Hazards

[WindMajor]

So this topic has been going on recently for quite a while, and I've never been able to get to the bottom of it.

Hazards.

People have been going around saying that they believe that stages with hazards should not be legal for all sorts of reasons. Some say because it interferes with PvP, some say because it's a factor that doesn't help find the better player, some say because they're anti-competitive, etc.

I want to get to the bottom of this. I feel like people are losing sight of the fact that we're playing Smash here, and that over half of the stages in the disc have hazards***. Like, I'm sure that when Sakurai and his team were making the game, they didn't put in stages with hazards by mistake. They put them in with the intention that we should play with them and factor them into combat.

But if that's the case, why are competitive players all of a sudden screaming out "unfair"? Competitive players are supposed to deal with this kinda stuff, not complain about it. People might refute randomness or intrusiveness, but I want to go deeper than that (because both of those points fail the "Halberd" argument, and people have a problem with Halberd, which means that the issue goes deeper than randomness and intrusiveness).

I asked this question twice before, but here it is again (slightly modified):

"What is so wrong with the act of getting hit by a hazard and/or the existence of hazards that makes it unacceptable for competitive play?"


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[collapse="***"]
Static (No Hazards) - 3
Static (With Hazards) - 5
Dynamic (No Hazards) - 17
Dynamic (With Hazards) - 18

Battlefield
Final Destination
Temple
Mario Circuit
Norfair
75m
Mario Bros
Jungle Japes
Delfino Plaza
Mushroomy Kingom
Mushroomy Kingom 2
Frigate Orpheon
Yoshi's Island (Brawl)
Lylat Cruise
Pokemon Stadium 2
Castle Siege
Smashville
Skyworld
Shadow Moses Island
Yoshi's Island (Melee)
Rainbow Cruise
Luigi's Mansion
Big Blue
Pokemon Stadium
Hanenbow
Rumble Falls
Bridge of Eldin
Halberd
Port Town Aero Dive
Wario Ware
Distant Planet
New Pork City
Summit
Pictochat
Onett
Corneria
Brinstar
Pirate Ship
Spear Pillar 1
Spear Pillar 2
Flat Zone 2
Green Hill Zone
Green Greens
[/collapse]

 

[ぱみゅ]

On that list, I'd put Norfair on dynamic.
Other than that, I may elaborate on-topic tomorrow.

 

[WindMajor]

Either way, Norfair still has hazards, which was the point.

 

[Arcansi]

On-Topic - Some hazards can just cause horrible things to happen to people, which cause them to not like it.

Like once I was stuck shielding a halberd lazer and my friend broke my shield and falcon punched me. In a last stock last hit match.

Nothing wrong with it, but people would say it's bad because of stuff like that, I think.

 

[-LzR-]

Or you could shieldDI out of the laser in less than a second like everyone else does. It's not a problem.

 

[Bobwithlobsters]

Kinda off topic but how do you shield di out of that laser without buffering a roll?

On topic I think that hazards are fine as long as the fight doesn't revolve around them. An extreme example of that would be the mario level with the turtles that can kill at insanely low percents. Or a more arguable example one is port town aero drive where the cars are avoidable but kill really early.

 

[WindMajor]

Well I can agree with Mario Bros that the hazards are perhaps on another level since they are more arguably important than combat itself, but I wouldn't say the same thing for Port Town.

And even if they kill at low percents, you would still have to go through the Ice Climbers argument (1 mistake = 1 stock, everybody deals with it).

 

[Life]

Norfair technically moves slightly when the big wave comes. It's basically nothing, though.

 

[WindMajor]

Yeah, I overlooked that. It's a 20 frame animation.

 

[Akaku94]

Mario Bros. hazards overcentralize to the point that the actual match revolves completely around the hazards/items the stage produces. It's still completely competitive, but it is also so radically different from every other stage in Brawl that banning it is understandable. Mario Bros. is definitely a unique case.

PTAD, on the other hand, has no problems as far as hazards are concerned. The cars give plenty of warning, and even though they kill early as hazards go, it's still well within the realm of strong counterpicks.

