming the same. People eventually started striking down to neutrals only. Even with Castle Siege, Halberd, and Lylat on the strike list people continued to strike down to classic neutrals.

Is that because the striking system was introduced too late into Brawl's lifespan? Maybe. Regardless, the issue is that most competitive players don't like counterpicks that change core gameplay too much.
Why?
1. Best solution is to only practice neutrals. The 1st pick is a limited stage selection to "normal" stages and because the final counterpick can go back to a neutral again.
2. Competitive players have a preconceived notion of what competitive Smash "should" be like, and don't like when this is challenged
3. Encourage "annoying", "stale", or "boring" gameplay like camping walk offs.

Are there any other core reasons why competitive players don't like unusual counterpick stages? Let's try to identify all the issues why they don't like them, then tackle how to make a solution to each one.

See, my experiences don't match that. Delux hosts tournaments locally with 9 starters as the only legal stages; he runs FD/BF/YI(B)/SV/Lylat/PS1/Delfino/Siege/Rainbow Cruise. I've attended I think 3 of his events, and between them, I've struck down in tournament to every stage on that list at least once other than FD and SV for the sole reason that I strike them 100% of the time (both stages just plain suck for G&W). Right from the start, I know the "it turns out the same every time" thing isn't true because I find game one when I strike is played on a huge variety of stages with 9 starters. If you had a decently sized tournament (let's say 32 man), I'd be really surprised if any 9 stage starter list wouldn't have at least one game one in the tournament played on every stage, and I think the more familiar people get with a stage ruleset, the more inclined they are to use all of it. Even if one stage was really never picked, it has an influence for being there just because one person is striking it instead of something else which has a very signfiicant impact on the results.

As per the time issue, that's why it can't be a really huge list. Delux's tournaments, again direct and recent experience, have shown me that striking from 9 starters is actually really fast (it was also fast back in the day; MO held a few 9 starter tournaments as I recall) since picking a stage to strike is not actually a difficult decision and thus can be made pretty quickly. I think it's so fast that the tolerance is probably higher; 11 would definitely work too, 13 probably works, and 15 has a chance to work though it's beginning to push it. I'm pretty sure 17 won't work so assuming my grasp on the time this would take is solid we can conclude that 15 is the absolute upper limit (though that probably needs some experimentation). So yeah, there is a numeric limit to how big our stage list can be with pure striking, but I think we can have a decent pool with this approach.

I actually think this is kinda tied into the other problem you brought up with what's going to be popular enough to fly in the long run over a large group. I do think you underestimate the size of the minority that loves incredible stage diversity (people like Overswarm and I who love all our stages are really not that rare), but even among the more average masses, I've talked to such a huge number of competitive smashers who list their favorite Brawl stage not as something like Smashville but instead as Delfino Plaza. I think the average view is that stages changing the gameplay from the pre-conceived normal "too much" is bad but "some" is actually highly desirable. If we go with a pure striking procedure, the numeric limit of how far we can push it to be time practical and the number of stages we're likely to get that fall into that "some" category are probably going to have a pretty good overlap so by using those two ideas together could get us a good stage list that would make everyone happy. Like among the new stages from having played the demo, I can tell you with real confidence that Wily's Castle is definitely a completely legitimate competitive stage, but I can also tell you that it will never be widely accepted among the competitive community so we can probably pretty much rule it out. Mushroom Kingdom U is a dynamic stage (considerably more dynamic than Wily's really), but I think it has the potential to be a very well-loved stage that also adds some very serious gameplay diversity so it's a strong candidate to include.

It's hard to rigorously list the qualifies a stage must have to be a candidate for both competitively meritorious play and popular acceptance by the community, but I think I can come up with a few good starting points...

1. The stage can't actually be severely random (like WarioWare) or competitively degenerate (like hard loop stages). Everyone already agrees we need to ban these stages.
2. Stages focused around permanent walk-offs are not going to fly; most people are just too uncomfortable with the loss of the off-stage game. Temporary walk-offs on transforming stages are not really a problem.
3. Stage hazards are okay in small doses and not in large doses. The most important thing about them is frequency and warning. That's why stages like Halberd are pretty okay (the hazards don't come that often and are very easy to avoid) and extending to smash 4 Mushroom Kingdom U (ridiculously huge telegraphs on all hazards) but stages like Norfair are always going to be widely hated by a lot of people and extending to smash 4 Wily's Castle would never be loved.
4. Stage movement is generally okay, but if dealing with the movement itself is a large part of gameplay, a large segment will hate it. Rainbow Cruise and Poke Floats were legal in Melee for years showing some tolerance for this point, but there's definitely a very large chunk of the competitive community that just can't accept stages like that so it may be best to have some real trepidation on including them (stages like Rumble Falls that are even more severe, of course, are super hated). On the other hand, stages like Delfino that shift around "in place" are not really a problem at all and a vast majority of players greatly appreciate the inclusion of those stages.
5. Stages with unusual geography such that severely non-traditional tactics are dominant are going to be disliked. I think the main reason Corneria was so hated in Brawl was simply that there were a lot of powerful ledge gimmicks with the fin. Luigi's Mansion is a super awesome stage from a strategic standpoint, but the gameplay there is extremely non-traditional and thus the stage is very widely despised.

Beyond that, diversity being maximized is pretty much a good thing. Perhaps these criteria could be refined; in fact, I'm sure of it. This is just my experience from having known many people over the years and having been really focused on stages the whole time. It kinda pains me to say some of that because, to be honest; Norfair is my favorite stage in Brawl, playing on all kinds of crazy stages is overwhelmingly satisfying to me as a player, I strongly feel that almost all of these non-traditional stages are actually fair, and in general I think almost all of the gameplay claims Overswarm is making are pretty much correct and that there's a lot of ignorance about how most stages play. In the end though, I do have to agree with your basic position that we have to be practical about making things work for the whole community, and I know the way I feel is fringe and that being correct about claims about how widely hated stages actually play is not that big of a victory. I do strongly feel though that going too far and cutting stages down too much has actually happened in both Melee and Brawl and that in the long run most people would be happier with more. With Brawl in particular, I think it's actually a significantly worse game with 5 legal stages than it would be otherwise since 5 is just plain too few and it skews the game toward certain characters significantly, and I definitely don't want smash 4 to end up with really restrictive stage rules that make it a legimately worse game as I feel happened with Brawl.

