• Welcome to Smashboards, the world's largest Super Smash Brothers community! Over 250,000 Smash Bros. fans from around the world have come to discuss these great games in over 19 million posts!

    You are currently viewing our boards as a visitor. Click here to sign up right now and start on your path in the Smash community!

"BUT IT MOVES!!!" - Dissecting a closed-minded starter mentality

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Oct 9, 2008
Messages
8,908
Location
Vinyl Scratch's Party Bungalo
NNID
Budget_Player
The formatting is gonna be a little off because I originally typed this up in the AiB WYSIWYG editor...
Copied from AiB, original is here: http://allisbrawl.com/blogpost.aspx?id=88526

What is a starter stage? How do we define a stage as a starter, and why? This question doesn't hit many people. Ask the typical AiB member, and they'll almost certainly give you something along the lines of "A starter stage is a stage with minimal interference", and then proceed to list Final Destination, Battlefield, Smashville, Yoshi's Island, and either Lylat Cruise or Pokemon Stadium (melee).

I'm here to state, cleanly and simply, that this way of thinking should be abandoned as soon as possible, because it not only places a higher value than is natural to the game upon certain elements in game one, the most important game of the set, but it also severely mitigates other elements, provides a strong advantage to certain characters with very explicit character weaknesses, but, additionally, it actually goes against the purpose the entire starter system was designed for. Specifically, creating a truly fair stage in game one.

Here's a little fun fact some of you may not know. When the starter list was originally proposed, it was not the way it is in most tournaments today. I remember the balking response to the MLG stagelist having 9 starter stages. THE HORROR! It completely goes against the sense of a starter list! That is, until you think back and remember that the original tournament starter list was that one.


Overswarm said:
The original starter list of 9:
Final Destination
Smashville
Battlefield
Yoshi's Island
Lylat Cruise
Halberd
Castle Siege
Delfino
Pokemon Stadium 1

This starter list was PERFECT.

Look at that. What are halberd, Delfino, and CS, among others, doing on there? O.O They move, they transform, they interact! Hmm... It's almost as if they were there on purpose.

The starter stage system was implemented to replace the old melee system of "pick a random stage". I hope you can realize why this was unfair-even if you don't play melee, you can imagine that there's a difference between playing against falco on Japes and playing against falco on Yoshi's/Battlefield/etc. And the differences would've been far more pronounced if they didn't ban almost every stage in melee (like, imagine fox vs. Jiggs on Pokemon Stadium, and then imagine you had the exact same random chance of getting sent to Pokefloats-it would be ridiculously random and unfair!). In brawl... ridiculous.


The large part of why the striking system was created in the first place was to ensure that game one (which is without a doubt, with our current counterpick system, the most importent game in the set) created a fair stage for the matchup. Of course, the system changes-this may not apply any more. Just to double check though, let's see here... The current starter set used by most tournaments is:
Final Destination
Battlefield
Smashville
Yoshi's Island
Pokemon Stadium 1


We have:

* Ice Climbers getting 3/5 of their best stages in the list
* Falco getting 3/5 of his best stages in the list
* Diddy getting 3/5 of his best stages in the list...

I.e. you can't win-you're going to go to one of those character's best stages. Maybe it's like this for everyone?

* G&W counts the list to his very worst stages
* MK counts most of the stages to his worse/worst
* Wario has far better stages

And those are just the ones I know explicitly about, let's not forget chars like Pika, Kirby, and ZSS. So in short, is the starter list still providing a fair and balanced ground?

No. No, it is not. Overswarm brought this up in one of his posts in a thread which is overall very relevant to this discussion-a thread on SWF, where several players were suggesting removing Final Destination from the starter list.


Overswarm again said:
Der, it's a characters best stage? There's your first clue that it needs looking into.

So let's look into it:

First, IS it his best stage? Yes. Yes it is. Do OTHER characters have "best" stages on starters? Arguably, yes. At the very least, pretty close, right?

So let's look deeper. We use stage striking, why don't people just strike the stage? No big deal, right?

What are Diddy's best CPs?

Final Destination, Battlefield, Smashville, Pictochat

HOLY ****ING **** THAT MONKEY GETS THREE OF HIS FOUR BEST STAGES LISTED AS STARTERS?!

No wonder this is such a problem!

Wait a minute, ICs ALSO love FD, BF, and SV! I'm seeing a pattern!

