Event - MLG Anaheim 2014 My Personal Suggestions on MLG rules and Event.

[iRJi]

Hey everyone! For the people who know me very well, I have attended many MLG events. Although I have attended so many, this is my first Smash related event. While I know their are multiple topics on things I might touch, explain, or suggest below, I felt that it was needed to state everything in one place with explanation and reasoning for each statement.

Stagelist: This is something I want to touch on first, since there has been a lot of contravention on it. The stage list is:

Starter Stages
Battlefield
Castle Siege
Delfino Plaza
Final Destination
Halberd
Lylat Cruise
Pokémon Stadium
Smashville
Yoshi’s Island

Counter-Pick Stages
Brinstar
Frigate Orpheon
Green Greens
Norfair
Pictochat
Pokémon Stadium 2
Rainbow Cruise

At first, I was a bit iffy on how this was going to play out. However, I personally never judge off of pure prediction and I am a person who would rather test and see first hand how it will work. Like I have said before in previous threads and posts, only facts and testing will bring results, not just theory.I practiced the stages since the stage release, and felt very confident on my performance when I actually had to play with them. Overall, this stage list is way better then any list stated for separate regions. However, It can be improved by tweaking it a bit. I believe the addition of Norfair is a mistake. Before, there was an argument about how the stage induces aggressive play, and after watching numerous people play, that statement can be proven false.

One small change I would make would be switching the stage list from 9 stages to 7 stages by eliminating Halberd and Delfino Plaza, and then moving Halberd and Delfino to a counter pick. By making this small change, I feel it can greatly increase the overall performance of each character on getting a stage that is not heavily biased to crippling, or increasing a characters chance significantly. While there was an argument as to why we should call it Starters in stead of Neutrals because no stage is equally fair to all characters, you can still try even out the odds to it's best abilities without hindering or increasing a players chance by a large amount. On stage striking, I think the system should be a 1/2/2/1 for a 7 starter as opposed to a potential 2/3/1, but this is subjective.

Televisions: When I heard that MLG was going to use HDTV's, it made me worry, and with good reason. All HDTV's have lag to an extent, and all you can do is not eliminate the lag completely, but decrease it as much as possible. The TV's used at the event goes by that statement. I previously, but recentlly, posted this on a thread about How effective the TV's were:

"Actually, they are classified as portable HDTVs. they were not monitors of any sort, jsut had a feature to become one. Also, they did have a very slight lag, but was adaptable after playing on them for a game or so. Personally, I fell they need to change the TVs to actual monitors to eliminate possible lag for the future. I see that they are listing new TVs since the ones that were used are discontinued, but they may run into the same fate. the acer monitors they were using for tekken and the ffa for halo however, may suit the game fine and eliminate any possible lag. However, if they use the acers, they will need to buy additional attachments to convert the AV to VGA input. a small price to pay to increase enjoyable play though."

I think all the TV or monitor options are going to need retesting by more then just a select few. I know that the people who went to Orlando had mix opinions on the TV's on weather they had lag or not. By reading the above, you can clearly see my opinion on it, but again, after playing on the TV for a while you can adapt to it. However, while you can adapt to it, it can still hinder a player from doing correct options more often then not. In fighting games, mistakes like input and blocking are crucial, and ignoring a lot of the peoples response on the TV's would just hurt more then help in the end. Like I said, the TV's should be retested, and also should be tested on a monitor LCD with a VGA input. They do have adapters that can convert AV to VGA, and they run really cheap. I suggest we should invest onto looking at them.

Ruleset: This needs some changing. There are many loop holes in the rules that can be fixed with proper wording. Suggestions are:

All Infinite's are banned outside of Ice Climber Chain grabs (You can also list the grab combination of IC's that should be banned, as well as provide video example of all of the Infinite's that are banned"


Walking Chaingrabs are enabled: I know that this will raise eye brows and cause a lot of mixed opinions, but this was on for the MLG event, so I just want i to be in clear print that it should be legel. The reasoning behind it is, you can minimize the damage taken for a walking chain grab, as opposed to an infinite where it can render a character useless.

