Discussion of Stage Legality in Smash Bros. Ultimate

[san.]

I have been thinking about this for a while and FLiPS is interesting but I feel has some issues with the whole striking down to half and choosing randomly. I don't think there's enough choice in that.

How about something like...

1. Each player takes turns banning 2 stages from the entire list (or each ban 2 at once if it's faster). These are removed from play for the rest of the set.
2. Each player takes turns picking 3 stages. (or each pick 3 if it's faster)
3. Pick one opponent's stages to keep. (Alternative - ban 1 of the opponent's stages)
4. Random from the remaining stages.
5. When counterpicking, the opponent gets to ban one of the remaining stages.

This is now no longer dependent on the amount of stages and can be dynamic. Some bans are made in the beginning of the set, while an additional one made after the first game. Of course, the specific numbers are subject to tweaks.

I think there should be light categories for stages like smash 4, but we should avoid going overboard with it.

Smash 4 example with 1 ban at the beginning and 2 picks since the list is tiny (and let's add Duck Hunt for this example):
----------------------------------------------------
Player A bans Final Destination for the set
Player B bans Battlefield/Dreamland for the set
----------------------------------------------------
B chooses Smashville and Duck Hunt
A chooses Town & City and Lylat
----------------------------------------------------
A picks Smashville to keep
B picks Town & City to keep
----------------------------------------------------

The game is played on random between Smashville and Town & City. Characters are picked afterwards.

 

[dav3yb]

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

mainly the time it takes. I feel it extends set's that already take a long time compared to other games.

and i feel like if we have a particularly large list of stages people will just start striking a pretty particular set of stages and leading to what might in reality be a much smaller list than at first glance.

 

[Raysebi]

If both players strikes stages in turns, there will be room for at least 2 o 3 unexpected stages. Also add that every set will be different, at least in a tournamente likely to be different players each one of them vs others off course, having diffent stage opinions. So even if there is a particularly list of stages they don't want, it's impossible everyone will agreed to it.

Like A likes reset bomb forest, B don't much but he thinks that there are other stages that he need to strike first. If there is for example 20 stages, each player have 5 strikes opportunities; B probably thinks reset bomb forest is not that good but at least passable, so he doesn't ban it, therefore, reset bomb forest has a chance to appear in the set. This applys to basically any set, where there are stages in particular people likes, dislikes and so on. The point is each playes has like maximum 6 bans.

More to it, remember the stage selection is first, so A or B don't know for sure what character the opponet will play, to therefore thought of a proper stage striking.

In other words, FliPs allows to see more than a prefixed list of stages even if many people don't want to. This allows the meta-game to evolve in a more natural way.

 

[DJ3DS]

I have been thinking about this for a while and FLiPS is interesting but I feel has some issues with the whole striking down to half and choosing randomly. I don't think there's enough choice in that.

How about something like...

1. Each player takes turns banning 2 stages from the entire list (or each ban 2 at once if it's faster). These are removed from play for the rest of the set.
2. Each player takes turns picking 3 stages. (or each pick 3 if it's faster)
3. Pick one opponent's stages to keep. (Alternative - ban 1 of the opponent's stages)
4. Random from the remaining stages.
5. When counterpicking, the opponent gets to ban one of the remaining stages.

This is now no longer dependent on the amount of stages and can be dynamic. Some bans are made in the beginning of the set, while an additional one made after the first game. Of course, the specific numbers are subject to tweaks.

I think there should be light categories for stages like smash 4, but we should avoid going overboard with it.

Smash 4 example with 1 ban at the beginning and 2 picks since the list is tiny (and let's add Duck Hunt for this example):
----------------------------------------------------
Player A bans Final Destination for the set
Player B bans Battlefield/Dreamland for the set
----------------------------------------------------
B chooses Smashville and Duck Hunt
A chooses Town & City and Lylat
----------------------------------------------------
A picks Smashville to keep
B picks Town & City to keep
----------------------------------------------------

The game is played on random between Smashville and Town & City. Characters are picked afterwards.

My qualm with this is that it's more complicated than FLiPS, and I cannot see any advantages it has over it.

FLiPS is not dependent on the number of stages any more than your method. It simply moves all of the banning to the start of the set to accommodate for a larger stagelist whilst also eliminating the chances of someone being forced to a stage that is not fair for them. The number of bans is also not set in stone - a quarter each is the number being thrown about as an example, but if you had e.g. 17 legal stages and each player banned 5 beforehand, this works equally as well in theory.

