Official Stage Legality Discussion: Stage Specific

[-LzR-]

What now, did I do something wrong or was I wrong because I didn't agree with you or what?

 

[Tesh]

Temple isn't banned because of any one character. Its banned because in 95% of the matchups in the game, someone is faster and therefore will get the lead and outrun the other guy. Caves of life were never proven to be broken, its just that every stage with a cave of life also has a circle.

Skyword I doubt is banned because of metaknight. I know about the drill rushing through the floors and the easy nado spikes, but its probably just how easy it is to just bounce people against the ceiling and trap them under the stage by destroying the ledge. MK dittos would probably be the only tolerable thing here because everyone else has a tough time recovering without the ledge as an option. Not to mention MK is the only character that can recover through the floor.

#1: The Safe Zone is NOT ridiculously small, it's just moderately small.
#2: You can react to most of the hazards as they spawn.
#3: The safe zone grows as the match goes on.

1) Its pretty small at the start of the match. Its certainly not big enough for 2 people, which means someone will get forced out of it and randomly screwed over or not screwed over.

2) As you can see in the video I posted the hazards might not have a hitbox until they fully draw in, but they become solid before they become visible. Lets not forget that this can also save people just like Yoshi's Island (a dozen or so transformations can).

3) Yes just hope you don't get screwed over at the beginning. Something stupid happening at the beginning of a match can decide it you know.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

What now, did I do something wrong or was I wrong because I didn't agree with you or what?

No... It's just...

I can't see any point debating anything with this game when our only ban criteria, marginalizing skill, is so subjective that it literally becomes a popularity contest as to whether stages are banned or not.

 

[Raziek]

1) Its pretty small at the start of the match. Its certainly not big enough for 2 people, which means someone will get forced out of it and randomly screwed over or not screwed over.

2) As you can see in the video I posted the hazards might not have a hitbox until they fully draw in, but they become solid before they become visible. Lets not forget that this can also save people just like Yoshi's Island (a dozen or so transformations can).

3) Yes just hope you don't get screwed over at the beginning. Something stupid happening at the beginning of a match can decide it you know.

Rebuttals

1) When the stage is in this state, the player in the safe zone will be attempting to stay in it. Therefore, the player outside of it is not being approached, and has ample time to react to a spawning hazard, while he waits for a safe transition to attempt approaching.

2) A dozen or so? The only ones that can really **** people over are the Spikes, the Line, and the Arrows. All the others have reasonable draw time and are either harmless, or do very little damage. (fire)
Please elaborate more on the transitions you refer to, I will address them individually.

3) You can't HOPE you won't, but you can play like you won't. Seriously, just play gay and campy on the left side (most players do this anyway), and Picto is simple. If you rush around and jump all the time like a ******, yeah, you WILL get screwed. Pro-tip, don't do it.

As for getting lol-wut namedropped by everyone to talk about Skyworld, I'll offer my thoughts.

Personally, I think Skyworld is a great stage under most circumstances. I haven't yet seen its circle in practice, cave of life is breakable, and most characters are pretty balanced here.

The stage offers a high focus on strategic use of breakable terrain, focused primarily around moves that sweep the ground. You can do fun stuff with "Break-canceling" (Using the break animation on the stage to cancel laggy moves), and it's all around a fun time.

Now, the problems with it:

I really do think MK would be far too strong here. Sharking and planking are both still ridiculously strong, and Tornado DOES destroy people here. I think most match-ups would swing to at least 70-30 in MK's favor, which would heavily interfere with the CP system. If Skyworld is ever picked, you'll have to play MK, pretty much.

The risk/reward factor for certain strategies and areas of the stage is a bit skewed. If you get caught in the bottom-left corner where the ceiling and the floor are incredibly close together, it's a near-impossible to escape tech-chase, with many characters being completely unable to recover if they are ceiling bounced, or the floor is broken.

At the end of the day, I like the stage. I'd use it in tournaments, if MK was banned. The problem is getting people to accept it, and most people tend to dislike it, because the stage has a preposterously high learning curve to play CORRECTLY.

 

[T-block]

The way people talk about Pictochat's safe-zone is starting to bother me.

When you're in neutral positions (both zoning each other, neither is really on the offensive/defensive) the safe zone is the entire stage except for four points in the air where the ground spikes appear. If your opponent is only putting pressure on you with projectiles, it is absolutely reasonable to expect the player to avoid every other drawing. People get hit by transformations when their opponent pressures them into them (assuming, as we should, that both players are playing the stage properly). In other words, if Falco is just camping the left side and shooting you with lasers, you really don't have any more incentive to approach than on any other stage. Lasers alone do NOT apply enough pressure to make dodging drawings impossible.

