Determining the procedure to pick stages in Smash 4

[DeLux]

This method has a higher variety of stages and doesn't give a massive advantage to whoever wins the first match. I think I posted about it somewhere, but I can't remember.

Given that the method to select the stage for game 1 is still being discussed, I assumed the procedure maintained the current CP system across games 2 and 3, which contributes more to the centralization of winning game 1 as a quasi-prerequisite to winning the set than any game 1 stage selecting procedure.

If you want to address that issue, you'd probably look towards removing stage counter picking and character counterpicking as a facet of the game procedures.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Well since you say this:

Until this post is addressed, we are implementing change for the sake of change.

I'll address this:

I'm still not seeing the superiority of this method over striking from a 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, etc. stagelist given the built in random stage select method in the game as a logistical medium.

We all seem to agree that FLSS is the best option for picking the fairest stage. The problem is it takes too much time to FLSS from such a large legal stagelist. SSS helps cut out a large portion of the striking to save time (on Wii U you'd only need to strike down to 9 stages) so it allows us to have more legal stages game one AND still not have crazy long striking time. Plus it does make choosing the stage for game one a bit more of a collaborative process, hopefully making game one a bit more fair.

Great redesign, looks a lot better. The catch is that stage counter-pick system.
It keeps the same problem of whoever wins the first set wins the game, but we can fix that later.
Let's see how the players adapt to the SSS first.
Good call with the RNG. It works well since both stages favor both players, so it's somewhat balanced.

I agree, it'd be great to find a good solution to making match one even less powerful but I think that's going to just be insanely chalenging due to mathematics alone. I'm hoping this SS is a success, and if so we can see about actually using it again. I also agree that the RNG was smart, it wont leave those polarized matchups like randoming a large list could.

Given that the method to select the stage for game 1 is still being discussed, I assumed the procedure maintained the current CP system across games 2 and 3, which contributes more to the centralization of winning game 1 as a quasi-prerequisite to winning the set than any game 1 stage selecting procedure.

If you want to address that issue, you'd probably look towards removing stage counter picking and character counterpicking as a facet of the game procedures.

But how would you do that? I think counterpicking while it does make match one important is a strategic part of smash. I'm not sure how game one advantage could honestly ever be eliminated unless you were doing a Swiss bracket and did best of 2 matches so you could tie (which we actually did test on the subreddit, it was interesting.)

 

[DeLux]

But how would you do that? I think counterpicking while it does make match one important is a strategic part of smash. I'm not sure how game one advantage could honestly ever be eliminated unless you were doing a Swiss bracket and did best of 2 matches so you could tie (which we actually did test on the subreddit, it was interesting.)

http://smashboards.com/threads/dece...iable-striking-counter-picking-system.310743/

 

[Doval]

Sweet, yes I think RNG it will be unless it somehow causes a big problem which seems unlikely. At worst you get your 4/5th worst stage this way, which is still better then 5th worse on down as well..

Edit: I also thought it might be nice to share thanks to the help of @David-Lightheart Simultaneous Stage Selection is looking better then ever. Here's a link for those who want to see it at its current iteration.

It's been made easier to read and understand as well, to help get over the barrier of explaining something new. Now to just see if people can write down five stages reasonably.

You covered stacked pairs and crossed pairs but there's another case: nested pairs.

Suppose there's a match between the stages 1/5 and 2/4 (where X/Y means Player 1's choice is the Xth stage from the top and Player 2's is Yth from the top). If you combine the distance from the top of both stages, both pairs have the same distance. In this case I would argue 2/4 is the most fair pair. But even if you break ties by choosing closer matches. Should a match between 1/4 be chosen over 3/3? 1/4 seems more likely to be polarizing simply because the #1 stage might be an order of magnitude better than the remaining choices.

Another issue is that SSS is inherently biased towards not matching. The stages that will show up on both lists are probably the very first stages that would be struck with stage striking, and thus Player 1's top pick probably isn't on Player 2's list at all. I guess we'll find out soon enough if that's true in practice.

