Melee Counterpick Stages Debate

[GOTM]

Weren't you the better player by having a good CP stage?

are you ****ing ********?

 

[Scar]

Weren't you the better player by having a good CP stage? If Chu Dat had a good Fox or Jiggs or something for Brinstar it wouldn't have ended that way for you. Similar to how a Fox player being CPed by a Marth to FD could say "ICs" if they wanted to switch it up.

no

also falcon beats fox on brinstar

melee is too deep of a game to main more than one character until you get to a really high level of play, there are tons of players with 2 mains and they almost always narrow it down to one character because it's just too hard to compete (the m2k/mangos of the world notwithstanding)

chu was better than me and i won the set and i think that's lame, because i got like a lucky stomp in round 1 and 0 to deathed his ***** *** GET ***** CHU (love you dude)

 

[Overswarm]

You made that way too easy for me overswarm. That was mostly your post with some quotes i got from some of your previous quotes. Its easy to use personal bias and say thats why he wants what he wants. I wasn't doing that before this post above until you did, because I thought we could look past any personal bias people might have based on their style or characters and really debate this with good points like pakman did. But apparently we can't. So there you go. What you threw at me right back at you.

Your so scared you might lose the ability to win against people who are better than you and that u might have to pick up a diff char that you can't stand that we are trying this out at our OWN tournaments that aren't even in your area....

I don't play Melee anymore, and I win in Brawl. Starters and non-starters.

I also mained Marth and Fox in Melee. I used to play Doc with some Falcon (Darkrain got me into Smash), but after seeing how my Doc could compete on Green Greens but not on Dream Land, I chose stronger characters with good results. I wasn't the best, but I was able to do decently and hang evenly with smashers in my area like Jiano and Sliq towards the end and was able to use the knowledge from Melee to help me out with Brawl.

plus everyone is so shortsighted that they don't realize that ok you lost round 1 because THE NEUTRALS ARE SOOO BAD FOR MY CHARACTER then you win on your stupid stage, and god forbid you're playing spammer then you get ***** on floats

If you're getting ***** on floats, it seems like Spammer is going into every set 1-0 and has increased his odds of winning. Why don't you?


It's kind of sad how all the good Melee players left and now all the medicore players from Melee are left and are desperately trying to emulate the performance of good ones by limiting options of other players.

I remember going to MLG NY for Melee and watching PC Chris CP Chu Dat to Mute City. Chu Dat was confused, but stayed ICs. PC Chris, for the first time in a major tournament, pulled out Peach. A surprisingly good one, too. He was a good smasher. He knew his weaknesses and knew he couldn't reliably beat Chu with his Fox or Falco, so he found a good CP to increase his chances and picked up a new character rather than whining. Despite his advantage in the matchup, Chu actually won the game, btw.

You guys, however, are medicore and don't know how to play the game and instead attempt to morph it to fit what you're good at. I just played Melee for fun while waiting for the sequel and I still "got it". The best players in the world are able to play on any fair stage thrown at them, and this includes Mute City. Hell, Onett was banned because Ken was smart enough to CP it against a Roy player named Neo.

Take a note from the good Melee players that rose to the top when people actually played Melee and adapt.

melee is too deep of a game to main more than one character until you get to a really high level of play, there are tons of players with 2 mains and they almost always narrow it down to one character because it's just too hard to compete (the m2k/mangos of the world notwithstanding)

Most top players had strong secondaries for certain matchups or stages. Mew2King plays 6 characters proficiently right now, I believe. Ken had Fox and Marth. Isai had Falcon and Fox. Darkrain had Falcon and Fox. Chu Dat had ICs and (insert a long list of low tiers for some reason). PC Chris had Fox and Falco and towards the end a Peach (especially for teams).

Lots of players had secondaries at the top of their game, and used 'em well.

 

[Scar]

If you're getting ***** on floats, it seems like Spammer is going into every set 1-0 and has increased his odds of winning.

yeah based on YOUR claim that we're FORCING you to play on stages where OTHER characters have a natural advantage on and in which YOUR character has a natural disadvantage on

i.e. the NEUTRALS

which is why you make no sense

 

[No_Face]

If i'm not mistaken, aren't like half the stages in this game banned because fox is practically unbeatable on them? Why are peach and jiggs immune to this kind of logic?

I also don't understand the point people try to make when they say "just win the first round so you get 2nd counterpick after you inevitably get ***** on mute city". If it were as simple as that, why don't we just play 1-round sets?

 

[pockyD]

stop assuming the "neutrals" are neutral

 

[Scar]

**Most top players had strong secondaries for certain matchups or stages. Mew2King plays 6 characters proficiently right now, I believe. Ken had Fox and Marth. Isai had Falcon and Fox. Darkrain had Falcon and Fox. Chu Dat had ICs and (insert a long list of low tiers for some reason). PC Chris had Fox and Falco and towards the end a Peach (especially for teams).**

k i said not m2k/mango, darkrain's fox is so awful miserable horrible that he never plays it in tourney except to get 3 stocked by forward's falco on japes, chu is a low tier player and low tier players necessarily must have different characters, and PC ken and isai fall into the m2k/mango category

so like i accept that you think you're making a valid point but you really aren't.

