Is there a consensus on the rules for stage selection yet?

[Jaxel]

When I first started watching, and even as a beginner playing, it made no sense. However, once someone explained it to me (like you described)... it made perfect logical sense. Regarding the scoring, I was accustomed to other sports where certain actions had values associated to them. Basketball: Free throw=1, inside the arc=2, outside the arc=3; Football where safety=2, FG=3, TD=6, and point after 1. There wasn't that "Action = Set number of values/points" that I was accustomed to, and until someone explained that to me... it didn't make sense at all.

Edit: (Not to be hinting that you, specifically, need things explained, or you don't know the game/scene, or anything derogatory... just saying that new stuff to new people = rarely makes sense until explained is all)


But, to me, the starter/counterpick system makes logical sense.
1st game is played on a stage that presumably gives neither player an advantage, or is one that both players can agree on (meaning that both players accept and are ok with any inherent advantages a stage may provide). Striking is done to get to presumably the most neutral of stages, as its reasonable to assume that both players will strike neutrals that lean to his opponent's advantage.

2nd game is played on a counterpick stage that presumably gives the loser a boost, like a handicap in bowling. I see it as a level of sportsmanship, and/or to possibly cover the fact that the neutral wasn't really neutral (which, if this is something that is a repeatable phenomena to where one char has a distinct advantage on a neutral, the neutral should be stricken). However, this boost is partially offset by the winner banning one of these CP stages. The loser gets to change their character to increase the handicap, while the winner gets a final choice in character to once again level the handicap.

3rd and subsequent games are played as the 2nd. The 1st game's winner will have the "counterpick advantage", wherein their victory in the 1st game is 'rewarded' with the ability to put themselves in a favorable position should they lose in a less-favorable one (their opponent's cp.)


Its a mini-game of rock/paper/scissors, give-and-take, and sportsmanly offsets. To me, it makes sense, and ultimately balances out. It may not for you, and for many others. That's not an insult or knock or anything... merely just a different opinion. Because of that, I'm all for learning about and possibly introducing new systems that make sense competitively.

Also, liked your post due to the approach that the current system may be defining the meta as opposed to it growing on its own, which I see now was the intent of your OP and is an insight in its own right.

Except you CAN'T explain it. You're not even explaining it here. You saying it "presumably" gives a player an advantage. Even you don't know why some stages are selected over another. And the counterpick stage presumably giving the loser a boost would be largely dependent on what character the loser players; thus making it completely arbitrary. Again, its not the same as Tennis because there is nothing "open to interpretation" in side-switching.

 

[smashmachine]

Jaxel isnt new to competitive play, I believe he's streamed 2 apexs. I didnt want to draw too much attention to it thought.

if we really want to go down this route we can talk about Jaxel burned his bridges with the FGC

but let's not do that now, shall we?

 

[Jaxel]

Okay, let me put this a bit differently.

Smash 4 is a NEW game. The "meta" of a new game will always be different than the meta from the previous games. With these rules you guys have, you are FORCING a specific meta on the game, rather than allowing the game to develop it's own meta organically. For instance, so many stages are banned because of walk-offs; yet there are no chain-throws in this game, so why are they still banned?

Forcing the Melee meta is pointless; especially if Melee players aren't giving the game a chance and playing it. Its a different game, stop trying to make it the old game.

 

[Sandwiches]

Okay, let me put this a bit differently.

Smash 4 is a NEW game. The "meta" of a new game will always be different than the meta from the previous games. With these rules you guys have, you are FORCING a specific meta on the game, rather than allowing the game to develop it's own meta organically. For instance, so many stages are banned because of walk-offs; yet there are no chain-throws in this game, so why are they still banned?

Forcing the Melee meta is pointless; especially if Melee players aren't giving the game a chance and playing it. Its a different game, stop trying to make it the old game.

Isn't this an issue with the selection of allowed/disallowed stages and not an actual issue with the stage selection methods? Your original argument was that the rules weren't clear or simple... well, I disagree. They are. If there is an actual issue with this method then I haven't heard it yet. It's a quick, simple way to select stages and get a match going in a balanced way.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I'd like to point out that keeping track of striking 13 stages is really easy in 4. You use the random stage switch like always, and you just turn off stages there so the game keeps track for you. In terms of resetting it, you also have the same stage list set up on the omega stages which are independent; that way, no one will forget the stage list as they can just check it in-game (you strike from the normal stages, and before the next set, they can check the omega stages to remind themselves what's legal to set the normal stages back up). As long as you know the basic rules of how stage striking works, you have to know nothing else and have to ask the TO zero questions to just do it. We've done it here, and I don't agree to Smashville and insist upon actually striking every game. It goes fast and consistently ends up on a stage favored by both sides. Logistically this is just not difficult.

The starter-counterpick distinction is awful. It's not only just more to learn for new players as Jaxel points out, but ith as all of the following disadvantages as well:

-Arbitrarily changes match-ups. Skyloft is a legal stage. Smashville is also a legal stage. Match-ups are not the same on Skyloft as they are on Smashville. We're artificially tinkering with the balance when we make Smashville game one legal and not Skyloft, making characters relatively strong on Smashville artifically better than those that would prefer Skyloft. Why would you want to do this?