I don't think any system will beat the nice properties of stage striking. Assuming that stage matchups follow a bell curve like @Amazing Ampharos hypothesized, stage striking converges on reasonable stages very quickly because the tails of the curve are the first thing to go. Even if you don't strike every single stage, if you strike more than half, the remaining stages should be so close in fairness that one can be chosen at random.

 

[popsofctown]

http://smashboards.com/threads/dece...iable-striking-counter-picking-system.310743/

That looks cool, although I feel like I wouldn't find a ruleset that entailed hoarding strikes fun for me personally. Losing game 1 because I was hoarding strikes would sometimes be the correct play and also feel horrible.

My proposal for decentralizing game 1 is FLSS, game n+1 played on loser's choice of same stage, winner's last strike during FLSS, or own last strike during FLSS. (for bo5 you go deeper into the winner's last strikes)

I also have an idea for reducing character counterpick impact without removing matchup knowledge skill tests, but that would be off the thread's topic.

 

[LiteralGrill]

http://smashboards.com/threads/dece...iable-striking-counter-picking-system.310743/

People were complaining that what I was proposing was too complex, this is going to fall prey to that even worse. The average player isn't going to understand it or be able to learn it.

You covered stacked pairs and crossed pairs but there's another case: nested pairs.

Suppose there's a match between the stages 1/5 and 2/4 (where X/Y means Player 1's choice is the Xth stage from the top and Player 2's is Yth from the top). If you combine the distance from the top of both stages, both pairs have the same distance. In this case I would argue 2/4 is the most fair pair. But even if you break ties by choosing closer matches. Should a match between 1/4 be chosen over 3/3? 1/4 seems more likely to be polarizing simply because the #1 stage might be an order of magnitude better than the remaining choices.

You raise an extremely good point. Is there a simple way I could fix that without it badly confusing someone on an explanation of how to pick? You are right, 3/3 would be better then 1/4.

I could say the stages with the least distance from each other are always chosen first which would solve the 3/3 problem. I even had something close to that in there to deal with stacked pairs. But the nested pairs where distance is equal... That's tough. I could say the stages closest to the middle should be the ones played on first, but that may confuse people and is hard to explain. Any ideas how to fix it from anyone?

Another issue is that SSS is inherently biased towards not matching. The stages that will show up on both lists are probably the very first stages that would be struck with stage striking, and thus Player 1's top pick probably isn't on Player 2's list at all. I guess we'll find out soon enough if that's true in practice.

Well, there are the folks who will just want to go to Smashville or something similar game one and they'll have matches there often enough. But in the case of each player only picking what they absolutely want and only having one match actually may come to an advantage time wise. If that happened with the 9 stages (which FORCES at least a single match) players at worst would both be on their 5th worst stage for the two of them. If players are striking from nine stages, something similar should happen anyways where they hit their about their fourth worse stage if I'm calculating it right. Not a terrible far difference but hopefully saves time from striking.

I don't think any system will beat the nice properties of stage striking. Assuming that stage matchups follow a bell curve like @Amazing Ampharos hypothesized, stage striking converges on reasonable stages very quickly because the tails of the curve are the first thing to go. Even if you don't strike every single stage, if you strike more than half, the remaining stages should be so close in fairness that one can be chosen at random.

I spose the worst issue with my system is someone can get their number one stage while the opponent gets their fifth. But I still feel it's better then going random, at least players had input on which stage went first. I know feeling something isn't really scientific in any way though

I'm not against using FLSS with faster strikes (4-5-5-4) or something like that either, if people think it'd work. The entire idea of SSS was to try to make something like FLSS but make it fast enough to be done in tournament since time was such a huge concern.

I also have an idea for reducing character counterpick impact without removing matchup knowledge skill tests, but that would be off the thread's topic.

If it's off topic for the thread, PM it to me. I'd love to hear any ideas on how to help get rid of centralization game one.

 

[DeLux]

I've been doing 1-2-2-2-1 from 9 or 1-2-2-2-2-2-1 from 13 stages for Brawl for a couple years.

A couple of observations -
There is not much difference in time length between 5 and 9 stages in striking. Most of the "hard" choices don't occur towards the latter turns of striking, which make sense mathematically based on probabilities.