 

[Overswarm]

yeah based on YOUR claim that we're FORCING you to play on stages where OTHER characters have a natural advantage on and in which YOUR character has a natural disadvantage on

i.e. the NEUTRALS

which is why you make no sense

There is no such thing as a "neutral". Different characters have different advantages / disadvantages on every stage in the game, bar none. If Fountain of Dreams was the only initial stage, I'm sure Falcon would struggle while Sheik would have a field day, no?

The word "neutral" was phased out of the Brawl community because we know better now. We realized that there were some characters in Melee that were actually pretty good that didn't do very well on the normal starter stages, but did exceedingly well on CP stages. We realized we arbitrarily increased Marth and Captain Falcon's potency with the "flat plat" list of initial stages while other characters didn't reap the same benefits.

As such, we use stage striking now from a larger stage list to get an agreed upon stage to create more consistent results on game one.

k i said not m2k/mango, darkrain's fox is so awful miserable horrible that he never plays it in tourney except to get 3 stocked by forward's falco on japes, chu is a low tier player and low tier players necessarily must have different characters, and PC ken and isai fall into the m2k/mango category

I'm not familiar with the smashers still left in the Melee scene, so I can't supply a longer list, but doesn't it mean that players who DO have secondaries and use them effectively have earned their reward?

 

[Scar]

@ pocky i appreciate the distinction between stages that would be truly neutral and the stages we call neutrals, but the 7 neutrals are more neutral than the other stages in the game

in order of how neutral the stages are from most to least i'd say it goes BF, DL64, FD, FoD, YS, KJ64, PS, i think stadium is borderline

but every other stage comes strictly after that, and i don't think any other stage is even in the same realm as those 7

i don't think that anyone would even argue against that either because i think the reason a lot of people want to keep counterpick stages is expressly FOR the advantage they gain by picking it

@ overswarm i agree that the stages aren't neutral but there is enough variation within the 7 stages in my opinion that characters can find a sufficient advantage vs the other characters within them

also i know you're not in the melee scene i'm just telling you that people don't have 2 mains anymore, and they by and large really do not, and if they do they only have a very limited amount of success with them.

 

[JFox]

Ok, I'll give my 2 cents

You as a player have to decide what you prefer. Do you want a tournament to be as fair as possible? Because if you do, you should vote for all neutral stages. Counterpicks are not neutral BECAUSE they tip the scale in one man's favor. That right there should trigger some sort of response... "should a stage really decide who is the better player"? If you want this game to be about raw skill, than in theory we should get rid of any stages that are not neutral.

*COUNTERPICKS DONT ACTUALLY HELP LOW TIERS*

The following examples are all theory smash. Obviously due to human error/skill gaps/people not know how to counterpick, matchups do not always play out as they should. However, you can look at matchups and stages with some theory in mind, and we all do this when arguing about any subject in this game.

Example 1: Say we have two players of the SAME exact skill level. Lets just say for the sake of the argument that their names are JFox and GOTM. JFox plays peach, GOTM plays fox, and they are exactly the same skill level for the sake of the argument.

We random it game 1, he wins on Stadium bcuz he plays fox is better than peach there, and he's just better in the matchup. Now I go to Mute City, and win on what some idiots call "a fair counterpick". All I've succeeded in doing was tying up the game, but whether or not I will win still comes down to winning on a neutral...watch this. GOTM counterpicks corneria, another god awful unbalanced stage, now i lost the set.

Did counterpicks actually help me, or did they just turn this set into an almost guaranteed loss as soon as I lost the neutral? See GOTM won the neutral, and now with counterpicks has guaranteed himself the victory because he used counterpicks. In other words, the only match that mattered here was STILL A NEUTRAL! Keep reading....

Example 2: Lets take another scenario. Say I am playing Scar, a player that is better than me.

We random it, and we get FoD. Now because his character sucks there, lets say I win this one just cuz he got unlucky on the random select. I've already won the match, unless something unlikely occurs. Scar wins game 2, w/e. Now Peach goes to Mute and I win cuz its mute city. Again, the game just basically came down to who won game 1 right?

Example 3: Lets say I'm playing vs eggm again. Lets say Eggm SD's cuz hes eggm and i squeak out a win on Stadium. Now eggm just lost the set because of one lousy sd. Game 2 he wins on his pick. Game 3 I win on Mute City.

Analysis:

Now in example 1 i lost a legitimate set using counterpicks, but likely would have lost 2-0 instead of 2-1 had in not been for counterpicks.

Example 2 I won simply because the random neutral was a bad stage for my opponent, giving me game 1, which then gave me the set because of cheap *** stage rules. So in theory, counterpicks allowed a lesser competitor to beat a better player here. I did not even earn this win, i simply got lucky by having FoD come up game 1. That means 1/6 times a lesser player will win game 1, and if counterpicks are used correctly, that lesser player will win the set.

Example 3 I won the first game against an opponent who was better than me simply because my opponent SD'd, so I got lucky to win game 1. Game 2 he wins, game 3 i win on Mute. Now there is no way to quantify luck, but I'd like to try just for the sake of argument. Lets say that game 1 a player of lesser skill beats a player of greater skill 10% of the time due to some kind of fluke, such as SD's or whatever else.