Oh, I get it. We put three stages that play in nearly the exact same fashion together and told people to whittle down a list.

That's like putting a starter list of
Final Destination
Rainbow Cruise
Frigate Orpheon

and saying it's fair because Diddy can just strike Rainbow Cruise. Of course he can, but he still gets taken to Frigate 100% of the time!

How often do you see Diddy or IC get taken to Lylat or YIsland? This means that the "neutral" stages we have are not neutral. That is why we call them starters, and it is why we need to alter the list in some way to make it fair.
/end quote



And I already hear it. "But it is fair-it's fair to the players". Wait, what? I don't understand this line of reasoning, because while Final Destination-Battlefield-Smashville may be "fair" to the players in some sense, so is Rainbow Cruise-Brinstar-Castle Siege. When I inquire what "fair to the player" means, I hear that stage movement is not fair to the player. This makes no sense. Why would any non-random stage be more fair to a player than another? Both players, assuming more or less equal skill level, have an equal chance of winning on each and every non-random stage in the game. There's nothing "unfair" about Brinstar or Rainbow Cruise as such; they're completely and totally non-random and therefore completely fair to the player. And even in the case of randomness, most stages have the sort of randomness that does not lead to any worthwhile inconsistencies (think, 1/10^10% level of inconsistency), or their random elements announce themselves miles in advance-but I'm getting off topic, this is the subject for an entirely different blog.

The short version of the above paragraph is that being fair to the player is, in this context, commonly misunderstood (because it doesn't mean what it really should), and virtually always a non-issue–nobody's recommending Pictochat as a starter here (yet), and stage interaction is not a matter of player fairness at all.


I keep hearing all these clamors that stage interaction is a bad thing, or that it throws extra variables into the match. It doesn't. Volke Aeno mentioned this:

Volke Aeno said:
The "your opponent's skill" variable is what is being isolated in competitive brawl. When trying to isolate that variable, you gotta remove or assume things for every other variable. For example of the principle (as seen in math), you can't find W in:

x + y - z = w

Without removing the variable in some manner. 2 ways you can remove variables are...

Assuming that the given variable has a negligible effect (your opinion about why PS2 is fair)
Assign a value to a variable (As in, character matchups)
/end quote

This is, again, only applicable to heavily random stages. A non-random stage is not a variable, it's a constant. And even then, slightly random stages are, as he mentioned, almost completely negligible.



I don't understand the beliefs held against moving stages, or the prejudices in favor of static stages. While I can understand why people would be against randomness (I have very strong arguments against this belief, btw, but I can understand where it comes from in general), but the argument that stage movement is wrong and/or bad is completely baseless. Stage movement/interaction does not, in any way hinder competition. In fact, it strengthens it, by forcing the players to have more skills.

Beyond that, I especially don't know why this mentality of "interactive stages are bad" should not apply to your counterpicks, but only to the first, and most important, set in the game. Sure, it should be consistent, but as said-the inconsistencies brought up by most stages are so close to 0 that you'd need a microscope on a line graph. Overall, I've been getting a lot of "it's this way because it is this way"; i.e. circular logic works because circular logic works because circular logic works.



Originally, the starter list was built to ensure a fair stage for a character matchup. It no longer fulfills this goal. Our current starter list is hardly better than going with random in many matchups-no matter what, the same group of characters is going to get a big, fat, unwarranted advantage, and other characters are going to get the hose. Especially in matchups like ICs-G&W. G&W destroys the ICs on many stages, but the ICs can always strike to one of their best stages in the matchup game one, effectively giving them 2 counterpicks. This is a big deal!

And now this argument comes a lot. "These characters get 2 counterpicks per match because they're better characters who are good on these stages which are inherently neutral". Um, no. This is simply not the case. These characters are, in fact, worse at dealing with stages. The reason they want to go to stages like FD, BF, or SV is because they, as characters, are awful at dealing with stage movement. This is not a good thing in brawl, a game where being good at stages is clearly rewarded as a character trait. At this point, justifying this fact is not really necessary; it's obvious. Look at the game! Certain characters are good on every stage (G&W, MK, Wario...); certain characters are good on a very small minority of stages (ICs, Falco, Diddy...). Why are we rewarding those who are good only only some stages when they are worse characters? Why are we arbitrarily rewarding them at all? I have dozens! DOZENS! Of posts dealing with this exact issue. There is simply no sane backing for this reasoning.