At 13 stages, the biggest time kill comes from someone accidentally not striking two stages or accidentally striking 3 stages, requiring the procedure to restart.


Back on topic -

The point I'm trying to make is that we have a system that gives a competitively neutral stage assuming players of equal skill that is derived from a built in game feature (random stage select). Like from a ritualistic perspective, in matches it can be interpreted that the procedure strikes the stages until there is only one left and then hit random. Followed by the loser picks the stage within parameters (ie bans) in the counter"pick" stage of the later games.

It's similar to how Judgement Magnitude is used as the standard drawing of Lots in the community, as it's present at every setup by default since it's in the game. Ties (analogous to deadlock) is easy to solve in this case with just a tie breaker magnitude draw.

Striking does not require cards for every setup, which is clearly advantageous. Nor does it have the issues of deadlock present in the alternative suggestion. Using the Judgement Magnitude as a parallel, it would be similar to requiring every setup have a dice to roll in order to determine who goes first. It's not out of the question unreasonable, but we have something in game that already does it for us without forcing us to go buy all the Yahtzee sets in the world.

Assuming time parameters are similar (which they probably are), the alternative suggestion is an objectively inferior system to striking, logistically and competitively. Unless there is some sort of advantage to the other method that I'm not aware of...

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Idle thought: What if you did SSS from half + 1 of the stages? That's guaranteed to have at least one stage common to both lists.

Drawbacks are mostly the sheer size of the lists and whatever has already been identified with current SSS procedure.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Idle thought: What if you did SSS from half + 1 of the stages? That's guaranteed to have at least one stage common to both lists.

Drawbacks are mostly the sheer size of the lists and whatever has already been identified with current SSS procedure.

It's not a bad idea, just let players list more stages to match the number of legal stages. But you could end up getting to a stage that's really bad for both of them really easy that way on accident. I wouldn't want my 11th worst stage somehow. At least within 5 it's not too badly skewed.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

Given that the method to select the stage for game 1 is still being discussed, I assumed the procedure maintained the current CP system across games 2 and 3, which contributes more to the centralization of winning game 1 as a quasi-prerequisite to winning the set than any game 1 stage selecting procedure.

If you want to address that issue, you'd probably look towards removing stage counter picking and character counterpicking as a facet of the game procedures.

I've been thinking about a way to fix the centralization issue in SSS. But as I said in my last post, I'm going to wait for Capps Tourney Data to see what issues are relevant enough in the current system and then move on to the counter-pick variants.

 

[LiteralGrill]

I also have an idea for reducing character counterpick impact without removing matchup knowledge skill tests, but that would be off the thread's topic.

Your idea may have what I needed to fix SSS or even craft something just plain better. Thanks a ton, the idea of using rules from Ko in Go was really awesome!

 

[Piford]

It's not a bad idea, just let players list more stages to match the number of legal stages. But you could end up getting to a stage that's really bad for both of them really easy that way on accident. I wouldn't want my 11th worst stage somehow. At least within 5 it's not too badly skewed.

If you go through half the legal stages and have 1 in common wouldn't that be the most neutral stage? If you got your 11th worst stage its because there are 21 legal stages, and there 10 ones that benefit your opponent more and 10 that benefit you more? Sorry if I missing something because I kinda skipped over some post in this thread.

 

[LiteralGrill]

If you go through half the legal stages and have 1 in common wouldn't that be the most neutral stage? If you got your 11th worst stage its because there are 21 legal stages, and there 10 ones that benefit your opponent more and 10 that benefit you more? Sorry if I missing something because I kinda skipped over some post in this thread.

I think what he was suggesting is, if you have 19 legal stages, having each player write down the ten they want (I used math to keep it mathematically impossible to not have a match still) The issue there is that you could end up with the stages really far away, like 1st best stage to 10th best stage. 1st to 5th may not be perfect, but it's definitely not THAT bad.

As of now, I'm thinking of just seeing if that 1-4 split (with only 7 legal stages on the 3DS it makes the split a little less) is actually a problem before we craft a solution. If it's not a real issue, it may not even need to be fixed.

