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In light of this new info, here’s my updated stage list. Notably, in my opinion stage hazards should just always be off. Not really worth the hassle to do that for SV / FoD / YS / etc imo, better to keep it simple since you can’t toggle it at stage select.
LEGAL
1 Battlefield + forms
2 Final Destination + omegas
3 Dream Land 64
4 Rainbow Cruise
5 Brinstar
6 Yoshi’s Story
7 Fountain of Dreams
8 Pokémon Stadium 1
9 WarioWare, Inc.
10 Frigate Orpheon
11 Yoshi’s Island SSBB
12 Lylat
13 Pokémon Stadium 2
14 Castle Siege
15 Smashville
16 Unova Pokémon League
17 Prism Tower
18 Arena Ferox
19 Skyloft (hype)
20 Kalos Pokémon League
21 Town and City
22 Wuhu Island
23 Wily Castle
24 Midgar
25 Umbra Clock Tower
26 New Donk City
27 Dracula’s Castle
TESTING
1 Kongo Jungle 64 (if camping is an issue like melee, then nope.jpg – hazardless layout is worrying)
2 Green Greens (ceiling?)
3 Halberd (ceiling? glitch where you clip into the ground?)
4 Reset Bob Forest (I like this typo) (size and pit are probably fine? might be janky tho. doubles if not singles)
5 Find Mii (see above)
6 Mushroom Kingdom U (size is probably fine imo. if not, doubles)
7 Duck Hunt (is camping still a problem? probably good for doubles)
HAZARDLESS?
1 PictoChat (FD echo or other layout could be nice)
2 Gamer (if it’s always the layout from the stream, heck yeah. RNG = banned)
3 Super Mario Maker (see above)
DOUBLES...?
1 Big Battlefield
2 Hurtle Castle 64
3 Delfino (why isn’t this static like skyloft... banned in doubles if ceiling is still dumb during transitions btw)
4 Norfair
5 Garden of Hope
NOT LEGAL
1 Peach’s Castle 64 (looks fun though!)
2 Super Happy Tree
3 Saffron City
4 Mushroom Kingdom 64
5 Princess Peach’s Castle
6 Kongo Falls
7 Jungle Japes
8 Great Bay
9 Temple
10 Super Mario World
11 Corneria
12 Venom
13 Onett
14 Subcon
15 Brinstar Depths
16 Big Blue
17 Fourside
18 Mushroomy Kingdom
19 Figure 8 Circuit
20 Bridge of Eldin
21 Port Town Aero Dive
22 Distant Planet
23 New Pork
24 Summit
25 Skyworld
26 Shadow Moses
27 Luigi’s Mansion
28 Pirate Ship
29 Spear Pillar
30 75m
31 Mario Bros.
32 Hanenbow
33 Green Hill
34 3D Land
35 Golden Plains
36 Paper Mario
37 Gerudo Valley
38 Spirit Tracks
39 Dream Land (Game Boy)
40 Mute City
41 Magicant
42 Tortimer Island
43 Balloon Fight
44 Living Room
45 Mario Galaxy
46 Mario Circuit
47 Great Cave Offensive
48 Coliseum
49 Flat Zone
50 Palutena’s Temple
51 Wii Fit Studio
52 Boxing Ring
53 Gaur Plain
54 Wrecking Crew
55 Pilotwings
56 Windy Hill
57 Pacland
58 Suzaku Castle
59 Great Plateau Tower
60 Moray Towers
In light of this new info, here’s my updated stage list. Notably, in my opinion stage hazards should just always be off. Not really worth the hassle to do that for SV / FoD / YS / etc imo, better to keep it simple since you can’t toggle it at stage select.
I’m gonna be enforcing that in my server’s upcoming online tourney, anyway. Online especially it’s probably best to keep the rules as simple as possible, otherwise you’re susceptible to accidental or malicious ruleset swaps
No one is going to want to fiddle around in the menu and risk messing up which stages are or aren't hazardless just for 2 moving platforms, especially when both stages are viable even with hazards off.
This is already the common opinion, it's either always on (would be a huge misstep) or always off (should work this way).
Reddit seems to be talking about the possibility of having Hazards on Smashville and Hazards off Smashville as separate stages on the list, because god knows the one thing we need in our stage lists is more Smashville /s
I may just be paranoid, but I'm worried about people complaining about Hazardless Smashville, so they decide to turn the hazard switch on for that stage, and then people complain about having to turn it off and on for different stages, so they decide to leave hazards on all the time so they can play old Smashville, thus ruining the stage list.
Reddit seems to be talking about the possibility of having Hazards on Smashville and Hazards off Smashville as separate stages on the list, because god knows the one thing we need in our stage lists is more Smashville /s
I may just be paranoid, but I'm worried about people complaining about Hazardless Smashville, so they decide to turn the hazard switch on for that stage, and then people complain about having to turn it off and on for different stages, so they decide to leave hazards on all the time so they can play old Smashville, thus ruining the stage list.
I'm almost worried it's possible, because stage hazards on would naturally limit the number of stages, making the old striking system more functional, and for sake of keeping the old Smashvile, Town and City, FoD, etc.
I'm almost worried it's possible, because stage hazards on would naturally limit the number of stages, making the old striking system more functional, and for sake of keeping the old Smashvile, Town and City, FoD, etc.
I still like the 3-2-1 system (loser picks 3 stages, winner strikes 1, loser picks 1 from the remaining 2) as it'll fix the problems with striking.
Could even increase it to 5-2-1 too.
The first game is still a problem, so I've been trying to come up with a solution. The best I could think of is a similar system. Come up with 5 of the most neutral stages, obviously there would need to be some debate here.
Each player picks 3 stages.
If 1 stage is picked by both players only, that stage is chosen
If 2 stages are picked by both players only, those stages and the unpicked stage are pooled.