So our current starter list, the lists most people use (either BF/SV/FD or the more common BF/SV/FD/YI/Lylat or PS1) does not fulfill the basic function it was implemented to perform, and none of the other reasonings supporting it really provide a good reason to use it in its current form. It additionally has the major downside of basically handing Diddy, Falco, ICs, and several others two counterpicks per game, a major flaw in its design. And merely because of the, quite frankly, indefensible reasoning that we should only put static, non-changing stages on the starter list?

The amount of movement and interactivity a stage has should have nothing to do with its categorization once it has been shown to be competitive.
I.e. once we have decided "Stage X is competitive", the amount of interaction, the degree to which "normal gameplay" is changed on it, and in general any factors based around its basic features can and should be ignored when further deciding if it's a starter stage or not. They are simply irrelevant to the actual goal of starter stages.
But what isn't irrelevant, if those things are?

The polarization of a stage-how strong of a counterpick it is, how often it would normally be counterpicked, how many characters would object to playing on it/completely love playing on it, etc. That is the only thing that matters when discussing whether or not a stage declared to be competitive should be a starter stage (i.e. no chars like Warioware, but it's already been disqualified as anticompetitive). This fits in perfectly with the original sense of the starter list, because non-polar stages are, by definition, reasonably fair playing ground. By assembling a list out of such stages, you will find that, although certain stages in the list may favor certain characters, nobody will really love half or more of it-you may get a scene where a Diddy has to strike Frigate against MK, but never a scene where MK has to strike FD and SV and then goes to one of diddy's best stages in the matchups anyways–he'll still have various stages that are between good and decent for him. The goal is, after all, a stage which is decent but not good for both characters.

In conclusion:

With this sole deciding criteria in mind, I've gone through a fairly conservative stagelist and constructed a starter list:

3: PS2, Smashville, Lylat
5: +Battlefield, Castle Siege
7: +PS1, Frigate
9: +Halberd, Yoshi's
11: +Delfino, Final Destination
13: +Jungle Japes, Rainbow Cruise
15: +Brinstar, Norfair

I'd honestly stop at either 9, or 11. Beyond the first few, it does get a little shaky; certain stages are more or less polar, but you also have to respect the striking system in a way... It's tricky, but if you go up to 11, you don't really have any issues. Striking in a 3-3-2-2 pattern, or even a 4-5-1 pattern severely speeds up striking as a whole.

Notice a few consequences of this:

1. FD is only a starter with 11+ starter stages. This is very intentional; FD is not a starter stage. Shouldn't be, anyways. It is, quite simply, one of the most polar stages ever. I went down from S tier to D tier and found 2 characters who find the stage neutral in more than a small handful of matchups. FD is a hardcore counterpick. It's very rare that one of the two players doesn't ban it, that's how polar it is. It's literally about on the level with Rainbow Cruise or Brinstar as far as matchup polarization goes.
2. Pokemon Stadium 2 is ALWAYS a starter. Again, very simple. PS2 is really one of the most fair stages in the game. No character likes it, no character hates it. Well, to be fair, Sonic and G&W "like" the stage, but they like it in the same way Metaknight "likes" Halberd or Lylat in many matchups-they have some tricks, but have far, far better stages. This isn't just out-of-my-*** theorycraft either (although that backs it up)–Nova Scotia and parts of Australia have confirmed this very extensively-PS2 is a really, really balanced and fair stage.
3. Rainbow Cruise and Brinstar are still awful starters. Newsflash: the reason these aren't starters isn't because they move, it's because they're about as polar as an abortion debate between a stem cell researcher and a TV Evangelist.

It is miles better than our current starter list in any of its forms. It's the way the starter list should look. I heavily recommend going with the 11-stage form of the list for your starter list to any TO.

Also, DMG should namesearch this.
 

Life

Smash Hero
Joined
Jul 19, 2010
Messages
5,264
Location
Grieving No Longer
Out of curiosity, why is SV rated so highly? It's pretty similar to FD, just smaller and with the platform (and the balloon, but who cares about the balloon?). Does the platform make that much of a difference that it can turn a "hardcore counterpick" into a neutral?
 