 

[Piford]

I think what he was suggesting is, if you have 19 legal stages, having each player write down the ten they want (I used math to keep it mathematically impossible to not have a match still) The issue there is that you could end up with the stages really far away, like 1st best stage to 10th best stage. 1st to 5th may not be perfect, but it's definitely not THAT bad.

As of now, I'm thinking of just seeing if that 1-4 split (with only 7 legal stages on the 3DS it makes the split a little less) is actually a problem before we craft a solution. If it's not a real issue, it may not even need to be fixed.

Also I have a concern that can come from abusing the system. If I know what my opponents five best stages are, I can pick his next best 5 so that were forced to pick from the stages that weren't pick the first time. If there are 19 legal stages, then we are now picking from my 9 best stages, where I would likely end up on my fifth best.

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

Also I have a concern that can come from abusing the system. If I know what my opponents five best stages are, I can pick his next best 5 so that were forced to pick from the stages that weren't pick the first time. If there are 19 legal stages, then we are now picking from my 9 best stages, where I would likely end up on my fifth best.

I'm not sure I understand where you're coming from? Both players are working it amongst themselves on the 9 stages. I doubt the opponent would allow you to get his even worse stages.

 

[Piford]

I'm not sure I understand where you're coming from? Both players are working it amongst themselves on the 9 stages. I doubt the opponent would allow you to get his even worse stages.

Okay we have stages 1-19. My opponents best stages are 1-19 in that order, meaning my best stages are 19-1. So for my first 5, my opponent picks his best five stages 1-5. I, being deceptive, pick stages 6-10. Now we move on to the last 9 stages, which are 11-19. Now whatever stage we go to, I have the advantage. Now this probably can't happen in actual application. However the best strategy when picking stages first round is to try to pick the most neutral stages. This way I get a neutral stage round 1, or if no stages match and we go to round 2 of stage selecting, I still have all my best stages in play. But then again, my opponent would then also aim to pick the most neutral stages round one, and then we will just have a match.

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

Okay we have stages 1-19. My opponents best stages are 1-19 in that order, meaning my best stages are 19-1. So for my first 5, my opponent picks his best five stages 1-5. I, being deceptive, pick stages 6-10. Now we move on to the last 9 stages, which are 11-19. Now whatever stage we go to, I have the advantage. Now this probably can't happen in actual application. However the best strategy when picking stages first round is to try to pick the most neutral stages. This way I get a neutral stage round 1, or if no stages match and we go to round 2 of stage selecting, I still have all my best stages in play. But then again, my opponent would then also aim to pick the most neutral stages round one, and then we will just have a match.

Well the thing is, just because your opponent's best stages are 1>19 doesn't mean the opposite is yours. It varies between players. You might despise 1 too and wouldn't want to be there either. I mean, mathematically, maybe that's the case, but I'm not sure that would happen amongst real people.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Well the thing is, just because your opponent's best stages are 1>19 doesn't mean the opposite is yours. It varies between players. You might despise 1 too and wouldn't want to be there either. I mean, mathematically, maybe that's the case, but I'm not sure that would happen amongst real people.

When trying to figure something like this out it's still a good idea to consider the worst possible case no matter how unfeasible it is. In the event someone figures out a way to game the system, it tells us exactly what sort of issues we may need to account for.

 

[popsofctown]

The factor that seems most important is whether it saves time, since Delux thinks it doesn't and the main point of it is that hopefully it does. That might be hard to gauge online, on a small stagelist.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Okay we have stages 1-19. My opponents best stages are 1-19 in that order, meaning my best stages are 19-1. So for my first 5, my opponent picks his best five stages 1-5. I, being deceptive, pick stages 6-10. Now we move on to the last 9 stages, which are 11-19. Now whatever stage we go to, I have the advantage. Now this probably can't happen in actual application. However the best strategy when picking stages first round is to try to pick the most neutral stages. This way I get a neutral stage round 1, or if no stages match and we go to round 2 of stage selecting, I still have all my best stages in play. But then again, my opponent would then also aim to pick the most neutral stages round one, and then we will just have a match.