So the lesser player wins game 1 due to luck (flukes or bad random stage) roughly 25% of the time? And with counterpicks if u lose game 1 the set is over if they use their counterpicks well, so that means u lose a set to a lesser player 25% of the time because of counterpicks....now obviously that sounds high cuz there would be more grumbling if this actually happened 25% of the time, BUT then again how often do two people of equal skill actually fight in a tourney anyway? So this scenario doesn't play itself out that often due to skill gaps, but when does 25% of the time the wrong player is winning. (obviously this math is not carefully calculated, but this point demonstrates how badly a stage can influence a match between close competitors)
_________________________________________________________________

Now earlier I stated that counterpicks are simply an illusory aid to peach's and puff's, and here's why. If its actually true that neutral stages are more beneficial to spacies/marth, counterpicks don't even truly help me. Game 1 is ALWAYS going to be a neutral, so in theory if I lose game 1 I lose right? All that counterpick does is make it look like I was close to winning, when in actuallity I never had a shot cuz my character sucks for game 1. And if I happen to win game 1 cuz I get lucky, than I have won the entire set based off luck not skill.

The only thing CP's do is A) make it more likely that games go to a third match B) ensure that whoever wins game 1 has the counterpick advantage for the last match, thus making the only match that is important game 1 of each set.



Why has this been the way we run tournaments for so long? Because people insist that this ruleset helps balance the tiers, because there is an illusion that giving a low tier a counterpick game 2 will actually balance out the tiers. The only reason this isnt more apparent in tourney is because a lot of players are against using cheap counterpicks to win, so you often see good sets played on neutral stages.

 

[GOTM]

good read. good points. good argument.

 

[blast_ssbb]

Eggm says "i hate getting camped, i hate getting gimped by the stage" i want to just be able to shield pressure and do cool combos regardless of what stage we're on"
counter argument- no one cares what u think is fun, no one cares if u want to combo. stop trying to make the game YOUR VERSION of fun. but whatever i dont know why this thread is even here because neither you or scar are going to change your mind. this debate is pretty pointless.

scar says" counter picks make it so ppl who r less ""SKILLED"" win on counterpicks against ppl that they shouldnt be able to beat.
counter argument- how is it less skill if u win on a different stage? is it less skill for a marth to beat u on battlefield than dreamland? counterpicks r a major part of tournaments, DOES ANYONE ATTEND A MAJOR TOURNAMENT NOT KNOWING WAT STAGES WILL BE ON? Why can u admit that you have an advantage on brinstar vs chu but that neutrals dont give u an advantage vs other chars?

BY SCARS LOGIC WE SHOULD JUST NOT ENTER TOURNAMENTS THAT PROS ENTER BECAUSE YOU SHOULD NEVER BE ABLE TO BEAT SOMEONE WHOS MORE SKILLED THAN YOU. STAGE AND CHARACTER ADVANTAGE SHOULD NOT MATTER

yea scar your logic makes so much sense.

DONT FORGET THESE GUYS WANT TO LEAVE KONGO JUNGLE 64 ON BECAUsE THEY DONT LIKE GETTING CAMPED ON COUNTERPICKS, APPARENTLY THEY DIDNT SEE PINKSHINOBI VS ROCKCROCK, BUT I GUESS THATS ROCKCROCKS FAULT FOR MAINING GANON /endstupid logic

SORRY GUYS THIS ISNT SF4, HOW U PLAY ON THE PARTICULAR STAGE DOES MATTER AND STAGES DO MATTER. OH AND BTW NEUTRALS ARENT FAIR IN CASE U KEEP MISSING THAT POINT.

 

[Overswarm]

The fact that many are against "cheap" counterpicks are precisely why they work so well.


In your examples, if soemone just had picked up a secondary it'd be a totally different story. I'm pretty sure if a Fox counterpicked taht Peach to Corneria and that Peach happened to have a Fox in their pocket it'd be a different story entirely, no?

It's a trade-off. Play one character and limit your options and consolidate your experience, or play multiple characters, thus improving your options, but requiring greater talent.

 

[blast_ssbb]

jfox ur point is in valid cuz they should both be banning mute city against u cuz they have a much better chance at foxvspeach on brinstar or capt vs peach on brinstar. YOU DO GET TO BAN STAGES IN A SET KTHNX

edit: not the whole argument sry, the whole read was actually very good points vs the counterpicking SYSTEM, but not the stages.

 

[JFox]

overswarm- a player should not be forced to play multiple characters because of stage rules. and the fact that people pick up peach/puff just to use stage advantages to their advantage is even more stupid.

in fact, i happen to remember a very lame set that just past where someone did this. DJ Nintendo played Tope at Tipped off 5 in florida. Tope won game 1 as sheik, and than auto won game 3 because tope said Mute City and than switched to sheik. Tope's peach is balls, but hey with mute city anything goes...DJ got 3 stocked. DJ gets 1 ban! How is he supposed to ban every single bull**** stage a player throws at him?


Blast- if a stage is so cheap that without question it should be auto-banned, than doesnt that bring up some cause for concern? Replace the words "Mute City" with "Brinstar" and you have the exact same thing in theory, a stage that strongly benefits one character over the other. Many characters have several BS counterpick stages.