Also, I'd like to make the point that choosing randomly between fewer stages does not automatically make it better! I'd like to illustrate this with an example, using your proposed methodology.

- - -

Suppose Player A and Player B meet each other in Winners Finals. Having done their research, they are familiar with each others mains, and which stage preferences they have in that specific matchup. In total, there are N stages, listed 1 to N, where stage 1 is biased the most towards player A and stage N is biased the most towards player B. They select stages as you have proposed, namely:

1) Each player bans R stages
2) Each player selects S stages
3) Each player chooses from one of the others S selected stages
4) The final choice is made randomly

How does this work out in practice?

1) Clearly, player A is going to ban the R worst stages, namely N-(R-1) through N, whilst player B is going to ban 1 through R.
2) Player A will then select the S best stages R+1 through R+S, whilst Player B will select the S best stages N-(R+S-1) through N-R.
3) Player B will select the stage R+S, whilst player A will select the stage N-(R+S-1)

At the end, we choose randomly between the stages R+S and N-(R+S-1). These are the most advantageous stages either player could choose within the confines that you gave them. The most even stages for the matchup, those with a value V such that R+S < V < N-(R+S-1), are completely ignored.

In other words, you have maximised the impact that that random choice could possibly make at this point of the proceedings. Conversely, if you had used FLiPS and just had players ban the worst R+S-1 stages instead, you would choose randomly between all of the stages with values in the above interval. There is a chance that this is one of the two stages specified above. However, now in any stage in the interval between is also as likely to occur, and we also have some probability (depending on the number of stages remaining) of going to a stage which is more neutral in the matchup.

- - -

Assuming that we value maximising the neutrality of the first stage, the FLiPS ruleset should work better on average. Of course, it will depend on how small the middle interval is - these would correspond to the stagelist for the rest of the set. If this is at least 5 or 6, it works fine. If not, your choice of R+S is not going to be efficient anyway, as you're sorting through the majority of the stagelist, which is the inherent problem with striking if we have one.

It's also worth stating that you are allowing a ban for subsequent games. In this case, lets suppose in the above example, player B loses. They'd then ban stage R+1. This would've been banned in FLiPS with R+S-1 bans anyway, which expedites matters further.

 

[san.]

Each player has their own preference for stages. Amin, Amax, Bmin, and Bmax. Both player A and B want to maximize their own scores and reduce the other's. In that sense, striking a stage needs to maximize the gain for each player, whether that be striking one's own worst stage or the other player's best stage. A player will choose to strike what gives them the most benefit. I think it is also safe to say that the largest gains from banning comes from the first bans. You can think of it as subtracting the 2 curves, curve A - curve B, and shaving off the biggest differences.

Also keep in mind that this is before selecting characters where the addition of a single character potentially adds additional curves when determining what to choose. A1 - B1, A1 - B2, A2 - B1, A2 - B2.

The method in my post will have a bigger average (not maximized though) on each side per each player's preference, but in FLiPS there is a potential to have that stage chosen randomly regardless. Every stage in FLiPS should be acceptable to play on if it's purely random. On average it'll be more fair, but will also be less preferred for each player depending on the value of V. The worst stages should've already been banned.

After the first game, there is no guarantee player B will ban stage R+1 due to the ability to switch characters and obtain more information from the results of the first game.

Both are worse than striking for the sake of time. I was also trying to use a method where requiring random stage toggling would not be required to remember which stages have been banned beyond the last two (which takes the most time).

Sorry, don't have time to clean this up more due to work.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I had a long write-up response but then I realized that the proposal wasn't actually clear upon a re-read. Are steps 1 and 2 actually repeated steps or are they one time events? If they're one time events then you have a static number of bans (4 in your case) which assuming removing about half of the stage list is correct is optimized for an upper-teens/about 20 at most stage list and would be pretty hard to utilize even with about a 30 stage list (which I think people underestimate how incredibly reasonable this will be in Ultimate; hazards off is a major game changer). If they're repeated, then either you're mostly repeating step 1 at which point your outcome is pretty identical to FLiPS or you're repeating step 2 in which case repeated iterations of that step will allow each player to "protect" their favorite stage for a really long time and will create problems that way if it's randomly chosen.

