Meta Australian Smash 4 General Ruleset Discussion

[Shaya]

I've had that FD counterpicked against me more often than any other than Palu, even FD itself

 

[Attila_]

@ Shaya @ Attila_ unless its been fixed (which i doubt it has) all grass fd's should be banned because of there technical differences.

Source: http://smashboards.com/threads/wii-u-omega-stage-differences.379365/

Was aware of this. Nothing other than Palutena's has been legal on Melbourne anyway.

 

[Ghostbone]

@ Shaya @ Attila_ unless its been fixed (which i doubt it has) all grass fd's should be banned because of there technical differences.

Source: http://smashboards.com/threads/wii-u-omega-stage-differences.379365/

There's no reason to ban a bunch of omegas just because they're slightly different to FD.

The underside of the stage is more influential than grass most of the time lmao.

All omegas are part of the game, all of them are different, FD/Palutena's temple aren't special in any way, and there's no reason to single those out.
For game 1 I guess it's important to have a standard when omega is struck to (FD being fine, though any omega is just as justified), but for counter-picking, players should be allowed to pick whichever omega they like.

I know this is the standard in Germany (maybe europe in general? not sure). All omegas are lumped together, FD is just treated as another omega stage (as it should).

 

[Attila_]

It needs to be standardized though; the ledges and other features definitely alter mus.

 

[Shaya]

Well, I think thus far "counter pick omegas" are fine. Those minute differences are cool and a nice way to wrap up the choice available. Miiverse being an alternative to BF only in CPing is fine too (their platform positions are slightly different).

Now in terms of the fairest/best FD for starter purposes...
well it's probably FD, no other stage 1:1 mimics it.

 

[Ghostbone]

I personally like Orbital Gate Assault's omega layout the best. (in terms of no janky edge or underside business)
Would be FD, but the blinding flash is pretty annoying lol.

It needs to be standardized though; the ledges and other features definitely alter mus.

Yea they do, that's the point, that's why you should be able to counter-pick them.
They're not different enough to warrant having individual spots in stage selection, rather they should be conglomerated together, with one specific omega being the one that is chosen for game 1, and any other being available for counter-pick.

 

[Jamwa]

They're not different enough to warrant having individual spots in stage selection

this is pretty subjective tho;
to me, any difference (that isnt visual/texture) is significant.

 

[Timic83]

just use fd and battlefield, screw omegas and miiverse

also ban dreamland its dlc and moneycist

 

[SummonerAU]

I remembered someone here talking about collection data for average set lengths and what not and I thought I'd collect some data from the weekly Friday events Sydney has and post it here. This data is for 3 stock events, I'm interested to see how much longer 3 stock is compared to 2 stocks. If anyone has done anything similar for 2 stock, pls let me know!

The start point for these times is 5 seconds before the load screen and the end point is 10 seconds after the final match 'GAME' message pops up. This includes the time between games used for stage counterpicking.


Average time: 0:10:41
Max time: 0:22:55
Min time: 0:04:02
Median time: 0:10:53
Number of Sets: 105

Spoiler: Dataset

0:11:50
0:13:50
0:15:48
0:16:25
0:11:08
0:08:45
0:07:14
0:12:45
0:12:45
0:10:32
0:09:47
0:16:48
0:09:03
0:11:12
0:06:06
0:06:01
0:07:05
0:16:23
0:10:55
0:07:00
0:17:34
0:07:20
0:06:16
0:09:03
0:08:21
0:12:30
0:11:15
0:09:08
0:19:17
0:06:00
0:05:15
0:06:37
0:09:09
0:12:47
0:11:21
0:06:33
0:07:09
0:07:32
0:08:27
0:09:12
0:15:12
0:14:04
0:13:17
0:04:33
0:09:01
0:11:48
0:10:44
0:08:36
0:07:10
0:07:31
0:11:52
0:09:09
0:12:46
0:17:52
0:07:26
0:11:08
0:09:15
0:11:37
0:11:39
0:11:12
0:12:26
0:10:53
0:04:02
0:05:54
0:11:02
0:06:31
0:11:55
0:08:52
0:13:03
0:11:40
0:06:52
0:05:48
0:13:09
0:16:28
0:11:00
0:14:18
0:08:09
0:12:10
0:11:26
0:09:16
0:16:50
0:07:06
0:12:07
0:05:36
0:09:09
0:09:32
0:13:34
0:09:44
0:11:29
0:11:59
0:06:59
0:08:16
0:12:57
0:07:17
0:22:55
0:14:59
0:15:08
0:14:20
0:13:52
0:17:18
0:09:47
0:13:43
0:07:19
0:06:29
0:10:34