Stage banning should be done after the first match, as opposed to after the character has been selected. The reason behind this is that you can also play your stage selection according to the opponents play style. A person who likes to camp can be CP'd to Castle Siege because of the limited amount of area to use projectiles for 50 seconds. Just an example of how it can be played out on that thought.

Of course, I will add more later. I am in class, so ya...

 

[Conti]

This post contains multiple types of WIN... the stagelist idea is decent... maybe just remove norfair and GGs and move halberd and delphino down...
but def a good post... hope peoplee see this

 

[demonictoonlink]

I think you accidentally left Green Greens 0_o

 

[iRJi]

Edit. for testing.

Come on guys. I know you want to post your opinions. DO so.

 

[Reizilla]

Norfair is perfectly legit. It's a great counterpick for a lot of characters. Saying that it should be banned because it doesn't promote aggressive isn't a valid argument since most stages are campy anyway. And it doesn't completely destroy any characters, except maybe ICs. I also believe that Delfino is a better starter than Castle Siege, but that might be personal preference. I do agree that Halberd should be counter pick and Green Greens should be banned.

Laggy TVs mean that the person in control gains one or two more frames of advantage on every attack. They can also throw off Marth a lot d:
/johning for Neo and Mike

 

[Blacknight99923]

or ice climbers.

But lag really does hurt marth. No marth placed in top 30 (and i don't think 36) at aibs most recent tournament ladder, which is rare for a character that high on the tier list

 

[ADHD]

They won't listen to you RJ. Overswarm and AZ are the most confused, little stubborn individuals I've ever met, it's infuriating.

 

[iRJi]

They won't listen to you RJ. Overswarm and AZ are the most confused, little stubborn individuals I've ever met, it's infuriating.

That is why I am making this thread. While they are being non responsive, it will be nice to start something. If it gets enough attention, the results will come in due time.

 

[PokemonMasterIRL]

They won't listen to you RJ. Overswarm and AZ are the most confused, little stubborn individuals I've ever met, it's infuriating.

I like your ALex avatar ADHD, Dsf raaaaaapes.

 

[MK26]

Question, iRJi: how does decreasing the number of stages in sta

rters make it more fair? one would think that more stages would ensure that the stage not struck is the most neutral possible - it's only common sense, if there's a wider pool you can cut more. The only way this wouldnt work is if both delfino and halberd favour the same type of character, but that doesnt seem to be the truth...despite superficially having the same "floating platform touching down in places" idea, they actually strike a nice balance with each other. Everybody knows that halberd has some of the smallest top death boundaries, but a little-known tidbit is that some of delfino's side boundaries are the smallest of all the neutral stages there.

Also, I really want to see ledge grab counts for games on norfair - i didnt think it needed to be an exception before the tourney, and i dont think so now either...but nobody responded to me, either

 

[iRJi]

Question, iRJi: how does decreasing the number of stages in starters make it more fair? one would think that more stages would ensure that the stage not struck is the most neutral possible - it's only common sense, if there's a wider pool you can cut more. The only way this wouldnt work is if both delfino and halberd favour the same type of character, but that doesnt seem to be the truth...despite superficially having the same "floating platform touching down in places" idea, they actually strike a nice balance with each other. Everybody knows that halberd has some of the smallest top death boundaries, but a little-known tidbit is that some of delfino's side boundaries are the smallest of all the neutral stages there.