If 3 stages are picked by both players, all three stages are pooled.
If 2 or 3, from that pool the players pick 2 stages.
If both players pick the same stages, the unpicked stage is chosen.
Otherwise, the stage both players pick is chosen.
This probably sounds way more confusing than it really is.
I feel that stage morph for the first round solves the issue. Each player chooses a stage, and the winner of a coin flip gets theirs first. Completely fair, 50% I start with my ideal neutral stage, 50% I don’t but it is still there.
The main issue I see is how many stages can be neutral now.
There are potential concerns about players camping to avoid conflict on the opponent's stage if we do stage morphing, but depending on how much time passes between morphs (this is a configurable setting IIRC although I don't remember the actual time options) that might not be a feasible strategy. Definitely something to file under "to be tested."
There are potential concerns about players camping to avoid conflict on the opponent's stage if we do stage morphing, but depending on how much time passes between morphs (this is a configurable setting IIRC although I don't remember the actual time options) that might not be a feasible strategy. Definitely something to file under "to be tested."
Yeah, we've only seen an option for one-minute intervals. (Well, and the "random interval" option, but lol.) Hopefully we have something shorter, like 45 seconds (my first pick) or 30 seconds. If one minute is the minimum, then camping might be a problem.
Agreed hazards off should be the universal tournament setting. I can think of maybe two stages where hazards on would work better: Great Plateau Tower and (ugh) Smashville.
(Sorry, I'm just sick to death of Smashville.)
For the first couple of months, at least, we probably shouldn't even be trying to exclude stages based on similarity to existing ones. We know literally nothing about how the meta will shape up so doing so would be extremely premature at this point.
Chiming in a bit late on this, but thoughts on Fountain of Dreams not moving? I know some of its popularity before was from the mild movement, otherwise it seems like it'll enter Dream Land 64's (in 4) role of being a Battlefield Echo stage.
There are potential concerns about players camping to avoid conflict on the opponent's stage if we do stage morphing, but depending on how much time passes between morphs (this is a configurable setting IIRC although I don't remember the actual time options) that might not be a feasible strategy. Definitely something to file under "to be tested."
I don't like Smashville, part of the reason is the platform, so I don't care if that's gone.
I'll miss Randall and the moving platforms of FoD, but I think they aren't worth potentially killing a lot of very good stages like Arena Ferox over, since these stages will still be legal.
Chiming in a bit late on this, but thoughts on Fountain of Dreams not moving? I know some of its popularity before was from the mild movement, otherwise it seems like it'll enter Dream Land 64's (in 4) role of being a Battlefield Echo stage.
So this is my updated list in light of the massive amount of new data:
Full Confidence:
Battlefield (clone Dream Land/Fountain of Dreams/Midgar)
Final Destination (clone Wily's Castle)
Brinstar
Yoshi's Story
Pokemon Stadium (clone Pokemon Stadium 2)
Delfino Plaza
Frigate Orpheon
Yoshi's Island
Lylat Cruise
Castle Siege
WarioWare Inc.
Smashville
Unova Pokemon League (hazards off just has to be what we think it will be)
Prism Tower
Arena Ferox
Skyloft
Kalos Pokemon League
Town and City
Wuhu Island
Umbra Clock Tower
Very High Confidence:
Halberd (as long as we don't have any low ceiling stupidity like Bayonetta problems it should be legal)
Port Town Aero Dive (now has ledges, no obvious problems but basically a new stage)
PictoChat 2 (hazards off just has to be what we think it will be)
Mushroom Kingdom U (maybe too big, probably fine)
Duck Hunt (I just don't buy tree camping as an issue frankly but we'll see)
New Donk City (seems great but new so some uncertainty)
Very Unsure:
Kongo Jungle (obnoxious, polarizing, seems clearly not broken)
Rainbow Cruise (gotta check out the wall mostly)
Jungle Japes (might be too campy)
Green Greens (might be too campy)
Big Blue (what does it even do without hazards?)
Norfair (very unusual lay-out but nothing obviously broken about it)
Spirit Train (no bottom blastzone and generally unusual but nothing obviously offensive other than maybe the wall)
Reset Bomb Forest (the size with the divide may be too slow-paced but deserves a fair shot probably)
Find Mii (might be campy, really unsure)
Garden of Hope (just a very strange layout, nothing obviously ban-worthy)
Windy Hill Zone (does hazards off get rid of the windmill?)
Great Plateau Tower (is the cave of life effect a problem?)
