Melee Stage Discussion (Sticky?)

[Zone]

Let me get this straight.

Grim Tuesday obviously understands why we "banned" Mute City, Corneria ect. But he's trying to make a point if you make enough bans lets say you have a doctor mario vs Marth match up. If they all use his hybrid striking that he mentioned earlier. I personally hate FD against Doc, and most doc's hate yoshi's against me(When I choose Marth). that's 2 stages on the nuetral side that are striked right off the bat between me and a doc player. I can definitely see a possibility of us ending up on say Mute City, If neither one of us was just scared of it cuz we don't know how to play on it.

I think Grim is just trying to say, Sure peach is broken on it. That's why you get more bans. So if you face a peach, you can ban it.

But what if since the stage striking lead to Mute City, and say, the doc loses to me. he takes me back there cuz he lost. I stay Marth cuz I felt confident. but NOW he changes to Peach(Cuz I didn't know he played Peach as well.)

Is this on me cuz I need to learn more characters?

Cuz it seems like wouldn't it only make the first match fair?
or did I misunderstand something?

 

[Bones0]

Yeah, character switching is definitely something that needs to be changed in the rule set. Players should have to choose characters and then choose the most fair stage for that matchup. As it currently goes, players have to GUESS what character they will choose (or are capable of choosing) and then pick an appropriate counterpick. Once they see what character their opponent chooses, they either have to stay with their current character who probably loses the matchup their opponent just chose (turning what should have been a match slightly in his advantage into a CP for his opponent) or they can change characters to account for their opponent's new character and then you end up playing matches no one wanted to play (both people playing secondaries on a stage neither likes [only picked for its obscene advantages against other characters]).

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Let me get this straight.

Grim Tuesday obviously understands why we "banned" Mute City, Corneria ect. But he's trying to make a point if you make enough bans lets say you have a doctor mario vs Marth match up. If they all use his hybrid striking that he mentioned earlier. I personally hate FD against Doc, and most doc's hate yoshi's against me(When I choose Marth). that's 2 stages on the nuetral side that are striked right off the bat between me and a doc player. I can definitely see a possibility of us ending up on say Mute City, If neither one of us was just scared of it cuz we don't know how to play on it.

I think Grim is just trying to say, Sure peach is broken on it. That's why you get more bans. So if you face a peach, you can ban it.

But what if since the stage striking lead to Mute City, and say, the doc loses to me. he takes me back there cuz he lost. I stay Marth cuz I felt confident. but NOW he changes to Peach(Cuz I didn't know he played Peach as well.)

Is this on me cuz I need to learn more characters?

Cuz it seems like wouldn't it only make the first match fair?
or did I misunderstand something?

Spot on Zone.

 

[Ghostbone]

Just adding a new stage and give out an additional ban to make sure you don't get taken there, if the stage feels unfair is not the optimal solution neither.
Follow me for a quick example: Suppose we have five stages s1, s2, ..., s5 (the neutrals ) that are allowed to be played on, s1 giving you a decent advantage, and s2 a slight one. s3 is pretty neutral, s4 is a slight advantage to me, s5 is fairly good for me. Now we add c1 which is hugely in my favor.
Suppose I win our first match of the set (where we striked to s3).
If I had a single ban, I'd ban s1, and our second game would be on s2, which feels about fair for your counterpick.
However adding c1 gives me an additional ban, so I ban s1 and s2, and your best bet is to pick the neutral stage again.

Of course this is a pretty special case, but it might happen (maybe not in a variant which is so dramatic as the one above... say we had c2, and c3 without additional bans. C2 favours me again, c3 is even better then s1 for you. So we would end up fighting on s2, instead of s1 for the second match). So why add new stages which are just in favor of a very limited amount of characters and gives them the option to burn away fairly neutral stages where the opponent has a slight advantage?

I feel having a set of stages which are fairly neutral in the first place is the best idea. The neutral stages + pokemon stadium (maybe KJ64) are pretty fine. There is a slight advantage for some characters on some of the stages, like Marth liking Yoshis Story, or Peach doing pretty well on Dreamland, but these slight advantages are pretty insignificant compared to player skill.

The thing about that is your forgetting that being good on lots of stages is a character strength, so that character deserves their advantage because they're better on more stages than you are.
Also I'll keep saying this over and over again KJ64 is worse than Brinstar and RC >.>
People just don't play gay enough for this to be immediately obvious.