Spoiler: Sorted Values

0:04:02
0:04:33
0:05:15
0:05:36
0:05:48
0:05:54
0:06:00
0:06:01
0:06:06
0:06:16
0:06:29
0:06:31
0:06:33
0:06:37
0:06:52
0:06:59
0:07:00
0:07:05
0:07:06
0:07:09
0:07:10
0:07:14
0:07:17
0:07:19
0:07:20
0:07:26
0:07:31
0:07:32
0:08:09
0:08:16
0:08:21
0:08:27
0:08:36
0:08:45
0:08:52
0:09:01
0:09:03
0:09:03
0:09:08
0:09:09
0:09:09
0:09:09
0:09:12
0:09:15
0:09:16
0:09:32
0:09:44
0:09:47
0:09:47
0:10:32
0:10:34
0:10:44
0:10:53
0:10:55
0:11:00
0:11:02
0:11:08
0:11:08
0:11:12
0:11:12
0:11:15
0:11:21
0:11:26
0:11:29
0:11:37
0:11:39
0:11:40
0:11:48
0:11:50
0:11:52
0:11:55
0:11:59
0:12:07
0:12:10
0:12:26
0:12:30
0:12:45
0:12:45
0:12:46
0:12:47
0:12:57
0:13:03
0:13:09
0:13:17
0:13:34
0:13:43
0:13:50
0:13:52
0:14:04
0:14:18
0:14:20
0:14:59
0:15:08
0:15:12
0:15:48
0:16:23
0:16:25
0:16:28
0:16:48
0:16:50
0:17:18
0:17:34
0:17:52
0:19:17
0:22:55

 

[PrettyCoolGuy]

I remembered someone here talking about collection data for average set lengths and what not and I thought I'd collect some data from the weekly Friday events Sydney has and post it here. This data is for 3 stock events, I'm interested to see how much longer 3 stock is compared to 2 stocks. If anyone has done anything similar for 2 stock, pls let me know!

The start point for these times is 5 seconds before the load screen and the end point is 10 seconds after the final match 'GAME' message pops up. This includes the time between games used for stage counterpicking.


Average time: 0:10:41
Max time: 0:22:55
Min time: 0:04:02
Median time: 0:10:53
Number of Sets: 105

Spoiler: Dataset

0:11:50
0:13:50
0:15:48
0:16:25
0:11:08
0:08:45
0:07:14
0:12:45
0:12:45
0:10:32
0:09:47
0:16:48
0:09:03
0:11:12
0:06:06
0:06:01
0:07:05
0:16:23
0:10:55
0:07:00
0:17:34
0:07:20
0:06:16
0:09:03
0:08:21
0:12:30
0:11:15
0:09:08
0:19:17
0:06:00
0:05:15
0:06:37
0:09:09
0:12:47
0:11:21
0:06:33
0:07:09
0:07:32
0:08:27
0:09:12
0:15:12
0:14:04
0:13:17
0:04:33
0:09:01
0:11:48
0:10:44
0:08:36
0:07:10
0:07:31
0:11:52
0:09:09
0:12:46
0:17:52
0:07:26
0:11:08
0:09:15
0:11:37
0:11:39
0:11:12
0:12:26
0:10:53
0:04:02
0:05:54
0:11:02
0:06:31
0:11:55
0:08:52
0:13:03
0:11:40
0:06:52
0:05:48
0:13:09
0:16:28
0:11:00
0:14:18
0:08:09
0:12:10
0:11:26
0:09:16
0:16:50
0:07:06
0:12:07
0:05:36
0:09:09
0:09:32
0:13:34
0:09:44
0:11:29
0:11:59
0:06:59
0:08:16
0:12:57
0:07:17
0:22:55
0:14:59
0:15:08
0:14:20
0:13:52
0:17:18
0:09:47
0:13:43
0:07:19
0:06:29
0:10:34

Bo3 for all the sets?

 

[SummonerAU]

yep, it's all bo3. I do have some bo5 data, but a lot less of it and some of it isn't the usual bo5 finals set so there's a few more 3-0's than usual.

 

[smesty]

So a Melee player by the name of Quetz in Perth gave his opinions on a potential Sm4sh stage list and thought I might throw it here for some ideas/opinions.

We currently run the Xanadu stagelist

5 Starters/4 Counters 2 Bans

"FD, Smashville, Battlefield and Town and City are the only sensible stages in this game.
DL64 is redundant.
Delfino, Halberd and Castle Siege are ridiculous and will inevitably join the stage graveyard with Mute City, Poke Floats and Rainbow Ride.
Lylat Cruise is just awkward with a distracting background but its still neutral with a unique platform structure.