Joined
Oct 9, 2008
Messages
8,908
Location
Vinyl Scratch's Party Bungalo
NNID
Budget_Player
Out of curiosity, why is SV rated so highly? It's pretty similar to FD, just smaller and with the platform (and the balloon, but who cares about the balloon?). Does the platform make that much of a difference that it can turn a "hardcore counterpick" into a neutral?
The platform, and the fact that the center stage is far smaller. It's subtle, but it does really make a very big difference.
 

MikeKirby

OTL Winrar
Joined
Jun 6, 2006
Messages
2,175
Location
Brooklyn, New York
BPC why are you not a Brawl Backroom Member?

I support this.

Simple question though. Lets say you go with the 9 starter stage list. The other 6 become Counter-Picks? If you are daring enough to go with the 15 Starters will there be Counter-Pick stages?
 

UberMario

Smash Master
Joined
Jun 17, 2009
Messages
3,312
Interesting read, Rainbow Cruise and Jungle Japes should NEVER be starters though, and PS1 and CS are too high up.
 
Joined
Oct 9, 2008
Messages
8,908
Location
Vinyl Scratch's Party Bungalo
NNID
Budget_Player
BPC why are you not a Brawl Backroom Member?

I support this.
D'aww, thanks. :) I'm kind of leaning on stuff like this for my entry, because I have ****-all to show for it on tournament results...

Simple question though. Lets say you go with the 9 starter stage list. The other 6 become Counter-Picks? If you are daring enough to go with the 15 Starters will there be Counter-Pick stages?
This starter list was based around a more or less conservative ruleset; stages like Luigi's Mansion, PTAD, Distant Planet, Green Greens, etc. were pretty much completely ignored. The nice part is, it would hardly need to be thought about-if you're going to use them, and if you're going to go above 11 (they'd almost certainly belong somewhere around 13-17), you're probably just gonna want to go full monty starter list anyways. As said, I recommend for maximum balance between streamlined stage selection and balanced stage selection to use the 11-stage list.

Interesting read, Rainbow Cruise and Jungle Japes should NEVER be starters though, and PS1 and CS are too high up.
There's nothing wrong with these stages being starters, as long as you are willing to unlimit the starter list-this is the entire point of this thread. They're way up there, obviously, because they're ridiculously polar and bound to be struck very quickly, but haven't you heard of "Full stagelist striking", an idea proposed a while back which is still very sensible? Essentially, if we're going to let polar stages like FD force a strike on the aerial chars, why shouldn't the aerial chars be able to force strikes with stages that are equally potent and polar? I'm aware that they are ****ty starter stages, but once you get up to that many starters, the excuse "just strike it" starts to work really, really well.

Also, PS1 is ridiculously well-balanced. So is Castle Siege. I almost placed Castle Siege as the third neutral in the 3-starter set. I only put PS1 higher because PS2 is a better starter stage (duh) and because it is very similar to PS1; originally, the 3-starter was PS1, PS2, and CS. I'm not 100% sure about the list, it could be moved around.
 

UberMario

Smash Master
Joined
Jun 17, 2009
Messages
3,312
I've suggested Full Stagelist Striking many times in the past, and the fact that RC and JJ are polar is the very reason they shouldn't be starters. Final Destination is nowhere near s polar as those two, especially the former.
 
Joined
Oct 9, 2008
Messages
8,908
Location
Vinyl Scratch's Party Bungalo
NNID
Budget_Player
FD is the most static stage in the game (tied with battlefield). FD is the (reasonably legal) stage with the longest flat portion. FD is the stage with the least platforms. And it's less polar than RC?

And REMEMBER! When you get up to 13+ starter stages, you have ridiculously large numbers of strikes. If RC is a broken stage in the matchup (it probably is), strike it. Just like FD. In fact, I should probably put RC and FD in the same bracket...
 

ADHD

Smash Hero
Joined
Feb 18, 2008
Messages
7,194
Location
New Jersey
If the idea is to non-polarize every matchup (you seem to have something strongly against FD because of it's polarization, or is it really it's non-interaction?), then why is not every stage we start/play a non-polarizing stage like Battlefield?