I don't think I can formulate a more detailed response until I understand exactly what is being suggested. The Smash 4 example with so few stages doesn't really clarify this point; how does this work with a beefier stage list?

 

[Majalbatross]

Stage Hazard toggle is probably one of my favourite new additions to Ultimate. This opens up so many opportunities for stages to be legal that just weren't able to be beforehand (usually due to hazards such as Yellow Devil). As much as I loved Smash 4's competitive scene, seeing Smashville for the godknowshowmanyth time in the stage pool was my biggest gripe. The potential diversity we'll have is making me really excited.

 

[dav3yb]

So just a random thing I realized going back and watching some stuff. I know there has been some speculation that Dracula's Castle might have a walk-off, but in the Simon reveal, they did show simon throwing an axe to the left side and hitting pack-man on the ledge. So I think it's safe to say it'll be a fairly normal stage with hazards off, outside of the hard drops on the inner area of the stage, and the stairs on the right side. Overall with hazards off, I couldn't really see a reason why it should be excluded.

 

[DJ3DS]

Stage Hazard toggle is probably one of my favourite new additions to Ultimate. This opens up so many opportunities for stages to be legal that just weren't able to be beforehand (usually due to hazards such as Yellow Devil). As much as I loved Smash 4's competitive scene, seeing Smashville for the godknowshowmanyth time in the stage pool was my biggest gripe. The potential diversity we'll have is making me really excited.

Part of why I hope the FLiPS ruleset gains traction is that it would allow me to ban both Animal Crossing stages whenever I have to play.

So just a random thing I realized going back and watching some stuff. I know there has been some speculation that Dracula's Castle might have a walk-off, but in the Simon reveal, they did show simon throwing an axe to the left side and hitting pack-man on the ledge. So I think it's safe to say it'll be a fairly normal stage with hazards off, outside of the hard drops on the inner area of the stage, and the stairs on the right side. Overall with hazards off, I couldn't really see a reason why it should be excluded.

Beyond questioning whether you can camp the stairs on the right unreasonably effectively, the biggest concern is whether or not the walls created by the dropoffs are unfair. For example, if this were Brawl, DDD would be able to infinite people on this stage.

I absolutely hope it is legal though. Beautiful stage, a much different aesthetic to the past legal stages and Castlevania music is amazing.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Dracula's Castle is indeed known not to have a walk-off. We still don't really know if it's a good stage; it looks pretty large, it might have some camping spots, and we just don't know the dynamics, but there's no reason it should be day one excluded. For my part, I'm not really worried about walls; they were pretty dumb in Melee and Brawl but not really that dumb in 4 and probably not really dumb here either.

 

[Untouch]

The walls in Dracula's Castle are smaller than Simon, you should easily be able to just DI over them, the only problem I see is the stairs really but I don't think the stairs are too much of an issue.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

The closest analogue to the stairs I can think of is the slopes on Lylat near the edge, and I don't think camping them was ever a realistic strategy. Granted the stairs are at a steeper angle.

 

[Munomario777]

there's never been a competitive-friendly stage with dracula-style stairs, so it's pretty new territory

 

[Untouch]

I think the main concern is that it may be pretty hard to approach characters on the slope and they'll have an easy and free up-smash.

 

[Coffee™]

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.

Personally, I'm in favor of this option for games 2 and onwards as it does give both players more control over their counterpicking and should be a pretty quick process. It also seems like it would work fairly well in tandem with FLiPS after it's initial striking process so a player doesn't have to decide from a full stage list.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

So on the note of stage policy, I thought it would be helpful to break down some stuff regarding the sorts of features you see on individual stages and talk about what sorts of stages we will/won't give a realistic shot of legality going forward. I have rarely actually seen detailed breakdowns of the dynamics of why stages should/shouldn't be banned anyway so I think for a lot of people some of this might be new information. I plan to make this into a video series, but for now, I have made a video talking about walk-offs. I go through how, to the best of my Smash knowledge, they actually play out competitively and highlight the list of Smash Ultimate stages that will ultimately probably be day one banned because of this:

Please let me know if you find this helpful or interesting! It was a lot more work to make than I anticipated, but this sort of thing is important to me so if it helps others it's really worth it.