 

[Arcansi]

Or you could shieldDI out of the laser in less than a second like everyone else does. It's not a problem.

1. In this situation that was pretty impossible. (not that it usually isn't, mind you.)

2. That wasn't even the point.

Point was, people will tend to carry over their personal feelings on an experience over into how they judge a stage or character, instead of looking at it objectively.

Just like how people argue YI saving you isn't as bad as Picto killing you.

 

[popsofctown]

Hazards are only bad when they're random. Unfortunately they pretty much always are. If there was a stage with nothing but a set of spikes in the middle, I'd be fine with it.

Halberd isn't very random, but it is still random and still impacts matches. (no more than YI perhaps, but I don't like either). The laser and cannon are fine, they end up being neutral things because of the massive amount of warning. The claw is jank. It flips a coin and picks one person to harm, and leaves the other alone..

I played a game the other day as Pikachu, and started forward throw chaingrabbing a Falco and the claw activated, selecting me. I had to stop fthrowing early so I could shield it. If it had picked Falco, I could have kept forward throwing so it would hit only him.

More commonly, it picks someone and that player winds up in the air. Then the claw lets you bait an airdodge, but without the thinking. You know with certainty when an airdodge will occur, and can punish every time with an aerial. The same thing can happen on the ground with a grab (particularly a tether), but I'd have to concede there are a lot more options there. The big issue is that in an unacceptably large number of matches, the claw picks bejuggled player (or heck, a juggler that is forced to back off), and that player can set up a powerful trap using the ghost-nana-super-wario-mobility-fair.

I've never played on PTAD enough to know, but from what I hear the cars aren't random so idk why that's banned.

 

[WindMajor]

PTAD is banned either because of the lack of ledges, or because the hazards can kill like at 40%-50%.

 

[popsofctown]

PTAD is banned either because of the lack of ledges, or because the hazards can kill like at 40%-50%.

No ledges?

Seems like PTAD-only would be twice as legit as LGL

 

[WindMajor]

After all, only a whopping 2 1/3rd characters are absolutely ****ed because of the lack of ledges on the main platform.

 

[ぱみゅ]

^I hope that list does not include ZSS, she doesn't really requires a ledge.

 

[WindMajor]

A whopping 1 1/3rd of characters then?

 

[popsofctown]

Olimar gets consistently edgehogged anyway, all the stages might as well lack ledges for him. Olimars just up DI, whistle armor, and get onto stage using the up B popup.

I'd drop it town to 1/3rd, but it can stay there because razor leaf is pretty good at opening up a ledge.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Actually, Olimar gets really damaged by lacking of ledges. As opponents need not to edgehog, they can focus on punishing his landing, and that hurts.
But we're getting offtopic.

I do not hink any hazard is bad as long as it is avoidable. If you do not avoid it you need to learn to deal with it. If your opponent throws you towards it, you're just being outplayed.
My two cents.

 

[popsofctown]

Actually, Olimar gets really damaged by lacking of ledges. As opponents need not to edgehog, they can focus on punishing his landing, and that hurts.
But we're getting offtopic.

I do not hink any hazard is bad as long as it is avoidable. If you do not avoid it you need to learn to deal with it. If your opponent throws you towards it, you're just being outplayed.
My two cents.

I didn't think about it that way. Good Point
But yes, this is a hazard thread, offtopic.

 

[infiniteV115]

ZSS would still have it pretty bad without an edge, cause her downB goes through the platform. So her options are

-Jump onto the stage (landing can probably be punished easily)
-DownB onto the stage from a height where the downB ends before she hits the ground (unsafe height, she'll probably get knocked back off)
-DownB onto the stage and use the kick to make sure she doesn't fall through. Quite a bit of ending lag when you land with the downB kick so she'll probably get knocked off again if the opponent is nearby.
-Recover high and dair to the stage from a height where the dair cancels before she hits the ground, so no dair ending lag

This is all theorycraft as I've never played a serious match with ZSS on this stage, but these options aren't really that good. Sure, she makes it on the stage against most of the cast, but it really seems like anyone braindead would be able to knock her back off

 

[ぱみゅ]

Try recovering high and use Salem's Paralizer pivot-ish trick as a mixup.
I can't pull it off (actually, I don't know how to), but it seems very reliable.