 

[Johnknight1]

I will say that if you don't learn to play on stages that don't fit "the tournament norm" but still have merits for being legal.

Stages like Peach's Castle (64), Congo Jungle (64), Hyrule Castle, Rainbow Cruise/Ride, Corneria, Mute City, Delfino Plaza, and Haleberd fit under this.

I know its unrelated to the topic but will you be posting info and vids when sm4sh comes out?

You mean like what I used to=???

An updated version perhaps.

But actually videos... eh... maybe.

Hopefully I have less videos like the one of me vs. Shroomed where I get destroyed but all anyone focuses on while watching is my tongue!!!

 

[infomon]

(redacted)

 

[Shaya]

Competitive Smash has become a basic platform variance fighter, by virtue of its stagelist. The precision/skill sets required at top level Smash require variance for a multitude of situations/scenarios that already exist within a small subset of stages that come with the game. Many stages are undeniably competitive but grossly malign these skill sets by circumvention or in some rare cases expanding them (Pokemon Stadium 2). We used to be able to blame the players for the eventuality of smaller stage lists of similarities, now you're going to have to blame the populist nature of streaming/social media which will likely have a significant reactive impact on rulesets.

If content/information are going to be big and widespread, the rate at which the meta advances will be unprecedented (by in large part also by us "learning" how to "Smash" better through each iteration). I know people will be open to more stages early, but I also foresee the massive speed at which they are discarded.

 

[TerumiLOLZ]

Wait, in the event of more defensive options, shouldn't that make it more competitive? More defense strategies?

 

[Overswarm]

I definitely see your reasoning that because people focus all of their training on neutral stages to guarantee themselves the first win and so they would rather not learn the complicated counterpicks. But the fact of the matter is that competitive players dislike and ban stages they don't enjoy playing on. Those that are overly complicated or require too much adjustment to play on. Is it a bad thing those types of stages are banned? It focuses more of the gameplay on combat rather than stages, thats for sure.

I think we should mostly discard the "rather not learn the complicated counterpicks" entirely and simply say 'you should learn'. That said, if we have an option to not have that and have a tournament of 100 or DO have than and a tournamnet of 10, I think most would pick the former!

That being said, the midwest has always had large tournaments with large stagelists. We have 100+ events with regularity for three years in Brawl! Entrants started dropping around the same time as the stage list, but I do not believe those are correlated; they just both occur on the same natural timeframe.

But what is a practical solution to the issue you've presented? I remember doing tournaments where the full stage list was strikeable. Those took WAY too long. Then we had tournaments where the entire stage list was condensed for the striking procedure. Besides taking too long, the trend ended up becoming the same. People eventually started striking down to neutrals only. Even with Castle Siege, Halberd, and Lylat on the strike list people continued to strike down to classic neutrals.

This was a self-fulfilling prophecy. People who wanted those stages always struck down to them, but playing me often resulting in me striking those very stages and getting a better result.

I entirely agree with striking the entire stagelist being too long. Even without htat, I dislike the idea. Having a stagelist with 7 FDs and 5 Rainbow Cruises results in always playing FD anyway; there are more legal counterpicks than anything else.

Is that because the striking system was introduced too late into Brawl's lifespan? Maybe. Regardless, the issue is that most competitive players don't like counterpicks that change core gameplay too much.
Why?
1. Best solution is to only practice neutrals. The 1st pick is a limited stage selection to "normal" stages and because the final counterpick can go back to a neutral again.

This is mostly an issue with the starter list. We removed 'random' because sometimes it resulted in an advantageous first stage for one player... and it eventually was replaced with a system that guaranteed it. That was a problem!

I've actually been trying to figure out a solution to this. The best solution is obviously to have a good starter list, but that's hard to make. Even for someone like me who likes collecting data and analyzing everything, it takes time to get to that point. How would people in Brawl feel if mathematically it was determined that Smashville was a polarizing stage and needed to be removed from the starter list for balance reasons?

The best solution I've come up with so far has been mandatory starter stages, similar to the Starcraft bracket. It is different and I dunno how well it'd work for Smash, but would solve the issue. Things like "WR1 - Smashville, WR2 - Halberd, WR3 - Delfino WR4- Battlefield" or something else.

I don't like the solution very much.

2. Competitive players have a preconceived notion of what competitive Smash "should" be like, and don't like when this is challenged

Screw those guys, they're noobs.

3. Encourage "annoying", "stale", or "boring" gameplay like camping walk offs.

Subjective! All subjective stuff should be taken with huuuuge grains of salt.

Are there any other core reasons why competitive players don't like unusual counterpick stages? Let's try to identify all the issues why they don't like them, then tackle how to make a solution to each one.

I like this idea.

• Preconceived notion that clashes with the 'unusual' stage
• The strategy is considered distasteful by one or more individuals or observers
• Poor strategic relevance (i.e., the stage is so different the skill doesn't transfer, so it isn't worth to practice)
• They feel cheated because they're 'supposed' to beat this player/matchup, but the rules have changed with the stage
• They recognize that it takes skill, but don't feel like learning the new skill
• They recognize that it takes skill, but don't like the skills it tests ("Why should I know the klap trap comes at 7 and 3?"
• They dislike the emphasis on certain characters on those stages (Mute City emphasizes floaty characters, Brinstar emphasizes keepaway with Wario, etc., etc.)
• They dislike that the skills they HAVE learned don't apply (Mute City doesn't have ledges, but I learned to sweespot, FD doesn't have platforms but I learned to waveland and ledge cancel, etc.)

That's all I can think of off the top of my head. It's a good list to see what stages people might WANT to ban, for better or worse.

You are taking the "popularity" statement I made out of context and applying it to things outside of the scope it was used.

Popular means more people playing the game. The most important thing about making a ruleset is about attracting the most competitors for the longest period of time. Am I correct in that assumption?

Of course not! Popularity is important to an extent, but Smash has always been built on the premise of "Smash is fun. If we build it, they will come." The integrity of competition is fundamental to that!