Also, I really want to see ledge grab counts for games on norfair - i didnt think it needed to be an exception before the tourney, and i dont think so now either...but nobody responded to me, either

It could on definition even out the stages to make the starters the most even, but in order for that to truly take the definition one would have to actually not have an advantage on majority of stages. You can think that adding more stages would eliminate all possible bad stages, but there is another side to that statement where adding more stages also eliminates possible select stages at one time. What I mean by that is, when you add more stages, you also grant a player more stages to eliminate at one time. Because of that, it can lean to a players choice after eliminating all possible even stages for the opponent, to put it in your favor. One character can only have so many even stages, before it becomes beneficial or hindering at one point. This is why I feel that 5 stages was too small of a number, but 9 stages is too large. It needs a middle ground. I am sure that when this was selected, it was not fully tested on what character would land on what stage after stage striking. I am sure that when they actually picked 9 stages, they only theorized what a character can do on what select stage. While that is one way to go about it, you need to add more detail on why it would be hindering to a character more then beneficial, and vise versa. Of course, I have said earlier that a different way to strike stages can solve the issue, but it might result in the same things.

As for the norfair tidbit. It was raised only for sheer fact that there are 6 ledges instead of 2. 45 is a high number for that stage, however. I think 40 would have worked just fine.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Only time Norfair was used in the top 8 had pika beating MK, even with DSF getting a gimp and essentially starting with a 1 stock advantage. Match was very fun to watch, btw.

 

[Trent]

I just had an issue with the televisions.

Maybe 'cause I played Sonic, I dunno. I noticed it, and it threw off my game horribly. I DO hope they invest in other televisions.

 

[Tarmogoyf]

Uh, add japes. Many worse stages than japes are legal, so either ban a bunch or add japes.

 

[Reizilla]

Japes is banned? Wtf? Inconceivable!!!!! >:[

 

[Tokyoinamerica]

Screw the continuation rule. To hell with it.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Did some bad stuff happen at the tournament? The results seemed pretty good, and there would be some value in the MLG rules being consistent. I wasn't there, but when it comes time for Columbus, I'd like to be playing the same game with the same rules as the Orlando people. I'd say it would be wise to cite problems actually happening as a basis for changing the MLG rules for this year's circuit now that the first event has happened already.

I do, however, support clarification of the existing rules, particularly in the case of a few of the vague "infinite" rules. That wouldn't be changing the rules so much as making sure everyone understands exactly what is and isn't allowed and exactly where the line is.

 

[iRJi]

Did some bad stuff happen at the tournament? The results seemed pretty good, and there would be some value in the MLG rules being consistent. I wasn't there, but when it comes time for Columbus, I'd like to be playing the same game with the same rules as the Orlando people. I'd say it would be wise to cite problems actually happening as a basis for changing the MLG rules for this year's circuit now that the first event has happened already.

I do, however, support clarification of the existing rules, particularly in the case of a few of the vague "infinite" rules. That wouldn't be changing the rules so much as making sure everyone understands exactly what is and isn't allowed and exactly where the line is.

I almost forgot about this o_o

1) TV's caused issues due to lag. Like I have said in the OP, while there were some people who believed the TV's were fine, Majority felt that the TV's had input lag (Me being one of the people who also feel the same way) I feel this issue should be addressed ASAP, simply because playing on laggy TV's are bad. On a more meaningful level, it can hinder a player from properly doing the right inputs at the right time, thus causing more errors and a higher chance to lose.

The rules, as everyone has said who posted in this thread, on terms of clarity, needs to be addressed. This overall is a simple fix. You left some infinite's out on certain characters, while disabling the rest of them. Proper wording can easily fix this issue.

While the results look decent, the response to the list of how the stages were not. We addressed way before the tournament that the rules should be catered to and looked over. The rules overall played out decent, but can be improved by selecting a few stages and altering them. Hell, you don't even need to eliminate stages overall. I strongly feel that the stage list overall can be played just fine, despite how I feel about Norfair. The real issue for the stages is the starting stages. A simple removal of 2 stages, and just replacing them in the counter pick section would do it justice beyond levels of just words. I am glad how this all played out, but the goal should be to aim for the best set of rules possible, and just making the few selection of suggestions that I have mentioned can do just that. Apparently, I am not the only one who feels this way as well, as there are many other posts saying that they starting list isn't efficient (Of course, not saying they are leaning to my suggestions as well). I am not leaning to a region's personal preference of starting stages, I am actually just looking at it from the official MLG list, and going by that.