Dracula's Castle (the size/campiness/walls all need investigation)
Seems Unlikely:
Big Battlefield (probably still just too big)
Peach's Castle (seems like a very big campfest)
Saffron City (probably too campy)
Corneria (need to test if the main gun has collision which it probably does for a ban, even if not the unusual geography would need testing)
Skyworld (just a huge cave of life)
Pirate Ship (I'm concerned by the water)
Dream Land GB (truly awful stage that is a bit of a mystery with hazards off)
Magicant (the bottom platform being gone would save it; I wouldn't count on it)
Tortimer Island (I'm concerned by the water)
Gamer (hazards off probably still makes loop formations)
Super Mario Maker (seems unlikely hazards off makes quality formations consistently)
Definitely Banned:
Hyrule Castle (too much camping)
Super Happy Tree (extreme camping)
Mushroom Kingdom 64 (walk-offs, loops)
Princess Peach's Castle (campfest)
Kongo Falls (the rock camping)
Great Bay (loop)
Temple (loop)
Yoshi's Island Melee (walk-off, hilariously low ceiling)
Venom (too much camping)
Onett (walk-offs)
Mushroom Kingdom II (walk-offs)
Brinstar Depths (extreme camping)
Fourside (too much camping)
Mushroomy Kingdom (walk-offs)
Figure-8 Circuit (walk-offs)
Bridge of Eldin (walk-offs)
Distant Planet (walk-offs)
New Pork City (loops)
Summit (loops)
Shadow Moses Island (I just don't believe this structure could possibly play well)
Luigi's Mansion (being unbreakable will ruin it, and it was marginal breakable)
Spear Pillar (loops)
75m (walk-offs, very campy)
Mario Bros. (walk-offs, loops)
Hanenbow (loops)
Green Hill Zone (walk-offs)
3d Land (walk-offs and generally awful structure)
Golden Plains (walk-offs)
Paper Mario (walk-offs, insane geography, almost no path to legality)
Gerudo Valley (walk-offs)
Mute City SNES (obviously terrible stage that seems about the same without hazards)
Balloon Fight (loops)
Living Room (walk-offs)
Tomodachi Life (just an awful structure, played like trash in 3ds and no reason to suspect a change)
Mario Galaxy (walk-offs)
Mario Circuit (still hits you while touring, too inconsistent to tolerate)
Great Cave Offensive (loops)
Coliseum (walk-offs)
Flat Zone X (walk-offs)
Palutena's Temple (loops)
Wii Fit Studio (walk-offs)
Boxing Ring (walk-offs)
Gaur Plain (walk-offs)
Wrecking Crew (truly awful super vertical lay-out, polarizing, run-away)
Pilotwings (loops and camping: the stage)
PAC-LAND (walk-offs)
Suzaku Castle (walk-offs, camping)
Moray Towers (just a visibly garbage lay-out, will be polarizing and have tons of run-away and basically be Wrecking Crew 2)
Here's the specific data I really am wanting to find...
-Relative ceiling heights in this new game. For instance, is Halberd still low, and if it is, just how low?
-Windy Hill Zone, Big Blue, and Garden of Hope without hazards are still mysteries that have very plausible paths to legality depending on this behavior.
-What is the general meta in Ultimate of stages with a gap in them?
-After how much we all talked about it, Magicant is also not on the list of stages without hazards that have been checked.
-I obviously want a hard confirm on random layout stages for all three individually. I don't think random layouts are inherently ban-worthy at all, but I do think random layouts where sometimes the layout is broken is ban-worthy since we're not going to reroll a stage's layout because we subjectively don't like this one.
-With how this game is supposed to be more aggressive, does stages being a little bigger than average honestly even matter? People flipped over this in general in 4 when my experience told me it wasn't nearly as big of a deal (and my main opposition was Sonic!), but it might matter pretty much not at all here. A stage being somewhat slower than average isn't a reason for a ban as long as the speed is within reason independently...
-How can all of the characters jump to high platforms? If it's only Little Mac who still struggles at dealing with Kongo Jungle/Duck Hunt, it seems hard to deny those stages out of the gate, but if there are more wide-spread problems, they are less worth protecting.
-What is the actual meta with walls here? I don't think "a move can combo a little more on a wall" is an instant-ban freak-out justification, but I do think it should be looked at seriously to figure out the fate of stages affected.
-We have a few very non-traditional stage lay-outs that have no obvious ban justification (like Norfair and Spirit Train). I think deep dives into the actual meta on those stages in the game's early lifespan will be very important.
Also some more general thoughts...
-I currently believe the best way to handle clones is this. For any "neutral" pick (as in from striking, random selection, whatever procedure involves both players contributing), you go with the one basic form which is probably for simplicity BF/FD/PS1. If you are counterpicking, you can choose any of the clones instead if you would pick that stage. This also includes all omega and BF forms (so basically BF and FD have about 100 clones each!).
-My second thought on clone stages is that we should be looking for them to be really extraordinarily similar before we lump them. I think differences in stage underside aren't sufficient to separate, but I do think different platform size ratios and positions and different blast zones are enough to matter. Unova Pokemon League, Kalos Pokemon League, and Pokemon Stadium are all definitely different since the platforms sit in somewhat different locations. PictoChat 2 and Final Destination are definitely different due to rounded edges and different lengths. Yoshi's Island and Smashville are different due to the floor shape. Yoshi's Story seems differently sized versus Battlefield and has rounded edges.
-I'm really not sure where the anti-Delfino sentiment comes from. The stage was fine in Brawl other than some people believing MK was too good on it (though the evidence of results suggested MK was approximately equally good on all stages... which was very good of course); regardless that doesn't apply anymore. The stage was fine in 4 other than some people getting super bothered over the blast zones getting closer temporarily which we don't even know if it's still a thing, and I've always felt very strongly that being oversensitive to minor nuisances that are entirely predictable when ignoring all of the positives of the stage is just a mistake. In general I think touring stages offer high intrinsic value by allowing players to choose a stage that has non-static advantages which depending on match-up situations can actually be a really valuable choice to be able to make, and while I would not advocate tolerating actually problematic gameplay over this (which is why Mario Circuit which still hits you for some reason I am not supporting), I do think there's a very, very large value to the game in keeping Delfino Plaza, PTAD, Halberd, Prism Tower, and New Donk City Hall unless it's proven pretty solidly that we just can't.
-Hazards off all the time is just the way to go. It's frankly the obvious design intention, and we shouldn't be trying to force the game to be something other than what it was made to be. If you miss the old Smashville, sorry, but this isn't the old game. I'm going to miss the old Skyloft and Wuhu Island a lot, but they don't travel anymore and it just is what it is.
-Total aside but I don't think that match on Corneria proved anything was broken; it mostly proved that two weak players in a new game are sometimes unsure of how to approach. I don't have high hopes for Corneria anyway, but let's not rely on evidence that shoddy.
-In general I think we should err on the side of too many stages early. We know for a fact from four previous games of evidence that the ban curve only goes in one direction. We should give questionable stages a real and serious shot just knowing that if we ban them early we probably in reality never give them a chance.