The most consistently large tournaments are anime conventions that have FFA with items on and no entry fee. That doesn't mean we should emulate it. We like entry fees to grant money; it gives our tournaments a sort of gravitas, despite eliminating large portions of smash players who would otherwise enter. Many of our decisions are made for the same reason.

It's very easy to fall into the vocal popularity trap. "We got more viewers on stream" or "we got more entrants" is a wash. The goal should be to create an interesting, friendly, and most importantly deep tournament within the limitations we have. Brawl would have been way more fun with items, but due to its spawning mechanism and the air-grab feature it wasn't viable. I really wish I could have hit MK with some green shells though.

I fundamentally disagree with this statement. When your strategy revolves around stage gimmicks, the match no longer becomes... well, a fight. It becomes something much different. Is that a difference that people want (establishing that what people want = increase tournament goers) or is it a difference that makes them dislike playing it? I think to a certain point that overly changing the element of the game is a fundamentally bad plan.

It's only a difference in how you view it. Why would you ban something like Pictochat in Brawl, which has spikes you can throw your opponent into, but not Battlefield in Melee, in which Marth can easily u-throw a spacie onto and force them into a nigh-unbeatable chain? Or Link's chain grab on the spacies on the BF platforms that is basically an infinite?

The result of the the interaction with the hazard and the platform is no different.

Moreso, the lack of platforms on FD change the game far more than something like Randall the cloud on YI or Halberd's laser ever did. Chaingrabs from Pikachu in Brawl or Marth in Melee become ridiculously commonplace on FD.

It's not "fighting the stage", it's using the stage as a player against another player.

This of course assumes the stage isn't actively fighting back. If you have a stage that is literally shooting at you or the like that's a different story entirely.

But near-static hazards? No different than platforms. Proof is in the results -- why else do you think there's a difference between Dreamland, Battlefield and Yoshi's in Melee? It's not just size; those platforms are in the same overall position but the interaction with them is markedly different. They have to be interacted with on a drastically different level by a character-by-character basis!

Fox can u-smash you on a Yoshi platform from below, but not on BF and DL.

Marth can f-smash tipper you on YI or BF, but not DL.

So on and so forth; it's all interaction with the stage. It's one of the things that makes Smash... smash!

Take, for example, stages like Rumble Falls. Why are they banned? While I do recall us saying "Oh this stage hazard is broken so lets ban it," nobody particularly fought for the stage. These sort of stages fundamentally change the paradigm of competitive Smash.

This stage was actually legal for a few months. We ended up banning it because it was an auto-loss for Bowser, DK, and other characters with poor vertical recoveries when it speed up at certain sections. You literally could not keep up with the stage with any sort of conceivable pressure added.

There were other things people disliked (spikes, long periods of no combat, etc.), but they paled in comparison to the 'auto lose'. It'd be like playing dreamland and jigglypuff being blown off the blast zones by the tree's wind. XD

Personally I find that a bannable offense. And one of the ways to shift the paradigm significantly is to allow stages that have a strategy that is so dominant the focus no longer because targeting your opponent as much as it becomes utizing that stage hazard. Its a difficult balance to define that, however, and becomes a stage-by-stage analysis.

I could agree with this in theory. Jungle Japes was perfectly fine. But if we got to the point where the stage was literally about hitting your opponent into the klap trap with impunity, this is a fundamental change to a drastic degree. Until we get to that point though, I'd avoid banning the stage.

I can agree to this list.

Good! anything you can add to it?

Let's use it when banning stages o_o

You're correct in that. But at the same time if we make our definition of "What competitive Smash should be" to be broad enough, we could still allow for testing. Even if there is more space on the stages and allowing more room, do people still want walkoffs?

What people want is irrelevant. People wanted to ban ICs chaingrabs in Brawl, ICs wobbling in Melee. When people said "we ban Dedede's standing infinite on Bowser and DK", they opened a floodgate of bad ideas. It should never have been banned anywhere. The result was people complaining about stuff that was, ultimately, a cry of "my character sucks, make him good".

People want things that help them or fit to their own personal idea as to what Smash is. If walk-offs test a different set of skills than non-walk-offs, how is that any different than platforms and non-platforms? What about small horizontal blast zones?

If I were to make a wager, I'd bet that all walk-offs would eventually be banned. But I'm willing to test everything because added depth is never a bad thing. It may actually be the case that walk-offs are better than non-walk-off stages if people hate the recovery mechanics too much. Who knows?

What people want, especially before they have any experience on the matter, is irrelevant. It's surprising the amount of negative feelings people already have on things they have little experience or expertise in.

The question I used to ask myself is "What evidence do we have that this stage is bannable?" Now the question I ask myself is "Would more people come to a tournament because this stage is legal, or would they complain about it and not come because the stages are too dumb?"

I am wholly focused on the community for Smash 4. Not the game itself per se. If that makes sense.

It makes sense, but it's a dangerous mentality. It can be good, but dangerous. There's two extremes you can lean towards that you need to worry about.

The first is "FFA, free entry, pokeballs and smash balls on high" style tournaments. Those are fun as hell and people love them... but it's too much frosting. There's no 'depth' to it, at least not that people enjoy. Yeah, you'll get larger events, but people won't stick around.

The second is "No items, Fox only, Final Destination" crowd. These tournaments are really shallow in the skills they test and, while competitive, ultimately get stale REALLY fast. People are all hype about Melee having tournaments now but they have conveniently forgotten there was like a 3 or 4 year period where Melee had virtually no entrants because nothing ever changed. There was no depth to it at all. The same thing will happen again to Melee when Smash 4 is released because people like "shiny" and "new", and it's hard for a 10 year old game to retain its shine when the game has basically been the same for everyone for a long time.

People stop playing in tournaments when it stops being fun. Meta Knight in Brawl single handedly killed off over thirty people that originally went to Brawl tournaments. You remember Dastrn's tournaments in Indiana that had so many fresh faces and then a year later they were just gone? Removing stages from the stagelist did the same thing, one at a time, because it made certain characters less viable.

The "Fox only" mentality can exacerbate that, so it can feel like you're making a "stronger core" but you do so at the expense of shutting the door on outsiders.