 

[DJ3DS]

So on the note of stage policy, I thought it would be helpful to break down some stuff regarding the sorts of features you see on individual stages and talk about what sorts of stages we will/won't give a realistic shot of legality going forward. I have rarely actually seen detailed breakdowns of the dynamics of why stages should/shouldn't be banned anyway so I think for a lot of people some of this might be new information. I plan to make this into a video series, but for now, I have made a video talking about walk-offs. I go through how, to the best of my Smash knowledge, they actually play out competitively and highlight the list of Smash Ultimate stages that will ultimately probably be day one banned because of this:

Please let me know if you find this helpful or interesting! It was a lot more work to make than I anticipated, but this sort of thing is important to me so if it helps others it's really worth it.

I think it's an excellent video, particularly in the analysis of why walkoffs are problematic. Thinking of it in terms of reducing the number of interactions in the game also gives a firm mathematical basis on why someone would choose to camp the walk-off even if it is a worse position for them to be in, which I hadn't considered.

 

[Untouch]

So on the note of stage policy, I thought it would be helpful to break down some stuff regarding the sorts of features you see on individual stages and talk about what sorts of stages we will/won't give a realistic shot of legality going forward. I have rarely actually seen detailed breakdowns of the dynamics of why stages should/shouldn't be banned anyway so I think for a lot of people some of this might be new information. I plan to make this into a video series, but for now, I have made a video talking about walk-offs. I go through how, to the best of my Smash knowledge, they actually play out competitively and highlight the list of Smash Ultimate stages that will ultimately probably be day one banned because of this:

Please let me know if you find this helpful or interesting! It was a lot more work to make than I anticipated, but this sort of thing is important to me so if it helps others it's really worth it.

A video on platform camping would be nice too, I see a lot of people not understanding why stages like Jungle Falls or Magicant may be problematic.

 

[Disfunkshunal]

Does anyone have thoughts on this? I haven't followed stage discussion too closely but I don't believe I've seen it brought up before.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

So on the note of stage policy, I thought it would be helpful to break down some stuff regarding the sorts of features you see on individual stages and talk about what sorts of stages we will/won't give a realistic shot of legality going forward. I have rarely actually seen detailed breakdowns of the dynamics of why stages should/shouldn't be banned anyway so I think for a lot of people some of this might be new information. I plan to make this into a video series, but for now, I have made a video talking about walk-offs. I go through how, to the best of my Smash knowledge, they actually play out competitively and highlight the list of Smash Ultimate stages that will ultimately probably be day one banned because of this:

Please let me know if you find this helpful or interesting! It was a lot more work to make than I anticipated, but this sort of thing is important to me so if it helps others it's really worth it.

Some interesting points, namely how walkoffs reduce the potential number of total interactions necessary to win a game. Hadn't thought about it in those terms before. More such videos sounds like a good idea to me. (Possible subjects: excessive size, non-walkoff camping positions, travelling and/or transforming stages, maybe something about hazards if you can frame it 100% objectively since i know that's a contentious topic)

Does anyone have thoughts on this? I haven't followed stage discussion too closely but I don't believe I've seen it brought up before.

I haven't either, so it might be an entirely novel idea. TBH I'm not very good at figuring out any holes in whatever game theory would arise from a given system, but it looks intriguing enough at an initial glance.

(Honestly, the only criteria I really care about in stage selection is getting rid of the starter/cp distinction.)

 

[lmntolp]

Does anyone have thoughts on this? I haven't followed stage discussion too closely but I don't believe I've seen it brought up before.

Here are my thoughts:
Pros:

• Fast and easy logistically because of minimal stage striking. This is the main draw
• Avoids neutral/cp stage distinction

Cons:

• Characters are always blind pick which removes a big part of the game, character counterpicking. I feel like this part could be edited tho
• The RNG is too powerful IMO. Whoever wins the first coin toss is guaranteed to choose the stage on games 1 and 3. I think there's no reason for the coin toss winner to not decide to pick the first stage. Later on it says game 3 has stage strikes, but still
• On the other hand, if the winner of the coin toss loses game 1, they're pretty screwed. They can't pick a stage and they can't counterpick a character.
• Overall kinda snowbally because it removes a couple of comeback mechanics, character counterpicks and loser picks stage

 

[Untouch]

In regards to grouping similar stages...
If we do go with a 3-2-1 system (which I like the most personally), this almost absolutely will be a requirement. At the moment there's more than 3 Triplats and likely at least 3 FD clones. If your opponent's character doesn't deal well with Triplats you should not be able to pick 3 Triplats and force them to play on one. Since these stages often have different properties and stage boundaries they shouldn't be outright banned but grouping and only allowing one pick of the group is the safest option possible.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I decided to actually count them up. We don't know the exact mechanics but as far as I can tell here are our only possible clones:

BF clones: Battlefield, Dreamland, Fountain of Dreams, Midgar
FD clones: Final Destination, Arena Ferox, Wily Castle
PS clones: Pokemon Stadium, Pokemon Stadium 2

Yoshi's Story is not a BF clone. It has sloped ground near the edges and very visibly different size ratios on everything, and if it's like Melee, that will probably include a slightly short ceiling. It's a triplat but plenty distinct enough.