 

[Xyzz]

I'm not completely sold on KJ; I only played friendlies with a good friend of mine, and both of loath the campy projectile based style, so I might be missing the "gayness". But I really doubt KJ can live up to the gayness of RC, where you find your opponent on another platform and just shoot stuff at him automatically - it's a good fox stage for a reason. It's nowhere as centralizing as poke floats or lolhyrule, but still I don't really enjoy a metagame which promotes fox, because he has "more good stages", where he can use his laser all of the time. Of course I'd be happy to be enlightened on KJ gayness.

Or do you see alternative stages which are not inherently ******** (lol bombons dropping from the skylolol :D), which really look like a addition to the current meta game? Or why is it better to have more stages, when they're giving some characters too big of an advantage?

On the positive side:
+1 for the melee comm not plaing gay! :D

 

[Ghostbone]

Well Jiggs on Kongo Jungle can use her aerial mobility to easily avoid lots of characters for a significant amount of time. She also can go below the stage and attack, and she then use pound to stall until she can get in the barrel. Then using the barrel she goes really high up, and can easily dodge the opponent as she comes back down due to the layout and size.

Other characters like Fox and Peach can also use the layout extremely well for camping, making themselves virtually untouchable. (the stage pretty much has light circle camping)

Then there's the problem of the randomness of the barrel.
CF dairs you offstage? You try to meteor cancel? Too bad the barrel decides to be there at that time and you accidentally shoot yourself downwards to your death with no warning.
Fox just shine-spiked you? No need to worry the barrel randomly showed up on that side and you have a free ride back onto the stage.

Yea I really don't like the idea of something that can save or gimp you randomly with no warning....

 

[N.A.G.A.C.E]

Armada didn't lose a single match during pound IV there, and he states that Peach is probably too good on the stage. This alone should make you think that there is a slight problem.

you are right armada didnt lose a single match on mute city during pound 4, of course he didnt win any ether mute city was banned for pound 4. and even if what u said was true (i am guessing u meant the genesis before pound 4) armada is one of the best players in the world, it makes sense he doesn't lose on a good counter pick for his character.

 

[Bones0]

I'm not completely sold on KJ; I only played friendlies with a good friend of mine, and both of loath the campy projectile based style, so I might be missing the "gayness". But I really doubt KJ can live up to the gayness of RC, where you find your opponent on another platform and just shoot stuff at him automatically - it's a good fox stage for a reason. It's nowhere as centralizing as poke floats or lolhyrule, but still I don't really enjoy a metagame which promotes fox, because he has "more good stages", where he can use his laser all of the time. Of course I'd be happy to be enlightened on KJ gayness.

Or do you see alternative stages which are not inherently ******** (lol bombons dropping from the skylolol :D), which really look like a addition to the current meta game? Or why is it better to have more stages, when they're giving some characters too big of an advantage?

On the positive side:
+1 for the melee comm not plaing gay! :D

If you just try to camp for one friendly, it becomes REALLY obvious how broken the stage is. I think it's a damn shame because I love the layout of the stage, and I think if it were just a tad smaller and without the barrel it'd be perfect, but as it is now it is really just flat out camping if one character is even decently faster than the other. You can literally avoid your opponent for minutes at a time without them even getting close to hitting you. As much as I loathe gameplay on RC, at least you have actual opportunities to hit your opponent, even if there are only a few crappy options for approaching.

 

[MTKO]

So if I'm getting this right, most people are agree that this should happen: Winner picks character, loser picks, winner bans X amount of stages, loser selects a stage. Seems more fair to me and seems like it would allow for many more stage options.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

EDIT: Nevermind.

 

[Ghostbone]

So if I'm getting this right, most people are agree that this should happen: Winner picks character, loser picks, winner bans X amount of stages, loser selects a stage. Seems more fair to me and seems like it would allow for many more stage options.

That's less fair.....

With the current format the winner can at least change characters so they're not totally screwed over by the stage.

 

[Dragoon Fighter]

Why is this not stickied yet. Anyway, could we talk about melee stage hacks as well. (I.E. would Termina bay turtle only with rock on the side be a tournement legal stage.)

 

[1048576]

Wouldn't it be really difficult to approach someone standing on the heavily sloped sides of the turtle?

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Yep, hacks are a-ok to talk about.

 

[Germs Lady]

HELLO ALL - ONKSI, Being the amazing guy that he is just put this together for us:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9yakiAdfX0&feature=channel_video_title

Please repost it to you Facebook wall or tweet it so that we can get more votes to stay in top 20!!!