It's a really tough mentality to have. I personally focus on making the best tournament experience possible while having competitive integrity with a clear, logical reason behind each decision. People might not like that they're being counterpicked to Castle Siege, but they'll live.

If you want larger tournaments though, give cash bonuses. I'd put $1,000 on a
$10,000 pot bonus for placements 1-16, spread evenly, with a huge stagelist would get more entrants and hype than a small stagelist with no cash bonus.

I was using the word counterpick to mean counterpick-only stages in this context. Battlefield is a "neutral" thus not a "CP-only stage" so would not fall under this category.

Incorrect. There is no such thing as a "neutral" stage because all stages give certain certain advantages. The point of the striking system was to reduce this advantage as much as possible. It wasn't a preferenced-based thing; if one stage was just even for everyone we'd only play on that stage.

Besides, after the first stage you say "What's your counterpick" and the response can be "Battlefield". That means it is a coutnerpick.

Single free win stages would be banned by the player. MK players would always ban Brinstar vs Wario. Matchups won't change because of single stages. I still think you dramatically over-state the importance of single stages, especially in certain matchups.

Agreed on the former, but you're thinking too limited. There can be more than one "good stage" in a matchup and there often is. More importantly, if Wario vs. MK on Brinstar = Wario wins and G&W vs. MK on Rainbow Cruise = G&W wins... As MK, what do you ban when you play against someone who plays both Wario and G&W?

You probably noticed this being an issue in Brawl with FD and Ice Climbers for a short time period.

Also, MK was amazing on Rainbow Cruise. I remember Judge and some other players showing me a bunch of stupid tricks MK could do on it.

He was amazing on RC in certain matchups. He'd destroy ROB even more than normal but would lose handily to characters like Wario and G&W. It's all relative.

You would need 2 of every "genre" of stage in order to make a difference for matchups. Say Wario beats MK on "stages that get progressively smaller," then he would need BOTH Norfair and Brinstar to be legal in a tournament because MK would ban one or the other.

Not necessarily. In addition to what I said above (you can play two characters, there can be more than one, etc.), you also have to remember that certain matchups might just be bad.

If I main Wario and only Brinstar is good vs. MK.... well I'll be at a disadvantage. MK will ban Brinstar.

But what if I'm Wario and I'm playing against someone like ICs, or Diddy? Brinstar could work, as could a stage like Norfair.

It's all relative to the matchup.

It can get confusing when you think about it in terms of "IT HAS TO BE BALANCED". It doesn't, not the whole stagelist. People oftenly make rules in this manner, but it's a bad way to go.

The best way to do it is to simply "follow the rules".

Stuff like this:

• 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]
  

Let's say that Halberd is Snake's best stage. Due to the 2nd to last bullet, people decide Halberd needs to be banned. One too many matches have shown to be drastically effected by the claw/laser.

A bad thing to say is "Halberd needs to stay, Snake needs it".

A good thing to say is "sucks for Snake".

If we take a step back and simply rule with consistent logic, the stagelist will naturally affect gameplay. If we decide "we want this gameplay" then characters that would otherwise be good... suck! Characters that would otherwise suck turn awesome.

Toon Link was way better than Falco, but TL focused on mobility and we removed stages that had mobility as a main aspect. Arbitrary changes screwed TL and buffed Falco. It's lame.

On one hand, I completely agree with this statement. In order to achieve character diversity, flat+plat stages shouldn't really be the only choices on a starter list.

On the other hand, I believe that competitive players find flat+plat stages to be the stages they enjoy the most. These are the stages in highest demand in tournaments. The stages we look for when Sakurai announces a new stage. Earlier in my statement I mention we should figure out WHY they like flat+plat stages and fix that before we expand the stage list. Shoving stage variety down the throats of players is a HORRENDOUS idea. Thats a great way for the BR or any unified (or near unified) stage list to be shunned completely. Nobody will follow an overly lax stage selection, especially in the beginning of a game's life.

TOs won't follow a unified standard anyway unless there's some advantage to doing so. They'll all always do their own things.

What people "like" or "enjoy" is arbitrary and changes consistently. If there are 50 people in the midwest and 35 like to play with items, would you acquiesce to their demands? Of course not!

Stick to logical consistency and you get a better ruleset. It's slower, yeah. But it's better.

Our community needs unity. We will be scrutinized and watched from every angle in the future. Nintendo, Twitch users, and the internet in general will be watching how Smash 4 turns out competitively. If we get our ducks in a row from the get go, we can make the ripple of Smash 4 become a tidal wave.

So 4 man FFA with items that leads into bracket 1v1 with no items? Because that's Nintendo's tournament standard.

We don't need unity. We need a logical ruleset that isn't arbitrary so we don't end up with the mess that Brawl became. You can't "force" unity. You find a problem, you solve it, and you further move towards an ideal.


Your mentality has good intentions, but if you want to see the results of it just look at the PM community. PM's stagelist is absolutely garbage and changes rapidly because no one knows what they are doing and simply bans and makes things legal on arbitrary "that's dumb" measures.

What's more, people don't know how the stagelist works and decide "I should never have to play on a stage that is bad for me" and are granted three bans. The result? Characters that do best on stages that are most represented will do the best.

Logical consistency is best.

Originalist > Constructionist

 

[Overswarm]

Competitive Smash has become a basic platform variance fighter, by virtue of its stagelist. The precision/skill sets required at top level Smash require variance for a multitude of situations/scenarios that already exist within a small subset of stages that come with the game. Many stages are undeniably competitive but grossly malign these skill sets by circumvention or in some rare cases expanding them (Pokemon Stadium 2). We used to be able to blame the players for the eventuality of smaller stage lists of similarities, now you're going to have to blame the populist nature of streaming/social media which will likely have a significant reactive impact on rulesets.

If content/information are going to be big and widespread, the rate at which the meta advances will be unprecedented (by in large part also by us "learning" how to "Smash" better through each iteration). I know people will be open to more stages early, but I also foresee the massive speed at which they are discarded.

This is why it is all the more important to have logical reasoning, clearly illustrating why each decision was made.

If we don't, then its going to turn into "M2K's stream only plays on these stages and he said (stage) was gay, so we banned it". Mark my words.

 

[Shiny Porygon]

The funny part is, that version was outdated. As in, it's older than the E3 build. So, uh, yeah.