Duck Hunt is fringe but it is not nearly as bad as Delfino/Halberd/Siege

I'd be happy with:

FD, Smashville, Battlefield, T&C and Lylat Cruise as starters and Duck Hunt as the only counter pick."

What do you guys think about this? Seems super melee/conservative of a stagelist, I really like it because it removes ridiculous stages like Halberd/Delfino/CS.

 

[SummonerAU]

>duck hunt

Eh, Sydney runs those same starters but with halberd and dl64 as cp (2bans bo3),and AFAIK melb is the same but with Lylat swapped with dl64. I doubt you'll get all that much resistance to a list like that since it's not exactly that crazy.

Halberd is the only complaint in Sydney atm, but most people seem ok with it? More people dislike duck hunt tho, but it's hard to say since I have no solid numbers

 

[dean.]

Get rid of Dog Hunt and I'll be on board (y) I dream of a world with no Halberd, Delfino, Castle Siege or Dog Hunt

 

[Attila_]

I think 5 starters: FD, BF, DL64, TC, SV

And lylat as CP

That will probably be the ruleset standard at the end of all things.

Although for now, it's probably worth copying Genesis.

 

[Invisi]

I think 5 starters: FD, BF, DL64, TC, SV

And lylat as CP

That will probably be the ruleset standard at the end of all things.

This is the list that I came up with as well. DL vs LC as the better starter is debatable, but personally I don't really agree with the "DL is too much like BF" argument that it should be left off the starter list; the platform spacing is noticeably different, and it does play differently to BF. As much as I like Lylat, the slants and tilting distort some matchups, so I think it's more suited to CP than starter.

I actually feel like the above stagelist allows for more stage diversity than the Sydney ruleset. With the Sydney ruleset, Halberd is forced to be banned in a number of matchups, and the player banning it will have less stage choice because they will have two neutral stages banned against them. Dropping Halberd would allow us to have only one ban in Bo3s, giving us a large stage variety among the neutrals.

 

[smesty]

I'm just sick of this meta where 3 of the counters aren't even considered as playable by half of the state, while others pick it just for the hope that jank pulls them through.

Actually so frustrating.

 

[Ghostbone]

I don't understand the Australian hate for Duck hunt lol.

It's a perfectly balanced stage that rounds out the stagelist with essentially FD 2 (lots of characters don't like the low ceiling on Town and City and the platforms there are more impactful than the ones on Duck Hunt)
A couple of characters get timed out there in certain matchups, but that's an issue with those characters. That's why we have stage selection before character selection, and also the reason players get a stage ban.

 

[luke_atyeo]

^ play me on duckhunt, then you will understand

 

[Invisi]

As a Puff player, if I really want to time someone out and don't care about being a ****, then the extent to which Duck Hunt facilitates this is actually disgusting. You can wait on the top tree, and when you're approached simply move over to the right-hand tree, and then move back once your opponent is back on the ground. I could probably do this against most of the roster.

This is probably an extreme case, but I would imagine that a number of characters can do this in some matchups.

 

[Ghostbone]

As a Puff player, if I really want to time someone out and don't care about being a ****, then the extent to which Duck Hunt facilitates this is actually disgusting. You can wait on the top tree, and when you're approached simply move over to the right-hand tree, and then move back once your opponent is back on the ground. I could probably do this against most of the roster.

This is probably an extreme case, but I would imagine that a number of characters can do this in some matchups.

Puff is bad enough and dies early enough (a light tap from ANY character will kill you if you're camping that high up) that her abusing the stage doesn't even net her winning matchups lol.

I know what sort of camping Duck Hunt facilitates, it still stands that Australia is literally the only place in the world where people think Duck Hunt is broken. If it really was so easy to camp there, top players in the US would be counter-picking it and timing people out.

 

[luke_atyeo]

it still stands that Australia is literally the only place in the world where people think Duck Hunt is broken.

You know that for certain, you've talked to people in every other scene all over the world?
Maybe you should do a BIT more research before you make a claim like that.

 

[Ghostbone]

You know that for certain, you've talked to people in every other scene all over the world?
Maybe you should do a BIT more research before you make a claim like that.

I at least know of most of Europe, Canada, the US and Mexico.

I find it hard to believe players in these regions just don't know how to abuse Duck hunt.

 

[smesty]

Duck hunt is a fine stage??