-I think the current numbers we're looking at make FLiPS work nearly optimally. I estimate that by the time everything is tried out, as long as we are reasonable about things, we will probably hit somewhere close to 30 non-clone stages. Using the alteration suggested by Lux makes it even more efficient. Let me spell this one out again because I think this general concept is just too smooth:
The core idea is that we're doing away with character counterpicks (which mathematically actually just entrench the winner of game one as the likely set winner, the advantage of cping game two is more than offset by the disadvantage of being cp'd against game three) and running the "neutral" game for game three instead of game one. That way if the set goes 2-0 we save ourselves the slowest stage pick.
1. Start by having each player do some number of stage bans, let's say four for now. Do it like stage striking with a 1-2-2...-1 order. These stages are banned for the set.
2. Each player will pick one stage to be their counterpick stage double blind. If players cannot agree on whose stage is used first, rps for it or whatever. If both players name the same stage, that's fine; you just use that stage for both games one and two.
3. Double blind pick characters or squads and just play the first two games (you can change characters for game two but it's still double blind).
4. If the set is 2-0 at this point, the winner of both games wins the set.
5. If the set is 1-1 after two games, remove the stages used in games one and two from the stage pool and each player gets another full round of bans just like at the start. Stage is random from all remaining stages.
6. Players can double blind pick characters or squads in reaction to the game three stage which will be played to decide the set.
It's fast, easy, and fair. Double blind picking is easy in the era of phones; just type what you are picking into your phone, your opponent says what they're picking out loud, and you show them your phone screen. You can also track all bans on the random stage screen quite easily, and rules presets should make it easy to save the tournament's total legal stage list.
Amazing Ampharos
There's a section of Port Town Aero Dive where a wall on the race track poses an active hazard while still standing on the flying platform, in addition to the usual "touch track, get bodied" shenanigans if the floor is close enough. Considering how Mario Circuit's similar "gimmick" is disqualifying despite being purely offstage, I don't think Port Town will pass the smell test.
Also, while I'm inclined to agree that Delfino Plaza is a solid stage, you have to know that you'll be facing some pushback from players who just remember that it was banned in 4 for ceiling shenanigans without necessarily checking if that's still the case in Ultimate.
-I'm really not sure where the anti-Delfino sentiment comes from. The stage was fine in Brawl other than some people believing MK was too good on it (though the evidence of results suggested MK was approximately equally good on all stages... which was very good of course); regardless that doesn't apply anymore. The stage was fine in 4 other than some people getting super bothered over the blast zones getting closer temporarily which we don't even know if it's still a thing, and I've always felt very strongly that being oversensitive to minor nuisances that are entirely predictable when ignoring all of the positives of the stage is just a mistake. In general I think touring stages offer high intrinsic value by allowing players to choose a stage that has non-static advantages which depending on match-up situations can actually be a really valuable choice to be able to make, and while I would not advocate tolerating actually problematic gameplay over this (which is why Mario Circuit which still hits you for some reason I am not supporting), I do think there's a very, very large value to the game in keeping Delfino Plaza, PTAD, Halberd, Prism Tower, and New Donk City Hall unless it's proven pretty solidly that we just can't.
The main reason I'm worried about Delfino is that being able to recover through the stage kinda breaks ledgetrapping. It probably won't affect gameplay enough to be banworthy, so it should definitely start legal, but I can see it being a problem.
The other issue I see with touring stages in general is that it's very possible for transformations to give player a free pass out of disadvantage, completely killing the aggressor's momentum, which just isn't fun. Sure the transformations are somewhat predictable, but knowing that it's going to happen doesn't always give you a chance to do anything about it. If you had your opponent below the stage right before Delfino drops you onto some walkoffs, you wouldn't really have a way to maintain momentum, because your opponent could generally make it to the ground before you. Conversely, if the platform spawned while your opponent was above you, they could just land on the stage, while you have to actually jump onto it, ending your juggle. Maybe I'm super wrong, though. I don't really play on Delfino much.
The problem with random stages isn't that they're random (this is an issues obviously), but instead that every one of them has potential caves of life. (Except Tortimer Island which has other issues).
The main reason I'm worried about Delfino is that being able to recover through the stage kinda breaks ledgetrapping. It probably won't affect gameplay enough to be banworthy, so it should definitely start legal, but I can see it being a problem.
The other issue I see with touring stages in general is that it's very possible for transformations to give player a free pass out of disadvantage, completely killing the aggressor's momentum, which just isn't fun. Sure the transformations are somewhat predictable, but knowing that it's going to happen doesn't always give you a chance to do anything about it. If you had your opponent below the stage right before Delfino drops you onto some walkoffs, you wouldn't really have a way to maintain momentum, because your opponent could generally make it to the ground before you. Conversely, if the platform spawned while your opponent was above you, they could just land on the stage, while you have to actually jump onto it, ending your juggle. Maybe I'm super wrong, though. I don't really play on Delfino much.
Passthrough floors and recovery in general are different in some ways but I don't think any evidence suggests it's terribly broken. Remember if you up-B through a passthrough floor it's both usually really obvious and you often have substantial lag for doing so; in practice it's usually a pretty horrible way to get off a ledge. Even if it wasn't, that would just be a different dynamic, and banning is really drastic especially since part of the point of variety is that some dynamics can be stronger or weaker on different stages.
The stage landing when you swat your opponent off-stage and they choose not to recover to the touring platform definitely happens frequently, but it's not really all bad. Of course as the aggressor you equally know it's coming and can equally take advantage; you can chase super deep off-stage even if you have a poor recovery knowing that you'll have ground to land on. More generally, yes, sometimes transformation timings end situations, but that's kinda the core of why we need the stages. A lot of match-ups have a heavy emphasis on just one side having a really bad time getting out of trouble, and these are the characters who need to pick touring stages since the shift points are opportunities to reset the situation. It's not like touring stages just make being in disadvantage not matter; it generally still sucks to be smacked around a lot, and the other side is that it still generally sucks if you're a character on the wrong side of a match-up where approaching is very hard. They just give some possible reprieve; do we think the game is better competitively if slower characters are screwed absolutely as much as possible? I don't really think so at least.