-Dis-incentivies learning. The meta of counterpick stages is basically this. You want to win game one. Your opponent might win game two on some non-starter stage, but it doesn't matter. Counterpick a starter game three. If you master all of the starter stages, it's impossible to lose! In fact, this is just obviously the correct strategy. Play a character whose best stages are the arbitrarily chosen starters and always pick starter stages. You'll win all of your sets against any players except those who use the same strategy but do it better. The players who don't conform to this will become really good at winning game two and will not win many sets.

-Leads to long term stage bans. Honestly, most people favor banning stages out of unfamiliarity. Since a starter-counterpick dichotomy makes learning counterpick stages strategically unwise, over time counterpick stages will become unfamiliar stages. This will cause gameplay to look progressively worse when they do get picked (since it will typically be that only one side, the strategically naive side, that has actually practiced the stage), and people will begin to push to ban them. When I see people say they want a stage like Skyloft to be a counterpick, I read it as "I think this stage should be banned in about 2 years". I strongly feel it's a legal quality stage and thus it needs to be truly legal: game one legal.

-There's actually no basis to pick which stages are starters. A stage is either acceptable for competitive play or it isn't. There is no way for a stage to be "kinda" competitive. If we think a stage's gameplay quality is acceptable for the last game of grand finals, it's good enough for the first one too since the last one isn't a less important game than the first one anyway. So when you do make starter lists and counterpick lists, you're making decisions witout any real basis; there isn't any real competitive principle being serviced in making that distinction. You can easily do it badly to skew match-ups more (this is common, for instance making all of the transforming stages non-starters), but there's no actual way to do this well so you just shouldn't do this.

So yeah, it's not hard or logistically challenging at all to strike from 13 stages, and doing so avoids mountains of problems. I truly don't understand why anyone would choose to still have the idea of counterpick stages at this point; it made sense in the vaguest of ways back when we randomly selected game one stages (still wasn't great but was possible to justify), but it has been over 5 years since we did that so it's really time to adjust to the new reality of stage striking that has no purpose for counterpick only stages.

 

[TL?]

Jaxel,

I've entered soul calibur a few times so I may be able to relate to your point a bit. If I'm not mistaken the stages are simply picked by using random(In SCV at least). On a loss a player can rematch or go to character select to essentially reroll the random stage. It's a very simple and straight forward system that works with little explanation. In a lot of other traditional fighters, all the stages are essentially the same with different backgrounds so it's even more simple there.

Coming from that, the stage system here seems very complicated(Because it is). But at the same time we have very different stages with varying levels of viability so on some level it has to be a little more complicated if we want to include as many viable stages as possible. However, I feel like just having one category of stages could work well if it was the 5 agreed upon neutrals and 2 or so counterpicks that your community likes to play on. I definitely agree that simplifying the stage rules would be great for keeping new players. At the end of the day, it really only matters what your scene wants to use as their rules. So if you have a simpler ruleset that your scene embraces then go for it.

Also walkoffs are a problem even without chain throws. If I'm a projectile character and I want to sit at the edge and you have no projectile or a weaker one, then you have to approach me at the border or eat lasers all match. At the border entire stocks are decided by one throw. The game becomes a lot dumber and most people would prefer not to let that strategy to be viable. Stages with walkoffs sometimes are potentially fine because rather than approaching you can wait for the next stage transformation.

 

[Jaxel]

The game becomes a lot dumber and most people would prefer not to let that strategy to be viable.

And this is precisely what I am talking about. The game may get "dumber", but it doesn't get broken. Are there ways to get around this strategy? Probably, but you're outright banning the strategy completely rather than allowing the meta to grow organically around it. So many fighting games are different 3 years after they launch; why are they different? Because the meta has grown around beating certain strategies. The characters that are broke 1 month into the game could end up being low tier several years later, simply because people learned new strategies and how to combat their "jank".

You're forcing a meta into a game that may not be suitable for it. You're not allowing the game to grow, nor the community.

 

[Cactusblah]

Oh boy, Smashville 90% of the time on VGBC's stream. Good thing we don't pick omega stages to use the other 46 stages in this game! That one moving platform adds SO MUCH DEPTH and BALANCE to the game.

Yeah, this is stupid as hell.

 

[Pyr]

And this is precisely what I am talking about. The game may get "dumber", but it doesn't get broken. Are there ways to get around this strategy? Probably, but you're outright banning the strategy completely rather than allowing the meta to grow organically around it. So many fighting games are different 3 years after they launch; why are they different? Because the meta has grown around beating certain strategies. The characters that are broke 1 month into the game could end up being low tier several years later, simply because people learned new strategies and how to combat their "jank".

You're forcing a meta into a game that may not be suitable for it. You're not allowing the game to grow, nor the community.

Melee and Brawl had walk-offs. I'm kinda sure that this has been explored deeply and the consensus that "1 action to win the game/lose the game" is a bad thing for viewability and playability. We don't have to wait for the "meta to grow organically around it. (wut)" We did once. It sucked. We banned it.

Oh boy, Smashville 90% of the time on VGBC's stream. Good thing we don't pick omega stages to use the other 46 stages in this game! That one moving platform adds SO MUCH DEPTH and BALANCE to the game.

Yeah, this is stupid as hell.

Platforms have won and lost entire sets. They do add that much depth and change the balance that much.

