Discussion of Stage Legality in Smash Bros. Ultimate

[Thinkaman]

just because i'm interested - what biases does battlefield have? the only real bias i can think of is little mac getting platform camped to death, but that's true on every non-fd stage. rosalina exploits the platform layout pretty hard, but then again rosalina exploits all platform layouts. characters with vertical combos like the platform heights, but a bias towards vertical combos is built into the game (vectoring and worse vertical di), and the higher ceiling somewhat compensates for it.

not disagreeing, just interested to hear what you think they are

First, about Mac:

Town & City is great for Mac, maybe better than FD. The platforms disappear at transitions, so camping him indefinitely is not a viable option for most characters. And Mac kills predominantly vertically, so low ceiling == great.

Mac can full hop onto/between platforms on Battlefield, and many other stages. Battlefield is not actually that bad for him, though obviously not his favorite.

Mac cannot full hop onto Smashville's platform in Smash 4. Combined with its off-stage behavior, Mac can do very little to an enemy on the platform. On Duck Hunt and Smashville in many matchups, MAc basically loses if he ever falls behind. In some matchups, Duck Hunt might actually be preferred, because a losing character might have more ability to harass Mac from the platform anyway than to do so from the tree.

Mac does decent on many of the other stages that are no longer legal, including all traveling stages and Castle Siege. He'd prefer most of these to Battlefield in most matchups.

On the modern list of 5, Mac should be striking to Lylat against any opponent smart enough to strike FD and T&C. He should always ban Smashville and be CP'd to Battlefield.


Battlefield is just the most skewed of the "nuetral" stages for vertical strings, as you described. However, the narrowness makes escaping to the ledge/offstage more accessible, and the platforms are at least narrow enough to allow some interesting counterplay. (Contrast with the extreme case of Tomadachi Life)

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I have my own list of what I'm thinking about the stages. I just list all 103:

Spoiler: Personal Stage Thoughts

Stages I think will obviously be legal worthy:

Battlefield
Final Destination
Dream Land 64
Brinstar
Yoshi's Story
Fountain of Dreams
Pokemon Stadium 1
Delfino Plaza
WarioWare Inc.
Norfair
Frigate Orpheon
Yoshi's Island Brawl
Halberd
Lylat Cruise
Castle Siege
Smashville
Unova Pokemon League
Prism Tower
Arena Ferox
Tortimer Island
PictoChat 2
Mushroom Kingdom U
Mario Circuit 8 *assumes removing hazards 100% guarantees it never hits you
Skyloft *also assumes removing hazards 100% guarantees it never hits you
Kalos Pokemon League
Town and City
Duck Hunt
Wuhu Island
Wily Castle
Midgar
Umbra Clock Tower
New Donk City Hall

Stages I think have a fair chance of playing out okay and why I have concerns:

Peach's Castle 64 (just general meta stuff about how the shape plays)
Kongo Jungle (size ratios and how capable the top is)
Yoshi 64 (how the clouds are handled)
Rainbow Cruise (is it just the boat?)
Jungle Japes (how the water plays out in this engine)
Green Greens (how the hazards off plays out)
Corneria (is the gun still a platform with hazards off?)
Big Blue (What does hazards off even do?)
Pokemon Stadium 2 (are wind and electric form still present, and if so, do they still do the dumb things?)
Port Town Aero Dive (will it have ledges added/play out okay if not?)
Pirate Ship (how does the water play out with hazards off?)
Spirit Train (gotta really experiment with the gameplay of the hazards off form)
Mute City 3DS (what does this do with hazards off?)
Reset Bomb Forest (does it still turn into that horrible second form?)
Find Mii (are the sizes of the two main platforms big enough to avoid rock style camp-offs?)
Gamer (does hazards off prevent the loop lay-outs?)
Garden of Hope (how is the little "fort" handled with hazards off?)
Windy Hill Zone (is hazards off best case scenario?)
Mario Maker (how does hazards off work here?)
Great Plateau Tower (needs experimenting how practical the "cave of life" is to exploit)
Dracula's Castle (really unsure about the size, optimistic!)