PictoChat 2 is not a FD clone. It also has slopes at the edges, it's visibly clearly longer than FD, and if it's anything like Brawl it will have a higher ceiling. It's flat but plenty distinct enough.

The list is worst case too. We have no confirmation that PS1, PS2, and Ferox don't transform with hazards off; a lot of people are just hard assuming this but doing so with pretty poor evidence as whether stages transform and shift around with hazards off is very inconsistent stage to stage with what we've seen so far. We have no confirmation about FoD at all; we don't know if the platforms still move with hazards off or if the size ratios on everything are really the same as the other stages or if there's some truly important difference (a higher or lower ceiling or a different total stage length is a HUGE deal). It's entirely possible that list above is a drastic overstatement of the number of clone stages, and you know what? It's not even a very long list.

Honestly this issue is kinda a distraction. How we handle it affects the inputs to the stage procedure but shouldn't change the procedure itself. We'll fully grasp the mechanics very quickly when the game actually drops, and that will probably make the way forward very clear.

If we want to prune clone stages, the way to do it is easy too. You remove them as a striking outcome but allow them as a cping outcome (that will be covered by the stage ban of the "base" stage if that comes up), and that goes for all of the omega and BF forms in general anyway. Cp only stages are mostly a terrible idea for reasons I've been though before, but when it's clone stages, it doesn't matter nearly as much.

As per Lux's suggestion, I posted in the other thread, but I think the general idea is actually really good with some minor tweaks to make the player sequence irrelevant. I replied in that thread with my thoughts so I won't be too redundant, but tldr on it is that counterpicking is, perhaps counterintuitively to many players, actually a disadvantage if you lose game one because, while it will help you win game two, mathematically the disadvantage you'll face on game three outweighs that so your best chance to win the set if you lose game one is actually if there's no counterpicking advantages at all. I expect people to be extra scared of Lux's suggestion because it represents a huge change in thinking (game 3 as the "neutral" game instead of game 1), but we completely changed how we did business for stage selection in Melee -> Brawl because we had good ideas about how to make things better so no reason to be scared of that type of change again, right?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I decided to actually count them up. We don't know the exact mechanics but as far as I can tell here are our only possible clones:

BF clones: Battlefield, Dreamland, Fountain of Dreams, Midgar
FD clones: Final Destination, Arena Ferox, Wily Castle
PS clones: Pokemon Stadium, Pokemon Stadium 2

Yoshi's Story is not a BF clone. It has sloped ground near the edges and very visibly different size ratios on everything, and if it's like Melee, that will probably include a slightly short ceiling. It's a triplat but plenty distinct enough.

PictoChat 2 is not a FD clone. It also has slopes at the edges, it's visibly clearly longer than FD, and if it's anything like Brawl it will have a higher ceiling. It's flat but plenty distinct enough.

The list is worst case too. We have no confirmation that PS1, PS2, and Ferox don't transform with hazards off; a lot of people are just hard assuming this but doing so with pretty poor evidence as whether stages transform and shift around with hazards off is very inconsistent stage to stage with what we've seen so far. We have no confirmation about FoD at all; we don't know if the platforms still move with hazards off or if the size ratios on everything are really the same as the other stages or if there's some truly important difference (a higher or lower ceiling or a different total stage length is a HUGE deal). It's entirely possible that list above is a drastic overstatement of the number of clone stages, and you know what? It's not even a very long list.

Honestly this issue is kinda a distraction. How we handle it affects the inputs to the stage procedure but shouldn't change the procedure itself. We'll fully grasp the mechanics very quickly when the game actually drops, and that will probably make the way forward very clear.