 

[TL?]

And this is precisely what I am talking about. The game may get "dumber", but it doesn't get broken. Are there ways to get around this strategy? Probably, but you're outright banning the strategy completely rather than allowing the meta to grow organically around it. So many fighting games are different 3 years after they launch; why are they different? Because the meta has grown around beating certain strategies. The characters that are broke 1 month into the game could end up being low tier several years later, simply because people learned new strategies and how to combat their "jank".

You're forcing a meta into a game that may not be suitable for it. You're not allowing the game to grow, nor the community.

The game is completely different if you allow players to potentially force the game to the border. "It's dumber" is just putting it simply but there's a lot more to it than mere preference. I'm lazy and didn't feel like writing the huge writeup. It arguably does break the game or come close to it if you can force stocks to be decided in one throw, especially in a game like this that favors the defender. The border isn't some weird gimmick, you must play the neutral there as well. If you guess wrong on what they will do, you can get grabbed and there goes your stock. Grabs are very good in this game. They are relatively fast, can grab aerial opponents, and you get to decided the direction to throw after you've confirmed the grab. A game that is normally pretty drawn out and decided on the result of a lot of reads/spacing/footsies is now potentially decided on very few plays. The better player is still more likely to win, but you shorten the game so much that the worse player has a way better chance at an upset. You're more than welcome to host events with stages like Coliseum if you don't believe me.

 

[Cactusblah]

Platforms have won and lost entire sets. They do add that much depth and change the balance that much.

Do you realize you just argued in favor of banning all non-omega stages? If platforms are making that much of a difference for outcomes, it only makes sense to play only omega stages and consider them the neutral stages.

 

[Pyr]

Do you realize you just argued in favor of banning all non-omega stages? If platforms are making that much of a difference for outcomes, it only makes sense to play only omega stages and consider them the neutral stages.

That was not my intention at all. The importance of platforms and their effects are why they should be present. I apologize for not being more clear. The point is that platformed stages add to the game in an interesting and beneficial way, thus they should be included (as they always have been).

Edit: Allow me to clarify, since I've decided to take offence on exactly how you twisted a rather neutral statement into an opinion: I took your comment as sarcasm, ending with platformed stages being stupid overall and doing away with them will allow the Omega versions of all stages to take (ahem) center stage. I was addressing the importance of having stages like SV, yes, even the ones with moving platforms, being selectable.

 

[Omegaphoenix]

Do you realize you just argued in favor of banning all non-omega stages? If platforms are making that much of a difference for outcomes, it only makes sense to play only omega stages and consider them the neutral stages.

The Omega stages tend to be more polarizing than a regular platform stage due to the edge it gives to projectile campers and Little Mac. Neutral stages should be reasonably equal for all character archetypes. Also, arguing for Omega stages only is falling directly into the No Items Fox Only Final Destination thing that could be pushed behind us in this meta due to the large number of possible legal stages.

 

[ShadyWolfe]

I'd like to point out that keeping track of striking 13 stages is really easy in 4. You use the random stage switch like always, and you just turn off stages there so the game keeps track for you. In terms of resetting it, you also have the same stage list set up on the omega stages which are independent; that way, no one will forget the stage list as they can just check it in-game (you strike from the normal stages, and before the next set, they can check the omega stages to remind themselves what's legal to set the normal stages back up). As long as you know the basic rules of how stage striking works, you have to know nothing else and have to ask the TO zero questions to just do it. We've done it here, and I don't agree to Smashville and insist upon actually striking every game. It goes fast and consistently ends up on a stage favored by both sides. Logistically this is just not difficult.

The starter-counterpick distinction is awful. It's not only just more to learn for new players as Jaxel points out, but ith as all of the following disadvantages as well:

-Arbitrarily changes match-ups. Skyloft is a legal stage. Smashville is also a legal stage. Match-ups are not the same on Skyloft as they are on Smashville. We're artificially tinkering with the balance when we make Smashville game one legal and not Skyloft, making characters relatively strong on Smashville artifically better than those that would prefer Skyloft. Why would you want to do this?

-Dis-incentivies learning. The meta of counterpick stages is basically this. You want to win game one. Your opponent might win game two on some non-starter stage, but it doesn't matter. Counterpick a starter game three. If you master all of the starter stages, it's impossible to lose! In fact, this is just obviously the correct strategy. Play a character whose best stages are the arbitrarily chosen starters and always pick starter stages. You'll win all of your sets against any players except those who use the same strategy but do it better. The players who don't conform to this will become really good at winning game two and will not win many sets.

-Leads to long term stage bans. Honestly, most people favor banning stages out of unfamiliarity. Since a starter-counterpick dichotomy makes learning counterpick stages strategically unwise, over time counterpick stages will become unfamiliar stages. This will cause gameplay to look progressively worse when they do get picked (since it will typically be that only one side, the strategically naive side, that has actually practiced the stage), and people will begin to push to ban them. When I see people say they want a stage like Skyloft to be a counterpick, I read it as "I think this stage should be banned in about 2 years". I strongly feel it's a legal quality stage and thus it needs to be truly legal: game one legal.