 

[Attila_]

I'm really not sure why the states is OK with Duck Hunt. In short:

1. It provides a similar base state to FD, which is also the most polarizing stage on the list. FD benefits characters with good mobility and juggle games (i.e. all of top tier), making it a forced ban for any other character in these MUs. We already have a very similar stage to FD in TC, so I fail to see why we need another one.

2. The ducks appearing randomly adds hitlags to attacks and makes them more punishable than they otherwise would be. The pathing of he ducks is random, so there is no concrete way to predict when this might interfere with a neutral situation. While the dog is not exactly random, it is also very difficult to predict when he might also interfere; I've seen many games lost due to the dog forcing a whiff punish, even if the player predicted correctly, it would mean he/she would have to miss a punish they worked hard to create.

3. The tree causing timeouts is something that has been discussed a lot, and isn't something I need to talk about here. But the tree providing a safe haven to retreat to is something is often ignored. Lots of characters cannot kill with uairs; retreating to the tree once neutral is lost is a sure fire way to avoid a hard punish against ~2/3 of the cast.

4. What does having this stage in our list actually benefit us? Seriously, it doesn't add anything positive in the meta that we don't already have.

 

[Ghostbone]

I mean we don't ban stages because they don't really add anything. (and Duck Hunt obviously has a different gameplay dynamic to FD otherwise we wouldn't even be discussing banning it)
Dreamland adds the least to our stagelist (or conversely battlefield adds the least), it's mostly just Battlefield with smaller blastzones (yes platform layout and underside is slightly different, but matchups play out the same with people just dying earlier).

You also can't complain about Duck hunt forcing people to get juggled more than they normally would (similar to FD) then also bring up how the tree helps you avoid getting juggled. Clearly it's not as bad as FD in this aspect, more like it's somewhere between FD and smashville. Somewhat polarising but not every stage is neutral lol.
We tolerate randomness that's easy enough to follow (dog comes up at same position every time, ducks don't move that fast that they'll interfere with gameplay without noticing them). Hell, Yoshi's Island Brawl was legal in Brawl and that stage randomly saved you from being gimped (or killed you if you were ness/lucas).

 

[Jamwa]

The brawl stagelist should have only been the 3 starters if u want to refer to a balanced version of it. YI and LC should never have been legal

 

[Attila_]

We definitely ban stages because they don't add anything. Miiverse is an easy example; Delphino and halberd are others that only bring negative gameplay aspects and are thus banned.

The dog doesn't always pop up in the same spot lol; it depends on how many birds were killed, and where they died.

It's not that the stage isn't neutral, it's that it is able to skew mus by 20-30%, which isn't quite fair. FD does the same, but only having one version means you can ban it; having FD, TC, DH and SV available really, really benefits all the top tiers in this game.

Brawl suffered from a lack of stages, YI was needed to give us a workable number. Smash 4 has plenty of great stages; we can afford to be picky.

 

[Ghostbone]

Yea I meant that it was predictable where it comes up, not that it's always the same spot even though I said exactly that, idk lol.
Miiverse isn't banned in most places, it's alternately counterpickable to Battlefield because they're almost exactly the same. There's redundancy in the stagelist with them both legal. Duck hunt has obvious differences to FD so it's not redundant (as I said before, it's similar to how dreamland isn't redundant despite Battlefield already being a stage).

Duck hunt isn't that good for top tiers. At least for ZSS it's not that good, Sheik is good on literally every stage so what's there to do lol. I don't see it giving any benefit to Rosa or Ryu either.

What relevant matchup does it skew to a greater degree than FD? If it being polarising is your argument, realistically we should be banning FD BEFORE Duck Hunt as FD is more polar.

 

[Dre89]

I mean we don't ban stages because they don't really add anything. (and Duck Hunt obviously has a different gameplay dynamic to FD otherwise we wouldn't even be discussing banning it)
Dreamland adds the least to our stagelist (or conversely battlefield adds the least), it's mostly just Battlefield with smaller blastzones (yes platform layout and underside is slightly different, but matchups play out the same with people just dying earlier).

You also can't complain about Duck hunt forcing people to get juggled more than they normally would (similar to FD) then also bring up how the tree helps you avoid getting juggled. Clearly it's not as bad as FD in this aspect, more like it's somewhere between FD and smashville. Somewhat polarising but not every stage is neutral lol.
We tolerate randomness that's easy enough to follow (dog comes up at same position every time, ducks don't move that fast that they'll interfere with gameplay without noticing them). Hell, Yoshi's Island Brawl was legal in Brawl and that stage randomly saved you from being gimped (or killed you if you were ness/lucas).

The blastzone disparity between BF and DL is a meaningful difference though. Either stage can be a more optimal choice depending on the characters concerned.