 

[Scar]

jfox ur point is in valid cuz they should both be banning mute city against u cuz they have a much better chance at foxvspeach on brinstar or capt vs peach on brinstar. YOU DO GET TO BAN STAGES IN A SET KTHNX

it's just an example, so because of the ridiculousness of the system the player is forced to have a ****tier r1 experience because he can't ban a neutral and peach can still cp half the staff to brinstar and camp sides while she breaks the middle

jfox hit all the points 100% and NO cp stages don't make it more fair for worse characters

also all this arguing is just feeding into my rage and hatred for this abysmal system

overswarm- a player should not be forced to play multiple characters because of stage rules.

so now we're seeing people argue that CP STAGES EXIST TO HELP CERTAIN CHARACTERS and also if your character doesn't do well on every stage then GET A CHARACTER WHO PLAYS WELL ON THE STAGE

like idk isn't that just silly? so like those stages, in overswarms perfect world (i.e. corneria and brinstar and mute) should all eventually devolve into peach dittos or jiggs dittos or fox dittos? like WHAT?!?

 

[blast_ssbb]

The fact that many are against "cheap" counterpicks are precisely why they work so well.


In your examples, if soemone just had picked up a secondary it'd be a totally different story. I'm pretty sure if a Fox counterpicked taht Peach to Corneria and that Peach happened to have a Fox in their pocket it'd be a different story entirely, no?

It's a trade-off. Play one character and limit your options and consolidate your experience, or play multiple characters, thus improving your options, but requiring greater talent.

I agree our current counterpick system doesnt enforce winner stays same char, you even get to find out the stage and THEN switch if ud like.

scar i disagree wit ppl not playing multiple chars, while i consider u and hbox at the level where u can play multiple chars, u choose not to because your chars have practically even matchups no matter the stage and char (yes i know some matchups r 60/65-40-35 but u know wat i mean). i think if u think of ALL THE PLAYERS WHO PLAY COMPETITIVELY there r those that play wit more than one eggm,vanz,dj,tec0 and there r those that dont you,jman(kinda he doesnt switch when it matters), hax etc. basically i think its just a playstyle choice that some ppl decide on and the ppl who decide to play more chars shouldnt get penalized for it. and oh on u beating chu, that had to do with u being better than/even with chu, if u were less skilled than chu he wouldve just mindgamed u the whole time and beat u on knowledge, of the game stage and matchup. and it doesnt change the fact that you had to beat him on a different stage it wasnt best of 1 on brinstar.

 

[blast_ssbb]

overswarm- a player should not be forced to play multiple characters because of stage rules. and the fact that people pick up peach/puff just to use stage advantages to their advantage is even more stupid.

Blast- who says my opponent knows what character I play? My name is JFox, why would they think to ban mute? And if a stage is so cheap that without question it should be auto-banned, than doesnt that bring up some cause for concern?

i actually AGREE that mutecity is TOO strong. also i was under the impression that you ban the stage when u get to stage select screen, ive never been forced to ban a stage b4 my opponent picks a char. and plz read my edit i think ur arguments were actually really good at showing why they dont really help but like overswarm said thats because you chose to only play one char.

edit: while i dont like it for pound4 because i think its a drastic change for a major tournament i agree that mute and green greens should eventually disappear off the rotation.

 

[Inui]

I win in Brawl. Starters and non-starters.

Beating the kids at your local malls and gamestores doesn't mean much.

 

[Scar]

the ppl who decide to play more chars shouldnt get penalized for it.

no one is being penalized for playing more than 1 char, they still get to counterpick their opponent's characters and that's a fantastic advantage

and oh on u beating chu, that had to do with u being better than/even with chu, if u were less skilled than chu he wouldve just mindgamed u the whole time and beat u on knowledge, of the game stage and matchup. and it doesnt change the fact that you had to beat him on a different stage it wasnt best of 1 on brinstar.

lol people can't just "mindgame u the whole time and beat u"

that's not how smash works

i beat him on neutrals 1 out of 2 times, i barely beat him r1 honestly bc he didn't have his own controller, so i beat him when he used a ****ty controller, then he switched to a better controller and like 3 stocked me or something stupid, then i beat him on brinstar

that's the equivalent of him SDing one time in r1 and losing the set for it, which is how many players feel vs peach/jiggs/spammy foxes

 

[CT Chia]

The same point has been brought up so many times, that the non-Peach is going to lose on their CP. Ummm.... isn't that proof alone that these stages are too influencial?

 

[GOTM]

LMAO, no **** we shouldnt beat people better than us. you go to tournaments to GET BETTER, not to randomly beat ppl on stupid stages and go home smiling. earn it *****es

 

[blast_ssbb]

no one is being penalized for playing more than 1 char, they still get to counterpick their opponent's characters and that's a fantastic advantage

lol people can't just "mindgame u the whole time and beat u"

that's not how smash works

i beat him on neutrals 1 out of 2 times, i barely beat him r1 honestly bc he didn't have his own controller, so i beat him when he used a ****ty controller, then he switched to a better controller and like 3 stocked me or something stupid, then i beat him on brinstar

that's the equivalent of him SDing one time in r1 and losing the set for it, which is how many players feel vs peach/jiggs/spammy foxes

wat char gives u a char advantage vs fox on neutrals? how bout marth? shiek? there r chars that r too good on neutrals and u need a stage advantage to even it out if you are indeed doing this outta FAIRNESS.

oh and ok fine u win. u suck mr 6th at genesis. you beat chu even though ur super inferior to him. brinstar is whack anyways :D.

find me one neutral thats completely unbiased based on character and then your ruleset is actually more fair than the counterpick ruleset.