THANK YOU TO ALL HAVE VOTED THUS FAR, LOVE,
Zohreh aka GERMs LaDY

 

[blindfreak9]

What about the Smashville stage hacked Green Greens?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmdiQXvpyTo

 

[Warhawk]

What about the Smashville stage hacked Green Greens?http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmdiQXvpyTo

I think that stage is probably the coolest stage hack and from what I've seen I can't think of how it wouldn't be tournament legal short of not everyone having access to hacked copies of melee.

 

[oliman]

sometimes as falco i dair people beneath pokemon stadium, right smack dab in the middle of the stage. wtfs up with that

 

[Sinji]

I love falco's shield poke on PS.

 

[BairJew]

After reading through this whole thread there are several things I’m confused about and several things I in contrast agree with.
@Doser: ”I just cannot see the reason why people are so quick to ban stages due to fox being too strong on it. Foxes aren't winning nationals, they aren't close to being too common in top 10's in huge tournaments, why not let it play out.”
This is a very fair point to bring up, my curiosity over the stage banning decisions slightly revolves around this idea. It is obvious that some stages are definite decisive choices when it comes to banning. Yet some questions tend to arise for the reasons behind the banning of others. Maybe the community is scared of what could be seen as a “Fox Takeover” yet the removal of so many stages helpful to floaties will most likely strike a heavily blow on the character diversity of the community as a whole.
@Redact: “its because due to the way the stages are designed, people can see that these stages can be abused by foxes for easy wins if played correctly.”
Referencing what I said earlier scared of what might happen, the “Fox Takeover” this proved by the following quote: “prevention is the best cure, and in a smash perspective, it is best we dont wait until m2k plays fox and camps/abuses on bad stages to win a major before we ban them.”
@Ch3s: “Why not add more CP stages, such as Mute or KJ, and then have two options for bans. Either allow someone to ban one neutral, or to ban ALL CPs. basically, if you hate all cps, you have the option of banning them all but then your opponent gets to choose any of the neutrals he wants (which in most cases allows for a character advantage like floaties still have dreamland, etc.) What this allows for is a more liberal counterpick stage list. Obviously there are cons like if you are in love with CPs but it is a good way to get certain stages included that people otherwise wouldn’t consider as CPs”
In my honest opinion this idea is phenomenal. It allows for a more strategic play style during the choice selection of stages. This seems beneficial for both sides during the CP process and maybe it would be a smart idea to start out slow and see if this works in small local tourneys. Definitely highly supportive of this though. It allows for not only a more advanced style of play from the players but also adds more choices and decisions to the matches which in turn develop into more situations and therefore amount to a deeper play within the game. Rather than the repetitive choice of the same stages occurring over and over again. This means both players need to adapt to the new surroundings and options as well as situations advancing the game style which we as a community are slowing falling into place with.
@TheGoat: “I think perhaps more stages should be allowed and more bans too balance it.” “It kinda sucks seeing so many stages in the game and only playing on a select few over and over again-I know the reasons behind bans for some stages, but I think at this point in time it would benefit the melee community to at least try out new stages in FRIENDLIES like at tournaments.”