-There's actually no basis to pick which stages are starters. A stage is either acceptable for competitive play or it isn't. There is no way for a stage to be "kinda" competitive. If we think a stage's gameplay quality is acceptable for the last game of grand finals, it's good enough for the first one too since the last one isn't a less important game than the first one anyway. So when you do make starter lists and counter pick lists, you're making decisions without any real basis; there isn't any real competitive principle being serviced in making that distinction. You can easily do it badly to skew match-ups more (this is common, for instance making all of the transforming stages non-starters), but there's no actual way to do this well so you just shouldn't do this.

So yeah, it's not hard or logistically challenging at all to strike from 13 stages, and doing so avoids mountains of problems. I truly don't understand why anyone would choose to still have the idea of counterpick stages at this point; it made sense in the vaguest of ways back when we randomly selected game one stages (still wasn't great but was possible to justify), but it has been over 5 years since we did that so it's really time to adjust to the new reality of stage striking that has no purpose for counterpick only stages.

I agree with you 100%. Counterpicks are silly if you need to pick a certain stage to counter a character than your character or strategies are bad and you should change it up. I hear a lot that counterpicks exist because neutrals can also give disadvantages or advantages in which case why are they considered neutral aren't they technically counterpicks in that sense? Why not just have an odd number of stages for striking with no beginning or counterpick stages?

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

By the way, since it hasn't been cleared up in the topic, counterpicks are in place since certain stages favor certain characters, but are still legal. The losing player gets to choose the stage based on their own and/or their opponent's character choice, or countering the opponent's character pick.

Every stage counters a character in some way, the lack of platforms in FD takes away the options of many characters, but you don't see people calling for that to be a counterpick.

And what reason does a player have to actually study the counterpicks since they don't even need to win round 2. As long as they win round 3 on their counterpick then it's pointless for this whole counterpick garbage to exist.

 

[Pyr]

Every stage counters a character in some way, the lack of platforms in FD takes away the options of many characters, but you don't see people calling for that to be a counterpick.

And what reason does a player have to actually study the counterpicks since they don't even need to win round 2. As long as they win round 3 on their counterpick then it's pointless for this whole counterpick garbage to exist.

Battlefield, FD, etc all give a much smaller benefit to some characters over others, thus they are starters. While one may give a character an advantage, the advantage is normally seen as small enough that it'd be alright to include in a starter list.

By studying couterpicks you can counterpick a stage against the opponent AND deal with their counterpick. I really don't know where you guys are getting this "don't need to win round 2" garbage. Although a counterpicked stage can play a role, it's role isn't so strong as to invalidate a character by themselves. If that's the case, the stage gets banned. On the same note, it's not weak enough to justify not having the counterpicks in the first place.

These are the basics. Come on now.

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

Battlefield, FD, etc all give a much smaller benefit to some characters over others, thus they are starters. While one may give a character an advantage, the advantage is normally seen as small enough that it'd be alright to include in a starter list.

By studying couterpicks you can counterpick a stage against the opponent AND deal with their counterpick. I really don't know where you guys are getting this "don't need to win round 2" garbage. Although a counterpicked stage can play a role, it's role isn't so strong as to invalidate a character by themselves. If that's the case, the stage gets banned. On the same note, it's not weak enough to justify not having the counterpicks in the first place.

A benefit is a benefit and it will shift the match sometimes. Little Mac is clearly stronger on FD, as well as Diddy Kong where their opponent has limited movement options, and BF definitely helps the movement of other characters. It's a benefit that can shift the match plenty enough.

They don't have to, it's not important because they have round 3 to rely on with their specified counterpick. The outcome of round 2 doesn't matter at all because if they win, they win, but if they lose, they have the stage obviously in their favor for the next round. It's not like they still don't have the skill or momentum of round 1 in their favor if they could bring it out to r3.

 

[Cactusblah]

With only omega stages, there is no longer a need to worry about characters having advantages on different stages. No more "striking" and "counter-picking". You simply play the game as it is on these flat stages, without even considering that platforms could change the balance. All for the sake of actually seeing the rest of the stages in the game and not playing on mostly Smashville.

 

[Pyr]

A benefit is a benefit and it will shift the match sometimes. Little Mac is clearly stronger on FD, as well as Diddy Kong where their opponent has limited movement options, and BF definitely helps the movement of other characters. It's a benefit that can shift the match plenty enough.

They don't have to, it's not important because they have round 3 to rely on with their specified counterpick. The outcome of round 2 doesn't matter at all because if they win, they win, but if they lose, they have the stage obviously in their favor for the next round. It's not like they still don't have the skill or momentum of round 1 in their favor if they could bring it out to r3.

If a stage has shifted a matchup by 20 points in a direction, then I'd say you had a point. In most cases, this is not the case at all. In a lot of cases, it's 10 points or less.

Again, a stage counterpick won't shift a match that much. Winning game won =/= a won set because of counterpicks. Anyone with tournament experience can tell you that. If that was the case and that effect was that strong, then this well implemented, beneficial part of tournament process would not of made it past Melee.

Again (because you don't seem to get this), a stage counterpick won't win you the game, won't lose you the game, and has already been shown to benefit the game, it's players, and the metagame. Skill wins, period. Counterpicking stages and playing against a counterpick is part of that nice term: skill.