HERES MY SUGGESTION: WHY DONT WE RE-EVALUATE ALL THE STAGES EVEN THE BANNED ONES AND JUST GO ONE BY ONE AND BAN STAGES THAT R BAD FOR WHATEVER REASON, IM SURE WE WILL WIND UP WITH A RULESET SIMILIAR TO THE ONE YOU GUYS WANT WITH THE EXCEPTIONAL DECENT STAGES (granted u cant be sooo harsh like oh its not flat ban)

 

[blast_ssbb]

LMAO, no **** we shouldnt beat people better than us. you go to tournaments to GET BETTER, not to randomly beat ppl on stupid stages and go home smiling. earn it *****es

actually no while i think eggm,scar,pakman, cactuar r all a lil better than me, i go to tournaments to win money, i play multiple chars and practice many counterpicks alot so i have all the tools at my disposal and i think i have an ok shot at doin really well. there r many factors that come into play at tournaments i dont think oh he took me to a gay stage so i lost should be a legitimate john.

 

[Scar]

idk dude fox is too good on every stage. fine there are one or two that he's not great on, but you can only pick that stage once a set, if you can't beat him on the neutrals then you can't beat him in a set, that's the point

tournament-level competitors shouldn't be banking on luck to win on a neutral so they can win on a cp where the fight is "fair"

BLAST STOP DOUBLE POSTING PLZ USE THE EDIT BUTTON

 

[Overswarm]

Beating the kids at your local malls and gamestores doesn't mean much.

I'm not sure what you're talking about. I don't HAVE any local malls or gamestores.

 

[Pakman]

i told scar b4 that the idea of this crap is stupid ... but its his tournament ...

This is how I feel most people should be reacting to this.

 

[Inui]

I'm not sure what you're talking about. I don't HAVE any local malls or gamestores.

It's obviously a joke because you don't travel or take out the big names when they are at events with you. ~_~

Btw, I agree that most counterpicks should stay in, but some are just way too gay and should go. Mute City, Jungle Japes, and Green Greens are the gayest, but I don't see big problems with Brinstar and Rainbow Cruise.

I'm sure you guessed this because I voice my opinions on stages in the SBR frequently. The more skillbased, the better.

 

[Scar]

inui give us a break here please

overswarm don't feed the trolls, everyone who doesn't have inui on their ignore list hasn't been on the boards for a long time or doesn't know how to operate the ignore function

 

[Inui]

inui give us a break here please

overswarm don't feed the trolls, everyone who doesn't have inui on their ignore list hasn't been on the boards for a long time or doesn't know how to operate the ignore function

What I said was on topic, bro.

 

[Overswarm]

inui give us a break here please

overswarm don't feed the trolls, everyone who doesn't have inui on their ignore list hasn't been on the boards for a long time or doesn't know how to operate the ignore function

Feed the trolls? I troll him. That's like all I do on smashboards now!

*hugs Scar*

I think we just became friends.

 

[pockyD]

@ pocky i appreciate the distinction between stages that would be truly neutral and the stages we call neutrals, but the 7 neutrals are more neutral than the other stages in the game

in order of how neutral the stages are from most to least i'd say it goes BF, DL64, FD, FoD, YS, KJ64, PS, i think stadium is borderline

but every other stage comes strictly after that, and i don't think any other stage is even in the same realm as those 7

i don't think that anyone would even argue against that either because i think the reason a lot of people want to keep counterpick stages is expressly FOR the advantage they gain by picking it

yay, someone agrees about stadium

at the last tournament i ran, i took stadium off instead of putting KJ64 on for strikeouts (not directly relevant for this conversation, but the point is that pokemon stadium is super duper random)

time to throw out disorganized thoughts

and yes, if you arbitrarily decide that battlefield or something is the "fairest" stage (most smashers would agree to this or dreamland if pressed on this question, I'm sure, but the fact remains that a flat stage with a few platforms being "fair" is a completely arbitrary decision) and then you still feel compelled to have 7 stages, you would likely end up with those 7 being the "most neutral"

however, along those lines and under that criteria, we can see that, for almost all cases, battlefield would be strictly "more neutral" than yoshi's story and kongo jungle 64. Why even keep THOSE two around when you can just play on the "neutral" stage of battlefield?

If you want to scrap counter-pick stages altogether, why not just set stages in stone?

game 1 is played on battlefield, game 2 on dreamland, game 3 on FD, or whatever

you would be working towards the same goal ("fair" stages, whatever that means, but I interpret it to mean homogeneous stages), but you would actually show commitment to the goal, instead of being a bit wishy-washy just since the other 4 stages have "always" been on

don't forget that rainbow cruise was once considered "neutral"

and that FD is an "auto-ban" against a lot of characters (ice climbers, dr. mario) in the same way that mute city is for peach/jiggly

it's rather fallacious to point to "good characters" "rightfully" having success on "neutral" stages (i really love quotation marks apparently), when we as a community decide which characters should be considered "good" based on the constraints of the existing ruleset. In fact, I personally speculate that the differences between characters in general is MUCH less pronounced on brinstar than on dreamland

as far as fun goes, i'd say it's rather difficult to ascertain what every entrant to your tournament considers "fun", but i'll also say that when a game is played on a non-"neutral", at least one of the players is indeed having what they interpret as "fun", but if you take those stages away, it's entirely possible that neither player is having "fun" (if they are both people who favor CP stages). This point is rather hard for me to explain without a chalkboard so just ignore it if it didn't make any sense

and is it that bad for whoever wins game 1 to win the set? If we decide that game 1 is on the most neutral stage, then that is indeed the way it should pan out as if player A won when the stage presented the least advantage (game 1), he should win when he chooses a stage to maximize his advantage (game 3), regardless of what happens when he minimizes it (game 2). we EXPECT the winner of game 1 to win the set, and unless you lock all the stages for all games in stone and scrap counter-picking altogether, this is how it will be