Stages for which I have no real hope (why when specifically relevant):

Big Battlefield
Hyrule Castle
Saffron City (the layout I'm pretty sure won't play well despite not seeming bad at first glance)
Mushroom Kingdom 64
Peach's Castle Melee
Kongo Falls (the rock)
Great Bay
Temple
Yoshi's Island Melee
Venom
Onett
Mushroom Kingdom II
Brinstar Depths
Fourside
Mushroomy Kingdom
Mario Circuit Brawl
Bridge of Eldin
Distant Planet
New Pork City
Summit
Skyworld
Shadow Moses Island
Luigi's Mansion
Spear Pillar
75m
Mario Bros.
Hanenbow
Green Hill Zone
Super Mario 3d World
Golden Plains
Paper Mario
Gerudo Valley
Dream Land 3DS
Magicant (I just don't see the bottommost platform not being present and thus an eternal camp)
Balloon Fight
Living Room
Tomodachi Life
Mario Galaxy
Great Cave Offensive
Coliseum
Flat Zone X
Palutena's Temple
Wii Fit Studio
Boxing Ring
Gaur Plain
Wrecking Crew
Pilotwings
Pac-Land
Suzaku Castle
Moray Towers

So personally, I have real interest in 53/103 of the stages. I'm pretty sure not all 53 will work out, but that's what I want to start with day one and work down from there. Even for the 50 stages I don't really have hope for, I'm still just going to see what's up with hazards off like check the mechanics just in case a surprise comes along. Some of my names are not fully current for stages; the official site doesn't work well for me and I can't easily check the correct new names of stages.

I do also agree that Magicant is likely to be a huge waste, especially since it's the only EarthBound themed stage that has any kind of a chance at all. We're already likely to lose a lot of series' music completely that will be missed (like Xenoblade), but EarthBound seems like it should be so close to being okay and then it's just... not.

I'm sometimes tempted to whip up a quick photoshop of Magicant, the hazards off sign, and a giant red X over the likely camp platform and tweet it to Sakurai with a Google Translate version of "please do this thank you" but I can't help but think that would be kind of weird to do out of the blue.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I'm sometimes tempted to whip up a quick photoshop of Magicant, the hazards off sign, and a giant red X over the likely camp platform and tweet it to Sakurai with a Google Translate version of "please do this thank you" but I can't help but think that would be kind of weird to do out of the blue.

I guarantee that it would not be the weirdest tweet he receives in any given day. Might as well make it a two-fer with the rock on Kongo Falls while you're at it!

 

[infomon]

Per Kongo Falls, please help me understand. It seems to me that circle-camping the platform layout would be a worse problem than the rock at the bottom-right. Are we so sure that it would be even be effective to camp there? Like I get that you probably don't want to be lil mac on that stage, but that'd be your own fault.

Also, wasn't there a klaptrap speciflcally designed to hit you if you try to camp the rock? Though I'm assuming that it's a lightweight "stop casuals from camping" mechanic that is guaranteed beatable in competitive play (e.g. via shield or smthg).... I mean sure we probably want to ban such a powerful hazard but it's interesting to note that the designers specifically coded a mechanism to prevent the thing we're complaining about, but we'll be the ones turning that mechanism off lol.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Per Kongo Falls, please help me understand. It seems to me that circle-camping the platform layout would be a worse problem than the rock at the bottom-right. Are we so sure that it would be even be effective to camp there? Like I get that you probably don't want to be lil mac on that stage, but that'd be your own fault.

Also, wasn't there a klaptrap speciflcally designed to hit you if you try to camp the rock? Though I'm assuming that it's a lightweight "stop casuals from camping" mechanic that is guaranteed beatable in competitive play (e.g. via shield or smthg).... I mean sure we probably want to ban such a powerful hazard but it's interesting to note that the designers specifically coded a mechanism to prevent the thing we're complaining about, but we'll be the ones turning that mechanism off lol.

Circle camping that platform lay-out isn't really going to be a thing; it's all soft. Loops work because there's space you can't pass through that prevent a straight line approach though a few unusual cases exist (like Hanenbow which uses a combo of size and lacking platforms in the center to create a loop situation).

As per camping the rock, think about a more normal match-up. Let's say it's Marth vs Kirby and Marth has a lead. Marth goes to the rock. Kirby's options:

-Jump at Marth and do an aerial. This will end predictably badly as Marth uses any one of his many excellent anti-airs to swat Kirby away.
-Do something approximating an empty jump to land right at Marth's feet. Yeah, you're getting grabbed and thrown right back off the rock.
-For serious you kinda fake the first and then airdodge as you land to get to Marth's feet safely which is a ton of work that you won't be able to just do over and over because it requires a bait and merely puts you at "neutral" point blank with Marth. Marth could fight back which is a super limited basically 50-50 situation or he might just jump off the rock back to the stage and be ready to return right to the rock if you follow.
-Jump down and grab a ledge. At this point Kirby has a limited ledgetrap situation it has put itself in (ledgeroll won't even go full distance), and even worse than this stage in Melee, Kirby can't use a second ledgegrab without getting bodied thanks to universal mechanics with ledge invincibility. The ledge doesn't help you very much.
-Fly up in the air and turn into a rock for a rock showdown! Speaks for itself really.