Because your doing it backwards.

My proposed plan would be for both players to strike EXACTLY like they do already, but ONLY down to 9 stages. So out of your 19, you'd only have the 9 left you both though were the closest to even. I could even lower it down to 7 and it's still work just fine if people are worried it could be abused.

It's like FLSS where we cut half of the striking time out since everyone said FLSS was too slow.

though if we're honest, the chances of 19 stages actually being legal is incredibly unlikely. 15 TOPS with how conservative most folks are, and that's if you can argue people really well to keep some.

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

When trying to figure something like this out it's still a good idea to consider the worst possible case no matter how unfeasible it is. In the event someone figures out a way to game the system, it tells us exactly what sort of issues we may need to account for.

The thing is though, there is no guarantee that anyone can take advantage of this in this way because how good players are on certain stages really depends on the player. I don't know the odds of this system, but I expect them to be very, very, very, very low. I mean, maybe there is a way for someone to game the system (and people should look for it), but I'm not sure this is the way to do it.

Edit: I think Capps understood this question better than me because that's basically how it works.

 

[Piford]

Because your doing it backwards.

My proposed plan would be for both players to strike EXACTLY like they do already, but ONLY down to 9 stages. So out of your 19, you'd only have the 9 left you both though were the closest to even. I could even lower it down to 7 and it's still work just fine if people are worried it could be abused.

It's like FLSS where we cut half of the striking time out since everyone said FLSS was too slow.

though if we're honest, the chances of 19 stages actually being legal is incredibly unlikely. 15 TOPS with how conservative most folks are, and that's if you can argue people really well to keep some.

Oh okay, I wasn't aware that it changed. I was going off what I read a page or so back and then skimmed the post here. But yeah if your striking down to 9 and then doing this thing, I feel like that would take more time. Also for number of stages, isn't it in the end that the Smash Back Room determines how conservative well be?

 

[LiteralGrill]

Oh okay, I wasn't aware that it changed. I was going off what I read a page or so back and then skimmed the post here. But yeah if your striking down to 9 and then doing this thing, I feel like that would take more time. Also for number of stages, isn't it in the end that the Smash Back Room determines how conservative well be?

Are you kidding me? NO ONE listened to the Smash Back Room recommended rulesets back in Brawl, it wont start happening now. As much as it sucks, people will listen to whoever is running the largest and most successful events. All we can do is try to influence them to make a good decision.

(Just to note, this does not mean I don't like the Smash Back Room. They put good work back there and put out amazing things. I'd be honored to ever be able to join, but I still have to tell the cold hard truth.)

 

[popsofctown]

Largest, yes, most successful, doesn't always seem necessary to get people to want to duplicate the ruleset..

 

[Piford]

Are you kidding me? NO ONE listened to the Smash Back Room recommended rulesets back in Brawl, it wont start happening now. As much as it sucks, people will listen to whoever is running the largest and most successful events. All we can do is try to influence them to make a good decision.

(Just to note, this does not mean I don't like the Smash Back Room. They put good work back there and put out amazing things. I'd be honored to ever be able to join, but I still have to tell the cold hard truth.)

That kinda sucks and defeats the purpose. I mean people should probably to listen to the best skilled and most educated players. Lets hope Apex will make a good ruleset then because it seems to be the earliest major tournament.

 

[LiteralGrill]

That kinda sucks and defeats the purpose. I mean people should probably to listen to the best skilled and most educated players. Lets hope Apex will make a good ruleset then because it seems to be the earliest major tournament.

You might not want that either, the best players don't always make good decisions either. In fact, many make decisions like that strictly to give themselves better chances to win. Now the most educated? Oh yeah.

And yeah in all honesty, whatever Apex runs is gonna be standard for just about everybody which could be a blessing or a curse.

 

[DeLux]

I've been doing 1-2-2-2-1 from 9 or 1-2-2-2-2-2-1 from 13 stages for Brawl for a couple years.

A couple of observations -
There is not much difference in time length between 5 and 9 stages in striking. Most of the "hard" choices don't occur towards the latter turns of striking, which make sense mathematically based on probabilities.