 

[SmashChu]

And no, I reported you because you speak lies and seek to insult the smash competitive community that aren't remotely true. I won't stand for lies and slander based on lies to go unpunished. I won't let you or any other person bully any part of the community without retribution.

So you reported because you got your feelings hurt and couldn't take criticism. I like how you say I'm the most childish member when you reported me because you did not like how I talked about the precious community. You can take criticism like a man and actually, I don't know, use it to better yourself and others. Instead, you complain. The community isn't perfect.

The fact that people get reported for their feelings getting hurt is why Smashboards has become the place where logic goes to die.

You aren't even close to accurate with your statements. The big haters of SRK back in the day were the Brawl players after they tried to impose tournaments with item which no one wanted. That's why EVO 2008 bombed, and why SRK got bombed. Quite frankly, the Brawl competitive players were in the right. The OP of this thread (Samurai Panda), myself, and others stood firmly against what they were doing, which is why the Brawl scene divorced them.

Most of those people doing it at SRK are now gone and out of power. They treated everyone, mostly us, as less than them. Eventually, they got burned, specifically during that SFxT Capcom produced show controversy. SRK and the fighting game community as a whole had a new set of big name leaders after that, and we are all a lot better for that. Games and scenes stop being bullied by sites like SRK, and yes, that includes Smash, which yes, includes Brawl.

None of what you said is correct.

The reason EVO 2008 ran items is because Mr. Wizard (the guy who runs it) and others took the logic that because Brawl is a brand new game, that anything is fair game. There was also the fact that the main reason items were turned off in Melee was you could turn off the containers which could randomly explode (plus, for some reason, Melee had a habit of spawning items right when you're doing an attack). Brawl let you do this. You have to also consider that the FCG never bans something unless it's actually broken. Take Akuma. The reason he was removed from tournament play was because of the fact he couldn't be dizzied, had air fire balls, and lots of invincibility frames. This isn't like Meta-Knight where he is just good. Akuma would beat every other character hands down. Now, contrast this to the Smash community, who bans anything for whatever reason, and you can see where a problem arises.

Now, Mr. Wizard DID listen to the community and had a thread on SmashBoard to discuss the rules. However, that was the first major tournament for Brawl. There had been no big tournaments since then. There was also no items in tournament settings. Usually when people opposed items, there reasons were hypothetical and not based on actual tournament results. The Smash community took Melee's rules and ran with it. There was an IM conversation with Mr. Wizard where a Smash fan just ran off hypothetical situations. Mr. Wizard told him that wasn't good enough.

EDIT: I wanted to add that, based on Item Standard Play results, that the game is still balanced and, in fact, the roster is more balanced as well. So Mr. Wizard may have been right. Also, the testing on items was almost exclusively done by SRK, not Smashboards.

Now, with the truth straightened out, here's a demand, not a plea.

Turn from hating on the competitive community needlessly, or we, the competitive community, will burn you with this "report" button until you don't have a voice anymore.

We, the competitive players of Smash, no, we the players of Smash, will not let ANY PART OF OUR COMMUNITY get bullied by you and your pathetic like-minded liars anymore without retribution. The era of hating competitive players or quite frankly any sort of Smash players based on how they play on these Smash 4 boards is over.

You can evolve past your hate or go extinct like countless other hate mongers before you.

In other words, when ever anyone says something you don't like, you try and shut them up. You go LALALALALALALALALA I'M NOT LISTENING and hope they go away. A lot of the things I have been saying are trying to point out the flaws in the community's behavior. It's not all sunshine and roses kid. Heck, take MLG 10 where Brawl was kicked about due to bracket fixing. Sundance talked about it on a podcast and said that, after hearing that, his son no longer wanted to play Smash.

You are the problem with the community because you want to use the report button as a way to silence opinions you don't want. Silencing people with a different opinion than you ins't a solution. Its willful ignorance. And it's childish.

 

[<π]

@ Overswarm @ Amazing Ampharos
I love you guys. I feel like a lot of the people around here now just haven't been around long enough to SEE the changes take place and understand the logic (reasonable and unreasonable) behind it. So they try to just make up their own reasons and apply these to the future.

I think brawl failed because of the huge splits in the community (MKban, Stage list issues, and it continues now)

Melee used to have a huge stage list back when I played it and it made a huge chunk of the cast much more reasonable. It sucks that the game slowly became more and more focused on the best characters.

The same thing happened MUCH faster in brawl. To the point where people were ready to ban a character literally months into the game.

It confounds me that people down talk brawl and Smash4 because it takes away movement options, but are so quick to snatch away stage options, literally on a whim.

I am so fearful that people will water down the game (no custom moves, FD and Battlefield only, etc.) and then complain about lack of attendance/viewership. More options means more fun and will; I guarantee you; mean more viability. And THAT will mean more people even if that means less of the current "top competitive players." (which it probably won't either)

 

[Yodude57]

I will say that if you don't learn to play on stages that don't fit "the tournament norm" but still have merits for being legal.

Stages like Peach's Castle (64), Congo Jungle (64), Hyrule Castle, Rainbow Cruise/Ride, Corneria, Mute City, Delfino Plaza, and Haleberd fit under this.

You mean like what I used to=???

An updated version perhaps.

But actually videos... eh... maybe.

Hopefully I have less videos like the one of me vs. Shroomed where I get destroyed but all anyone focuses on while watching is my tongue!!!

Thx for replying! btw are you getting the Japanese version or just waiting until it comes out in America?

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

I'm not anyone important, but I'm the type who's against bans in general unless they're truly necessary. One does not simply throw stage/character bans out there and expect the game to have a good, large competitive scene. Why, my interest in Pokémon goes down every time Smogon makes another stupid ban. (Mega Kangaskhan? Okay. Mega Gengar? I think you're overstating it, but sure.... Swagger? That's just silly. Leppa Berry? Pffft what the ****. Aegislash? What are you on?!)

 

[SmashChu]

I agree so hard about what you said about a single cohesive ruleset SP. I don't know if it was just that the BR was too slow in Brawl, but it did always feel like the BBR stage lists just meant we were banning stages in the Midwest since everywhere else had already banned them. I've dedicated a huge amount of thought (and stress) into thinking how things can be different on that front, and while I'm not sure a BR-only approach is enough (definitely needs significant transparency and outreach to the broader community), I could definitely get behind a faster moving BR as a starting point to get some real unity going.