Those kinds of small isolated platforms aren't really approachable in a lot of match-ups in every Smash game. In some match-ups you have a projectile that can dislodge or at least annoy until residual damage will make rock camping bad assuming there's no stock lead, but in a lot of others, you don't. It's a really unhealthy dynamic. The argument that this would work well in Ultimate basically would boil down to somehow system changes to Ultimate, in ways totally outside of our ability to predict, will make this different. I won't say it's impossible, but it seems quite unlikely. At absolute best it's the kind of standoff that walk-offs can create but much worse, and if we're not giving walk-offs a chance (and I don't think we are), I don't see why this stage gets the time of day.

As per Klaptrap, he does exist on that stage in Melee, but he doesn't really target the rock. He just kinda attacks random points under the stage once in a while (pretty infrequently really), and you can really see him coming if you pay attention to the background anyway. My circle of friends were quasi-competitive at best back in the Melee days, but our rampant rock camping was definitely not impacted even a little by Klaptrap. I haven't seen him at all in Ultimate, but who knows beyond the fact that he's probably not going to be there with hazards off?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I guarantee that it would not be the weirdest tweet he receives in any given day. Might as well make it a two-fer with the rock on Kongo Falls while you're at it!

At the risk of making an utter fool of myself in the eyes of a man I will likely never meet in my life, it's done.

 

[Untouch]

I think the platform problem is less related to platforms apart from the stage, and more related to platforms below the player. It is significantly easier for a character to approach from below than it is to approach from above.

 

[Coffee™]

I like the idea of the FLiPS ruleset a lot. I do have some questions about some aspects of the ruleset though.

Game 2 and 3 would be chosen from that remaining pool by the loser, either with no bans or with 1 ban depending on how whoever is TOing decides to lean.

Why exactly at this point is having no bans or only one ban favored? In the example given in the document there are 16 stages that remain after the initial list is struck down, this list could also potentially be bigger assuming we start with more stages. Having no bans seems to compliment the liberal view of this ruleset but overall I don't see why players aren't given the option to ban or veto out what they feel might be unfavorable stages for them given the information they take from game 1 as this is pretty much the standard now.

At the start of a set, each player will strike some number of stages reducing the total stage pool to about half of the original stage pool using the random stage select screen

I assume this might be a rough draft but is there any other reason the stage list is specifically struck down to half?

 

[Munomario777]

Why exactly at this point is having no bans or only one ban favored?

It's not. In FLiPS, each player bans about one quarter of the total stagelist.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I like the idea of the FLiPS ruleset a lot. I do have some questions about some aspects of the ruleset though.



Why exactly at this point is having no bans or only one ban favored? In the example given in the document there are 16 stages that remain after the initial list is struck down, this list could also potentially be bigger assuming we start with more stages. Having no bans seems to compliment the liberal view of this ruleset but overall I don't see why players aren't given the option to ban or veto out what they feel might be unfavorable stages for them given the information they take from game 1 as this is pretty much the standard now.



I assume this might be a rough draft but is there any other reason the stage list is specifically struck down to half?

I can answer.

It is suggested to go with none because it makes the overall set flow better, but many people are really invested in the idea of a reactive stage ban. We discussed it and concluded that allowing that isn't really against the spirit of the overall ruleset so no reason to say anything more about it other than "TOs can feel free if they want it". It will be a bit slower since it's adding an extra set to the stage procedure that historically has been the slowest type of decisions players have made, but it will let you take the information of what happened in the first game and remove the stage you fear most based on that which will naturally somewhat reduce the power of counterpicks which is likely viewed by most as a positive.

Half is largely arbitrary but a "feel good" number. The further you strike, the less chance there is for one player to feel forced onto problematic stages but the slower the procedure is. Striking as far as possible (on a 32 stage list this would be to 2) would produce the most "fair" result but would take forever and has an increased probability of always producing a same-ish result (the Smashville blues); not striking at all would produce the fastest result and the most diversity but the most chance for a problematic outcome. Think of it like a sliding scale between current tournament standards and purely random, and half seemed like a reasonable compromise. It's likely that something that strikes a bit less could work well enough (the earlier strikes are the most important for fairness and the later strikes are the most time consuming so diminishing rewards on every added strike), but without the game in our hands to toy with it, half just seems like a natural target.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I like the idea of the FLiPS ruleset a lot. I do have some questions about some aspects of the ruleset though.