Amazing Ampharos
There's a section of Port Town Aero Dive where a wall on the race track poses an active hazard while still standing on the flying platform, in addition to the usual "touch track, get bodied" shenanigans if the floor is close enough. Considering how Mario Circuit's similar "gimmick" is disqualifying despite being purely offstage, I don't think Port Town will pass the smell test.
Also, while I'm inclined to agree that Delfino Plaza is a solid stage, you have to know that you'll be facing some pushback from players who just remember that it was banned in 4 for ceiling shenanigans without necessarily checking if that's still the case in Ultimate.
It's not really the same. PTAD has exactly one wall that hits you at one very clear and easy to determine point, and it's even easy to physically see coming. Mario Circuit is just all over the place and often really, really hard to see coming. I think PTAD's wall is like an old Halberd hazard except a lot weaker, basically the "this is a factor but you only get hit by this if either your opponent deserves full credit for forcing you into it or if you're just an idiot". The track being down there is also a pretty steady factor and is honestly a positive to the character recovering though getting hit is still bad enough you still really don't want to slam into the track unless you have to. I think many years of playing Mute City in Melee showed us that really the only problem the stage had was a lack of ledges, and PTAD is very close except now it has ledges so I think it's probably fine until it proves otherwise. Maybe it will prove otherwise, but I think it deserves a chance to do that.
I still don't care much for the FLiPS stuff. That explanation confused it even more for me with the blind picks. Picking a stage just shouldn't be that convoluted. We don't need to stick with any kind of bans or striking just because we did it in the past. I think Vetoes are the way to go, and either random for game 1, or use stage morph to flip between 2 chosen stages, or even 2 set stages. Start complicating things if those don't work out well.
Without hazards I can see Garden of Hope being doubles legal, but for singles, I'm skeptical about the size - not because of runaway play or whatever (though that's a fair consideration), but because of blast zones. Stage control becomes an... interesting... concept when your stage base is 2-3x the size of most other legal stages (contrast Norfair or Mute City where the opposite essentially becomes true). If I recall, it also had a rather huge ceiling, making both vertical and horizontal kills rather late.
Kongo Jungle 64 seems to be in a rough spot with the platforms permanently poised so near the top making a perfect loop for circle camping. With the right stage picking/banning procedure it may be a non-issue, but it could be hard to judge what kind of polarized matchup can be handled with "just ban it" and what's unreasonable in a ruleset.
I still don't care much for the FLiPS stuff. That explanation confused it even more for me with the blind picks. Picking a stage just shouldn't be that convoluted. We don't need to stick with any kind of bans or striking just because we did it in the past. I think Vetoes are the way to go, and either random for game 1, or use stage morph to flip between 2 chosen stages, or even 2 set stages. Start complicating things if those don't work out well.
How are blind picks confusing? It just means you both pick at the same time. It's not possible to play current Smash without understanding double blind picks since that's how we do character for game one. This just makes you do that a lot (always for character, and for game one/two stages). I actually think that version of FLiPS is fundamentally simpler than current tournament procedure; you just still have the concept of stage bans and double blind picks that we already use and you just roll with them in that particular order unlike the current rules that have to account for who won what game to decide what happens next and have the underlying idea of counterpicking to deal with.
I also think vetoes will take forever and encourage massive gamesmanship. There's this assumption of playing nice in the suggestion that I think is just flawed. If my opponent suggests something, I'm always going to veto unless I think they made a large mistake and said something really in my favor. The reason is that them wanting a stage is a really good reason for me not to want to play on it. So we either are vetoing through the entire stage list or we're vetoing until my opponent slips up and gives me something I really wanted a lot. Any system based on agreement is doomed to fail because a lot of players, myself included, will always be looking to disagree for a competitive advantage; if I'm not sure, my default is being against whatever my opponent wants.
Another issue with vetoing would be that stage selection would become this weird poker-like situation of player 1 purposely suggesting stages he doesn't want to play on with the expectation/hope that player 2 will veto it so he can get his actual preferred stage. I think it really makes stage selection more convoluted and adds a needless additional point of analysis to the process.
To be completely honest, I'd rather just the loser of game 1 pick the stage for game 2 and the winner has no say in the matter. If the stages are good and "fair" enough, why would this be such a problem? You could also allow just a single veto for BO3, and 2 for BO5.
What I don't get about the FLiPS, is why are stages being double blind picked?
Another issue with vetoing would be that stage selection would become this weird poker-like situation of player 1 purposely suggesting stages he doesn't want to play on with the expectation/hope that player 2 will veto it so he can get his actual preferred stage. I think it really makes stage selection more convoluted and adds a needless additional point of analysis to the process.
To fix this you have the looser choose two or three or whatever (one more then the amount of vetos you would have) stages and then the winner picks one of those. Also speeds things up.
How are blind picks confusing? It just means you both pick at the same time. It's not possible to play current Smash without understanding double blind picks since that's how we do character for game one. This just makes you do that a lot (always for character, and for game one/two stages). I actually think that version of FLiPS is fundamentally simpler than current tournament procedure; you just still have the concept of stage bans and double blind picks that we already use and you just roll with them in that particular order unlike the current rules that have to account for who won what game to decide what happens next and have the underlying idea of counterpicking to deal with.
I also think vetoes will take forever and encourage massive gamesmanship. There's this assumption of playing nice in the suggestion that I think is just flawed. If my opponent suggests something, I'm always going to veto unless I think they made a large mistake and said something really in my favor. The reason is that them wanting a stage is a really good reason for me not to want to play on it. So we either are vetoing through the entire stage list or we're vetoing until my opponent slips up and gives me something I really wanted a lot. Any system based on agreement is doomed to fail because a lot of players, myself included, will always be looking to disagree for a competitive advantage; if I'm not sure, my default is being against whatever my opponent wants.