I've actually been working on a kinda private side project for a draft preliminary smash 4 ruleset (obviously leaving the stage list blank for now!) that hopefully could be generally useful for early tournaments (so we just hash out the stage list real fast when the game hits and plug it into the more general rules). I was going to continue tweaking it and wait until the next big smash 4 reveal to post it. It's mostly standard fare with the caveats that it writes custom movesets into the procedure and tweaks stage selection procedure a bit in ways that I think will make the system work a bit better (not horribly different from the current system though). As of now, I'm sticking with that plan and am going to post it publicly at an appropriate time, but if we have other avenues getting rolling on this stuff, I can move that up. IMO rulesets are the most important BR topic by far. If the BR puts out a late and/or lousy tier list, it just makes people on the internet upset. If the rulesets are not handled well, it has a very significant practical downside for actual tournaments worldwide. For that reason, getting something good and commonly accepted going early on rulesets would be a BR priority #1 in my book, and I'll definitely do anything I can to help make that happen.

I agree, but I would take it a step further and say nuts to a back room. Most communities don't have one. Decisions like these are just based on the consensuses of the community as a whole. It also give TOs more room to make rules for their tournament which would be more indicative of the region. And there shouldn't be a problem if everyone understands the rules for that tournament.

It may be hard to decide what is best early on since it's a brand new game. The method I describe would work better as everyone can try what they think is best and, as the game matures, we'll come to a consensus as a community.

 

[Johnknight1]

So you reported because you got your feelings hurt and couldn't take criticism.

No, because you are purposely slandering competitive players. That's what you're about. That's what your world revolves around now that you have to live in a world where those HEATHEN 3rd party characters are playable in Smash 4.

History never forgets SmashChu. History never forgets.

I like how you say I'm the most childish member when you reported me because you did not like how I talked about the precious community. You can take criticism like a man and actually, I don't know, use it to better yourself and others. Instead, you complain. The community isn't perfect.

I complained because you deserve that punishment for purposefully lying and slandering the smash competitive community.

I complained because I am tired of haters like you dominating these Smash 4 Boards, and I want hate towards any kind of smasher to be completely eliminated. I want it to be known that haters of such smashers or any smashers that refuse to change will NOT BE WELCOME HERE!!!!

Smash World Forums is for everyone but the haters. Evolve or die.

The fact that people get reported for their feelings getting hurt is why Smashboards has become the place where logic goes to die.

Keep in mind folks this is coming from the person who told a now Smash 4 mod that him liking Melee over brawl makes him a "traitor" to the series.

This is a person who says "you can't have cake and eat it too" at the idea of Smash being a fun non-competitive and competitive game, when 64, Melee, and Brawl already accomplished this for millions of people.

The reason EVO 2008 ran items is because Mr. Wizard (the guy who runs it) and others took the logic that because Brawl is a brand new game, and as such, anything is fair game. There was also the fact that the main reason items were turned off in Melee was you could turn off the containers which could randomly explode (plus, for some reason, Melee had a habit of spawning items right when you're doing an attack). Brawl let you do this. You have to also consider that the FCG never bans something unless it's actually broken. Take Akuma. The reason he was removed from tournament play was because of the fact he couldn't be dizzied, had air fire balls, and lots of invincibility frames. This isn't like Meta-Knight where he is just good. Akuma would beat every other character hands down. Now, contrast this to the Smash community, who bans anything for whatever reason, and you can see where a problem arises.

They did it over competitive player's heads and refused to listen to us. I was there for it.

The OP (Samurai Panda), myself, and hundreds of active competitive smashers told them over and over and over again on Shoryuken, Smash World Forums, and All is Brawl that it was a terrible idea. They didn't listen. So, most of us protested EVO 2008. It was great.

Now, Mr. Wizard DID listen to the community and had a thread on SmashBoard to discuss the rules.

He ignored all the SWF staff members (including then the OP SamuraiPanda), all the TO's for Smash, and the top competitive players of Melee and Brawl in the likes of KDJ, HugS, Ken, Ally, and M2K.

Mr. Wizard and his then cronies basically at best gave Canada the only votes in an American election, and at worst went total dictator with his Shoryuken cronies before he learned the hard way and wised up over the years.

However, that was the first major tournament for Brawl.

There were a few 50+ entrant tournaments before that. I went to 2 of them.

There was also that online SWF tournament with over 1,000 entrants that I got top 32 in (lost to Eternal phoenix Fire who lost to the champion Overswarm in the next round, lol!).

Was it the first "holy crap it's huge" live tournament=??? Probably. But that doesn't mean we didn't know the game.

California already had a roughly 10 stage long stage list. Items were banned in less than a month state-wide. Last I checked California is the breeding ground of competitive Smash.

There was an IM conversation with Mr. Wizard where a Smash fan just ran off hypothetical situations. Mr. Wizard told him that wasn't good enough.

He told us numerous times our opinions weren't good enough, because he's the dictator, and we need to listen.

That's what got him in hot crap over and over, and that's what ultimately caused Shoryuken to splinter off and have other fighting game communities separate themselves from that community. They were too busy telling people what to do to listen (something you know all too well).

To his credit, Mr. Wizard learned from this, and is a better person for learning from it.

In other words, when ever anyone says something you don't like, you try and shut them up. You go LALALALALALALALALA I'M NOT LISTENING and hope they go away.

In other words "No bullying". Your reign of terror is over. It's been over for a long time. I'm just here see someone put the nails in the coffin to make sure it truly dies.

A lot of the things I have been saying are trying to point out the flaws in the community's behavior.

You mean when a few months back you said all competitive players don't have lives, a stable job, or have a family?

That their whole life is just the game?

Because no, that's not constructive criticism, that's slander.

No matter what you say, your pathetic bullying attempts won't deter me from cleaning up this hate.

Heck, take MLG 10 where Brawl was kicked about due to bracket fixing. Sundance talked about it on a podcast and said that, after hearing that, his son no longer wanted to play Smash.