Why exactly at this point is having no bans or only one ban favored? In the example given in the document there are 16 stages that remain after the initial list is struck down, this list could also potentially be bigger assuming we start with more stages. Having no bans seems to compliment the liberal view of this ruleset but overall I don't see why players aren't given the option to ban or veto out what they feel might be unfavorable stages for them given the information they take from game 1 as this is pretty much the standard now.



I assume this might be a rough draft but is there any other reason the stage list is specifically struck down to half?

FLIPS already culls half the stage list for the entire set, so that's your opportunity to get rid of stages you find problematic for whatever reason.

 

[Coffee™]

It's not. In FLiPS, each player bans about one quarter of the total stagelist.

This doesn't answer my question....

I can answer.

Makes sense, thanks for clarifying. As a community we're pretty much used to reactive stage bans so I was curious as to the reasoning there.

FLIPS already culls half the stage list for the entire set, so that's your opportunity to get rid of stages you find problematic for whatever reason.

I can read....I get that. However, this favors knowledge of an opponent and likely scenarios you will encounter proactively before the set as opposed to being able to react to how a set is playing out.

 

[Pegasus Knight]

I'm sometimes tempted to whip up a quick photoshop of Magicant, the hazards off sign, and a giant red X over the likely camp platform and tweet it to Sakurai with a Google Translate version of "please do this thank you" but I can't help but think that would be kind of weird to do out of the blue.

Probably doable. Try something like this:
(Image of Hazards Off Sign)
(Plus sign)
(Magicant stage image with the X over the camp platform)
(Equals Sign)
(Smiley face)

Translate a simple phrase like "Please adjust Magicant stage with this design, thank you" and it should get the idea across.

 

[IsmaR]

I figure it's worth discussing that we have footage of a match with Stage Morph in action now. Occurs around the 1:54 mark.

Obviously it's not the final build/we don't know if the frame drops will be as substantial in the final release, nor do we know if busier background stages (Lylat, new FD, etc.) will be different as far as loading times go, nor if things like having 4 players (doubles as above) will affect anything.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

It appears that the BGM cuts out a solid 10-15 seconds before the morph itself takes place. An interesting tell. I can't tell if Arena Ferox reverting to its base form was also a part of that or just coincidence.

Also, unrelated to the stages, the pre-battle splash screen suggests that Dark Samus's visor is her eye. Singular. Kind of cool, and creepy.

 

[Untouch]

The gamescom invitational showed how Coliseum works without hazards (the layout simply never changes), which makes me think that Arena Ferox works similarly. How similar to FD is the Arena Ferox initial stage?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

The gamescom invitational showed how Coliseum works without hazards (the layout simply never changes), which makes me think that Arena Ferox works similarly. How similar to FD is the Arena Ferox initial stage?

Untransformed Arena Ferox is basically FD with a pillar underneath that extends all the way to the bottom blast zone. Not certain how the physical sizes compare to each other, though.

So hazardless Coliseum is just a flat walkoff with no platforms ever emerging?

 

[Untouch]

Untransformed Arena Ferox is basically FD with a pillar underneath that extends all the way to the bottom blast zone. Not certain how the physical sizes compare to each other, though.

So hazardless Coliseum is just a flat walkoff with no platforms ever emerging?

Yeah they had matches with hazards off and in 2:30 the stage never transformed.

 

[Raysebi]

Hello, recently i made a list of all stages that could be legal. I understand similar lists were posted before, but it seems to me the better feedback, the better for us to understand this topic. Leaving aside what method we should use to pick, ban stages, etc, i think if there is more that 14 viables stages for example, then is good to go with all of them. That is to say from my perspective if the game offers you to play in more legal stages, take that offer, and leave the metagame evolve in it's own.

In the other hand i like the FLiPs system.

So the list is this(hazards off in all):

-Battlefield
-Final destination
-Kongo jungle 64(This is not melee, there not gonna be messed ledges)
-super happy tree
-Brinstar
-Fountain of dreams
-Delfino plaza
-WarioWare, Inc.
-smashville
-Unova pokemon league
-Mushroom kingdom u
-Mario Circuit
-Skyloft
-Town and city
-Wuhu island
-Dracula's castle
-Kalos pokémom league
-Reset bomb forest
-Frigate Orpheon
-Yoshi's Island
-Halberd
-Lylat
-Castle siege

I'd like to give a short insight of some stages:

Brinstar: I don't understand why people are banning this before ultimate comes out, the breakable parts of the stage with hazards off will likely be no more a problem, and the acid hazard will be for sure gone.