It sounds as if you believe stagelists should be associated with a combination matchups involved, as well as never playing on a character's "best" stage. Then.. we can cut the crap and get to this immediately.
 

napZzz

Smash Hero
Joined
Mar 4, 2008
Messages
5,294
Location
cg, MN
I love how you're talking about how these stage lists benefit all the top tiers, but what about mk? lol he's even better with your ****ty stages on and it makes other characters worse

the reason those characters might be good is BECAUSE of that stagelist? lol it wasn't handed to them to benefit it and ic's are ****ed over if they cant win their first game anyways because they have nos olid cp vs. anything, cry more

Why haven't you ever talked about ****ing japes or the other stages you think you should be banned, they're basically all as stupid as the rest might as well just unban pretty much everything with bpc rules since if it moves WE CAN JUST AVOID IT
 

SuSa

Banned via Administration
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
11,508
Location
planking while watching anime with Fino
Full stage list striking should actually exist.


Unbanned stages
and
Banned stages

First match is decided via striking or agreeing on a level. Then we go into the counterpick system currently in place.

I see no issue with this startup other than "it takes a bit more time" before the match. But seeing as many people may agree to "Let's just play Smashville" I don't see the real issue. If anything it's another minute or two before a match starts. Even in large tournaments this shouldn't be a major issue....

 

ADHD

Smash Hero
Joined
Feb 18, 2008
Messages
7,194
Location
New Jersey
I love how you're talking about how these stage lists benefit all the top tiers, but what about mk? lol he's even better with your ****ty stages on and it makes other characters worse

the reason those characters might be good is BECAUSE of that stagelist? lol it wasn't handed to them to benefit it and ic's are ****ed over if they cant win their first game anyways because they have nos olid cp vs. anything, cry more

Why haven't you ever talked about ****ing japes or the other stages you think you should be banned, they're basically all as stupid as the rest might as well just unban pretty much everything with bpc rules since if it moves WE CAN JUST AVOID IT
They are fully aware of this, and other than the facades they'll type to convince you it's still reasonable while he's existing, they do want him banned.

Full stage list striking should actually exist.


Unbanned stages
and
Banned stages

First match is decided via striking or agreeing on a level. Then we go into the counterpick system currently in place.

I see no issue with this startup other than "it takes a bit more time" before the match. But seeing as many people may agree to "Let's just play Smashville" I don't see the real issue. If anything it's another minute or two before a match starts. Even in large tournaments this shouldn't be a major issue....

Unbanned stages too? Why? A majority of them aren't suited for competitive play.
 

SuSa

Banned via Administration
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
11,508
Location
planking while watching anime with Fino
They are fully aware of this, and other than the facades they'll type to convince you it's still reasonable while he's existing, they do want him banned.



Unbanned stages too? Why? A majority of them aren't suited for competitive play.
There are three classes of stages currently.

Neutral
Counterpick
banned

"Unbanned stages" would refer to Neutral/Counterpicks (ones which aren't banned)

Banned = Banned. Easy.


So the stage list would come into play to decide the first stage of the match, by striking off options until only one option is remainder. Therefore it turns into a battle for which stage a player wants based off which stages are being striked down by their opponents.
 
Joined
Oct 9, 2008
Messages
8,908
Location
Vinyl Scratch's Party Bungalo
NNID
Budget_Player
Take everything in this post with a grain of salt; I've imbibed about 2.5 liters of beer with 0.54% alcohol content (i.e. I'm drunk off my *** with this stupid 16-year-old american liver...)

Full stage list striking should actually exist.


Unbanned stages
and
Banned stages

First match is decided via striking or agreeing on a level. Then we go into the counterpick system currently in place.

I see no issue with this startup other than "it takes a bit more time" before the match. But seeing as many people may agree to "Let's just play Smashville" I don't see the real issue. If anything it's another minute or two before a match starts. Even in large tournaments this shouldn't be a major issue....

DEAR GOD THIS. This is one of the conclusions I "accidentally" omitted. The more stages you have in your starter list, the closer you come

If the idea is to non-polarize every matchup (you seem to have something strongly against FD because of it's polarization, or is it really it's non-interaction?), then why is not every stage we start/play a non-polarizing stage like Battlefield?

It sounds as if you believe stagelists should be associated with a combination matchups involved, as well as never playing on a character's "best" stage. Then.. we can cut the crap and get to this immediately.
FD is ridiculously polarizing. That's why it should only ever be a starter when you're throwing in equally polarizing (i.e. RC, Brinstar-that kinda stuff) stages (for details, see SuSa's post).

In general, the problem is that even if Battlefield may seem fair and balanced to you, if you were to strike from the whole stagelist, how often would it go to BF? How often against Diddy? Falco? Nah, it'd go to PS1, or YI, or Lylat, or some similar stage. Meaning someone would obviously object to the stage in most matchups.