When not in neutral positions, that's where Pictochat's randomness has a negative effect, unfortunately. When you get grabbed and the Plant appears... when you're being edgeguarded on the left and the Diagonal Line appears, etc. I don't have to get into detail. However, this actually doesn't happen all that often -_-

 

[Tesh]

If both players are confident about their skill over the other, then they might both be fine camping until the worst of the drawings pass. However thats not going to happen if one player decides he wants to capitalize on the random factor and pull out a win over a better player (it happens).

Even in neutral positions the randomness of the stage has significant effects on the outcome of smaller conflicts. Lets say Snake and Marth are spacing each other near the middle of the stage. Marth jumps, hovers, does his patient marth stuff. Snake walks around shields, does his snake stuff. FLAMES APPEAR. Marth is forced to airdodge. Snake capitalizes on this vulnerability and hits marth with a DACUS, dash grab, uptilt etc.

Its kind of how you might trip near someone and get punished during the tech chase. Your options just got limited randomly and while it took some skill and precision on your opponent's part to punish, it took less skill than punishing you will all of your options intact. We can't take out tripping, but we can choose to not play this stage.

As for the stage saving people, any tranformation with solid walls, floors or ceilings can save you from killing hits as they draw in. One of the more common things I have experienced is the weird floors inside the stack of blocks. You can be hit upwards inside of the blocks, but you will just fall down on top of the next block, saving you. You can also wind up bouncing into the wind-face, flames, stack of blocks, whale, boat, face+hand thing and be saved from killing hits horizontally. Platforms or springs can pop up next to the ledge and save people.

And thats just ignoring the fact that almost all the other transformations with fall through platforms can protect people from punishment, toss in landing lag for aerials that were timed to autocancel at a later time etc.

Now about Yoshi's Island Ghost platform. Ideally this would be gone, but its not. To some extent we have decided that its okay. However that doesn't automatically make Pictochat okay. Pictochat has the same issue and a whole bunch more and should be dealt with that way.

 

[T-block]

Pictochat has the same issue and a whole bunch more and should be dealt with that way.

That's where I disagree, and unfortunately there's no way for me to prove it =\

 

[san.]

#1: The Safe Zone is NOT ridiculously small, it's just moderately small.
#2: You can react to most of the hazards as they spawn.
#3: The safe zone grows as the match goes on.

Yeah, it sucks that occasionally you get hit into a spawning hazard, but that's why I play this stage with a very specific strategy.

I stay primarily in the left side of the stage, and I do not approach until there is a safe transition spawned. If you make a conscious attempt to play in the safety zones, avoiding the hazards is relatively trivial.

My biggest gripes with Picto are that with the transitions with walls (which encompass quite a portion of the total transitions), the boundaries for the walls form really quickly, too quickly to react to.

There are also few hazards that you can react to as they spawn (missiles, plant, and cart) while transformations with spikes, the hitbox comes out just as fast as walls, sometimes before the stage transition even finishes. Pictochat overall is barely tolerable, but imo well below standards that make other stages banned (Japes, Pirate Ship, Norfair, Distant Planet, etc.)

I beleve that all these variables that can't be reacted to and can have grave consequences mitigates skill, even when you factor in "safe zones" on the left side.

 

[-LzR-]

Japes and Norfair are banned? What is this?

 

[Steam]

Japes and Norfair are banned? What is this?

THIS IS STAGELIST

/camps

 

[Tesh]

That's where I disagree, and unfortunately there's no way for me to prove it =\

How can not "disagree" with it? If we can both agree that the random platform save on Yoshi's Island is a minor issue then surely you can understand that 12+ things on another stage doing the same thing all over causes the same issue. Or are you saying you don't agree that these are issues at all?

I'm ALL for random things shaking it up with fair warning. But pictochat doesn't have fair warning at all. The ONLY guarantee you have is that after something has popped up in a random place at a random time, it won't show up again in the same match.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

I wish people would stop comparing the Yoshi's Island support platform with hazards.

As I explained earlier, they are different because if someone is saved by the platform, both that player and their opponent have equal opportunity to re-act to the situation, despite being random.

If a hazard spawns and KOs a player, the person being KO'd has his options severely limited to DI'ing and momentum cancelling.