Bracket fixing is always a thing in every game. It wasn't the bracket fixing as much as the pot sharing, which honestly, was a one-off thing, and regardless, Brawl got dropped after that.

Also, that doesn't explain why Nintendo possibly blocked in 2014. The actions of 3 or 4 people is nothing compared to the hundreds of entrants APEX and many other tournaments routinely get for Brawl.

And regardless, Sundance is a reactionary fool a lot of the time. He had negative reactions to a lot of great constructive criticism of MLG Anaheim 2014's running of Melee, which was abysmal in many, many, many ways.

You are the problem with the community because you want to use the report button as a way to silence opinions you don't want. Silencing people with a different opinion than you ins't a solution. Its willful ignorance. And it's childish.

I'm sorry, I don't call competitive smashers a "disgrace", imply they don't have lives, a family, and an outstanding job, and don't just sit around this site belittling people with all my efforts.

If you think your pathetic bullying attempts are going to go unpunished, you got another thing coming, because me and the other competitive players I know have spoken to REFUSE to deal with your kind of blind hatred.

Smell 'ya later hater.

 

[Senario]

Smell 'ya later hater.

We now need an official Gary Oak emoticon for this one phrase. Though I agree with the rest of your post in general.

 

[Johnknight1]

I think the problem with the Back Rooms is they're usually dominated by a region that generally sucks at the game.

The Melee Back Room was run by Unknown, who we now know is terrible for the smash community, and caused all kinds of crap. He ran a mini-Canada and Midwest fan club that catered to those 2 communities despite those communities having more than a handful of prominent players.

(seriously Midwest, get good at Melee)

The Brawl Back Room currently has a lot of players from countries that don't even have a international presence in the slightest.

What's funny now is that after all the "Unity Ruleset" dealio everyone ignores each game's back room (sans the Project M back room because that's for developers only). The TO's (following Alex Strife's lead) largely have since relied on Facebook as a means, which I kinda disagree with.

I think there's room for a Smash 4 Back Room (visible to everyone please!), but it can't get caught up in this regional politicking or having a "group within a group" mentality that cursed and de facto destroyed the Melee and Brawl Back Rooms respectively.

Thx for replying! btw are you getting the Japanese version or just waiting until it comes out in America?

The only way I will is if I find a way to soft mod my 3DS that isn't too intrusive and if Smash 3DS has an English text option.

So probably not. I might know people that will have it, though.

 

[The Slayer]

The Melee Back Room was run by Unknown, who we now know is terrible for the smash community, and caused all kinds of crap. He ran a mini-Canada and Midwest fan club that catered to those 2 communities despite those communities having more than a handful of prominent players.

(seriously Midwest, get good at Melee)

I wonder who's that guy. I heard he had a quite violent career as a BR. Funny enough though, I get that feeling too whenever I see most BRs these days.

 

[SmashChu]

History never forgets SmashChu. History never forgets.

I complained because you deserve that punishment for purposefully lying and slandering the smash competitive community.

Evolve or die.

In other words "No bullying". Your reign of terror is over. It's been over for a long time. I'm just here see someone put the nails in the coffin to make sure it truly dies.

Smell 'ya later hater.

Why, aren't you a nice, excepting individual.

I fail to see what you're doing is actually productive. All you are doing is making yourself look like an ass. Who cares if someone is a "hater." Ignore them.

He told us numerous times our opinions weren't good enough, because he's the dictator, and we need to listen.

I know this is a bold face lie because I've seen the IM conversations between Mr. Wizard and Smashboards. And Mr. Wizard's reasons were what I mentioned here
1)This is a new game
2)The reasons were never based on actual tournament results but anecdote (which still happens mind you).

If I find the time, I'll try and look them up.

EDIT: Found this gem on Reddit

Actually Mr Wizard asked the back room to convince him why items weren't viable for tournament (since it was a new game) and they had no good answer like how in melee any item being turned on leads to item carriers that randomly explode.

However, since they couldn't make a good argument I think he went ahead and did what would be "hype" instead of turning off bad items. TBH I really wish brawl had considered an item ruleset, they were banned cause melee did it but melee went through years of debating before the explosive capsules put the nail in the coffin. I feel like they add killing power and offensive options, but the RNG factor still sucks.

Why SRK hated the Smash community

EDIT: Oh... and the reason I said that we hate you for that-- is because much of the Smash community attempts to diffuse **** by scapegoating Brawl. But even more than that, most of them complain about **** that's really their flaw as players, and yet they blame it on the game.

The tier list in that game is Biased( and I say this as a former Sonic player, who's character was moved up eight spots to mid[which I wanted to happen, but not for the reasons it did]), and has somewhat to do with matchups, but more so how to please the community and stop people from complaining. People ***** and moan about Brawl's effectiveness in the scene, yet fail to adapt. They write out long diatribes about how Brawl ruined the community, and how Melee should have just been the only game to have ever existed.

Oh, and Brawl +. That project is so ****ing ridiculous words can't even describe. Not once did the SF community, ever in anger of the game mechanics of any game go "Hey guys, lets go and change the mechanics back to ST mechanics and make it MORE competitive... feel me?" Alpha 3 was played as Alpha 3(including infinite's), 3s was played as 3s, and God damn it-- IV is played as IV. The immense amount of complaining from the Smash community is immature, and it doesn't make them look very intelligent when it's going on. In a few years, maybe they'll realize this in retrospect, but if not, then their community won't really take a step forward again. Just saying.

 

[JV5Chris]

Brawl's EVO 2008 rule set had a pretty negative impact on the attendance. There are just far fewer players out there committed enough to travel far distances for item tournaments.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

Well, the original reason for no-items tournaments was just the chance of random explosive capsules and crates dropping on your head as you attack. With it being possible to turn containers off in Brawl, thus nullifying the chance for explosives, it's no surprise they tried an items tournament right away.

 

[LancerStaff]

Since this has pretty much diverged into stage discussion and there's some pretty big names here, I wanted to share my random thought:

What if instead of banning stages from the normal stage list, we added stages to a list with either just FD, BF, or SV? I think it'd help with the chaos at the beginning, and inherently keep regions from diverging as much since we're instead adding individual stages instead of creating a big list and hacking it down.