Mushroon kingdom u: Probably a little big but don't think i will promote circle camping.

Fountain of dreams: As for frigate orpheon with hazards off, the plattaforms probably for sure are going to move, so no worries here, it will be different from battlefield stages.

Delfino plaza: This stages and the others in the list with transitions; hazards off probably get rid of that issue.

Dracula's castle: The stairs add more terrain to cover, but don't think it would be a problem.

Reset bomb forest: A bridge-plattaform connects both parts of the stage, don't think it would promote camping, and the size is fine, not too big in my opinion.

Castle siege: With hazards off, i am 100% sure there won't be transitions.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There are more stages that could be probably legal but the ones right here for me are the most likely to make the cut.

Also, some of them features a different way competitive smash is going for the past years, but we as a comunnity need to adapt to changes, preserving our essence while moving forward.

Also, pretty sure all of the stages from my list don't center the metagame in something in particular, like camping. For example, wobbling in melee has been a controversial topic in the scene, but wobbling does not center the metagame around something, is not unbeatable, ICs don't win all the tournaments, so therefore is not banned.

Thanks for your time.

 

[SwagGuy99]

My idea for legal stages:

Singles and doubles should have 6 starters and 6 counterpicks available to pick from at a time. Some stages could be swapped with another stage every 6 months while others will always be the same stage. My idea for the stages we should legalize is...

1. Battlefield/Midgar (Hazards off) (Starter)


2. Final Destination (Hazards on) (Starter)


3. Dream Land 64 (Hazards on) (Counterpick)


4. Kongo Falls (Hazards off)/Wario Ware (Hazards off) (Counterpick)


5. Yoshi’s Story (Hazards on/off) (Starter)


6. Fountain of Dreams (Hazards on) (Starter)


7. Pokemon Stadium (Hazards on) (Starter)


8. Yoshi’s Island (Brawl) (Hazards on/off)/Smashville (Hazards on) (Counterpick)


9. Prism Tower (Hazards on/off)/Halberd (Hazards off) (Counterpick)


10. Lylat Cruise (Hazards off)/Frigate Orpheon (Hazards off) (Counterpick)


11. Delphino Plaza (Hazards on/off)/Pokemon Stadium 2 (Hazards on/off) (Counterpick)


12. Town and City (Hazards on/off) (Starter)


For Doubles I think the stage list should be slightly different. So for doubles the stages will be…



1. Battlefield (Hazards on) (Starter)


2. Final Destination (Hazards on) (Starter)


3. Kongo Jungle 64 (Hazards off) (Counterpick)


4. Pokemon Stadium (Hazards on)/Pokemon Stadium 2 (Hazards on/off_ (Starter)


5. Fountain of Dreams (Hazards on) (Starter)


6. Yoshi’s Island (Brawl) (Hazards on/off)/Town and City (Hazards on/off) (Counterpick)


7. Smashville (Hazards on) (Starter)


8. Delfino Plaza (Hazards off) (Counterpick)


9. Prism Tower (Hazards on/off) (Starter)


10. Frigate Orpheon (Hazards off) (Starter)


11. Luigi’s Mansion (Hazards off) (Counterpick)


12. Halberd (Hazards off) (Counterpick)


There are other stages that could become legal in the future (however unlikely) but I thought shouldn't and there could be stages that I think should be legal and won't be. It depends on how the hazard switch and gameplay is affected by them. Some other possible legal stages are:

Arena Ferox (Hazards on/off), Brinstar (Hazards off), Rainbow Cruise (Hazards on/off), Castle Seige (Hazards on), Duck Hunt (Hazards on/off), Gamer (Hazards off), Hyrule Castle (Hazards off; Doubles only), New Donk City Hall (Hazards on/off; Don't know enough about it to know if it could be legal), Norfair (Hazards off), Peach's Castle 64 (Hazards off), Pilot Wings (Hazards off), Port Town Aero Dive (Hazards off), Super Happy Tree (Hazards off), Umbra Clock Tower (Hazards off), Wily Castle (Hazards off), Wuhu Island (Hazards off)

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I don't think you've really thought this through if you think Kongo Falls is a good stage but Frigate Orpheon isn't and somehow Pilotwings is even considerable...