 

[Tesh]

I'm currently talking about walls and platforms spawning on pictochat and saving people. Which is alot more common than someone actually losing a stock to the hazards.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

That post wasn't necessarily directed at you, you just reminded me of it.

Earlier in the thread people were comparing the hazards on the stage to the platform on Yoshi's.

 

[UberMario]

Playing hundreds of matches in it, I have been wallraped by stage like twice. And the line has gimped me about 3 times.

I don't really understand how that is a good thing, that kind of proves that it's not exactly difficult to be screwed over by the stage.

Japes and Norfair are banned? What is this?

There's a small team of people that are trying to force through a conservative list that bans all counterpicks except Brinstar, Frigate, PS2, and Pictochat, which, honestly, makes me glad that there are others realizing how restrictive it would be if it were widely accepted. At least Melee's heavy gravity and 64's hugeness made their stage bans more legitimite than a restrictive Brawl stage roster. (i.e., most of the stages in 64 were so big [YI] that you could easily run away for the entire match, and in Melee, wall spikes were even more lethal if done successfully due to the gravity, not to mention that [despite what people claim] most of the obstacles were as/or more lethal than Brawl's (Mute City allowed no reaction time to the cars, Birdo's eggs had decent knockback, Klap Traps on BOTH stages were almost sure fire OHKO's if you got hit by them, Banzai Bills OHKO'd could potentially OHKO at 0%, Icicle Mountain was faster than both Rumble Falls and most recoveries, the list goes on. It almost makes me want to make a thread comparing the three games . . . . . .)

 

[T-block]

How can not "disagree" with it? If we can both agree that the random platform save on Yoshi's Island is a minor issue then surely you can understand that 12+ things on another stage doing the same thing all over causes the same issue. Or are you saying you don't agree that these are issues at all?

I'm ALL for random things shaking it up with fair warning. But pictochat doesn't have fair warning at all. The ONLY guarantee you have is that after something has popped up in a random place at a random time, it won't show up again in the same match.

I'm saying that if we look at the fundamental question "how much can the randomness present from the stage affect the match?", the extent to which Pictochat affects matches and the extent to which Yoshi's Island affects matches is not all that different.

Yes, Pictochat has things that hurt you. Yes, it has things that can block your recovery, etc. etc. But even addressing that is too specific for the scope I'm considering. On the fundamental level, we look at HOW OFTEN Pictochat affects matches (ignoring HOW it does so), and compare that to HOW OFTEN Yoshi's Island does.

 

[Ghostbone]

At least Yoshi's is somewhat consistent. (Same thing every time...)

Oh and Yoshi's Island's randomness can take stocks as well....poor ness and lucas.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Pictochat overall is barely tolerable, but imo well below standards that make other stages banned (Japes, Pirate Ship, Norfair, Distant Planet, etc.)

Well below... what standards and in what sense? Like, you think we should legalize Japes and the like before Picto? If so, <3. It's so ****ing true!

I don't really understand how that is a good thing, that kind of proves that it's not exactly difficult to be screwed over by the stage.



There's a small team of people that are trying to force through a conservative list that bans all counterpicks except Brinstar, Frigate, PS2, and Pictochat, which, honestly, makes me glad that there are others realizing how restrictive it would be if it were widely accepted. At least Melee's heavy gravity and 64's hugeness made their stage bans more legitimite than a restrictive Brawl stage roster. (i.e., most of the stages in 64 were so big [YI] that you could easily run away for the entire match, and in Melee, wall spikes were even more lethal if done successfully due to the gravity, not to mention that [despite what people claim] most of the obstacles were as/or more lethal than Brawl's (Mute City allowed no reaction time to the cars, Birdo's eggs had decent knockback, Klap Traps on BOTH stages were almost sure fire OHKO's if you got hit by them, Banzai Bills OHKO'd could potentially OHKO at 0%, Icicle Mountain was faster than both Rumble Falls and most recoveries, the list goes on. It almost makes me want to make a thread comparing the three games . . . . . .)

Do it. Would be a good read.

 

[ADHD]

I know this isn't the place for this, but I'm trying to get all the help I can get.

THE MLG BRAWL CIRCUIT IS DOWN TO SINGLE DIGITS, MEANING YOUR VOTE MATTERS. VOTE TO KEEP IT ON THE CIRCUIT.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=294359

 

[Blacknight99923]

BPC your sig needs to be removed.

SuSa is not a rational person about life in general.

Trust me on this.



And on a more serious note these stage threads seemed to be completely full of the liberal posters now.