So I'm new to the concept of FLiPS and am just going from your Adjusted FLiPS blurb previois (will gladly read more if available), but I'm a bit curious about the effect of it on the mental aspect of the game (momentum, learning your opponent, etc.). Essentially, (correct me if I'm wrong) round one has a chance of going to the opponent's preferred stage (either yours, theirs, or both if you picked the same).
Is the mental aspect a significant enough factor to need to tweak FLiPS? Or put another way, is it insignificant enough that it is worth delaying the "most-even" stage from striking until a round 3 that may not happen?
Passthrough floors and recovery in general are different in some ways but I don't think any evidence suggests it's terribly broken. Remember if you up-B through a passthrough floor it's both usually really obvious and you often have substantial lag for doing so; in practice it's usually a pretty horrible way to get off a ledge. Even if it wasn't, that would just be a different dynamic, and banning is really drastic especially since part of the point of variety is that some dynamics can be stronger or weaker on different stages.
I wasn't actually talking about Up-Bing through the stage. That's a terrible idea in most situations for most characters. I was talking about jumping through the stage in such a way that you cross your opponent up and retake stage control, or jumping through the stage in such a way that you can cover yourself with an aerial and land right after it hits, making it extremely safe on shield. You can space far enough away from the ledge that the former isn't feasible, but if you do, you're potentially sacrificing a lot of ledge pressure. Additionally, the ability to be hit through the stage messes up a lot of otherwise strong traps. It's almost certainly not actually worth banning the stage over, though. Like you said, it's a just different dynamic.
More generally, yes, sometimes transformation timings end situations, but that's kinda the core of why we need the stages. A lot of match-ups have a heavy emphasis on just one side having a really bad time getting out of trouble, and these are the characters who need to pick touring stages since the shift points are opportunities to reset the situation. It's not like touring stages just make being in disadvantage not matter; it generally still sucks to be smacked around a lot, and the other side is that it still generally sucks if you're a character on the wrong side of a match-up where approaching is very hard. They just give some possible reprieve; do we think the game is better competitively if slower characters are screwed absolutely as much as possible? I don't really think so at least.
Here's the thing, though: Helping people in disadvantage is not exclusive to touring stages. There are other stages that can help people to land, get off the ledge, and recover (probably). The difference is, other stages do it by giving the player in disadvantage more or better options for getting out of disadvantage. If your character has trouble getting off the ledge, going to a stage with side platforms near or over the ledge or a passthrough floor can give you more options for escaping the ledge, but you still have to make good decisions to actually get out of the situation. If you instead go to Halberd, 90% (very real statistic) of the game, getting off the ledge will be just as hard as it would be anywhere else, but the other 10% (still extremely real statistic) of the time, when the stage transitions from the tour platform to the ship deck, it just drops you onto the stage for free. You don't get off the ledge because you used the new options the stage layout allowed for to your advantage, you get off the ledge because the stage said it was your turn on the Xbox. There's no meaningful decisions, no real agency involved. Whereas passthrough floors merely change the dynamic of ledgetrapping, Halberd's transition (and presumably other transitions too) straight up removes it.
I'll be the first to admit I'm probably exaggerating this scenario. Most of the time, there would probably be something the trapper could do to maintain momentum, though that option would probably be risky as hell. That said, whether or not that exact situation was necessarily as bad as I made it out to be, we both agree that in some situations, stage transitions can completely kill one player's momentum, regardless of what that player does, and in my opinion, that's an unacceptable level of stage interference. It'll lead to most players not wanting to play on those stages, because who wants to be arbitrarily denied the opportunity to press an advantage based on the whims of the transition timer? Even players of characters who struggle in types of disadvantage that Halberd, Prism Tower, or Delfino could get them out of might not play them. They'll likely opt for stages that consistently give them better options for escaping disadvantage over stages that don't help them at all 90% (the realest statistic) of the time, for reasons both logical and psychological.
At this point, I should probably mention that I don't think this instantly disqualifies these sorts of stages from legality. It's entirely possible that there will matchups where disadvantage is so hard to escape for one character that going to a stage where sometimes they get a free pass out is actually preferred, and in that case, I think these stages are worth keeping legal. There are also benefits to having stages with non-static advantages as options, and it's very possible the benefits of these stages outweigh those drawbacks. It would be dumb of me to imply that the transitions themselves are the only notable features of each stage when I dedicated a paragraph at the beginning of this post to a notable non-transition feature of Delfino. I think we should keep touring stages legal on release and wait to see if they're used, why they're used, and whether or not people actually enjoy playing on them. If they're used as counterpicks in matchups where disadvantage is hard to escape, they're worth keeping. If they're played because the non-static advantages turn out really valuable in some situations, they're worth keeping. If people like them, they're worth keeping. But if they're not played at all, or played because certain layouts end up degenerate even when they aren't permanent, or if the community hates them the way they currently hate Lylat, I think we have a large enough potential stagelist to let them go.
So I'm new to the concept of FLiPS and am just going from your Adjusted FLiPS blurb previois (will gladly read more if available), but I'm a bit curious about the effect of it on the mental aspect of the game (momentum, learning your opponent, etc.). Essentially, (correct me if I'm wrong) round one has a chance of going to the opponent's preferred stage (either yours, theirs, or both if you picked the same).
Is the mental aspect a significant enough factor to need to tweak FLiPS? Or put another way, is it insignificant enough that it is worth delaying the "most-even" stage from striking until a round 3 that may not happen?