 

[DMG]

PTAD drive is horrible for more than just lack of edges. There's not a single positive aspect to the stage besides the fact that it tends to force conflict on the main traveling platform. That's it. Cars are not a positive. No ledges on a majority of the stage, not a positive. Huge transformations, not a positive. That's why nobody likes it. The unique things about this stage more than predominantly point towards having a negative effect, not positive or adding actual depth to the game.

Most of the time when people try to argue for this stage to be legal, you only hear "Well these things aren't that bad". You never hear "The lack of edges, the cars, the huge spaces are a competitive goldmine we are missing out on." Ever. EVER ever.

 

[Akaku94]

The thing is, the burden of proof should be on the one trying to have it banned. Unfortunately, that's not how it usually works here, mind you, but what you're missing here is that while you're saying "there's not a single positive aspect to this stage, ban it," we're saying "there's not a single negative aspect to this stage, legalize it."

And PTAD does add depth to game play, just like every single stage that doesn't overcentralize toward a specific tactic. By definition, the fact that no two stages are alike means that every stage adds something for the player to be able to use to their advantage. That's a positive!

This comes down to stage philosophy in the end, imo. I want to legalize everything that does not explicitly overcentralize to a specific tactic (Temple has circle camping, for example) and is not Warioware You, on the other hand, want to include the stages that you think are best for playing, and if they don't have enough "positives" then they're not worth using in your stagelists.

 

[DMG]

Except everything listed IS a negative (or leans more negative than positive since you could argue no edges benefits certain characters over others despite the price you pay for that). What is the depth you add to the game by adding hazardous cars? What depth do you add by making the transformations fairly large?

Most aspects of the stage listed either add no actual depth (being different doesn't mean you're adding something meaningful to the game) or what they add is more than overshadowed by what they take away. Each one of those aspects takes away more than it truly gives (if it gives anything genuine to begin with).

You may or may not be able to ever prove that there's an overcentralizing strategy or factor on the stage, but you can make a solid case that the cons outweight the pros on this stage. You can easily point out that the stage doesn't have competitively desirable features (not strictly an opinion either, in that you can show the features tend to dumb down gameplay or restrict options which you cannot argue is good for competitive play).

 

[Akaku94]

You can prove overcentralization fairly easily. Circle camping stages are easy to identify, stages with walls are easy to identify, etc. If something isn't easily identifiable, just look at matches played on the stage; if something's overcentralizing, it should be pretty easy to see.

On your specific examples, the cars don't take away anything. They're a hazard that you have to adapt to, just like Halberd or PS2 or YI. The lack of ledges occurs on the side of Frigate, too, and the fact that the track hits you up compensates. As for the size of the transformations, I would say that even the ones that promote stalling are no worse than PS1 or PS2's campy transformations; just wait them out. The cars make it harder to camp on a couple of them, as well (although going all the way to the edge of the track is always safe if I remember correctly). The difference between you and I is that you are saying the stage isn't good enough to be legal, and I'm saying the stage isn't bad enough to be banned...

Btw, congrats on hitting 12,000 posts! One more to go!

 

[Kink-Link5]

Hazards by themselves aren't the problems with the stages, but how they effect the gameplay on the stages is. Stages like Halberd are fine because their hazards effect the match for much less time and effect the stage in a much smaller area. It would be great if the claw wasn't there, but it still overall has much less of an impact on how the stage is played. Hazards on Norfair have a much larger and longer lasting effect, and directly effect how the stage is played.

Get rid of hazards on a lot of stages, and they would still be bad enough to be banned. Norfair still has a bad platform layout, and Corneria still has polarizing wall combos, for example.

It is the combination of how hazards effect the match and the designs of the stages themselves that makes banning them very much arguable.