At 13 stages, the biggest time kill comes from someone accidentally not striking two stages or accidentally striking 3 stages, requiring the procedure to restart.


Back on topic -

The point I'm trying to make is that we have a system that gives a competitively neutral stage assuming players of equal skill that is derived from a built in game feature (random stage select). Like from a ritualistic perspective, in matches it can be interpreted that the procedure strikes the stages until there is only one left and then hit random. Followed by the loser picks the stage within parameters (ie bans) in the counter"pick" stage of the later games.

It's similar to how Judgement Magnitude is used as the standard drawing of Lots in the community, as it's present at every setup by default since it's in the game. Ties (analogous to deadlock) is easy to solve in this case with just a tie breaker magnitude draw.

Striking does not require cards for every setup, which is clearly advantageous. Nor does it have the issues of deadlock present in the alternative suggestion. Using the Judgement Magnitude as a parallel, it would be similar to requiring every setup have a dice to roll in order to determine who goes first. It's not out of the question unreasonable, but we have something in game that already does it for us without forcing us to go buy all the Yahtzee sets in the world.

Assuming time parameters are similar (which they probably are), the alternative suggestion is an objectively inferior system to striking, logistically and competitively. Unless there is some sort of advantage to the other method that I'm not aware of...

Address pls

 

[Pazx]

Address pls

I assume MK is banned in your 13 stage tournaments. I support FLSS as I don't really see any inherent downsides however the promotion of stage diversity could lead to Game 1 being decided by factors other than the players; if the most neutral stage in a matchup is Halberd for example there are many hazards that can affect gameplay. I personally do not have a problem with this but some would prefer game 1 being played on a stage where nothing can influence the match.

In regards to the rest of your post I wholeheartedly agree, the fact that the new systems being suggested require paper/cards and can create deadlocks that have to be resolved with RNG (something that never occurs with striking) should be enough proof that they are not superior to striking. The time differences will likely be marginal, during the initial tests of these new systems I can see them taking longer as players are more likely to make mistakes with something they are not familiar with.

 

[BestTeaMaker]

You know, there's an easy way to solve the problems of large stagelist picking in taking up time or confusion of procedures that doesn't involve taping the procedures on the TV. You give them a visual means of stage striking. In Project M, this was solved by giving striking functionality to the stage select menu. For online, players just need to open a separate window on their internet browser since they're already on the computer communicating with each other.

So what about live tournaments? Make a phone app. Because of the ubiquity of smartphones, you just need to create an app in which you can decide the stage striking procedures and the legal stages available. It also means you only need one phone between two people for this to work, so TOs would be able to easily help those who don't have smartphones or just forgot theirs.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Address pls

Honestly, you are correct here. The problem is it just takes to long apparently for anyone to strike said stages. People complained about just striking 7 for our FLSS tournament on the 3DS saying it took too long (which is really silly) how do you expect me to convince folks to strike down 15 or more? They simply just wont. Also to be brutally honest, when apex runs starter/cp anyways people are just going to flock over to it. Maybe instead of talking about a new system or how to get FLSS to be recognized we need to just plain fight for more starter stages or educate folks on why more stages is good for the game. Because as it stands, no solution is going to actually work.

I mean I'm still going to run my tournament. At a bare minimum maybe we'll learn something or people will like it and have fun. But it's time to sit down and be a bit realistic with this. You either have to make something SO much better people will take it over starter/cp or it will just be used in local events and never in the big ones. Unless someone here wants to help me host a big tournament series where we use FLSS or something to show large sections of the community that it works... Which honestly may be a solution funny enough.

 

[Volt-Ikazuchi]

You know, there's an easy way to solve the problems of large stagelist picking in taking up time or confusion of procedures that doesn't involve taping the procedures on the TV. You give them a visual means of stage striking. In Project M, this was solved by giving striking functionality to the stage select menu. For online, players just need to open a separate window on their internet browser since they're already on the computer communicating with each other.

So what about live tournaments? Make a phone app. Because of the ubiquity of smartphones, you just need to create an app in which you can decide the stage striking procedures and the legal stages available. It also means you only need one phone between two people for this to work, so TOs would be able to easily help those who don't have smartphones or just forgot theirs.