Please, all comments are appreciated. It can only do more help then harm. This is for everyone.

 

[Arturito_Burrito]

One small change I would make would be switching the stage list from 9 stages to 7 stages by eliminating Halberd and Delfino Plaza, and then moving Halberd and Delfino to a counter pick. By making this small change, I feel it can greatly increase the overall performance of each character on getting a stage that is not heavily biased to crippling, or increasing a characters chance significantly. While there was an argument as to why we should call it Starters in stead of Neutrals because no stage is equally fair to all characters, you can still try even out the odds to it's best abilities without hindering or increasing a players chance by a large amount. On stage striking, I think the system should be a 1/2/2/1 for a 7 starter as opposed to a potential 2/3/1, but this is subjective.
.

This statement is so biased, FD is "heavily crippling" in diddy's favor, If halberd if removed then so should FD.

 

[iRJi]

This statement is so biased, FD is "heavily crippling" in diddy's favor, If halberd if removed then so should FD.

I will not judge off of this post, but I will post this for you just in case you missed this.

It could on definition even out the stages to make the starters the most even, but in order for that to truly take the definition one would have to actually not have an advantage on majority of stages. You can think that adding more stages would eliminate all possible bad stages, but there is another side to that statement where adding more stages also eliminates possible select stages at one time. What I mean by that is, when you add more stages, you also grant a player more stages to eliminate at one time. Because of that, it can lean to a players choice after eliminating all possible even stages for the opponent, to put it in your favor. One character can only have so many even stages, before it becomes beneficial or hindering at one point. This is why I feel that 5 stages was too small of a number, but 9 stages is too large. It needs a middle ground. I am sure that when this was selected, it was not fully tested on what character would land on what stage after stage striking. I am sure that when they actually picked 9 stages, they only theorized what a character can do on what select stage. While that is one way to go about it, you need to add more detail on why it would be hindering to a character more then beneficial, and vise versa. Of course, I have said earlier that a different way to strike stages can solve the issue, but it might result in the same things.

 

[Rajam]

Question, iRJi: how does decreasing the number of stages in sta

rters make it more fair? one would think that more stages would ensure that the stage not struck is the most neutral possible - it's only common sense, if there's a wider pool you can cut more. The only way this wouldnt work is if both delfino and halberd favour the same type of character, but that doesnt seem to be the truth...despite superficially having the same "floating platform touching down in places" idea, they actually strike a nice balance with each other. Everybody knows that halberd has some of the smallest top death boundaries, but a little-known tidbit is that some of delfino's side boundaries are the smallest of all the neutral stages there.

Not necessarily. As more stages are added, you also get more bans to do. If all the stages (even banned ones) were available for the 1st match, An IC vs MK and other similar matchups will be fought in a dumb stage for IC, since MK can ban all the few good stages IC has in this matchup. Same idea applies if you only consider Starters and Counterpicks for 1st match. Adding a lot of Starters may be good but it doesn't ensure more "neutral" matchups all the time

 

[Pierce7d]

It's a matter of opinion. Do you think players should have to master the complex parts of certain stage layouts and should that skill be tested as a factor of our competative play? If so, yes. If not, no. I personally think, "No, not really." There are those that think that stages are a large part of what defines Smash as separate and possibly superior to other games, but I think that due to the large amounts of movement options in this game, it simply SHIFTS the skill which receives focus. I also feel that there's a good reason that there a lot of banned stages and not a lot of banned fighting tactics. The fighting aspect is simply more competative than the stage manipulation aspect, and to be fair, the fighting aspect is what most people probably compete to test, which is why there is such controversy in the stages in the first place.

EDIT: Eh, I started, might as well continue.

Now, one might ask where the line is drawn. Most people who have played a Smash game on any competative level would agree that platforms ADD to the dynamic of Smash. Many people (including me) would also agree that damaging hitboxes on the field detract from it, because you must shift focus away from your opponent to deal with the stage, and while that may be "cool" it detracts from the head to head fighting.