As for DH, do people want it legal simply because they think there's nothing wrong with it, or do they think it has meaningful strategic differences to other stages?

I suppose what I'm asking is what the reasons are a character would want to go there as opposed to another stage.

 

[Ghostbone]

Recovering on duck hunt is fairly unique, you have a straight wall which no other legal stage has. You also have the tree to recover high to. (which incidentally can aid vertical kill combos/stuff like kirby u-throw) The camera also doesn't extend out to the side as far which changes the off-stage dynamic.
Ducks are an obvious aspect, you can use them to stale moves, or bouncing fish off of, or they can block opponent's projectiles.
2D can presumably provide some characters advantages.
The bush on the right provides another place to trap your opponent's landing (with sheik/greninja u-smash for example), as well as somewhere to land to avoid grounded projectiles.

Like ESAM counter-picks this stage all the time as Pikachu so that's at least one example of it being meaningful.

 

[Invisi]

Sydney's most recent tournament SGT 15/11/15 was run using the ruleset for SXC. After this, we decided to run a survey comparing this ruleset to our usual ruleset. The purpose of this was two-fold; to improve our current ruleset if there were elements of the SXC ruleset people prefered, and to have data to show the other states on Sydney's ruleset stance.

While the survey is still ongoing, we have enough of a sample size to show some trends. The full results can be found here:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1WVxbUDgW7qkC826xPXzovokteeCGRzqy4hehxazIoA8/viewanalytics

The most noteworthy point is the overwhelming support for the 3-stock format. The vast majority of people preferred playing with 3 stocks, and only two people preferred playing with 2 stocks (one of the three responses in support of 2-stock is a duplicate). With these results, I doubt even a "nationwide" (ie. every region except NSW/ACT) agreement of 2-stock could sway Sydney's stance.

I found the most interesting/surprising result to be the starter stage issue (Dreamland vs Lylat). Very few people were on the fence about this issue - the least of any of the questions asked - and the opinions were fairly evenly split, with a slight bias towards Lylat.

The counterpick stages (only Halberd and Duck Hunt were surveyed as those are the differences between the two stagelists) have a number of people unsure about their legality, and those who had opinions were in favour of our current ruleset.

The 1-ban vs 2-bans question was added to the survey after it had started, so a number of people have not answered that question. The data that is there so far unfortunately doesn't hold too much useful information since it's fairly even among the responses.

With the above points in mind, it's impossible to come up with a stagelist that satisfies even a majority. However, enough people have yet to make up their minds that I would imagine if a nationwide standard stage list were set up, it could be implemented in Sydney without too much resistance. I hope that, putting the stock debate aside for a while, a re-ignited debate about a nationwide stagelist could prove quite fruitful.

On that note, I want to add my personal opinion to this issue. I am still in favour of the stagelist Attila posted a few weeks back (for the reasons I posted at the time), but more generally I feel that an even-numbered stagelist would be best. That would mean either 6, 8, or 10 stages with 1, 2 or 3 bans respectively (and either one less ban or modified DSR for Bo5). With the 7-stage list we run in Sydney, I find that 2 bans somewhat limits the variety, and 1 ban would provide too much variety (since a number of characters would be forced to ban the 7th stage).

The big question is how liberal we want to be with our stagelist. In my experience as a Puff player, many of the non-neutral stages provide opportunity for abuse in a large number of matchups. For this reason I feel a more conservative 6-stage list is more fair. Perhaps my experience is biased though, since I know my matchups are fairly uncommon. I could conceive that a number of the abusable stages are just fine in most matchups.

 

[Ghostbone]

3 stocks is obviously better than 2 stocks, TOs are just afraid of the length of 3 stock games.

I'll also point out that inertia is a very potent force, people are mostly just going to vote with whatever system is already in place. I'd say that explains most of the votes for Halberd or for Duck Hunt.

 

[extrasensory]

one of the problems with 3 stock in victoria i think is that our weeklies are already pushed to the limit in terms of time, double elim with 60-70 people usually ends around 8:30 at the earliest and we have to pack up at 9 - starting earlier from the current time (4:00) doesn't really work either cause school kids can't get there in time. it'd most likely be fine at couchwarriors but i personally don't want to wrap my head around having to play 2 stock at our weeklies and 3 stock at our monthlies.

 

[Attila_]

60-70? That's our exam time attendance.

Usually we're 100+.

 

[Jei Jei]

60-70 is about right for the eb weeklies which he is talking about

 

[Jamwa]

splice with the big calls, making fun of people who are making fun of him.

what a ****************

in all seriousness though, you started it, stop being a **** wit

tbh fav post in this thread