I guess the problem would be making stages legal in this fashion would be harder then banning stages from regular play, but it's not like I've put a ton of thought into this or have a ton of experience dealing with stage lists.

 

[Aninymouse]

I kind of wish this enormous and interesting conversation on stage legality would be moved into it's own thread. It doesn't really have anything to do with the OP anymore. Any mod or admin feel up to the task?

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

Since this has pretty much diverged into stage discussion and there's some pretty big names here, I wanted to share my random thought:

What if instead of banning stages from the normal stage list, we added stages to a list with either just FD, BF, or SV? I think it'd help with the chaos at the beginning, and inherently keep regions from diverging as much since we're instead adding individual stages instead of creating a big list and hacking it down.

I guess the problem would be making stages legal in this fashion would be harder then banning stages from regular play, but it's not like I've put a ton of thought into this or have a ton of experience dealing with stage lists.

So like reverse stage striking? Battlefield, Final Destination, and Smashville at first, then instead of striking stages off a list you make 2 or 3 picks to add to the list? Sounds interesting.

 

[Aninymouse]

So like reverse stage striking? Battlefield, Final Destination, and Smashville at first, then instead of striking stages off a list you make 2 or 3 picks to add to the list? Sounds interesting.

That honestly makes a lot of sense as far as how people generally feel about counterpick stages, but... that doesn't address the fact that people would want to sometimes get rid of FD or BF or whatever neutral pick to give them an edge. For instance, Yoshi loves FD because there's nowhere to run from his egg spam, while Marth loves the platform stages a tad more because he can catch people from underneath a platform.

You still need to be able to strike stages, basically, even if you're adding more to the pot on game 2 and up.

 

[LancerStaff]

So like reverse stage striking? Battlefield, Final Destination, and Smashville at first, then instead of striking stages off a list you make 2 or 3 picks to add to the list? Sounds interesting.

I was thinking we'd do that for outright bans instead of stage striking, but that's another possibility we should consider.

 

[infomon]

Two ways to achieve greater attendance / tournament hype:

1. Reach out to ultra-competitive players from out-of-region that will travel, if your rule set matches their taste.
2. Reach out to your local scene

We focus way too heavily on 1 and never enough on 2. LOTS of people play smash and have NO idea about the competitive scene, but would totally check it out. Flyers, posters, newbie-friendly openness, that's what we need more of in this scene.

We also need excellent, competitive rulesets -- but let's not bow to the whims of out-of-region competitive players when they're wrong simply to increase attendance.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

I'm not anyone important, but I'm the type who's against bans in general unless they're truly necessary. One does not simply throw stage/character bans out there and expect the game to have a good, large competitive scene. Why, my interest in Pokémon goes down every time Smogon makes another stupid ban. (Mega Kangaskhan? Okay. Mega Gengar? I think you're overstating it, but sure.... Swagger? That's just silly. Leppa Berry? Pffft what the ****. Aegislash? What are you on?!)

i don't think that should lower your interest in pokemon since there are plenty of other big online communities that have not banned them.

 

[Xiaphas]

I'm not anyone important, but I'm the type who's against bans in general unless they're truly necessary. One does not simply throw stage/character bans out there and expect the game to have a good, large competitive scene. Why, my interest in Pokémon goes down every time Smogon makes another stupid ban. (Mega Kangaskhan? Okay. Mega Gengar? I think you're overstating it, but sure.... Swagger? That's just silly. Leppa Berry? Pffft what the ****. Aegislash? What are you on?!)

the swagger and aegislash bans were really overstepping it. I'm honestly amazed they were banned and gale talonflame was not. However, if pokemon had different battle arenas where, say, it was always raining, that kind of thing would quickly be banned from competitive play and I don't think you'd see anyone arguing over it.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

the swagger and aegislash bans were really overstepping it. I'm honestly amazed they were banned and gale talonflame was not. However, if pokemon had different battle arenas where, say, it was always raining, that kind of thing would quickly be banned from competitive play and I don't think you'd see anyone arguing over it.

I dunno, I think it would be cool to have different terrain types available for competitive matches than just buildings/indoors. You'd get more mileage out of moves like Nature Power or Secret Power.

That said, constant weather effects would be outright broken every which way, I agree.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

I dunno, I think it would be cool to have different terrain types available for competitive matches than just buildings/indoors. You'd get more mileage out of moves like Nature Power or Secret Power.

That said, constant weather effects would be outright broken every which way, I agree.

lol that was black and white in a nut shell.
not using a weather effect? your not winning.

 

[JamietheAuraUser]

lol that was black and white in a nut shell.
not using a weather effect? your not winning.

I know that. And that's why they killed that in Gen VI. If they had some sort of arena thing where there was constant weather, it would probably be banned instantly no questions asked. Or they'd leave it legal like they did Stealth Rock, even though by their own logic Stealth Rock was horribly unhealthy for the metagame every which way.

 

[Xiaphas]

I dunno, I think it would be cool to have different terrain types available for competitive matches than just buildings/indoors. You'd get more mileage out of moves like Nature Power or Secret Power.

That said, constant weather effects would be outright broken every which way, I agree.

It depends. If it's just an aesthetic difference between terrains, that's cool, but once it starts affecting the core gameplay (such as weather or even the move Misty Terrain) it starts to affect balance, and that's why it's necessary to ban stages that have that kind of effect.

I feel like this applies equally to items. A lucky item spawn is an RNG that gives one player a slight advantage regardless of skill. In games like Halo, weapons spawn at specific points at specific times, which means skilled players can take advantage of them. If smash bros items were more predictable, I wouldn't have an issue with them competitively, but as it stands, they interfere with determining who is the better player.

 

[Road Death Wheel]

I know that. And that's why they killed that in Gen VI. If they had some sort of arena thing where there was constant weather, it would probably be banned instantly no questions asked. Or they'd leave it legal like they did Stealth Rock, even though by their own logic Stealth Rock was horribly unhealthy for the metagame every which way.

well we the smash community are not to different from smogon to be honest despite popular opinion.

 

[Xiaphas]

well we the smash community are not to different from smogon to be honest despite popular opinion.

If we make the rulesets behind closed doors, you're right.

Edit: POST ONE THOUSAND