So first the information. The original FLiPS model did have game one as the "neutral" game and counterpicking preserved. The FLiPS idea is striking only some stages and picking random from the rest (Full List Partial Striking). Lux was the one who suggested the reverse, and as I thought about it and looked into it, I really liked the idea of doing the neutral game in game three. Disagreement about the order is not disagreeing with the FLiPS idea; the order is the adjustment. The original FLiPS model is here:
So first of all, let me talk about what character counterpicking's mathematical effect is and who is going to win a set. Let's ignore stage for a moment here. If a character counterpick offers no advantage at all and both players are equally skilled, you expect the game one winner to win a Bo3 set 75% of the time. This is because he'll win game 2 50% of the time (winning the set 2-0) and if he loses game 2 he'll still win game 3 50% of the time (winning the set 2-1) for a joint probability of 75%. On the other hand, if the counterpicking advnatage is 100% (counterpicking always makes you win), the game one winner wins the set 100% of the time. This is because the game one winner wins game two 0% of the time but then wins game three 100% of the time for an overall outcome of the game one winner always winning the set 2-1. If you set the advantage in the middle, it's a smooth curve between the two. I'll spare the calculation details, but if you say counterpicking is a 75% advantage, the game one winner has an overall win rate of 81.25% but you see game three happen at all 75% of the time. Thus, character counterpicking makes longer sets with less variable winners. TOs and players both lose; character counterpicks are actually a negative for the game.
As per the mental aspect, I'd really just point out two things. One is that you can still switch characters in response to what happened in games which I think was most of the intrigue anyway. The second is that you are making those strikes for the final game with information from the first two games, and that's probably more affected by previous game knowledge than a counterpick of a stage which you usually were either wanting to maximize your character or squad (who presumably you knew and understood) or are trying to do something to screw over your opponent which more just served on a filter for those types of characters susceptible to that being used at all (like Little Mac comes so quickly to mind) so it seems like not a great dynamic to protect anyway. I don't think the mental aspect is reduced here; I actually think the lower total leverage on winning game one probably enhances it if anything.
To be completely honest, I'd rather just the loser of game 1 pick the stage for game 2 and the winner has no say in the matter. If the stages are good and "fair" enough, why would this be such a problem? You could also allow just a single veto for BO3, and 2 for BO5.
What I don't get about the FLiPS, is why are stages being double blind picked?
I didn't elaborate on some of the theory here. To iterate, the order adjustment is the reason it's adjusted from FLiPS. Now why we double blind pick under this order adjustment...
So the adjustment to do the "neutral" stage last is largely a time saver (since game three often doesn't happen, and the "neutral" stage inherently takes far longer to select than the "counterpick" stages). The issue is if you do the counterpick stages first the "normal" way, going second is a really big advantage since you can counterpick based on what happened game one. So if game one is my counterpick, then surely game two must be yours. If game two is your counterpick, then you can pick based on what happened game one while I picked based on no information gained during the set. We need some stage picked before game one obviously because game one has to actually be played so the most fair solution to that is to double blind pick them so going second isn't an advantage.
And the whole issue honestly mostly revolves around the "neutral" stage. Like we could devise a thousand systems easily that are fair ways to pick the "counterpick" stages; the question is trivial. The complex question is how do you pick the "neutral" stage to accomplish all of the following goals:
-The stage should be fair to both players who will both manipulate any choices presented to maximum advantage.
-The system needs to operate quickly.
-The system needs to be able to account for a world with 30 legal stages.
That's a really hard question. I think the model presented, which overlaps as much stuff as possible, is a pretty decent model to make it all just work within those constraints. Having the two rounds of bans softens the blow of striking just a ton of stuff all at once and reduces the variance inherent to a larger stage list. You save time with the overlap (not having to strike and then do bans totally separately), and you save time by having every set that ends 2-0 not have the second round of bans at all. The system is also actually way more fair to both players than any other proposal I've seen and significantly more fair than the currently used model when you weigh everything. This is especially important when you consider that the current model literally doesn't work for 30 legal stages, and the idea of picking some small number of arbitrary stages to be "starters" to force the current model to work is largely equivalent in game theory to just banning almost all of the stages for the sake of having a small number (strategies revolving around exploiting counterpick only stages are inferior to use versus strategies that are designed to exploit stages legal in every game and thus strong players simply will not use counterpick only stages as a general rule). That all being the case, my viewpoint basically is that any procedure basically needs to focus mostly on the selection of the "neutral" stage and how that will be done as best as possible, and then assuming it's always a Bo3 set (which for unrelated reasons I won't get into now, every set should be Bo3 and Bo5 should be discontinued), you just use one of the frankly dozens of good solutions available for picking the other two stages as it works best with your model for the "neutral" pick.
I'm not saying we should exclude the slope-terrain stages, I'm saying that the community probably will. There's a lot of anti-slope sentiment out there, so much that I was surprised.
Do we know if hazardless Umbra Clock Tower still has the insanely intense shaking on the main platform (not the background)? Because if it does, I imagine it will still trigger the whole motion sickness issue in a much wider audience than it does for say, Final Destination or Lylat Cruise in Smash 4, I don't know about everyone else but that stage makes me ill. I've tried it several times and no matter what I do I get nausea from it, and I can handle everything else in the game (it's actually the ONLY thing in any game I've played to accomplish that lol), so I can't help but think it might be that way for a lot of other people too. I don't think it'd be a problemifwe go with any system that lets the players do away with a large number of stages before playing each other, but I just wanted to bring that up.
Just wanted to drop a disclaimer that by any means the stages I've bolded in the post need to be 100% legal, they're just the stages that greward/marcbri seemed to like in hazardless mode (I personally agree and disagree with some of them f.e. Castlevania is not to be considered a legal stage by any means).
I'm personally excited to see what the community comes up regarding the stage ruleset, but please do not let it be limited to the same number of legal stages of Smash 4. If the developers have bothered to put in a hazardless mode, we should take advantage of it. The stage variety that this implies should be more than enough to have it as a main rule. But again, that's just my opeenion.