I only came in because I saw ADHD as the last poster....

it is a sad day

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

The reason that there are very few conservative people is a combination of all of the following elements:
-The people who are conservative are, for the most part, not thinking very logically. There are one or two (RR, sometimes Browny/DMG (they post here sometimes, not that they're only sometimes logical), SuSa before he got banned), but for the most part they come here, and leave very quickly after we destroy their arguments.
-We destroy their arguments again and again and again and again. If you can't argue logically, all you have left is ignoring the logical means, and that won't get you anywhere in this forum. We do a lot of theorysmash...
-Conservatives are not open to a different viewpoint, regardless of how logical it is; therefore they see this as pointless mental masturbation. Take people like Nappy and Etecoon, who see this whole forum as a huge waste of time (be it because "you can't change people's minds online" or because "it's never going to happen anyways")... You think they're going to make wall-of-text assertations/refutations? I doubt it. The sad part is that they're kinda right...

 

[ADHD]

The reason I, along with many others are so violently opposed to liberal rulesets is because we understand that the terrain is far too interferring and character favoring, some of them so much so that it's distracting to player skill.

The only reason you haven't won is because there is no way to solidify the boundary between what is "too interferring," or too "distracting." Otherwise, you would have lost a long time ago, seeing as liberals are greatly outnumbered outside of these stage-speficifc boards. But as of right now, the best way to create that boundary is subjectivity. Of course this will leave a huge gap that enables alot of debating, but I don't know what to tell you.

I just came to take a quick glance at what was going on back here, but I haven't been back here for a couple of months I think because I got tired of reading the same wall-of-texts and ideas, when it really doesn't even result in a ruleset, or have any effect anywhere. We're just arguing philosophical ideas about stages to ourselves, and I got bored with it.

 

[Albert.]

-Conservatives are not open to a different viewpoint,

The irony is absolutely KILLING me.

 

[ぱみゅ]

The reason I, along with many others are so violently opposed to liberal rulesets is because we understand that the terrain is far too interferring and character favoring

No interference is also character-favoring.

some of them so much so that it's distracting to player skill.

There are many kinds of "skills", one of them is mashing buttons, other is reading your oponent's actions, and another one is manipulating terrain. All of them is equally valuable.

The only reason you haven't won is because there is no way to solidify the boundary between what is "too interferring," or too "distracting."

First off, Interfering =/= Distracting
Most of the time you can predict the moment where certain elements might change.

Now, you're right in that point: There's no way to make a solid criteria about how much is "too much", I just can't make a point out of a personal opinion.

Otherwise, you would have lost a long time ago, seeing as liberals are greatly outnumbered outside of these stage-speficifc boards.

Conservatives are the ones that want the game to blayed in 3-5 stages. Liberalists wants it in 15-20.
But most people just doesn't care as long as they play.

But as of right now, the best way to create that boundary is subjectivity. Of course this will leave a huge gap that enables alot of debating, but I don't know what to tell you.

That's why we can't just make it straight out of tastes.

I just came to take a quick glance at what was going on back here, but I haven't been back here for a couple of months I think because I got tired of reading the same wall-of-texts and ideas

Sometimes, you can just ask for a concrete point, of course, only if you want to hear new ideas, otherwise, just randomly refuse it (like most people usually do).

when it really doesn't even result in a ruleset, or have any effect anywhere. We're just arguing philosophical ideas about stages to ourselves, and I got bored with it.

We can't get enywhere unless we'd want to. But we wannot to agree, we want to say "me rite, u wron" and that's not even debate healthy.
A rule implies it will affect everyone, so it can't be taken form nowhere (subjetivity). A solid criteria is needed for a well-done Ruleset where everyone can agrees.

Spoiler

Or just force everyone to use it, like the Ruleset Comitee just done...

 

[Grim Tuesday]

I don't quite understand the arguing between conservatives and liberals.

One way favors competitive fairness over depth.
The other favors depth over competitive fairness.

Unlike other elements of the game, neither way is clear cut, objectively better. So shouldn't we just hold a massive poll over which stages people want legal?

 

[ぱみゅ]

Unlike other elements of the game, neither way is clear cut, objectively better. So shouldn't we just hold a massive poll over which stages people want legal?

u suggestin democracy on mah SWF?!
This is madness!!

(actually, would be interesting)

 

[Ghostbone]

I don't quite understand the arguing between conservatives and liberals.

One way favors competitive fairness over depth.
The other favors depth over competitive fairness.