The idea is not to non-polarize each matchup; if a matchup like DK-DDD is ridiculously polar on almost every stage, it should **** well stay that way. The idea is to make the stage virtually a non-issue regarding matchup balance game one. This has nothing to do with the stage's interaction or consistency, merely with how much the stage sways the matchup in comparison to all other stages.

I love how you're talking about how these stage lists benefit all the top tiers, but what about mk? lol he's even better with your ****ty stages on and it makes other characters worse
Yeah, he's better. But get this-he's not better because a broken system props him up, he's better because he's simply a more versatile character. I.e. we're not arbitrarily limiting him any more. If he is broken in this ruleset, then that doesn't mean "make the ruleset unfair to balance out a character", it means "ban the character who is legitimately broken". Plus, need I remind you that, normally, MLG has less MK-swamped results than the east coast, where more conservative rulesets are common?

the reason those characters might be good is BECAUSE of that stagelist? lol it wasn't handed to them to benefit it and ic's are ****ed over if they cant win their first game anyways because they have nos olid cp vs. anything, cry more
It may not have been installed specifically to benefit them, but it **** well helps them. ICs getting FD game one is like G&W getting Norfair game one-it's a ridiculously huge advantage for them because THEY SUCK ON EVERY OTHER STAGE. Seriously. As I've shown, comparing how much of an advantage a character gets to how much of an advantage a different character gets is a meaningless comparison in this respect. The fact that they don't, as you say, "have a solid CP", is because they are bad characters. Are we going to reward that, or are we going to say, "pick a char who isn't **** or suck it up" like a sane competitive community would?

Why haven't you ever talked about ****ing japes or the other stages you think you should be banned, they're basically all as stupid as the rest might as well just unban pretty much everything with bpc rules since if it moves WE CAN JUST AVOID IT
Well.... Yea. Kinda. Let's see here...

PTAD cars: obvious safe spots, non-random car patterns, easy to avoid
Norfair lava: tons of warning, easy to estimate when it shows up, just not in which form
Brinstar lava: completely non-random
Japes: What the HELL are you complaining about?

Umm... Yeah, what were you saying again? Learn to adapt, learn to play, and stop whining you stupid scrub.
 

Mr. Escalator

G&W Guru
Joined
Apr 11, 2008
Messages
2,103
Location
Hudson, NH
NNID
MrEscalator
5 Star'd so hard.
I definitely agree that FD should, more often than not, be strictly a CP stage, unless you make up for it in having a large starter list to strike from. A full stage strike is something that has always interested me, on a somewhat related note.

Perhaps MK just thrives more in a strict ruleset because of the characters that it caters to, despite not having his best starter stages? Either way, I'd prefer a list that's fair to all instead of a list that's slanted in favor of some that artificially nerfs Meta Knight. If he's really such a problem that we need to set arbitrary rules to check him, then he should just be banned (I don't think he's banworthy, but this isn't the place to discuss that).

Nevertheless, good read. Great read, actually.
 

Luxor

Smash Champion
Joined
Jul 13, 2009
Messages
2,155
Location
Frame data threads o.0
<3 BPC.

Also, I've got a COMPLETED spreadsheet of every stages' blastzone/platform/everything data that will get released to the public soon. Probably going in tactical for more views, but I'll make sure to link you all to it. Random tidbits include JJ having a 50% higher roof than "average," with PTAD, GG, YI:M, and possibly Halberd having the shortest roofs (not sure since Halberd platform locations, as well as anything RC related were the only things I couldn't find). Interesting how all the "Category 3" CPs benefit strong vertical killers.
 

GTZ

Smash Ace
Joined
Sep 21, 2010
Messages
510
Location
Palmer, MA
NNID
Arctic-Cat
BPC, there may have been some topics that we have bashed heads on in the past, but I must commemorate this thread... You have an exceptionally strong argument. The community seems to be heading in the wrong direction, and instead of trying to make Brawl what it really isn't, we should actually play the game for its face value. I wholeheartedly agree about the stage idea. It may even give some characters with some difficulty a greater chance to excel. I highly doubt that Nintendo originally designed this game + stages + characters to only be played on the existing "neutrals" or should they even be called neutrals? I mean it almost seems like the community wants advantages or "breaks" given to characters over other characters.. Honestly if falco is terrible on delfino.. boohoo cry me a river, it should be up to that player's skill to overcome that obstacle... That seems to be the underlying issue here.. fair is a matter of opinion, not fact.. However, the FACT is that this community, and the political entities that regulate it, need to wake up from their stupidity induced coma and see the truth about stages and Brawl as a whole. Like I said BPC, I am with you on this one, and I appreciate seeing another member of this site taking such an initiative to express their opinions and identify a large problem. The list you gave seems to have significantly more substance than the current 4.. no wait 5 (why so low) stage starter list...
 