So I guess we know for certain that the potential legal stagelist is a lot bigger, as we'd hoped. That's great, but there's still a lot of resistance to the idea of expansion. There are a couple of reasons, and I'm not going to address the philosophical problems some people have against a larger stagelist ("This gives us the opportunity to be stricter in our definition of neutral" etc.). Instead, it's imperative that we collectively try to address the practical concerns of time. Namely, we all want a stagelist/procedure that is:
1) Fair
2) Efficient
3) As large as possible
(2) and (3) are, for the most part, directly in contention and it's resulting in a broad spectrum of ideas to try circumvent the issue. However, there is a question of how much we can do this without needlessly overcomplicating the whole procedure. Instead, I've been wondering whether we can just move the work elsewhere to eliminate the time inside of sets.
I think I would attempt this by following Amazing Ampharos
FLiPS ruleset as closely as I could, but by moving work outside of the set / to presignups as best as possible. Here's an example:
Modified FLiPS Ruleset:
Suppose we have some number of legal stages. 25 is a reasonable number right now, so I'm going to stick with that. Modify numbers as you see fit.
1) Each player double blind bans 10 stages (Note: this can even be done as a pre-tourney signup. It does not create any extra work midset)
2) These stages are removed from the pool of legal stages to create a sublist of at least 5 stages (more, in the event there is some overlap in stages players choose to ban).
3) If there are more than 5 stages at the end of this, remove them randomly until we have 5.
4) This is the stagelist for the set. Play as usual.
The important thing is that step 1-3 can easily be done pre-game by a computer for every possible pair of players before the tourney even begins. This leaves no extra work for TOs so is a viable alternative if we invested the time into getting it automated.
- - - - -
I don't think for a second that that is necessarily the optimal way of doing things, but I do think the general philosophy (To automate/pre-prepare stage procedures as much as possible) is the way forward for a larger stagelist.
All opponent-limited counter-pick procedures are simple algorithms to select the n-th best stage for the counter picking player. There are three ways to do this, which are all identical for informed players--but merely differ on how unfair they are to players who can't remember the entire legal list at all times.
BAD - Winner BANS (n-1) stages, Loser picks any other.
This penalizes the winner for not remembering the full legal stage list at all times, and penalizes hasty bans.
This method has the slowest worst-case, as it encourages the most stage list referencing and consideration time.
BETTER- Loser picks any stage, Winner can VETO up to (n-1) times.
This encourages bull**** stage-bluff "mindgames" of presenting stages in variable orders of preference. This unduly rewards opponent research and concealment of play history, and makes a larger fraction of the game's outcome more about what happens outside the game than in it.
This method has the slowest best-case, due to the maximum back-and-forth between players.
BEST - Loser LISTSn stages, Winner must chose one to accept.
This has full transparency between players, and does not allow for miscommunication or manipulation.
This is also the fastest method in all (non-consensus) cases.
And again, all 3 CP methods select the same stage (the n-th best), and all 3 work with any value of n. Note that at the trivial case of n=1, they are all identical procedures. ("Losers picks a stage.")
Methods for selecting a stage for "game 1" are always going to tough to agree on, as compromises always are. But counterpick procedures are quite simple, well-understood, and objectively comparable:
How am I supposed to pick my stage or stage bans before I know who my opponent is? Does this become a big meta-game skill test about guessing who is going to be attending the tourney and who their mains are?
How am I supposed to pick my stage or stage bans before I know who my opponent is? Does this become a big meta-game skill test about guessing who is going to be attending the tourney and who their mains are?
The idea is not to pick your stage or stage bans during that pre-selection phase but purely to eliminate the worst case scenarios for your character. If this is all done via signup then you would get a neutral stagelist for the match of the usual size which you can then apply regular stage striking procedure to.
As said, I by no means believe that I'm suggesting a solution there. I just want to generate discussion on whether there is any reasonable way to expedite stage selection for larger stage lists by shifting some of the work out of the set, because whilst players will tailor bans to their opponent, in many cases players will also just want to avoid certain stages they dislike.
The idea is not to pick your stage or stage bans during that pre-selection phase but purely to eliminate the worst case scenarios for your character. If this is all done via signup then you would get a neutral stagelist for the match of the usual size which you can then apply regular stage striking procedure to.
As said, I by no means believe that I'm suggesting a solution there. I just want to generate discussion on whether there is any reasonable way to expedite stage selection for larger stage lists by shifting some of the work out of the set, because whilst players will tailor bans to their opponent, in many cases players will also just want to avoid certain stages they dislike.
Logistically it seems like it would require extensive prepwork on the tournament's end (or some extensive automation, doesn't easily enable walkins at smaller tournaments, and gets "harder" for players the more characters they play (especially if said characters have vastly different stage preferences), but over-all I like the idea.
Personally, I like the jdea of shifting the focus away from the mindgames and towards picking self-optimal instead of foe-detrimental. Foe detriment is inherently a meta game element and minimizing that is good (IMO), but this way we're left with stage variety in any matchup of two players, and a little bit of picking to be done.
All stage procedures done at an event-wide level are inherently political, and reward players for blindpicking not their actual worst stages, but their worst stages minus what they guess other players will pick.
Game theory tells us that all competitive (non-political) decisions require there to be only two actors, who are making decisions with at least fully local information. (Such as knowing who your opponent is, that you are making decisions against.)
There shouldn't be any real need to complicate things this time around. With the way the stage list is shaping up, the better player should be able to adapt to any minor changes in the stage layout, since it's really just a matter of the size, and how any platforms are laid out. Just letting the loser pick a stage should be fine. Having to learn a lot of stages is just a cop out excuse at this point in my mind, since really you just need to learn the character and adjust accordingly to the stage.