 

[Untouch]

I hate to say it, but the Arcadian tournament killed all hope for Kongo Falls to be legal.
https://youtu.be/3h-jLVmkT-Q?t=564

 

[infomon]

I hate to say it, but the Arcadian tournament killed all hope for Kongo Falls to be legal.
https://youtu.be/3h-jLVmkT-Q?t=564

Milton tried camping the rock but lost most of the exchanges that happened to him while he was there.

If the rock is a good camping spot, he failed to show it.

Edit: let's count them

@4:20 - Milton loses
@5:00 - Milton loses
@5:35 - Milton gets hit by fireballs and is generally losing the position until the opponent SD's
@7:30, 7:50 - Camping the rock gives the opponent free limit
@8:00 - Milton loses
@8:10 - The opponent SD's near the rock
@8:15 - Opponent gets free limit
@8:45 - Milton wins
@9:30 - Opponent gets free limit, then Milton SD's off the rock
@10:00 - Even exchange on the rock


Doesn't seem like it's working out for him across those first two games. Though we can theorycraft that it would be a good spot as the meta develops.

Maybe the worst you could say is that the rock makes it too easy to SD or die too quickly.... but here it seems just due to inexperience at the game.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I mean, it was pretty overpowered in Melee, and the main mechanical differences in this game are that landing lag is somewhat higher and that you only get one invincible ledgegrab, both of which make the rock actually better as a defensive point. The stage is fun and hilarious, but I don't think anyone serious about stage legality considered this a likely stage at any point. It really has nothing to do with sloppy pre-release footage and more to do with just the basics of what we know about stages in Smash in general.

There's some argument maybe it's not 100% perfectly broken, and I suppose I'd agree that there's still a game left on the stage. However, the swingy and game reducing properties are not entirely dissimilar to permanent walk-offs and honestly even worse. If we're entertaining this stage, we can't intellectually honestly write off several stages that also shouldn't be legal but are at least almost assuredly better than Kongo Falls like Distant Planet, Figure-8 Circuit, and Mushroom Kingdom II.

 

[infomon]

I agree. But let's ban it for good reasons, not for silly reasons like "some kids who never played the game before failed to camp on it"

On that note, does anyone have any good examples of walkoff-camping?

 

[Raysebi]

I was thinking, what do you guys think about 3-2-1 picking system?

It's a system proposed in the PGStats discord, and it's very easy to learn, even more than FliPS. Also, when reading it i began to like it more than the latter.

It's simple, i will take my list as an example; there is 23 possible legal stages. In a tournament after the first game(i am assuming the first is like rock-paper-scissors to pick the first stage), the loser then pick 3 possible stages he want to play on, the winner bans 1, then from the 2 left the loser pick one of those.

And taking the last part of the document, it says as follows: " I think mine would be 4 stocks 6 min. ~6 starters, 10-15 counter picks. DSR. No items or hazards but final smash charge.” - Fanttum. Spammalanche also suggested a very similar ruleset for his own events."

I am ignoring the 4 stocks, and final smash charge, but 6 starters and 10-15 counterpicks is very suistanable from a list composed of like 23 stages.

But first, let's analyze a thing, you see, there is not really a random advantage in the picking process. Assuming also in the following games of a set you can't choose a stage you have played before, you as a loser in the match are going to pick 3 possible stages, so it's a serious fast process, then your oponnet have to decide in banning 1 of the three, giving the winner a possibility to minimize the risk and don't give the loser a great advantange but still a fair one.

So, like i said, you are picking from a 23 stage list, 3 of those. You don't have to be thinking all day to a large ban process, just, from the list, think the best stages you think will benefit you more. Your oponnet will reduce the risk, but you still have a good opportunity to turn out the victory for you. Allowing also to see variety in the game, enjoying the possibilities a large stage list can give.

I repeated myself so many times, so sorry, but well, i like this idea a lot. It allows a large stage list, minimizing the random advantages and the time to put it in practice won't slow down tournaments.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nh0NkPu1uJcTHaaFVT62ngTC-iEYhBwHcz293FprBWc/edit

 

[infomon]

I think 3-2-1 is a bit too complex. I much prefer: let the loser give 3 counterpicks, then the winner picks which 1.

My reasons:

1. I don't want too much "mindgames" in the stage-selection. In 3-2-1, the winner has a more complex choice to make. Because based on which one they strike, it gives information to the loser about which of the remaining ones they should pick to have more advantage.

2. Adding to that, with 3-2-1, the loser's 3 counterpicks might not even be honest -- because there can be 1 that they have no intention of going to, it's just there to bait the winner's stage-ban. Another possible mind-game.