 

[Scar]

pocky i see what you're saying about wishy-washiness and i agree to an extent, and if brawl battlefield existed in melee there's no doubt that it would be the most neutral and like just a great great tournament stage

i think we need the variation, though, of big stages and small stages, platform stages and non-platform stages, big blastboxes and tiny blastboxes, and battlefield ledges and yoshi's story walls, to really emphasize the importance of being a versatile player

big stages allow for more combos while small stages allow for more edgeguarding opps, platform mechanics are more important when they exist lulz, DI and survivability is emphasized on big stages where landing killmoves is important on small ones, and recovery is just different when you can ride up a ledge or when you're forced to sweetspot

all these things are important to being a good player and i feel like they're all adequately/sufficiently tested on the 7 LEGAL SSS stages (not neutral, fine, but let's think of a better name than spoc stage system for the "new" ruleset)

i DON'T think that it's important to be able to dodge random cars, to not be able to sweetspot a ledge and be punished for the amount of lag a man programmed into your characters upB, to dodge bombs that you can't see on green greens, or to catch up to a good fox player on floats

 

[JFox]

tournaments are to ascertain which player is truly the better of the two. tournament's goal shouldnt be to make a set as fun as possible, which is clearly why items aren't on, lol.

Pocky, certain character matchups become too uneven if you make a ruleset that dictates which stage is played each match. Having the players pick which stages are fairest for each matchup is a near perfect system for getting rid of any and all stage bias, IMO

 

[ZoSo]

If you want to scrap counter-pick stages altogether, why not just set stages in stone?

As I am sure you are already well aware, this is how they do things in competitive SC (pointing it out for the benefit of readers who are unfamiliar), except they have the benefit of being able to create custom maps. Are you in favor of using this kind of system, or are you just using it as an extreme example?

 

[Scar]

pocky likes to play devil's advocate, i don't think he really thinks that

i think he likes my rules tbh because he's smart and me and wes agree on it, if wes and i ever agree on anything i find that pocky usually does too

 

[pockyD]

pocky i see what you're saying about wishy-washiness and i agree to an extent, and if brawl battlefield existed in melee there's no doubt that it would be the most neutral and like just a great great tournament stage

i think we need the variation, though, of big stages and small stages, platform stages and non-platform stages, big blastboxes and tiny blastboxes, and battlefield ledges and yoshi's story walls, to really emphasize the importance of being a versatile player

big stages allow for more combos while small stages allow for more edgeguarding opps, platform mechanics are more important when they exist lulz, DI and survivability is emphasized on big stages where landing killmoves is important on small ones, and recovery is just different when you can ride up a ledge or when you're forced to sweetspot

all these things are important to being a good player and i feel like they're all adequately/sufficiently tested on the 7 LEGAL SSS stages (not neutral, fine, but let's think of a better name than spoc stage system for the "new" ruleset)

i DON'T think that it's important to be able to dodge random cars, to not be able to sweetspot a ledge and be punished for the amount of lag a man programmed into your characters upB, to dodge bombs that you can't see on green greens, or to catch up to a good fox player on floats

but given that you will only play 3 of the stages in any given set, we can't really state that the same skills are tested in any 2 given sets that didn't play the exact same changes

you're overstating the effect of the cp stages, but the point is that all the things you stated should NOT be tested fall beyond an arbitrary line in decided which stages are "reasonable".

Is it that great to test whether you can properly control the barrel and recover to the edge with no chance of teching on KJ64? what about DI-ing into shyguys on yoshi story? being able to play on any of the stupid transformations on stadium?

all stages have stupid factors (except battlefield, it *****!); when you don't mandate that there's definitive control of which stages are played, you ensure that different "skills" impact different sets

tournaments are to ascertain which player is truly the better of the two. tournament's goal shouldnt be to make a set as fun as possible, which is clearly why items aren't on, lol.

Pocky, certain character matchups become too uneven if you make a ruleset that dictates which stage is played each match. Having the players pick which stages are fairest for each matchup is a near perfect system for getting rid of any and all stage bias, IMO

in that case, eliminate the cp system altogether and use stage striking for each game, adding some special rule to ensure that stages aren't repeated

As I am sure you are already well aware, this is how they do things in competitive SC (pointing it out for the benefit of readers who are unfamiliar), except they have the benefit of being able to create custom maps. Are you in favor of using this kind of system, or are you just using it as an extreme example?

it's an extreme example for the case of argument... but if your goal is to get "predictable" results in that individual stage randomness doesn't affect your outcome, then yes, I would find this system acceptable. In fact, you don't have to use the same 3 stages for every tournament, in essence replicating the "variety" aspect of starcraft (spoc has battlefield, dreamland, FD, eggm has YS, FD, stadium, whatever)

 

[Overswarm]

As I am sure you are already well aware, this is how they do things in competitive SC (pointing it out for the benefit of readers who are unfamiliar), except they have the benefit of being able to create custom maps. Are you in favor of using this kind of system, or are you just using it as an extreme example?