Some believe that being able to handle the stage and the opponent simultaneously demonstrates a greater level of skill and competition but I disagree with that. On Final Destination, if I were to play single's tournament match vs my opponent, but there was a third player on the screen, some 4 year old kid using Ganondorf, I would say this heavily detracts from the game play. Never mind that it affects me and my opponent, and the opponent can be easily avoided and manipulated, and is pretty predictable in spamming Fsmash and other shenanigans. The fact is, it seriously interferes with the perceived property of a competative match. In a like manner, so do many stages.

I also disagree with semi-permeable floors. In Melee, Kongo Jungle and Brinstar are the only legal stages that come to mind that have this element (and I believe Brinstar is now banned, but I'm not sure). I'm not TOO opposed to it on counter-pick stages, but I truly believe that they give certain characters (coughcoughMKcough) a HUGE advantage. The boost recovery tremendously, which is not necessarily bad, but it also enables characters to attack from below (which is a strong position in Brawl) and platform pressure opponents who are supposed to be in a position to avoid this (on the lowest ground). What's worse is that the best ways to avoid this is to either grab the ledge or get on a platform, which just moves you to another disadvantaged position.

In Melee, this was slightly less of an issue, because there are no flying characters in that game who can exploit the floor. Mango did CP ChuDat to Brinstar to soundly wreck his ICs with Jigglypuff, but that's Jiggs being good there as well as ICs being bad there, and there were other stage elements that were exploited more than the floor.

In Brawl, it just gets silly. The game has slower average falling speed to begin with and then characters can fly, etc. For this reason, I'm not particularly fond of Delfino and Halberd as neutrals, but I don't see any real problems with transforming stages, as all they do is shift the layout of the stage to another acceptable stage on regular intervals with LOADS of warning, and no surprises. I do think that Castle Siege and PS1 should be neutral.

 

[MK26]

unnecessary wall of text

Not necessarily. As more stages are added, you also get more bans to do. If all the stages (even banned ones) were available for the 1st match, An IC vs MK and other similar matchups will be fought in a dumb stage for IC, since MK can ban all the few good stages IC has in this matchup. Same idea applies if you only consider Starters and Counterpicks for 1st match. Adding a lot of Starters may be good but it doesn't ensure more "neutral" matchups all the time

But is that the fault of the characters or the stages? It's a character flaw of the Climbers that they don't have many cps to go to. Does this mean they should get to play on one of their cps in the first match? No. Likewise, it's a benefit for MK (like he needs any more ) that he's great on a ton of stages. Regardless of whether you have 7 stages neutral or 41, he'll benefit from the selection.

You picked essentially the most lopsided matchup to use as an example. Let's go the other way now: a ditto matchup. Naturally, the player that practices on more stages is more comfortable cping, but with a small neutral list we'll have the paradox of the other player having the upper hand. Assuming they play equal amounts, the player that doesn't spread his time around would probably gravitate to the "true" neutrals (and maybe one or two personal cps), giving him the advantage when it comes to striking if the neutral list is small. How is that fair? On the other hand, having 41 neutrals would give each player 20 chances to get rid of a stage he doesn't like, ensuring the most even playing ground. Approximating MLG's neutrals and cps, having 15 or 17 neutrals would still result in a fair stage, but might give a slight advantage to the player who's played on more of them more often. That sounds about right to me.

However, in the interest of time, a varied pool of 9 starters is certainly enough to get the desired effect of giving the advantage to the person who has more practice on more stages. What do the rest of the characters gain if we engineer the stage list so that Diddy's and IC's natural weakness of being **** on most stages is completely erased for the first game? A set where you'll automatically lose the first game and need to beat them on their cp in game 3 to win the set. The character that is good at fewer stages is lucky in that he can guarantee getting one of his cps in game 1 by virtue of being good on the right stages. Again, that sounds like a paradox to me.