3. With so many legal stages, I think giving a single stage-ban to the winner is not enough. Especially since they don't know what character they will be fighting on the selected stage.

I think loser-picks-3, winner-picks-which-one is fair. The loser has given a few counterpick stages, and is saying they have the advantage on all of them. The winner gets to mitigate that to pick which one is at least playable for them.

 

[Raysebi]

Oh, sounds cool, i have no objections. Think it'd probably speed up even more the selection process and still gives to both players a balanced experience.

May it will be called 3-1 or something then? or "3-minus-2" pick?

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

The problem here is that this suggestion doesn't address game one which is actually basically the entire problem and the main point of FLiPS. It's pretty easy to design a variety of systems that account for game 2+, but we need a game one solution first and foremost which is why I stand strongly behind FLiPS.

 

[Raysebi]

The problem here is that this suggestion doesn't address game one which is actually basically the entire problem and the main point of FLiPS. It's pretty easy to design a variety of systems that account for game 2+, but we need a game one solution first and foremost which is why I stand strongly behind FLiPS.

Doesn't a rock-paper-scissors process solve that issue? and assuming we have like for example 6 starters, the winner of the bet then pick exclusively a starter stage, leaving the counterpicks for game 2.

Yeah, i know is a random factor, but the the pros of 3-1 picking are for me better at the long term than FLiPs. Faster process, and even i think is easier to understand.

 

[Munomario777]

RPS kinda solves game one, but ideally the system we use for game one should be as neutral as possible for both players – otherwise the RNG introduced by RPS could have a pretty big effect. so RPS solves game one, but only if the actual striking system is balanced enough for it to work well

with FLiPS, the advantage given to the first player is super tiny, since you both get an equally large amount of bans and the stage itself is randomly selected (so no single player chooses the stage in the end). both players:
- can ban their worst stages (and banning first isn't beneficial enough to worry about)
- can choose to not ban their best stages
- cannot choose which of the non-banned stages is played on

meanwhile, if A picks 3 stages and B picks 1 of those, those are two very different roles in the stage selection process – A blindly bans a ton of stages, B has knowledge (from A's bans) and bans two. regardless of whether or not anyone reckons these two roles are reasonably balanced (which is its own debate), the fact is that they're different, and so there's WAY more room for RPS to have a large impact on game one. with FLiPS, both players are doing the same thing with a very very tiny difference (which isn't really avoidable), and the outcome + the process don't change significantly depending on the RPS results

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Doesn't a rock-paper-scissors process solve that issue? and assuming we have like for example 6 starters, the winner of the bet then pick exclusively a starter stage, leaving the counterpicks for game 2.

Yeah, i know is a random factor, but the the pros of 3-1 picking are for me better at the long term than FLiPs. Faster process, and even i think is easier to understand.

Starter-counterpick dichotomy is bad for two reasons:

1. Strategically, it's incorrect to ever practice or choose any stage that is not legal in game one. Think about it. If your general play strategy is designed to win on the starter stages, you can counterpick starter stages for a hypothetical game 3 and win 2/3 games in a set and thus win the set. If your strategy is optimized to winning on counterpick stages, you win only your own counterpick for 1/3 game wins and a set loss. We've seen this in every previous Smash game. Top players virtually never counterpick cp only stages, and this is why. Strategically the cp only stages are effectively banned, and in reality, stages that are always incorrect to choose will be banned in practice eventually too which is also what has happened in every previous Smash game. This is the road to the Smashville metagame.

2. You have to decide which stages are starters, and there's no good reasoning you can use between generally legal worthy stages for which are somehow "more" legal as starters versus "less" legal as counterpicks. It's obviously not based on match-up polarization; we have had one of the most match-up polarized stages, Final Destination, as a starter every time. There are no real features you can point to, and we have like 15+ flat + plat stages already existing in Smash Ultimate anyway. It's a totally arbitrary decision that basically amounts to "the whims of the TO today" because in reality there is no possible objective standard you can use. This is really problematic because any arbitrary decision will have major winners and losers, and the players who mained the characters who excelled on the perfectly fine stages we banned for no good reason will rightly feel cheated and will reasonably feel a lot less interested in continuing to participate in events.