​

The previous comments were also in reference to this post which in turn I agree with. For some reason the community is slowly cutting and slashing stages till in the end we are left with BF. This is sadly where most everyone agrees and are not open to any outside opinions trying to boost the morale of the many for an increase in stage choice for CP. The wish that this will ever happen is a dreary and meek one. Yet, through this sad census decision there will still be few who support the above, and for those I indeed look forward to your opinions and why we should expand the stage selections for CP’s. For the others I know why you need to stick with limited amounts of stages it helps to learn more about each stage and to improve your skills and adaptive natures on those stages. Whereas more stages means more complex decisions and scenarios which are not only more difficult to get out of but also near impossible to counter at first glance. Yet, sometimes depth of a game comes down to more than just a narrowing of stages and sticking your firm beliefs into one character. With depth a game can become a selection of countering a stage with a different character to counter your opponent’s decision. Hopefully people can see where I am coming from and realize that maybe there is more to this game than sticking firm beliefs into one character and blaming losses on the stage alone.
@Sveet: “There are two logical options:”
In this interesting diagram you posed that there are 2 kinds of people. Those that acknowledge broken strategies and look for loopholes within these to try to suade others into allowing more stages. Then the other kind of people who believe all stages which are constituted as unfair should be banned, and BF should be basically the fairest stage. Not to say hopefully in your eyes the removal of most if not all CP stages.
Then you later posed an opinion when asked by Grim Tuesday what is it that makes something the “best” stage.
“The stage also forces the players through various semi-chokes which allows safe approaches but doesn't force a conflict (a forced conflict would be like brinstar when the lava goes all the way up and there is only the top platform available and both players have to go there or get burned). There is an insane amount of depth to this stage”
Your theory on conflicting stages and non-conflicting stages was very intriguing. Posing that Brinstar has conflicting choices, whereas RC not so much, due to the reasoning that they wouldn’t harmfully affect either side and allows for more depth within game play due to more advanced options of choices between approaching and camping methods. This methodical reasoning was quite accurate, yet it posed that maybe other stages also shed light to these choices. Your acknowledgement that these increased depth of play leads me to believe that you would slightly understand Grim’s argument when he later said that more stages add more depth. This confused me slightly when Sveet and JPOBS basically tag-teamed Grim and tried to blatantly refute his opinion due to his quite thorough explanation to why more stages add more depth. If anything its my serious opinion that JPOBS wasn’t entirely understanding what Grim was saying. It seemed very odd when the discussion became more of an effort to shove idealistic views down Grim’s throat than discussing the idea of how you both could be equally right. Grim posing that the increasing of stages would add to game depth with the options and choices a player would have to make to adapt to their opponent’s decision or choices. This highly refutes JPOBS’ statement claiming that players would insta-ban that stage immediately after their opponent chooses the character who preforms best on that stage. What if the player had never used that stage before? The opposing player would be making a somewhat dire mistake based off of mere statistical evidence rather than instead countering it with either a new character selection or a more appropriate neutral ban when it comes to CPing. This argument might have been somewhat lessened in overall back and forth with repeated comments if Ch3s’s idea given to him by Taj was more openly and less critically viewed. This might make everyone happier with the choice between those who want more CP’s and those who want them all to be banished for ever. I know that Sveet actually said he liked RC (see above quotation) which seemingly means he can objectively view CP stages as something of high value due to the options and opportunities they give a player.
Hopefully this allows for a more constructive view on what could be said for both ideas. I’m not too sure why more CP stages would be an issue if Ch3s’s ideal was implemented. Yet, the slow and steadily slicing down of all stages in general seems to be creating a pattern. I hope that at the end of the day the community isn’t stuck with a ruleset revolving around a single stage which in most opinions seems to be BF. In hopes that this can be seen objectively in a brighter light I hope it can persuade some rock solid opinions.​

 

[Fortress | Sveet]

I like RC, its my favorite stage, but I accept that it is unfair to pretty much anyone that isn't fox.

 

[Varist]

what the **** is that supposed to be bairjew?

who told you that was a good idea?

 

[BairJew]

lmao I thought it was pretty good

 

[crush]

Great post bairjew <33333333

 

[WritersBlah]

I like RC, its my favorite stage, but I accept that it is unfair to pretty much anyone that isn't fox.

Then here's an idea. Instead of having something needlessly complicated like Matchup-specific banned stages, why not just ban stages for specific characters? If Fox is too good on specific stages, just ban those stages automatically when a player chooses Fox. Same for Peach on Mute City or Marth on Venom (I think it should remain legal for Link though; he isn't even seen that often in the competitive scene, poor fella needs all the help he can get). No need for memorizing super-complicated stage legality lists, just use common sense.

Also, could somebody please explain to me why Yoshi's Island 64 is banned? Is it literally because of cloud camping/stalling? Because those clouds disappear after standing on them for, like, five seconds. I don't see how that constitutes breaking the game.

 

[Zone]

Then here's an idea. Instead of having something needlessly complicated like Matchup-specific banned stages, why not just ban stages for specific characters? If Fox is too good on specific stages, just ban those stages automatically when a player chooses Fox. Same for Peach on Mute City or Marth on Venom (I think it should remain legal for Link though; he isn't even seen that often in the competitive scene, poor fella needs all the help he can get). No need for memorizing super-complicated stage legality lists, just use common sense.

Also, could somebody please explain to me why Yoshi's Island 64 is banned? Is it literally because of cloud camping/stalling? Because those clouds disappear after standing on them for, like, five seconds. I don't see how that constitutes breaking the game.

Ya but if you jump, you refresh the decay on the cloud.

 

[WritersBlah]

Alright, well I can see how that'd be an issue with most projectile users (space animals, Young Link, Doc, Peach), plus I suppose it sort of becomes easy for characters like Puff to edgeguard characters with not-so-great jumping ability, so...yeah, I can see why it's banned now. Sorry if it sounded like a stupid question.