Lemme put this another way. You have a theoretical character that goes even with Diddy. However, this character has stage advantages against Diddy on all the stages on MLG's list except Battlefield, FD, and Smashville (and PictoChat because PC is FD with interruptions), where he's disadvantaged. How can you say it's not fair to have a 7- or 9-neutral list if a 5-neutral list gives Diddy one of his counterpicks in game 1? One of his four counterpicks. Diddy has the advantage on 4 of 16 stages, but arbitrarily gets to take his opponent to two of them if the set goes to three games.

TL;DR: why handicap characters that are better on more stages? what makes fighting on a good stage for a character that has few good stages fairer than fighting on a good stage for a character that has more good stages, if, by definition, the character with more good stages has...more good stages to choose?

======

EDIT:this started out well but then got way off track :@

Some believe that being able to handle the stage and the opponent simultaneously demonstrates a greater level of skill and competition but I disagree with that. On Final Destination, if I were to play single's tournament match vs my opponent, but there was a third player on the screen, some 4 year old kid using Ganondorf, I would say this heavily detracts from the game play. Never mind that it affects me and my opponent, and the opponent can be easily avoided and manipulated, and is pretty predictable in spamming Fsmash and other shenanigans. The fact is, it seriously interferes with the perceived property of a competative match. In a like manner, so do many stages.

of course, this is going too far. A permanent hazard of any sort should be bad enough to get a stage banned. None of the stages on the MLG list hae any sort of permanent hazard. But, come to think of it, what if the kid stood in the middle of the stage, and every 30 seconds or so ran to one side of the stage, then the other, then back to the centre (ie giving a nice warning) before starting to attack (again, for 30 seconds or so, whereupon he would do the running thing and stop in the centre again)? I think that'd be a nice change of pace and would be the kind of stage that someone would go to if they completely mastered it (keeping a 4-year-old Smash slave in your basement ftw! :@) and wanted to bring out a kooky cp to throw their opponent off. Of course, other things would have to be taken into account, like whether this kid can be attacked/grabbed, functions as a meat shield for projectiles, has a limited # of stocks, etc...ideally, he'd function as a superior, sentient Sandbag from Wifi Waiting Room (and it can hit back). Not to mention advanced tactics like maneuvering your opponent into airdodging one of the kid's attacks in order to punish; DIing toward the kid so your opponent gets double hitlag from hitting both of you/ends his chaingrab prematurely by grabbing the kid instead of you; or even hitting the kid to extend one of your hitboxes so that it outlasts your opponent's dodge...the possibilities are endless.

[/mostly joking]

Also, as far as sharking goes, i know a few characters have near-foolproof defenses against this - snake/link/tl jumping and throwing nades/c4/bombs down, lucario's dair, etc...it's an advantageous tactic, but, again, you can't do it forever and it's certainly not unpunishable (or, at least, unavoidable)

 

[Reizilla]

It's not about how many stages each character does well on. Reread Pierce's post and he explains it much better than either of you. It's about what criteria should we base our perceived "skill". And after we decide what we think judges our skill the best, then we come up with a stage that suits that. It's not about how many, or how few. It's about how much they alter what we believe we should be tested on, as competitors. If we find that something from a certain stage shifts the focus something more than we're comfortable with, we designate it as a CP. If it just completely throws it out of wack, then it becomes designated as banned. Diddy and IC's just happen to do better on the stages that most people deem to be the most neutral.

 

[Raziek]

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=268086

^ Just since nobody ever looks in the stage discussion forum.

 

[iRJi]

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=268086

^ Just since nobody ever looks in the stage discussion forum.

I was thinking about it, and this thread should still continue. While yours in in the right place also, I feel like this thread is in the more proper spot for this kind of situation, as it talks about multiple issues revolving around MLG, and not just the stages it's self.

Bumping this thread.

 

[AlphaZealot]

There is already a rule discussion thread at the top of this forum, so I think we should consolidate discussion there.

*closes*