Now that's the best idea I've heard to fix this problem. The catch is getting someone that can do it.

 

[popsofctown]

I think FLoSSing is the way to go. Apex won't be using it, but FLoSSing from Apex's stagelist is close enough that you can get locals and regionals to go for it. It's possibly better practice for Apex than the Apex ruleset itself because you get a little experience on obscure stages, which is more valuable than a lot of experience on common ones.

Players who thinks it takes too long should just accept shortcuts. Like, at any point, they can use all their strikes on the stagelist and let the other guy pick the stage from what's left. Or just some of their strikes.

I'm really more interested in game 1 decentralization, which is a lot harder to get people to go for. The Melee counterpick system doesn't centralize game 1 as much for Melee as it does for other games, so I think Melee has had undue influence in putting things where they are now :/

You know, there's an easy way to solve the problems of large stagelist picking in taking up time or confusion of procedures that doesn't involve taping the procedures on the TV. You give them a visual means of stage striking. In Project M, this was solved by giving striking functionality to the stage select menu. For online, players just need to open a separate window on their internet browser since they're already on the computer communicating with each other.

So what about live tournaments? Make a phone app. Because of the ubiquity of smartphones, you just need to create an app in which you can decide the stage striking procedures and the legal stages available. It also means you only need one phone between two people for this to work, so TOs would be able to easily help those who don't have smartphones or just forgot theirs.

Now that's the best idea I've heard to fix this problem. The catch is getting someone that can do it.

I bet @Ingulit could do it in his sleep

 

[Doval]

Can someone explain to me this game 1 centralization issue? Is the rationale that if you win game 1, you're likely to win game 3 since you can counter-counterpick your opponent's game 2 choice?

 

[popsofctown]

Yeah, sounds like you understand.
So winning game one is far too close to winning the set.
A true best of 3 is better.

 

[Doval]

Yeah, sounds like you understand.
So winning game one is far too close to winning the set.
A true best of 3 is better.

You can't solve that with stage selection rules since the game 1 winner can still counterpick characters, which can be just as significant or more than stage selection. At the same time, forbidding counterpicks locks you into a bad matchup for the whole set.

It seems to me the only things you can do is allow only one form of counterpick (I.e. Lock the character matchup and counterpick stages or vice-versa) or simply fall back to round 1 rules if you get as far as game 3 (going through the whole double blind pick and striking procedure.)

 

[popsofctown]

You can weaken game 1 with improved stage selection rules, though character counterpicking would indeed still be an issue.

If character counterpicking was fixed in the way I'd like it to be, game 1 would be decentralized enough that I'd be happy to call it a day and leave stage rules as-is, but it's probably easier to get people to allow reforms to stage selection than they are to allow changes to character selection.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Hey, I decided to take a look at modular boardgames to see how they might handle some similar things to our stage selection with @ Davis-Lightheart

If anyone wants to dive into this with us, here's a link to a bunch of games you could study for inspiration.

 

[popsofctown]

Boardgames are awesome, but they're not always competitive.

I've played a lot of online competitve Dominion, and got to C tier on a community ladder. Dominion is highly modular, ten of the cards you can buy are selected entirely at random to be available to both players, and act like a stage in that sense. In spite of that modularity randomly testing different skills, and that being stacked on top of the game having random mechanics involved, the best player win very consistently.. at least in Bo7 sets, which take a long time but were pretty standard. Bo5 sometimes, but never Bo3. Basically they don't sacrifice any variety for additional competitivity, they just go to a really large sample size.

Before I found out about Dominion, I played Puzzle Strike, which is Sirlin's "competitive version" of Dominion. His online tournaments ran Bo3 sets and a counterpick system that massively centralized game 1 (you could pick cards into play that benefited your character but would have no impact on your foe whenever you lose a game), so I quit Puzzle Strike for Dominion's better balance and more competitve tournament standard.