If we want to prune clone stages, the way to do it is easy too. You remove them as a striking outcome but allow them as a cping outcome (that will be covered by the stage ban of the "base" stage if that comes up), and that goes for all of the omega and BF forms in general anyway. Cp only stages are mostly a terrible idea for reasons I've been though before, but when it's clone stages, it doesn't matter nearly as much.

As per Lux's suggestion, I posted in the other thread, but I think the general idea is actually really good with some minor tweaks to make the player sequence irrelevant. I replied in that thread with my thoughts so I won't be too redundant, but tldr on it is that counterpicking is, perhaps counterintuitively to many players, actually a disadvantage if you lose game one because, while it will help you win game two, mathematically the disadvantage you'll face on game three outweighs that so your best chance to win the set if you lose game one is actually if there's no counterpicking advantages at all. I expect people to be extra scared of Lux's suggestion because it represents a huge change in thinking (game 3 as the "neutral" game instead of game 1), but we completely changed how we did business for stage selection in Melee -> Brawl because we had good ideas about how to make things better so no reason to be scared of that type of change again, right?

Yoshi's and Pictochat might be technically different from BF/FD, but I can easily see some people calling it "close enough" and insisting they be grouped together anyway.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Yoshi's and Pictochat might be technically different from BF/FD, but I can easily see some people calling it "close enough" and insisting they be grouped together anyway.

I think most people who are more serious competitives recognize pretty quickly that things like the size of major stage elements and the distance of blast zones are some of the primary defining aspects of stages. Like most people who counterpick Halberd when it's legal do so for the small ceiling so PictoChat 2's expected high ceiling will probably be even more important to how it plays than the lack of platforms. The Melee community also allowed 4 triplats largely because they were all very different in terms of size mostly; I don't think this will be quite the problem it seems at first to convince people.

 

[dav3yb]

So I've been thinking about some things recently as a few of the last local tournaments to have smash 4 have concluded around me.

I seriously want a more streamlined approach to picking stages. It's just too ridiculous a process all around. For first stage, i think either having a set of "neutral" or "starter" stages and just having the game select it at random would be ok, or if stage morphing works well enough just let players pick a stage each and have it shift at some interval. I'm still not sure what I feel is the best way to do the first stage.

But for every other stage, I feel that the full list should be available, and the loser gets to pick a stage flat out. No bans or vetoes. Why should my opponent, who won the last round, get any say over where we fight next? If the stage list is good overall, then this shouldn't be any issue, especially if we pick the stage first and allow the winner a chance to at least change characters if they feel the need.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Because historically Stages have had a huge impact in matchups.

The most extreme case (and probably the basis of the rule we have nowadays) is when in Brawl, Ice Climbers would be able to take you to Final Destination, where you don't have platforms and are always forced to be in that risky position right in front of them where it's easier to get grabbed.
It was so polarising that we created a system to avoid such extreme situations, and it carried over to the next iteration of the series.

In Ultimate, with a potential for a huge number of stages, polarising matchup/stage combinations will very likely exist as well (and I'd bet FD will be a huge portion of that), and it's an attempt to minimise them.

 

[dav3yb]

In Ultimate, with a potential for a huge number of stages, polarising matchup/stage combinations will very likely exist as well (and I'd bet FD will be a huge portion of that), and it's an attempt to minimise them.

Honestly if FD is that much of an issue it probably shouldn't be legal then. Although the point of the loser picking a stage is to try and get an advantage. The stages are part of the game, and unless we just have a blanket rule to only allow a single stage like every other fighting game, then we need to realize that stages can have an effect on the game. If we don't want that, then just take all the stages out completely and use BF/Omega mode for every single game.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Honestly if FD is that much of an issue it probably shouldn't be legal then. Although the point of the loser picking a stage is to try and get an advantage. The stages are part of the game, and unless we just have a blanket rule to only allow a single stage like every other fighting game, then we need to realize that stages can have an effect on the game. If we don't want that, then just take all the stages out completely and use BF/Omega mode for every single game.

Our rulesets have always been very subjective.
IMO, if a stage is polarising but fair, it should be allowed as an option for those who so desire. The more the merrier, specially if they aren't too advantageous in a big majority of matchups, considering with Ultimate's stage and character pools.
For the record. that's why I didn't agree with Duckhunt getting banned, it could've been handled differently because it was fair in a big number of matchups (like why would they not just implement 2 bans?). But anyway, that's just me going over a tangent.