With only omega stages, there is no longer a need to worry about characters having advantages on different stages. No more "striking" and "counter-picking". You simply play the game as it is on these flat stages, without even considering that platforms could change the balance. All for the sake of actually seeing the rest of the stages in the game and not playing on mostly Smashville.

Characters have advantages on the Omega stages others don't have, though. Thus, that does not work. Because a stage is pretty does not mean it should be played on. Game health > your sentiments. Hell, all the Omega stages aren't even equal and some provide advantages others don't.

 

[Davis-Lightheart]

If a stage has shifted a matchup by 20 points in a direction, then I'd say you had a point. In most cases, this is not the case at all. In a lot of cases, it's 10 points or less.

Again, a stage counterpick won't shift a match that much. Winning game won =/= a won set because of counterpicks. Anyone with tournament experience can tell you that. If that was the case and that effect was that strong, then this well implemented, beneficial part of tournament process would not of made it past Melee.

Again (because you don't seem to get this), a stage counterpick won't win you the game, won't lose you the game, and has already been shown to benefit the game, it's players, and the metagame. Skill wins, period. Counterpicking stages and playing against a counterpick is part of that nice term: skill.

What do you define as won't shift much? What do any of use define as won't shift much? A stage either benefits one character more than another, that's it, and we ban stuff that gives too much of an advantage that it makes it unfair. But then how are you really defining what is actually sckewing too far, and not? It's pointless, and doesn't do anything to benefit the meta.

I don't think you understand. It's not about whether counterpicking is bad or anything, but that seperating between starters and counterpicks is pointless. Sure, the counterpicking system works pretty ok on it's own, but the seperation of counter and starter. You've provided nothing that doesn't say that this separation is arbitrary.

 

[Cactusblah]

Characters have advantages on the Omega stages others don't have, though. Thus, that does not work. Because a stage is pretty does not mean it should be played on. Game health > your sentiments. Hell, all the Omega stages aren't even equal and some provide advantages others don't.

It works because you stop comparing characters on different stages entirely. You're already banning most of the stages in the game for one reason or another. According to any of this logic, 75m should be legal because certain characters would have an advantage on it. Either ban everything and play on omega stages or ban nothing at all.

And the game being played 90% of the time on Smashville is not "healthy", it's disgusting.

 

[Pyr]

What do you define as won't shift much? What do any of use define as won't shift much? A stage either benefits one character more than another, that's it, and we ban stuff that gives too much of an advantage that it makes it unfair. But then how are you really defining what is actually sckewing too far, and not? It's pointless, and doesn't do anything to benefit the meta.

I don't think you understand. It's not about whether counterpicking is bad or anything, but that seperating between starters and counterpicks is pointless. Sure, the counterpicking system works pretty ok on it's own, but the seperation of counter and starter. You've provided nothing that doesn't say that this separation is arbitrary.

Let me give a quick rundown: Does the stage shift a match so that, if 2 equally skilled players play 2 different characters, one player starts winning more then 20 more sets out of 100? Ban the stage. Between 10-20? Counterpick it. Less then 10? Make it a starter. While stage CAN have an effect, it can't be too big. The reason we use the starters is it starts people off on as even a playing field as possible. Maybe a starter affects a specific matchup by 20? Does it affect the 45^2 other other matchups by less? Is the average less then 10? Yes. Starter it.

Edit: This is just a way to get across what I'm saying. Actual required effect on matchup for classification may vary.

I understand completely. The point in making some stages starters is because they, OVERALL, affect matchups the least. Counterpicks exist because, while still relatively even, they do have a more noticeable effect. We aren't tailoring the stage selection to a single matchup here. We have to consider ALL matchups.

There you go. Separation isn't arbitrary because of that last statement. Separation matters. If you still can't understand, ask a question. Maybe do some research first. It's not like the reason we have counterpicks/starters/bans is undocumented.

It works because you stop comparing characters on different stages entirely. You're already banning most of the stages in the game for one reason or another. According to any of this logic, 75m should be legal because certain characters would have an advantage on it. Either ban everything and play on omega stages or ban nothing at all.

And the game being played 90% of the time on Smashville is not "healthy", it's disgusting.

Stage Bans are made for 6 main reasons: They are unfun to play on/watch be played on, they offer extreme advantage to a subset of characters when compared to others, they degrade the game to pointlessness (see walkoffs), they have hazards that are excessive in some way, and/or there are RNG elements that can swing a match one way or the other too easily/too frequently/at all.

Everything else? We include. We keep AS MANY stages available as possible, but some cannot be played on in a competitive format for the 6 main reasons.

One guy who plays on smashville all the time =/= the competitive standard. Bluntly, stop being stupid.

 

[Thinkaman]

And the game being played 90% of the time on Smashville is not "healthy", it's disgusting.

And your solution is to play 100% of games on FD?

 

[Cactusblah]

One guy who plays on smashville all the time =/= the competitive standard.

Every single tournament stream has Smashville 90% of the time.

And your solution is to play 100% of games on FD?

47 omega stages, not just FD. I'd rather have a variety of stages and music than a platform that goes left and right.

 

[Thinkaman]

47 omega stages, not just FD. I'd rather have a variety of stages and music than a platform that goes left and right.

Pretending that omega stages aren't FD is baffling.

Gameplay is all that matters, at least for a tournament ruleset.

 

[Pyr]

Every single tournament stream has Smashville 90% of the time.

Don't know if serious or trolling. We obviously don't watch the same streams/videos/etc.

To be honest with you, I personally think Omegas should be banned. FD does the job with as little change as possible (grass reducing sliding op). If someone wants to go somewhere else and agrees to it, alright. Omega Gamer. Otherwise, FD can serve as all omega stages. Saves time and headache.

If I ever see you in a tournament, I'ma take you to Omega Smashville every-single-time. Or the regular version. For funzies.

 

[Pazx]

Oh boy, Smashville 90% of the time on VGBC's stream. Good thing we don't pick omega stages to use the other 46 stages in this game! That one moving platform adds SO MUCH DEPTH and BALANCE to the game.

Yeah, this is stupid as hell.

Are 90% of your posts "ban everything except omegas"? It's tiring to read. Stage diversity is important. Playing 47 extremely similar stages is not diversity. Also, if you got your way, you'd likely only ever see 10ish stages.

I don't have a huge opinion on FLSS but I feel like the Starter/CP system promotes symmetry and a lack of random events in starter stages while everything that fits outside of that can fit into CP. Picking Halberd game one and getting screwed by the arm means the balance of the entire set is now different simply because of something arguably out of the player's control.

If someone wants to go somewhere else and agrees to it, alright. Omega Gamer. Otherwise, FD can serve as all omega stages. Saves time and headache.

If I ever see you in a tournament, I'ma take you to Omega Smashville every-single-time. Or the regular version. For funzies.

Some people prefer Omega Palutena's for the background being less obtrusive.

I support funzies 100%.

 

[Pyr]

Some people prefer Omega Palutena's for the background being less obtrusive.

I support funzies 100%.

It's why we have the gentleman's pick: "Wanna go Omega Palutena instead of FD?" "Sure!"

I mentioned Omega Gamer for a reason: If we're going FD, I'ma try to get us to go to Omega Gamer. That music... =D

 

[Cactusblah]

Stage diversity is important. Playing 47 extremely similar stages is not diversity.

There's no stage diversity because most of the stages are banned anyway. Other than the one platform on Smashville, there's no difference between that stage and omega stages for gameplay purposes. I could even argue that the platform and the entire stage-picking garbage detracts from the game. A player shouldn't win just because they counter-picked a stage that gives them an advantage.

I want to see the other stages in the game. Viewers want to see other stages. Viewership is important to make the scene grow further. They will be as sick as I am of seeing Smashville and stop watching.

 

[Pazx]

There's no stage diversity because most of the stages are banned anyway. Other than the one platform on Smashville, there's no difference between that stage and omega stages for gameplay purposes. I could even argue that the platform and the entire stage-picking garbage detracts from the game. A player shouldn't win just because they counter-picked a stage that gives them an advantage.

I want to see the other stages in the game. Viewers want to see other stages. Viewership is important to make the scene grow further. They will be as sick as I am of seeing Smashville and stop watching.

I don't want to see every match played on a stage with no platforms, and neither does the entirety of the competitive community. Do you have any arguments other than "I don't like smashville" (which isn't actually played as often as you say it is)? It's worth noting that when people pick FD they're free to pick any omega stage they like, maybe you should be having this discussion with them for consistently picking FD and Palutena's.

 

[Cactusblah]

I don't want to see every match played on a stage with no platforms, and neither does the entirety of the competitive community. Do you have any arguments other than "I don't like smashville" (which isn't actually played as often as you say it is)? It's worth noting that when people pick FD they're free to pick any omega stage they like, maybe you should be having this discussion with them for consistently picking FD and Palutena's.

My arguments:

-I don't hate Smashville, I hate seeing it as the only stage being picked out of 47 stages.
-Sakurai gave us omega stages and they aren't being utilized at all, maybe one is used during the entirety of a tournament stream.
-Some players prefer omega stages only. Platforms don't matter for us. I don't know if we're in the minority, but this is what we want for tournaments.
-The entire stage-picking process is unnecessary and detracts from the gameplay. Players shouldn't win a match because of their favorable stage pick.
-VIEWERS want to see more stages. Some don't even know it, because they're so conditioned to seeing Smashville and nothing else. Several viewers of VGBC's stream tonight finally realized it. "Why are they only picking Smashville?" Someone may be tuning in to a competitive Smash stream for the first time, wonder why there's only one stage being played, and leave.

I'll use my own ruleset for the tournaments I host in the future. For now, I just want to see omega stages when I watch a stream.

 

[Pyr]

My arguments:

-I don't hate Smashville, I hate seeing it as the only stage being picked out of 47 stages.
-Sakurai gave us omega stages and they aren't being utilized at all, maybe one is used during the entirety of a tournament stream.
-Some players prefer omega stages only. Platforms don't matter for us. I don't know if we're in the minority, but this is what we want for tournaments.
-The entire stage-picking process is unnecessary and detracts from the gameplay. Players shouldn't win a match because of their favorable stage pick.
-VIEWERS want to see more stages. Some don't even know it, because they're so conditioned to seeing Smashville and nothing else. Several viewers of VGBC's stream tonight finally realized it. "Why are they only picking Smashville?" Someone may be tuning in to a competitive Smash stream for the first time, wonder why there's only one stage being played, and leave.

I'll use my own ruleset for the tournaments I host in the future. For now, I just want to see omega stages when I watch a stream.

<rant="Takingthetrollsbait_maybe">
1) Stop watching streamers that only use it, then.
2) Here's the thing: Most people recognize that Omega stages are reskinned FD at best and FD with grass and different ledges at worst. It may visually be different, but it's the same damn thing. Doing the same thing over and over (like watching smashville matches over and over) gets BORING. 47 stages are identical. The rest are unique.
3) Those players' preferences show laziness on their part. I'm sorry. That's blunt, but true. This is a COMPETITIVE forum, bro. You need to learn the game AS A WHOLE to do well. Since you only play on Omega, you've learned 1 out of 40+ stage. Get to work if you wanna do well. If your goal isn't to do well and compete, well why the **** are you in this part of smashboards?
4) Only bad, inexperienced players lose purely because of a stage counterpick. If you need to know why, I've several posts as to why counterpicking doesn't affect a set THAT much. This has to do with... SURPRISE. Inexperience. Again, it's just laziness.

Also, it takes 30 seconds per set IN TOTAL to strike/ban. That is no where near a detraction.
5) You have a hate for Smashville. Admit it. Regardless, YOU want the same stage with different skins. The MAJORITY want a different stage with different skins. But hey. That's my assumption. Why don't you hold a poll to see for sure? And hey. I can assume if you can assume what a brand new player is going to do. (Here's a hint: They're going to Youtube first. A random from a stream < A pro playing a match you can rewind and analyze.

Edit: Good luck getting non-locals to an O
</rant>

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Should I make a topic teaching people how to stage strike? Smashville is not a notably neutral stage; it mostly gets picked when people who are bad at stage striking come together and don't know what to do. Almost always it represents one player leaving advantages on the table, and often there is actually another stage that both players would like more that would come up if striking were actually done (player preferences are asymmetric and it's possible for a stage to be desired by both sides). I'd be more than happy to share my techniques on this if people were interested; milking maximum advantage out of stage procedure is one of my specialties as a player.

Of course, too much Smashville can be a ruleset problem, notably the problem of too few starters. When there are only five starters but one of them is Final Destination which will be struck every time, Smashville has at worst a 25% chance of coming up as game one every set, but in reality it's higher since a lot of people overvalue the stage and out of most five stage lists Battlefield is also struck a whole lot (since it's the only vaguely vertical stage that tends to be included on 5 stage starter lists, it's almost always wise for someone to strike it while BF is a common game one stage when striking from larger pools). I really don't know how to stress it enough; we spend so much effort talking about whether walk-offs should be legal or whatever, and while those are fascinating arguments, they don't get to the biggest problem which is silliness like 5 starter lists that are way, way more toxic to the game than banning walk-off stages or Norfair or whatever (I like having many legal stages and am generally happier as a player with more legal, but I'd much, much rather have only 13 legal all starters than 25 legal with 5 starters). Yes, viewers do want to see more variety. I agree very strongly and am very interested in seeing more than just Smashville. That's why we need to have starter lists with real size to them. 13 is a very fast, easy, practical number that also leads to balanced striking and has a few different ways to build a stage list that excludes any stage that would make honest problems. Let's go with it.

 

[Pazx]

I'd like to point out that keeping track of striking 13 stages is really easy in 4. You use the random stage switch like always, and you just turn off stages there so the game keeps track for you. In terms of resetting it, you also have the same stage list set up on the omega stages which are independent; that way, no one will forget the stage list as they can just check it in-game (you strike from the normal stages, and before the next set, they can check the omega stages to remind themselves what's legal to set the normal stages back up). As long as you know the basic rules of how stage striking works, you have to know nothing else and have to ask the TO zero questions to just do it. We've done it here, and I don't agree to Smashville and insist upon actually striking every game. It goes fast and consistently ends up on a stage favored by both sides. Logistically this is just not difficult.

Important quote that people need to re-read.

Should I make a topic teaching people how to stage strike? Smashville is not a notably neutral stage; it mostly gets picked when people who are bad at stage striking come together and don't know what to do. Almost always it represents one player leaving advantages on the table, and often there is actually another stage that both players would like more that would come up if striking were actually done (player preferences are asymmetric and it's possible for a stage to be desired by both sides). I'd be more than happy to share my techniques on this if people were interested; milking maximum advantage out of stage procedure is one of my specialties as a player.

Of course, too much Smashville can be a ruleset problem, notably the problem of too few starters. When there are only five starters but one of them is Final Destination which will be struck every time, Smashville has at worst a 25% chance of coming up as game one every set, but in reality it's higher since a lot of people overvalue the stage and out of most five stage lists Battlefield is also struck a whole lot (since it's the only vaguely vertical stage that tends to be included on 5 stage starter lists, it's almost always wise for someone to strike it while BF is a common game one stage when striking from larger pools). I really don't know how to stress it enough; we spend so much effort talking about whether walk-offs should be legal or whatever, and while those are fascinating arguments, they don't get to the biggest problem which is silliness like 5 starter lists that are way, way more toxic to the game than banning walk-off stages or Norfair or whatever (I like having many legal stages and am generally happier as a player with more legal, but I'd much, much rather have only 13 legal all starters than 25 legal with 5 starters). Yes, viewers do want to see more variety. I agree very strongly and am very interested in seeing more than just Smashville. That's why we need to have starter lists with real size to them. 13 is a very fast, easy, practical number that also leads to balanced striking and has a few different ways to build a stage list that excludes any stage that would make honest problems. Let's go with it.

Your "how to strike" proposition would be great, however I think it could be expanded to other things people will need to know before attending their first tournament for a great all-purpose thread (I understand it wouldn't be targeted specifically at new players but perhaps they would get the most out of it).

Also how about 13 starters and 12 counter-picks #Kappa

 

[Conda]

I'd like to point out that keeping track of striking 13 stages is really easy in 4. You use the random stage switch like always, and you just turn off stages there so the game keeps track for you. In terms of resetting it, you also have the same stage list set up on the omega stages which are independent; that way, no one will forget the stage list as they can just check it in-game (you strike from the normal stages, and before the next set, they can check the omega stages to remind themselves what's legal to set the normal stages back up). As long as you know the basic rules of how stage striking works, you have to know nothing else and have to ask the TO zero questions to just do it. We've done it here, and I don't agree to Smashville and insist upon actually striking every game. It goes fast and consistently ends up on a stage favored by both sides. Logistically this is just not difficult.

The starter-counterpick distinction is awful. It's not only just more to learn for new players as Jaxel points out, but ith as all of the following disadvantages as well:

-Arbitrarily changes match-ups. Skyloft is a legal stage. Smashville is also a legal stage. Match-ups are not the same on Skyloft as they are on Smashville. We're artificially tinkering with the balance when we make Smashville game one legal and not Skyloft, making characters relatively strong on Smashville artifically better than those that would prefer Skyloft. Why would you want to do this?

-Dis-incentivies learning. The meta of counterpick stages is basically this. You want to win game one. Your opponent might win game two on some non-starter stage, but it doesn't matter. Counterpick a starter game three. If you master all of the starter stages, it's impossible to lose! In fact, this is just obviously the correct strategy. Play a character whose best stages are the arbitrarily chosen starters and always pick starter stages. You'll win all of your sets against any players except those who use the same strategy but do it better. The players who don't conform to this will become really good at winning game two and will not win many sets.

-Leads to long term stage bans. Honestly, most people favor banning stages out of unfamiliarity. Since a starter-counterpick dichotomy makes learning counterpick stages strategically unwise, over time counterpick stages will become unfamiliar stages. This will cause gameplay to look progressively worse when they do get picked (since it will typically be that only one side, the strategically naive side, that has actually practiced the stage), and people will begin to push to ban them. When I see people say they want a stage like Skyloft to be a counterpick, I read it as "I think this stage should be banned in about 2 years". I strongly feel it's a legal quality stage and thus it needs to be truly legal: game one legal.

-There's actually no basis to pick which stages are starters. A stage is either acceptable for competitive play or it isn't. There is no way for a stage to be "kinda" competitive. If we think a stage's gameplay quality is acceptable for the last game of grand finals, it's good enough for the first one too since the last one isn't a less important game than the first one anyway. So when you do make starter lists and counterpick lists, you're making decisions witout any real basis; there isn't any real competitive principle being serviced in making that distinction. You can easily do it badly to skew match-ups more (this is common, for instance making all of the transforming stages non-starters), but there's no actual way to do this well so you just shouldn't do this.

So yeah, it's not hard or logistically challenging at all to strike from 13 stages, and doing so avoids mountains of problems. I truly don't understand why anyone would choose to still have the idea of counterpick stages at this point; it made sense in the vaguest of ways back when we randomly selected game one stages (still wasn't great but was possible to justify), but it has been over 5 years since we did that so it's really time to adjust to the new reality of stage striking that has no purpose for counterpick only stages.

This is how you talk about choosing an alternative stage selection mechanism. Great post, you always impress. This thread continues to pale greatly in comparison to other discussions I've read on this forum in the past regarding the stage selection process.

I think we should have a (NEW) stickied thread discussing this. This thread doesn't imo really have anything worth anything in the OP to be stickied. Amph, you should do the honours

 

[Jaxel]

Also, it takes 30 seconds per set IN TOTAL to strike/ban. That is no where near a detraction.

Yeah no... look at APEX 2013 finals where there are sometimes 10 minutes between each match because people are taking that long to decide on their bans and counters.

 

[Jaxel]

Honestly, with a new game, these are the rules I would be running:

Approved stage list (SINGLE LIST, not this starter/counter crap)

• Final Destination (Ω)
• Town and City
• Lylat Cruise
• Smashville
• Battlefield
• Delfino
• Duck Hunt
• Halberd
• Castle Seige
• Kongo Jungle 64
• Skyloft

• All stages picked at RANDOM
• WINNER CHARACTER LOCK
• Loser can change character

Done.

 

[smashmachine]

random stage selection :lol

 

[LiteralGrill]

@ Jaxel Random is bad too. You could end up completely losing the match because you got a stage that 100% screwed over your character. It's why we no longer use it.

 

[Jaxel]

And yet, by people's own admission in this thread, stage selection is important, but doesn't weigh in as much as people make it out to be. If you're good at the game, better than your opponent, you should have the skill to play against them on ANY of the approved stages.