I've played competitive MtG, which is only modular in ways specific to the players own respective decks. They centralize game 1 a good deal, but they kind of have to, counterpicking cards from sideboard keeps decks that only lose to very specific things in check. But since there's lots of land screw and players winning game 1 and winning the set because time runs out during game 2, that's the least of anyone's worries. The swiss format, constant play, and everyone having a setup keeps people happy with MtG, and people are paying way more $ to play that than they are to play smash.. but dominion might be more relevant to the comparison you're looking for since there's "neutral" modular elements that affect both players.

Smallworld doesn't have a competitive scene but has a more competitive feel than most games I've played. It's mainly about drafting races/power combinations from a list of 6. On turn one, it's often simple and overly straightforward to pick the strongest one. But every time one is taken, the others get 1 point placed on them to incentivize you to take them. By the time you get to the middle of the game, the weak combos have lots of points on them, the strong ones have few, and it's a really tough skill intensive choice to pick the right thing. This mechanic is coupled with the games almost total lack of RNG to make it feel really competitive, and even not so bad in free for alls (though 1v1 is ideal). The funny thing about it is that it's like tier listing: the game, since ranking the options and figuring the number of pts of difference between them is the key.

Warhammer has a pretty competitive scene and I think they have maps so it might be a good choice for inspiration, I don't know much about tabletop games. Dominion's competitive scene barely exists and MTG kinda sucks every competitive minded board gamer in to where most board games don't have a competitive scene because those kinds of people head towards MTG's already existing scene.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Boardgames are awesome, but they're not always competitive.

I've played a lot of online competitve Dominion, and got to C tier on a community ladder. Dominion is highly modular, ten of the cards you can buy are selected entirely at random to be available to both players, and act like a stage in that sense. In spite of that modularity randomly testing different skills, and that being stacked on top of the game having random mechanics involved, the best player win very consistently.. at least in Bo7 sets, which take a long time but were pretty standard. Bo5 sometimes, but never Bo3. Basically they don't sacrifice any variety for additional competitivity, they just go to a really large sample size.

Dominion was one of the first things I thought of. How the board changes every game. There is a very home grown version for doing this I've seen many players use involving letting the losing player remove a set of cards first, followed by the second lowest etc. I thought maybe inspiration could happen here.

Smallworld doesn't have a competitive scene but has a more competitive feel than most games I've played. It's mainly about drafting races/power combinations from a list of 6. On turn one, it's often simple and overly straightforward to pick the strongest one. But every time one is taken, the others get 1 point placed on them to incentivize you to take them. By the time you get to the middle of the game, the weak combos have lots of points on them, the strong ones have few, and it's a really tough skill intensive choice to pick the right thing. This mechanic is coupled with the games almost total lack of RNG to make it feel really competitive, and even not so bad in free for alls (though 1v1 is ideal). The funny thing about it is that it's like tier listing: the game, since ranking the options and figuring the number of pts of difference between them is the key.

Maybe we can find inspiration in this as well, this is very interesting.

I also considered how the starting positions are chosen in Catan as well but it's crazy similar to striking as it is.

 

[Uniit]

I actually really like smartphone app for stage selection or whatever ! Sounds pretty great, can be used for Double blind too.

Back in the subject, i do think that the whole SSS is a good think. I mean, that's a pretty good idea, but in fact contains too many deadlock (tie ?) and isn't that simple (need paper or something just for a serious/money match ?). IMHO, the current system is simply (see what i did there ?) better suited.

However, i agree with the counterpick system having a negative impact on the outcome. In a BO3, you just can't use the first match to gauge your opponent, like many said before me, if you lose the first match, is likely that you will lose the whole set.

For this, why not trying to strike (or whatever is choosen for the first match) for each match ? Winner choose character, looser still counterpick character, but they play on a "even" stage ! Well, just my 2 cents.

Another think, got a idea, maybe the worst, but :
Randomly choose a player. That player act like is looser and counterpick char + stage, after the match, the other player do the same, then double blind and striking for the third match.

I see that as, if a player is way better than the other, he will win while being counter picked, with the third match to determine who's the best if the outcome is still 1-1.

Well, that's not a well tought idea, but hey, what you guys thinks of it ?