Allow me to put it in another perspective:
Final Destination is polarising.
But if both players are okay about it, and the matchup is not severely affected, would you take away the option for them?

 

[dav3yb]

Allow me to put it in another perspective:
Final Destination is polarising.
But if both players are okay about it, and the matchup is not severely affected, would you take away the option for them?

Nope, I'm for as many stages as possible. I'm just specifically for a method of choosing a stage that doesn't take an extra 5 minutes between games.

 

[justPUNT3R]

This was one of the hypest things to hear about for sure. It's true. The potential for a large increase in legal stages has shot up. The idea of watching competitive play on Wily Castle, Arena Ferox, Magicant, Prism Tower, Frigate Orpheon, and WarioWare sounds so exciting.

actually, prism tower starts off at a part with walk-offs and no bottom blast zone, so if hazards were removed, it'd probably just be that part of the stage.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

actually, prism tower starts off at a part with walk-offs and no bottom blast zone, so if hazards were removed, it'd probably just be that part of the stage.

AFAIK it's been confirmed that hazardless Prism Tower still transforms.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

AFAIK it's been confirmed that hazardless Prism Tower still transforms.

Correct, this has been confirmed. I'm fairly confident Prism Tower deserves to be legal in lieu of serious discoveries that suggest unexpected problems.

 

[infomon]

Correct, this has been confirmed. I'm fairly confident Prism Tower deserves to be legal in lieu of serious discoveries that suggest unexpected problems.

pedantic tip, I think you're not using "in lieu of" right, but maybe I misunderstand I think you mean "unless" or "barring", and not "instead of".

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

pedantic tip, I think you're not using "in lieu of" right, but maybe I misunderstand I think you mean "unless" or "barring", and not "instead of".

Yes, I misused a word on a forum post. That is correct. Prism Tower is still an exciting stage.

 

[Untouch]

If we were to choose Prism Tower or New Donk City I'd rather have New Donk City. (That is if the timers are similar)
New Donk City has different layouts that should make sharking less viable.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

If we were to choose Prism Tower or New Donk City I'd rather have New Donk City. (That is if the timers are similar)
New Donk City has different layouts that should make sharking less viable.

I don't really see a reason to choose; both seem pretty good so far though I guess we don't have a total grasp on what New Donk City Hall offers. I also don't think sharking is really a problem in any way at all; like coming up through the floor sometimes is useful on stages with passthrough floors, but actually trying to abuse it repeatedly kinda screws you since you kinda have to go from a ledge and then you have the problem that you're kinda unsafe rising through the stage so a prepared opponent will probably hit you if you just go up through the floor in an obvious way but you can't retreat to a ledge or it's a non-invincible ledge grab and you eat a really huge hit from your opponent for going there so you kinda strand yourself with no good options.

 

[DJ3DS]

One stage whose legality really interests me is Dracula's Castle.

I don't have an immediate reason why it should be banned, but I'm extremely liberal on legality. Moreover, I am heavily biased purely because I'd love to see castlevania music as a mainstay of competitive play, because it's so good.

What are everybody's thoughts about it?

 

[StingArt]

I just saw this thread, the subject is interesting but 20 pages deep now. Can someone give me a summary? Did we make any progression on the issue of having potentially too many stages? Is all this just one giant fan discussion that will have absolutely no impact on competitive play?

Please excuse me for not being motivated to read through nearly 800 posts.

 

[DJ3DS]

I just saw this thread, the subject is interesting but 20 pages deep now. Can someone give me a summary? Did we make any progression on the issue of having potentially too many stages? Is all this just one giant fan discussion that will have absolutely no impact on competitive play?

Please excuse me for not being motivated to read through nearly 800 posts.

To summarise, there's a core ideological split:

1) "We have so many stages - we can afford to be stricter than usual, and maintain a stagelist of approximately the same size that fits easily with pre-existing stage selection procedures."
2) "We have so many stages - we do not want to restrict the stagelist wherever possible, and feel the stage selection procedure should be adapted to the stagelist, not vice-versa."

Point 2) is probably the one generating more discussion, with discussion on alternative methods of stage selection such as the FLiPS ruleset (Best explained as beginning with a full expanded stagelist, banning a certain fraction of them each (thereby moving stage bans entirely to the front of the set) and then playing the set with remaining stages as a neutral stagelist) and then more detailed discussions about the pros, cons and potential pitfalls of individual stages.