So that's your main problem right there: you have 20+ good legal stages and it's totally not a reasonable or viable option to select only a handful of starters assuming you approach the game with the outlook that banning things that aren't ban-worthy is inherently unacceptable (some people legitimately don't agree with that statement and believe they should just pick a few stages and don't care about what's lost, but I don't share that view at all). I think it's obvious that with 20+ stages legal for game one that the 3-2-1 solution relying on RPS would collapse into extreme unfairness so I won't go into the explanation of why unless it's requested of me. FLiPS is our answer to this fundamental problem, and I'm very proud of it. I won't say it's the only possible approach, but of all approaches we've seen discussed, it always comes down to one of three solutions in the end:

1. Rely on randomness
2. Ban most of the stages whether they need banning or not to force stage striking to work
3. Do something really, really complicated that will probably have significant exploitability problems, be really hard to explain to new players, and will take forever.

All three have obvious inherent disadvantages. FLiPS is our best effort to be more clever than the problem by meeting solutions 1 and 2 in the middle and thus only suffering from some of the downsides of each (the lesser part of each) while having something actually pragmatic. If others have solutions that are somehow more comprehensive, effective, and pragmatic, I'd be very interested. Thus far, FLiPS is the only one I've seen to really tackle the issue head on, but I haven't seen a lot of high effort pursuits of solutions otherwise (I think a lot of people are waiting until the game is out to push on this topic).

 

[Raysebi]

Both of you are right; i was thinking in more of a faster method, also ignoring the starter-counterpick issue because is something the community have lived for a long time. I am worried somehow with the conservative view the people have, but oh well, we have to move on, and it's not impossible.

Only thing that worries me is the striking process at the start of FliPS, hope it doesn't become a hassle, but not because i think is hassle for me, but in the sense of time. Still, if both players strikes stages, it would be faster than just one person doing the process.

So, in conclusion i am totally now with FLiPs, and thanks to you for clear up this topic. Hope we can get to the people with this system.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

It's true that people have to want change, but I think the community is ready for it. Starter-counterpick is hardly really done at this point in any Smash game's lifespan; we just have almost no legal stages. Smash 4 is really the worst about this; you can legitimately go hours watching a tournament and not see a single non-Animal Crossing stage (then someone picks Battlefield in a single game and then it's back to a few more hours of Animal Crossing). This is a big part of what helped Smash 4 get stale, and Smash Ultimate goes from another direction and just has an overwhelming number of options thanks to both an absurd 103 stages plus the hazard toggle which is going to massively expand our options. I think we'd have riots if we seriously went back to Smashville over and over again after this!

I do think time is just as much about the perception of time as the reality of it. Part of the efficiency FLiPS aims for is in condensing all of the various time consuming stuff to the beginning of the set, but it will still be some chunk of stuff that can go fast unless people choose to drag their feet but mostly that won't be an issue in practice I imagine. I can see some people who will be really worried it will take a long time, and it's true that it's often hard to get those people to just try something and see that their worries aren't founded. I do believe as long as people are just willing to try something new they'll quickly discover things can be so much better than they are with so little effort...

 

[Frihetsanka]

Let's look at this list: https://www.reddit.com/r/smashbros/comments/9cnn3l/evaluating_the_legality_of_ultimates_stages/

That's 19 stages. However, what if we add another criterium: Stages that are very similar to another stage are either removed or treated as an Omega. This means Dream Land, Yoshi's Story, PictoChat 2, Wily Castle, and Midgar. Now we're down to 14 stages. At this point, we could try to find two more stages to remove and we'd end up with 12 legal stages.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Amazing Ampharos

What if the starter stages were only allowed during game 1 and could not be counterpicked? Obviously this will never actually happen but it was a random thought I had.

Frihetsanka

I don't entirely agree with some of the omissions from that list, including Prism Tower, New Donk City Hall, and several others that firmly fall under "not enough data" to properly judge whether they're good stages or not.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

If starters were indeed game one ONLY stages that would force players to learn all legal stages, but I can't really imagine a reasonable path to that happening. It would also be a risk if you had overly similar stages on both sides (like Battlefield and Midgar) so the strategy would be to learn those stages to get 2/3 with minimum work.

 

[dav3yb]

Is there a post with a good rundown of how FLiPS will actually work?

I'm guessing I personally won't like it much since it still seems to involve striking of some kind, which needs to die imho.

 

[DJ3DS]

Is there a post with a good rundown of how FLiPS will actually work?

I'm guessing I personally won't like it much since it still seems to involve striking of some kind, which needs to die imho.

1) Decide on all of the legal stages.
2) Player 1 and Player 2 ban a quarter of these each at the start of the set. The remaining half is the stage list for that set.
3) Game 1 is then random.
4) Loser picks for each subsequent game.

 

[infomon]

I'm guessing I personally won't like it much since it still seems to involve striking of some kind, which needs to die imho.

Out of curiosity, what do you dislike about stage striking?