Raziek

Charging Limit All Day
Joined
Oct 14, 2008
Messages
9,626
Location
Halifax, Nova Scotia
NNID
Raziek
3DS FC
3866-8131-5247
Nova Scotia and parts of Australia have confirmed this very extensively-PS2 is a really, really balanced and fair stage.


Approved.

Great post BPC. You've basically condensed all the theory into one topic I can point people to when they ***** to me about not knowing how to play on PS2.
 

Amazing Ampharos

Balanced Brawl Designer
Writing Team
Joined
Jan 31, 2008
Messages
4,582
Location
Kansas City, MO
The BBR has honestly not really considered an alternative to the counterpick system. The reasons are pretty simple, and I don't think you can fault the BBR for it. There pretty much aren't tournaments doing anything else, and most of the community wants nothing to do with anything else. The BBR does its best to hold a good line on several issues already, and regardless of what it might or might not actually think about something like that, we can't exactly push the buck on something that seemingly almost no one else wants to do. Given that most other alternatives are potentially really lengthy in practice, the lack of real tournament data on these systems in action is further concerning.

Random stages would be really awful, as BPC said in this actual topic but I have to really stress. I mean, I play G&W pretty much no matter what. Let's say I were playing an ICs main who was going to use ICs in any case and we went to random stage. Hmm, maybe we get Final Destination or Smashville, and maybe we get Brinstar or Norfair. If we're random for the whole set, we could have one set on FD/SV/BF (stupidly biased in ICs favor) and another on RC/Brinstar/Norfair (stupidly biased in G&W's favor) which could make the entire set come down to dumb luck on the stae select screen.

Even by my standards, the original post is really long. It's basically saying that there's no logical reason to be against non-static stages (mostly true), that interactivity and randomness aren't necessarily linked (true), that static stages are biased to a particular sub-set of characters (true), and that we should be seeking to, one way or another, be more reasonable and objective and not use the terrible five stage starter list (a conclusion I agree with). The only real caveat I've heard is the argument that using that kind of stage list is a deliberate effort to nerf Meta Knight which, of course, is a pretty flawed argument but would be a tangent so I won't get into it. Was there an argument in the original post I'm missing aside from that?

Somehow in this, I didn't really see a dissection of the closed-minded starter mentality. It is, of course, very simple. The words "closed-minded" are self-defining here; most people who want to only play on static stages just don't like thinking about any of this. In their minds, other stage aren't "competitive" (whatever, if anything, they actually mean by that), and since they don't want to think about it, it's really not reasonable to argue against them. I remember all the complaints about the BBR stage list 3.0 that were of the form "why does this list have terrible, uncompetitive stages like Distant Planet" that didn't really say anything at all... Then toss in a handful of people who simply enjoy those stages far more than the others and want to push the game in that direction via a rule set (which is somewhat different because they've thought about it and decided to do that) and then take another handful who think the rule set as such is the best solution to Meta Knight (right or wrong, they aren't budging), and you have a pretty sizable chunk of the community who simply doesn't want to play on most stages. That's a dissection of what this group is mostly thinking. They tend to be pretty good at making a whole lot of noise and making themselves seem like they speak for the mostly indifferent and/or confused masses.

Here would be a good time to stress that giving the BBR grief is really not right. The BBR is honestly one of the most progressive and reasonable groups on this site. It represents a lot of different interests and ways of thinking, but it tends to make good decisions that don't necessarily reflect common practices. The stage list 3.0 was made in an incredibly reasonable way, and what I still feel was an overly vocal minority crucified it. A good strategy for anyone progressive in this community at this point would probably be to give the BBR some support when it sticks its neck out. Seriously, we aren't the bad guys.

In any case, I would feel bad closing a thread with such a laborious original post, but let's try to see if we can go in some sort of vaguely constructive direction here. I see some seeds of possible decent discussion; I'll leave it to you guys.