We've actually considered a similar approach to Brawl if we decide we want to remove "knowing stages" as a relevant showing of skill. In general it was unanimously decided that making any sort of list based on rounds (round 1 everyone plays BF, round 2 plays FD, round 3 plays Yoshis, etc.,) would actually end up being more random than using CPs. It'd be pretty crappy to go through a tournament and play your first Marth on a stage he preferred and blame it on the stage.

 

[pockyD]

It'd be pretty crappy to go through a tournament and play your first Marth on a stage he preferred and blame it on the stage.

On the contrary; if you enter a tournament knowing that the stage is guaranteed to be played, you can choose your character accounting for the stage

 

[teh_spamerer]

@Chibo - Hard to tell that's a joke post when those are the kind of posts you make in general when defending your decisions.

Professional sports make tweaks to their rules every year. Even baseball has pretty recently adopted instant replay for balls that are borderline homerun or foul.

This is a terrible example Pakman. Using instant replay just lets you see the same thing again to properly determine if it was a homerun/ball/foul. Instant replay doesn't change the way the game is played. A change that would be comparable to removing all the CP stages would be to remove second base.

There is no reason TO's should get a ton of crap for testing a reasonable experimental rule set.

Here's the argument: That the rule set is NOT reasonable. If you tried to host a tournament with only Hyrule Temple and Icicle Mountain, would you expect to NOT get a ton of crap?

Just because something is good doesn't mean we shouldn't try and make it better. If it fails, it fails and we go back to our normal ruleset.

I can understand people's dislike for the ruleset, but give it one chance before you start claiming that it is going to ruin the Melee scene.

Look, the reason for the complaints that this is a 99% chance of what is going to happen "LOLOL THOSE STAGES THAT BLOW WEREN'T ALLOWED OH MAN I AM SO COOL WITH THIS RULESET AND WILL USE IT FOREVER!"

Example 1: Say we have two players of the SAME exact skill level. Lets just say for the sake of the argument that their names are JFox and GOTM. JFox plays peach, GOTM plays fox, and they are exactly the same skill level for the sake of the argument.

We random it game 1, he wins on Stadium bcuz he plays fox is better than peach there, and he's just better in the matchup. Now I go to Mute City, and win on what some idiots call "a fair counterpick". All I've succeeded in doing was tying up the game, but whether or not I will win still comes down to winning on a neutral...watch this. GOTM counterpicks corneria, another god awful unbalanced stage, now i lost the set.

GOTM has a good chance to win on Mute City because if he's equally skilled as the Peach, the fact that Fox vs Peach is a joke matchup that you can play in your sleep and still win makes up for the counterpick. Fox can waveshine Peach off the stage into shine spike(no ledge for her to grab), when he is off the stage he can stall with shine to stall for the stage to come down, he can recover through the bottom of the stage in many ways to make it difficult for Peach to guess which direction he is going, at least one part of the stage when it goes down has a wall for wall infinite, most of the parts that go down are large to allow for a lot of room to shoot lasers without having to worry about Peach catching him. Yeah you can get chaingrabbed but that can also happen on FD. No ledge kind of sucks but it also helps by shining her off the stage into another shine. And honestly, you have two broad categories when there is a ledge. Either you go for it or you don't. If you go for it you can always be edgehogged, and if you don't you can always get hit. You can always up b into the road to take small damage and avoid getting hit by her if you're really scared that she's going to guess where you're going to go or you're too far out whereas on other stages if you're too far out you're going to get edgehogged for free or just die. The only exception to that on Mute is when the road goes away for a short period of time. The cars can't hit you on Mute City if you're all the way on the side or if you're on top of a platform.

Besides all of those things he could do as Fox, he has the option to switch to another character. If he couldn't use any of that to his advantage then shouldn't he get punished for not playing another character? Link vs Ganon is very different on FD where Ganon can CG Link to death then it is on FoD where he can't. Isn't it the Link players fault for not switching to another character on FD so he doesn't get CGed to death? Yes, it 100% is his fault.

Did counterpicks actually help me, or did they just turn this set into an almost guaranteed loss as soon as I lost the neutral? See GOTM won the neutral, and now with counterpicks has guaranteed himself the victory because he used counterpicks.

Counterpicks COULD have helped you. You chose to only use one character that has a very bad matchup vs Fox.

Example 2: Lets take another scenario. Say I am playing Scar, a player that is better than me.

We random it, and we get FoD. Now because his character sucks there, lets say I win this one just cuz he got unlucky on the random select. I've already won the match, unless something unlikely occurs. Scar wins game 2, w/e. Now Peach goes to Mute and I win cuz its mute city. Again, the game just basically came down to who won game 1 right?

Not really. First of all, Scar can and should have won on Fountain of Dreams because if I can beat you there in Falcon vs Peach, he should be able too. Secondly, Doyoung has counterpicked Mute City on G-Reg and lost to him (badly iirc) there and Jiggs is extremely good on that stage. So neither the result of R1 NOR of R3 was predetermined. If Scar lost both of those matches then he blows. And once again, Scar CAN switch characters.