Unlike other elements of the game, neither way is clear cut, objectively better. So shouldn't we just hold a massive poll over which stages people want legal?

Wait which is which?
I thought Liberals had more depth (at least stage-wise) and were more competitively fair (objectively).

And complete objectivity isn't great :/
A poll would be good, but problem is people who don't go to tournaments can vote, even though it won't affect them.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Wait which is which?
I thought Liberals had more depth (at least stage-wise) and were more competitively fair (objectively).

And complete objectivity isn't great :/
A poll would be good, but problem is people who don't go to tournaments can vote, even though it won't affect them.

Liberal: More stages will lead to a less competitive game, but has greater depth.
Conservative: Less stages will lead to a more competitive game, but has less depth.

And in the case of a poll, you'd just need to hope that enough people vote to nullify the advantages given by the people who don't know what they are talking about.

 

[Ghostbone]

More stages is more competitive >.>
(if the stages aren't broken)

Unfortunately people will just vote to help themselves, not on what they think is the best competitively :/

 

[ぱみゅ]

And then again, the definition of "competitive".... A cycle that never end...

 

[Grim Tuesday]

More stages is more competitive >.>
(if the stages aren't broken)

If you can find a small group of stages (Lets just say... PS2, SV, BF, CS and LC) that can provide the competitive depth of numerous stages and their unique gimmicks, that'd be more competitive than having every stage legal despite the un-competitive elements on some of them.

Does that make sense?

Unfortunately people will just vote to help themselves, not on what they think is the best competitively :/

Again: you'd just need to hope that enough people vote to nullify the advantages given by the people who don't know what they are talking about.

And kyokoro, the definition of competitive is being able to consistently determine who is better.

 

[chaosmaster1991]

If you can find a small group of stages (Lets just say... PS2, SV, BF, CS and LC) that can provide the competitive depth of numerous stages and their unique gimmicks, that'd be more competitive than having every stage legal despite the un-competitive elements on some of them.

Does that make sense?

One of Brawls elements is though that stages are unique, even when they have similiar elements they are quite different from each other.
How do you plan to decide which stages should be included and which shouldn't?

 

[Grim Tuesday]

One of Brawls elements is though that stages are unique, even when they have similiar elements they are quite different from each other.
How do you plan to decide which stages should be included and which shouldn't?

Like I said, the liberals share your view of uniqueness being more important.

The only criteria that a conservative stage list needs to follow is that it tests the vital gameplay skills.

If you can name a skill that isn't present/important in one of those stages yet is important in determining who the better player is, I'll add on to that list.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

The reason I, along with many others are so violently opposed to liberal rulesets is because we understand that the terrain is far too interferring and character favoring, some of them so much so that it's distracting to player skill.

The only reason you haven't won is because there is no way to solidify the boundary between what is "too interferring," or too "distracting." Otherwise, you would have lost a long time ago, seeing as liberals are greatly outnumbered outside of these stage-speficifc boards. But as of right now, the best way to create that boundary is subjectivity. Of course this will leave a huge gap that enables alot of debating, but I don't know what to tell you.

http://gametheorybootcamp.blogspot.com/2010/12/arguing-against-subjectivity-crafting.html
BOOM that argument is dead.
BOOM the entire idea is GONE.

This limit may exist. But it's not stages where your skills are changed into something slightly different.

"Too interfering" does exist. It's just nowhere near where you put it. "Too Interfering" is where the actual skills you need to play the game are mitigated by your knowledge of the stage (basically only mario bros). Any other stage is banned for overcentralizing tactics (a line which, while slightly blurry, is not subjective) or excessive randomness (now this is subjective; however, you can't really move the stages around the line you decide to draw; if you have pictochat legal, you can't ban Norfair or Green Greens for excessive randomness). You can almost never argue too interfering until the overall skill level of the game sinks considerably when the stage is legal due to the elements of the stage (mario bros). And as such, your entire argument is still wrong. The only thing left is to decide if you're willing to model your gameplay around this and make the game more competitively valid, or if you're not and want to keep it more fun for you and those that share your viewpoint.

I just came to take a quick glance at what was going on back here, but I haven't been back here for a couple of months I think because I got tired of reading the same wall-of-texts and ideas, when it really doesn't even result in a ruleset, or have any effect anywhere. We're just arguing philosophical ideas about stages to ourselves, and I got bored with it.

Well, good news-not much has changed.

The irony is absolutely KILLING me.