And Susa, that looks like a random computer glitch to me (a same time triple post), but please try not to do that in the future if at all possible.
 
Joined
Oct 9, 2008
Messages
8,908
Location
Vinyl Scratch's Party Bungalo
NNID
Budget_Player
Here would be a good time to stress that giving the BBR grief is really not right. The BBR is honestly one of the most progressive and reasonable groups on this site. It represents a lot of different interests and ways of thinking, but it tends to make good decisions that don't necessarily reflect common practices. The stage list 3.0 was made in an incredibly reasonable way, and what I still feel was an overly vocal minority crucified it. A good strategy for anyone progressive in this community at this point would probably be to give the BBR some support when it sticks its neck out. Seriously, we aren't the bad guys.
Did I say that? I am a huge supporter of many of the BBRs attempts. I am a large fan of the BBR ruleset 3.1, as well as 3.0.

In any case, I would feel bad closing a thread with such a laborious original post, but let's try to see if we can go in some sort of vaguely constructive direction here. I see some seeds of possible decent discussion; I'll leave it to you guys.

And Susa, that looks like a random computer glitch to me (a same time triple post), but please try not to do that in the future if at all possible.
It's hard to have constructive discussion when the OP basically says it all. :p We need some opposition in here, so I'll take a few quotes...

An intercourse in the blog commentary between me and Orion:

"We have:
Ice Climbers getting 3/5 of their best stages in the list
Falco getting 3/5 of his best stages in the list
Diddy getting 3/5 of his best stages in the list... "

my answer to this is....

so?
diddy/falco/ics are not by any means the best character in the game right now, and those are their best stages verse METAKNIGHT. to be quite honest, diddy/falco/ics/snake would and can cp non nuetral stages and be VERY successful, however they dont because of metaknight. those are their current "best" stages according to our current metagame
If you have a character getting their best stages in many matchups, in a system built to ensure that the stage is a balanced stage for the matchup, then the system is broken. If you'd like to argue "so what that they get a massive boost", then I'd like to remind you that you are arbitrarily throwing a huge buff their way, and you're heavy-handidly hurting characters like Pikachu, G&W, and Wario, who have similar counterpick patterns to MK.
all of those characters except arguably game and watch do well on standard fd/bf/sv stages as well as cps, though -.-

its not like warios going to get hard countered by ics by playing on bf instead of delfino. there is no MASSIVE boost, hence it being called a neutral stage.

the only stage that is arguably homo is FD, and to be quite honest i think people overrate diddy/falco and ics there
You're missing the point. The fact is, they do well on the standard. They also do well on every other stage. Then there are the characters who only do well on the standard. Why are we rewarding them for being bad at most stages?
we arent rewarding them?
we just picked the most basic, least invasive stages and made those our neutrals because as a tendency they provide the most balanced fights game 1, and most if not all characters can perform relatively well there.

this is not the case in cping. i could say, why are we rewarding gwatch for ****** on RC but sucking *** on like every other stage in the game?
 
Joined
Oct 9, 2008
Messages
8,908
Location
Vinyl Scratch's Party Bungalo
NNID
Budget_Player
A decent TL;DR is pretty hard because it simply has so much info. I will try to compile one later though.

Also, this has nothing to do with the competitive validity of any stage. That's an entirely different discussion. This merely has to do with how the stagelist works. (I do, however, totally love Norfair :laugh:)

EDIT: God dammit GT.
 

Dark 3nergy

Smash Hero
Joined
Aug 15, 2008
Messages
6,389
Location
Baltimore, MD
NNID
Gambit.7
3DS FC
4313-0369-9934
Switch FC
SW-5498-4166-5599
Out of curiosity, why is SV rated so highly?
the platform is awesome it can save you when your recovering, it doesnt always get in the way, can be used to infinite people in places during rare situations, you can use it to approach too

ive never had problems with ps2
 

Orion*

Smash Researcher
Joined
Jun 1, 2008
Messages
4,503
Location
Dexters Laboratory
sv is rated so high because between it (and arguably bf) allows for the most neutral matchups

apparently ps2 does this also, but im no SUPER expert on the stage so w/e
 

-Jumpman-

Smash Champion
Joined
Nov 3, 2007
Messages
2,854
Location
Netherlands
Should the fact that the OP has never attended a single tournament and has no offline experience be taken into account?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom