MBR Official Ruleset Revisions

[Nintendude]

Wouldn't stage bans correct for that problem? The rules should only be holding a player's hand so much when it comes to making wise stage decisions.

 

[Strong Badam]

FWIW I don't find stage bans necessary at all especially when RC/Floats/Mute City aren't selectable. It's goofy that the skillset of a tournament set is significantly different in a Bo3 than in the most important sets. If you're being counterpicked to FD by a really good Marth player it means you won game 1 already, anyway, so I don't see the "subjecting low level players to M2K on FD" argument.

 

[HyugaRicdeau]

Wouldn't that be a reason to use standard DSR? Consider the m2k vs. unknown ROM 5 set. It went as follows:

Game 1 - YS - Unknown wins
Game 2 - m2k counterpicks FD and wins
Game 3 - unknown counterpicks FoD and m2k wins anyway
Game 4 - unknown goes back to FoD and wins

Now, as you recall the controversy was over which DSR was in effect, but for the sake of argument let's just say that they used the status quo (DSRM) and m2k is allowed to go FD for game 5. That doesn't make any sense to me. m2k is allowed to pick FD again because unknown lost on his own counterpick? That's like double jeopardy. If it didn't take unknown 2 tries to beat m2k on FoD, m2k would have never had an option to pick FD again.

Furthermore, why should a player not be allowed to counterpick the same stage as game 1 if he won there? The point of stage striking is to find a mutually agreeable stage.

No, because Standard is actually the one where you just can't go back to the last stage you won on ^___^
http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=15071266&postcount=50
SPREAD DA WORD.

Being allowed to go back to the first stage might be a "least worst" option if you're intent on having MDSR and stage bans with 6 stages in bo5 sets. I think it's probably better to either have 5 stages and no bans or 7 stages with bans. I guess I'd add KJ64.

 

[KirbyKaze]

PP and I were talking about making different rulesets that perhaps could be cycled through sort of like a seasonal thing.

Also, I'm of the opinion that DSR and DSRM are stupid terms. I understand they've been around forever but they're so ambiguous and half the community seems to think one means the other. The fact that the addition of "modified" does nothing to clarify which rule refers to what doesn't help. Why don't we just revise some of the diction of the community right here and now so we avoid this crap in the future?

I'd like to do the same thing with some of the advanced techniques but that's another matter entirely.

 

[Dr Peepee]

I like all of KK's post.

To clarify his first point, people feel slighted when we make stage decisions. People who like more stages hate where the game is going, and people who like BF-only aren't satisfied. If we reversed the direction and added more stages, then different people would be more upset.

So, why not have "seasons" during the year where tourneys run more or less stages in their rulesets? For example, if we had the first third of the year running the current ruleset, then the second third we transitioned to a ruleset with 3 stages like BF FD DL, and the last third switched to a 2007-esque ruleset with mute city and corneria on or something. Keeps people from feeling slighted, we try out a looot of rulesets, and we can celebrate some stage diversity that smash enjoys while also keeping tournaments that others may prefer to attend because of whatever their preference may be(I feel some people have left because of our dwindling stagelist.)

I'd like to contribute to some of the other topics in here, but finals.

 

[HyugaRicdeau]

I'm all for a new term for S/MDSR, but it should include "Dave" in it somewhere. Dave's Dumb Decree.

I would love to have different regions/nationals have different consistent rulesets, kind of like tennis has majors on grass/clay/hard court.

 

[Lovage]

I'm all for a new term for S/MDSR, but it should include "Dave" in it somewhere. Dave's Dumb Decree.

I would love to have different regions/nationals have different consistent rulesets, kind of like tennis has majors on grass/clay/hard court.

^
that's something i never ever heard from the brawl community


the game has always thrived on the communities having slightly different rulesets, mostly due to some areas adapating the "new" rulesets faster/slower than others, but it still always made an interesting dynamic. kind of like a testing ground for the perfect way to play the game.

as long as people know what the "big tournies" are, they have plenty of damn time to practice the tiny ruleset adjustments or perfect their tiny useless stage strategy (in a game with only 7 stages anwyays)

as far as i care, the apex ruleset is a unified ruleset. and anybody can play the game however they like.

 

[Deleted member]

Wouldn't stage bans correct for that problem? The rules should only be holding a player's hand so much when it comes to making wise stage decisions.

if an incorrect stage choice punishes a later match, isn't that evidence enough? should a poor stage choice really cost you 2+ matches?

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I dont see the difference between making a bad choice picking game one and losing and winning game one but making a bad pick choice later in the set and losing. Either way, whoever picks stage for game 5 can choose the first stage that they won on.

If someone is worried about getting taken to FD twice, they should ban the stage. When you take into account that both players can remove the most polarizing stage and that there is such relatively small variance in the stages, being taken to the same stage twice shouldn't be a real issue. I don't think there is a reason to change the rules provided stage bans are in effect.

 

[Nintendude]

if an incorrect stage choice punishes a later match, isn't that evidence enough? should a poor stage choice really cost you 2+ matches?

Evidence enough of what?

The issue of going back to the first stage aside, does nobody agree that it's dumb to be allowed to go back to your first counterpick if you beat your opponent on his own counterpick?

 

[Cactuar]

It is dumb. Its not allowed in the current ruleset. I dont feel like anyones arguments are addressing anyone elses. If there are no bans in bo5, we dont allow reuse of cps. If there is one ban, we do. Thats all there is to it really.

 

[unknown522]

Oh yeah. Something I wanted to address yesterday: for crew battles, Sould characters that can store a charge be allowed to during the countdown / stock SDs? Generally I thought that you couldn't, but I usually see sheik players do it (well mostly m2k anyway when he uses her in a crew battle). It's not a big thing but what do you guys think?

 

[Strong Badam]

Not really relevant to this discussion but no. I never charge my punch with DK/pick a turnip/charge needles. The beginning of a crew battle match should be as close to a natural start of a match as possible.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Crews generally operate on house rules, but its always been my assumption that since its a clean start there can be no bombs/turnips/charges gathered before the match starts.

 

[Cactuar]

Yep, no charging before the match starts. M2K is just a douche.

 

[Skler]

I know this is late, but stage bans should be preserved. Stages affect the game too much to take that power away from players. The effect of removing stages is just going to be more people complaining about the stage list. At least right now people can remove a stage they don't like.

Why get rid of bans?

 

[Pink Reaper]

Stage bans were mainly implemented back in the days of really jank stages like Brinstar and Battlefield(The jankest stage of them all) but now that we've moved to literally 5 neutrals+1 kind of jank stage, bans only really serve as a crutch for players who dont want to play on a stage they dont like.

 

[Strong Badam]

banning 1/13 stages isn't that big of a deal, but now you're banning like 18% (per player) of the legal stage roster each set.... it's really unnecessary.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Removing stage bans is a move away from giving players control of the stages, something that has been part of the game practically forever.

Even though we are down to 6 stages, that doesn't mean that those stages are so even that they are all good for all match-ups. Falcon players banned FoD more than Brinstar, Rainbow Cruise, Mute City and Kongo Jungle put together. If we remove stage bans we would seriously have to consider banning FoD entirely. To me, there are only two choices going forward: keep stage bans or drastically reduce the stage list (in half, at least).

 

[Skler]

But Battlefield is still on!

Also, there is something to be said for how ridiculous certain MUs on certain stages are. I understand people don't care about supporting single character mains, but there's some merit to actually doing that.

Bans help the "signature character" style, and that makes for a better experience for spectators. Nobody wants to see Scar switch from Falcon because FoD got picked. They want to see him run around and step on people then knee them a lot.

What's the competitive gain in not having a ban? It's not like learning a stage is hard.

Edit: I agree with Sveet on this, no ban means you have to cut down the stage list more.

 

[Pink Reaper]

Why would we have to ban FoD? To make falcon players feel better about themselves?

 

[Zankoku]

I suspect FoD was only banned more often than everything else combined because it simultaneously removed a counterpick as well as the possibility of it occurring in the Random for game 1. By the time stage striking became standard in Melee, stages like Mute City were long gone.

 

[Marc]

Falcons feeling uneasy about FoD is literally the only practical argument I ever hear against not having stage bans with a limited stage list. For my last 8 tournaments, we experimented with these two stage configurations:

[collapse=6 stages with bans]Starter
Battlefield
Dream Land 64
Fountain of Dreams (replaced by Final Destination in teams due to lag)
Pokémon Stadium
Yoshi's Story

Counterpick
Final Destination[/collapse]

[collapse=4 stages without bans]Starter
Battlefield
Dream Land 64
Fountain of Dreams/Yoshi’s Story (we alternated this)

Counterpicks
Fountain of Dreams/Yoshi's Story[/collapse]

Conclusion: It doesn't really matter. Everyone has their own personal preferences, but we're already at a point where nothing janky is going to happen. FD and PS have some theoretical strikes against them and are probably the most common bans, hence their removal. In the second configuration people are at worst counterpicked to one of four stages and no Falcon main here switches out for that. Even if they felt like they had to, so what? We don't make stage lists to cater to specific characters, Falcon isn't considered top tier to begin with and several otherwise viable characters more or less require a secondary for specific matchups anyway. Also note that regardless of where (AKA under what settings) they play, we have top players who rarely change character (HBox) and those who do it a lot (M2K). I would still have stage bans if polarizing stages like FD and PS1 are legal, regardless of how long the set is also, but past that point the argument for having them isn't very compelling.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Why would we have to ban FoD? To make falcon players feel better about themselves?

Well, many arguments keeping stadium, final destination and fountain legal revolve around the fact that players have the option to ban those stages. Remove the players' choice and the door is opened to banning those stages because of polarizing match-ups.

 

[Pink Reaper]

My argument for keeping FD and FoD legal is that there is nothing wrong with those stages and the fact that players like to ***** about match-ups not always being in their favor isnt an actual argument.

PS is kind of odd though i guess.

 

[Skler]

I don't think people are upset things aren't always in their favor, but upset when they have NO CONTROL over whether a match will be in their favor or not. Being told "you have no option to avoid FD" is pretty damning in certain matchups. Yes, you can switch characters, but no, that is not a good thing.

 

[Pink Reaper]

I dont know how to respond to that argument because it's a very bad argument. You're being counter picked. Literally it is a system put into place to give the loser of a match some semblance of leverage in the second match. Complaining that your character now has to deal with a stage your character isnt good on is literally 100% pointless because you yourself chose this character knowing that character has a stage they do so poorly on. Moreso why should the player who won have control over what the player who lost gets to choose? You want to talk about taking away options? Adding stage bans take away options from the counter picking player and gives unfair leverage to players who simply dont want to deal with their own characters weakness. It's a crutch.

 

[Zankoku]

I agree with Pink Reaper. Should a character who happens to have issues against a certain character on a certain stage be rewarded by barring that stage for the duration of the set? And on another, less-sweeping note, should players in locals who have known favorite stages be doomed to never be allowed to actually counterpick that stage against anyone who actually knows their preferences? Should M2K never ever get FD against anyone?

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

If a player is encouraged to the point of being forced to change characters when a stage is picked, that stage isn't fair. Stage bans allow for a larger stage pool by allowing stages that are sometimes ok and sometimes not ok to remain in the list, because players can remove that stage if it is a problem for their character. Without stage bans, we would have to AT LEAST consider banning stages that are commonly banned by players in order to maintain status quo. Removing stage bans without doing so would be a step backwards in terms of overall fairness (in line with pound 4 ruleset, though I would still favor pound rules over no ban neutrals).

 

[Zankoku]

Six stages is a larger stage pool?

 

[Pink Reaper]

So now we're moving to "FD/FoD is unwinnable for X"?

Here's a thought, let's ban top tiers, they all have stages they are more powerful on than crappy characters.

But some crappy characters are better than other crappy characters so lets ban those too.

No wait, let's just ban Melee outright and flip coins

But no calling heads. Heads is banned. Heads is OP


Here's a stupid thought, why do we allow stages to be neutral but then treat them like they're broken? There is nothing wrong with any of our neutrals, with the exception of some characters do better on some stages than others. Why are we punishing the characters that do well on some stages for being characters that do well on those stages? Why are we punishing players who dont pick specific characters by making a ruleset that specifically caters to players who dont want to acknowledge their characters faults? Why the **** would it be a bad thing if Fox/Falco had a losing stage? And more to the point, why do players still pretend FD is even a hugely polarizing stage. At best it shifts top tier match ups a little bit in one direction, the same way DL64 and YS do by being extremes. Everyone acts like FD is an autowin as long as you play a CG character or something.

/angerrant

 

[Strong Badam]

Sveet: The status quo sucks

It's really obnoxious that people are calling FD/FoD "too polarizing to have legal without stage bans" in the same year that PP destroyed Mew2King's Marth on FD. Destroyed. He didn't just narrowly pull out a win on what was apparently an extremely polarizing stage in his opponents favor, he decimated him.

Hell, FoD is a stage that S2J has publicly stated is a great stage for Falcon in some match-ups, just that most Falcon mains suck on that stage for years of refusing to learn how to play on it. Perhaps if we stopped letting players ignore 1/6ths of the game (each!) every time they play in tournament we'd see some actual change in the metagame other than spacie players getting faster. Our current ruleset also reinforces skill gaps. Better players are the only ones that are required to learn how to play without stage bans (read: are forced to get better by the ruleset or lose) as they are the ones that reach Semis (or sometimes just Finals) that are played out Bo5 without bans. Overall, our ruleset not only has goofy changes in tested skillset based on how far into the bracket you are, it also stifles player development for lower-leveled players.

Keep stage bans
Removing even more stages from the legal roster
Get better

 

[HyugaRicdeau]

I agree with basically everything in the above two posts.

It's not our job to make the game balanced, it's our job to make sure the game tests the skills we think are relevant/fundamental. Some might phrase this as "don't hate the playa, hate the game." If you get 0-death cg'd on FD, sux-2-b-u, get better or pick someone else.

While some of the stages we ban are superficially because "X characters are too good on it," it's generally actually because there is some new peculiar mechanic or gameplay element in it that makes them too good, and the fact that someone is too good on them is just a really good clue that this new mechanic/element is dumb, but a ban could be justified even without a balance issue.

 

[Skler]

I appreciate the ridiculous hyperbole of the anti-ban folks, but come on. Is one of the skills we find important "playing on every stage in our ruleset?" Why is "playing on every stage in our ruleset, except one" so much worse?

I don't think FoD is too polarizing to require bans (if I did a 3 stage list it'd be FoD, BF and DL64), but I do think being forced to FD is ****ty and terrible because FD is the only stage in the game that has no platforms. Platforms are a huge part of what makes Smash...well, Smash.

But really PR, saying stage bans are a crutch is honestly one of the stupidest things I've heard, whether on smashboards or in person. Counterpicking is a crutch, stage bans are there to balance it out. The most fair way to run with no bans is to just go double blind characters and strike stages every game because that is the most fair way to select stages. If you really dislike crutches then remove the actual crutch rather than the thing that makes the crutch weaker.

Calling a stage 1/6th of the game is also insanity. Our legal stages have a pretty small effect on matchups. Nobody is saying FD is insta-lose against anyone, even in the most polarizing matchups (Bowser vs Sheik I guess?). It just feels bad to have no control and removing bans discourages single character mains, and the competitive gain is...what again? It's not like you learn FD. FD is a flat platform with nothing happening. It isn't like you go to FD and say "OH NO I DIDN'T PRACTICE FD I'M SO SCREWED." You don't do that with any legal stage right now, but FD is the most blatant because there is absolutely nothing to know about it except wall hugging (which is used on other stages as well).

If FD wasn't there I could almost say "yeah, learning stages is an important skill in this game", but here we are.

To be completely honest, I'd be in the "no ban" crowd if FD was gone. It would make the game a better game because it would encourage diversity in stages (right now 4 stages can be played in a match, with FD gone there would be 5) and remove one of the crappiest stages in the game.

 

[Zankoku]

So FD is apparently the worst stage in the game, yet Pokémon Stadium is the only counterpick stage? Somehow this seems contradictory.

I'm also baffled as to how counterpicks can cause such a difference that it requires each player be allowed to kill 17% of the stage pool per set as a balance. I've seen players ban other stages, end up on FD in a matchup where they get chaingrabbed, and remain the same character often enough that I really feel that the argument of removing bans "discouraging single character mains" doesn't carry much weight - many deal with their theoretical worst stage and move on, while also given the opportunity to ban their least favorite stage in the meantime.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

The first three responses after my last post were filled with lame strawmans, off topic rants, an overall a gross lack of reading comprehension, and just plain non-sequiturs.

"The status quo sucks"
After reading something like that its hard to stomach the rest of your post. The status quo is what keeps players playing. Every rule we make is arbitrary. We could make the rules be coin battles from now on, but nobody would go with it, regardless of how arbitrarily fair it is, because its not what the community expects of the game. Understanding what the community believes the game is and maintaining it is very important. In my opinion, this is the real reason that we are now down to 6 stages: because those are the 6 stages everyone agreed were fine and we played them all the time.

It's not our job to make the game balanced, it's our job to make sure the game tests the skills we think are relevant/fundamental.

The latter is simply a consequence. It is our responsibility to maintain fairness to the players, to the best of our ability. Otherwise, there is no possible way to objectively come to a conclusion or consensus. One person thinks testing a player's resolve to time games out is the most important, while someone else thinks testing someone's reaction time is the most important, and someone else thinks who can win the most trades is most important. The first one says Yoshi's Story 64 is the best stage, the second one says Flatzone is the best stage, and the third one says Green Greens is the best. By only discussing what we think the game should test, there is no way to make headway.

Instead, we say we want to choose the stages that, regardless of character choice, the players have equal opportunity to win. This isn't to say we choose stages so that every match-up is fair, but instead we remove stages that bias or over-centralize certain traits. But there is no single stage that is like that, but most people saw the stages like FD, BF and the like to be fair.

Stage bans are an extension of this. The system accounts for variances in match-ups and game theories by allowing players to remove the stage they feel is least fair according to the metagame. It allows for more characters and strategies to be viable by limiting the stages to the most fair stages, determined by the players. Removing stage bans is removing a fundamental check on the bias of the stage list, something that is impossible to circumvent.

Some might phrase this as "don't hate the playa, hate the game." If you get 0-death cg'd on FD, sux-2-b-u, get better or pick someone else.

I could use the same argument to justify any stage. You got lasered once by fox on hyrule and timed out? sux-2-b-u, get better or pick someone else. Avoid lasers, powershield them, whatever, but its not OUR fault you lost.

Don't get me wrong, I agree "get better" should be a valid response, but "pick someone else" should not. Without stage bans, I think yoshi's story would have been banned long ago, since marth and ganon were very strong there, especially in early metagames. Having stage bans is a safeguard against reducing the stage list; if you have a problem with a stage, use your stage ban on it. Remove stage bans and when a meta appears where something like timeouts on dreamland become realistic and/or common, and there is no choice but to ban the stage entirely. With stage bans, the meta can advance without banning the stage, since players that are in risk of the overpowered strategy can ban the stage.

In DotA and LoL, teams are allowed much the same thing. While the stage remains a constant, each team is allowed to ban characters from the match. This allows teams to shut down overpowered strategies in the current metagame so that they do not become overcentralizing forces. One such strategy was the "Wombo Combo", where a team uses Naga Siren's ult, Dark Seer's Vacuum and an array of strong AoE spells to sweep an entire enemy team with virtually no response (One variation can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ktBGdMWi-w#t=1m ). While eventually strategies were formed to beat this, it was very important for teams to be able to ban key characters so that this strategy wouldn't win the game on its own.

While some of the stages we ban are superficially because "X characters are too good on it," it's generally actually because there is some new peculiar mechanic or gameplay element in it that makes them too good, and the fact that someone is too good on them is just a really good clue that this new mechanic/element is dumb, but a ban could be justified even without a balance issue.

I'm not entirely sure I agree or disagree, so I will choose not to address this at this time.

 

[Skler]

So FD is apparently the worst stage in the game, yet Pokémon Stadium is the only counterpick stage? Somehow this seems contradictory.

I'm also baffled as to how counterpicks can cause such a difference that it requires each player be allowed to kill 17% of the stage pool per set as a balance. I've seen players ban other stages, end up on FD in a matchup where they get chaingrabbed, and remain the same character often enough that I really feel that the argument of removing bans "discouraging single character mains" doesn't carry much weight - many deal with their theoretical worst stage and move on, while also given the opportunity to ban their least favorite stage in the meantime.

FD is very different, some people like it. Worst stage is subjective, but, to be objective, it is the only stage with 0 platforms. It is very, very different from every other stage in the game.

You allow one player to pick choose from 83% of the stage list if they lose. Why do they need a bigger advantage? They lost during strikes, doesn't that mean they're worse? I don't mind the worse player losing on game 2.

Again, if you hate banning why not let people strike for each game in the set. It's an objectively more fair way to do things because it negates both sides best stages (at least in the players' opinions). Is there an actual downside to "you always stage strike" aside from every match ending up on battlefield? Because that's something I'm ok with. You can even allow character counter picking in spite of double blind being the most fair.


What's the competitive gain from having no bans but still allowing stage counterpicking?

 

[Zankoku]

This is going to be going off of my personal opinion, but stage counterpicking allows for those with certain knowledge or preferences to exploit the depth of Melee from the category of stages rather than just characters.

I'd actually be okay with "you always stage strike" with the added rule of "loser of previous game may require that winner spends first strike on previous game's stage". I think this prevents cases of "triple Battlefield" unless both players explicitly want such a thing to occur.

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

Hmm that is actually a really interesting idea. The only problem i see is that the stage list would be restricted to an odd number

 

[Cactuar]

That's not really a problem. The only argument I make that involves 5 stage vs 6 stage is about how the stages are paired against one another (how the viable characters interact with one another based on using counterpicks). If every round was a matter of striking, this wouldn't really apply as both parties are coming to the stage choice together rather than putting the opponent into your selection.