Example 3: Lets say I'm playing vs eggm again. Lets say Eggm SD's cuz hes eggm and i squeak out a win on Stadium. Now eggm just lost the set because of one lousy sd. Game 2 he wins on his pick. Game 3 I win on Mute City.

Well Eggm should multistock you anyways so this scenario is kind of unlikely. Beyond that, yeah R3 is free because Eggm is terrible on counterpick stages.

So the lesser player wins game 1 due to luck (flukes or bad random stage) roughly 25% of the time? And with counterpicks if u lose game 1 the set is over if they use their counterpicks well, so that means u lose a set to a lesser player 25% of the time because of counterpicks....now obviously that sounds high cuz there would be more grumbling if this actually happened 25% of the time, BUT then again how often do two people of equal skill actually fight in a tourney anyway? So this scenario doesn't play itself out that often due to skill gaps, but when does 25% of the time the wrong player is winning. (obviously this math is not carefully calculated, but this point demonstrates how badly a stage can influence a match between close competitors)

You don't think a lesser player will EVER beat a better player? Fact - It happens regularly. I can guarantee you there are many people who have taken rounds off M2K while being a lot worse than he is. Upsets happen. It's not like someone is going to beat someone that is a noticeable degree better than them because of counterpick stages. If two people are very close in skill, yes it could make a difference. Not really because you're taking them to a cp stage but more because whoever wins R1 has an inherent advantage if the two people are close in skill with or without counterpick stages. This is because they only have to win 1 out of 2 of the remaining matches and since they are close in skill they have a greater chance to win after winning R1.

Instead of your theory smash, let's talk about REAL smash. These are the sets I was counterpicked to Mute City and Brinstar

Brinstar
Kage - Last SPOC I went to in like May or w/e I did a MM with Kage in Link vs Ganon. R5 he counterpicks Brinstar and the match is last stock. The whole set was 2-3 with him winning. The whole set was filled with close matches and I'm pretty sure this was the only "gay" counterpick stage that was picked. No wall kinda sucks balls but no johns, he did outplay me.

Doyoung - There was a small RU tourney that I played him in. He lost to me in Jiggs vs Fox on this stage. The whole set was 3-0 me. R1 he lost in Fox vs Falco, R2 he lost in Fox ditto on Floats(yes HE CPed it), R3 he lost in Fox vs Jiggs on Brinstar. Doyoung is undeniably a good player and not leagues behind me in skill.

Inui - Another RU tourney. R1 I win in Falco vs Sheik last stock 90%. R2 I beat him last stock in Falcon vs Peach or Sheik, I don't remember. There was another time in ancient history during one of the TSA biweeklies that I played against him. I lose R1 in Falco vs Sheik. I CP Corneria and lose in Falco vs Sheik. R3 I CP Pokemon Stadium and win in Fox vs Sheik. R4 he CPs Brinstar and I win in Falcon vs Sheik. R5 he counterpicks Kongo Jungle 64 and I win in Falco vs Sheik.

Vanz - CoT3 crew battles. I go in with one stock to his four in Falcon vs Peach. I take off a stock and kinda get gimped on my one stock. CoT2 he CPed it and I wanted to see how I'd do with Falco vs Peach on that stage. I SDed twice(once was from getting off the invincibility cloud and dairing through the lava, then not double jumping and falling through the bottom while still invincible LOL I am so bad at this game) and got 2 or 3 stocked, don't remember. I won the set 2-1. The next time I played Vanz he CPed me with FoD at one of Alukard's biweeklies.

Phish-it - Smashacre in pools. He lost the set 0-2 and he lost on Brinstar as DK vs my Fox.

Mute City
Doyoung - TSA biweekly long ago. He won on Mute City from resting my shield when he was at 90% last stock. I got pushed off and couldn't double jump, resulting in me losing my stock. He lost the set 1-2.

Inui - Dm held a Melee tournament like 2 weeks after Brawl came out. R1 was last stock in Falco vs Sheik. R2 was Falcon vs Peach and he got JV2 stocked. It was almost him getting 3 stocked but I dropped the ball. SPOC 3 R1 he loses Falco vs Sheik last stock. R2 he loses last stock Fox vs Peach(and I couldn't waveshine.)

Vidjogamer - Smashtastrophe 2. He 2 stocked me. No room to run around when the stage is up and Fox gets CGed . He got 2 stocked R1 on Battlefield and I beat him by a percent lead R3 on Floats.

Brinstar Analysis
got outplayed by Kage on Brinstar in a close match of a close set.

beat Doyoung on Brinstar(can't remember how close it was and he won zero matches the whole set.)

beat Inui on Brinstar twice by the same amount or better than on neutrals.
did respectable in crews vs Vanz on Brinstar and SDs + him outplaying me made him kinda **** me on Brinstar.

beat Phish-it on Brinstar(don't remember how close/unclose it was).

Mute City Analysis
yet another random ******** doyoung moment causes him to win. I have been shieldstabbed by rest with a FULL SHIELD(not joking) against him, been hit by shine spikes blessed by God because there is no other way he could have been close enough to hit me with them, been pushed off Yoshi's Story and died in a similar way, the list goes on and on.

beat Inui twice on Mute City by about the same amount as I won on neutrals.

got outplayed by Vidjo on Mute City.

So I lost a grand total of one time to bull**** against someone who has bull****ted me out of COUNTLESS stocks/matches. Step your **** up guys.