Present me a good reason to leave my stance and I will leave it. I've changed my viewpoint on many things, from Metaknight being broken to Norfair being potentially banworthy. But I've been showing you guys again and again and again. It took me three threads and a ****in' graduate thesis and I still haven't convinced everyone that Pokemon Stadium 2 is a stage that is legitimate for competition, and don't get me started on its presence as a starter!
I will change my stance if given sufficient evidence. But you know what? All the evidence is on my side. MLG had a liberalized stagelist and some of the most varied results in the history of smash. Green Greens was not abused the way it was advertised, nor was it excessively random (certainly less random than pictochat). Norfair was not shown to be broken. Why aren't you guys either trying to prove that it's broken, or admitting that you were wrong?

 

[Grim Tuesday]

BPC, what about my earlier arguments in support of a conservative stage list?

Can't most of the vital skills be represented by a small sub-set of stages, thus making stages like Green Greens next to pointless and depth removing?

 

[chaosmaster1991]

Like I said, the liberals share your view of uniqueness being more important.

The only criteria that a conservative stage list needs to follow is that it tests the vital gameplay skills.

If you can name a skill that isn't present/important in one of those stages yet is important in determining who the better player is, I'll add on to that list.

Firstly, you'd have to decide which skills are vital... an extreme example would be a stage list that consists solely of FD I guess (reasons should be obvious).

When you did that, how do you decide which stages are used to represent those skills?

Lastly, a skill that isn't present in your list that I would deem important is the ability to deal with damaging hazards. Assuming you'd add something like Brinstar or Halberd... what about the ability to deal with stages that move on their own like RC or Rumble Falls? I guess I could go on for a bit, but let's leave it at that for now.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

BPC, what about my earlier arguments in support of a conservative stage list?

Can't most of the vital skills be represented by a small sub-set of stages, thus making stages like Green Greens next to pointless and depth removing?

"Vital" skills? K, gimme a list.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Firstly, you'd have to decide which skills are vital... an extreme example would be a stage list that consists solely of FD I guess (reasons should be obvious).

When you did that, how do you decide which stages are used to represent those skills?

Lastly, a skill that isn't present in your list that I would deem important is the ability to deal with damaging hazards. Assuming you'd add something like Brinstar or Halberd... what about the ability to deal with stages that move on their own like RC or Rumble Falls? I guess I could go on for a bit, but let's leave it at that for now.

The vital skills should be determind by the community as a whole, it really isn't that subjective.

The stages were pulled out of my *** as a random guess, I put no thought into this argument and was merely using it as reasoning for why a conservative ruleset isn't objectively less competitive than a liberal one.

I'd consider avoiding damaging hazards to be almost identical to avoiding enemy attacks, which is a skill present on every stage.

Same deal with RC, why should the stage forcing you to move be treated any differently to the opponent forcing you to move?

"Vital" skills? K, gimme a list.

I'm not trying to prove anything, I'm just wondering why that argument doesn't work.

I don't know what to define as a "vital skill", I'll think about it. It'd be a very long list >_>

 

[chaosmaster1991]

The vital skills should be determind by the community as a whole, it really isn't that subjective.

The stages were pulled out of my *** as a random guess, I put no thought into this argument and was merely using it as reasoning for why a conservative ruleset isn't objectively less competitive than a liberal one.

I'd consider avoiding damaging hazards to be almost identical to avoiding enemy attacks, which is a skill present on every stage.

Same deal with RC, why should the stage forcing you to move be treated any differently to the opponent forcing you to move?

If the vital skills aren't subjective, you should be able to name them easily, all of them that is.

As for hazards and movement being the same as the opponent... this is both correct and incorrect. While they are indeed represented by your opponent, the fact that they are present in addition to the normal opponent makes them different. After all there is a difference whether you have to avoid being damaged by one source or one source and an additional source. The same goes for movement.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

If the vital skills aren't subjective, you should be able to name them easily, all of them that is.

As for hazards and movement being the same as the opponent... this is both correct and incorrect. While they are indeed represented by your opponent, the fact that they are present in addition to the normal opponent makes them different. After all there is a difference whether you have to avoid being damaged by one source or one source and an additional source. The same goes for movement.

The reason I haven't named all the vital skills isn't because I am "unsure" whether they are vital or not, it's because the list is very massive and it is past mid-night here in Australia. Give me time, I'm making the list.

If a player can avoid one opponent, they can also avoid a second, predictable opponent who only attacks in a specific position at a specific time. Hence: No variation of skill. It's the same skill, just tested slightly differently.