Official Stage Legality Discussion: Stage Specific

[ぱみゅ]

But only one player is being juggled and baited.
Also, (as stated many times before) you can prepare for the claw as well as you can prepare for a juggle.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Which is quite silly. It should always obey Meta Knight because it's his ship, and he doesn't have enough frame traps already.

The Halberd stage likely takes place during the time period where Tabuu is in control of it.

 

[Ghostbone]

The Halberd stage likely takes place during the time period where Tabuu is in control of it.

That made me think of a stage with Tabuu's off waves as a hazard
-shudder-

 

[MechaWave]

That made me think of a stage with Tabuu's off waves as a hazard
-shudder-

Oh c'mon what the **** man.

 

[Elite Cowdung]

dont use halberd

 

[PandaBear724]

use halberd so i can beat bks

 

[MasterOfGalaxies]

With the MK ban, Rainbow Cruise is now a way more balanced counterpick imo.

 

[Akaku94]

It was a good CP the whole time, but people wanted to get rid of it just because it was a good MK stage (ditto for Brinstar). With MK out of the way, the people who wanted to ban it will split into two camps.

1) The people who just wanted to limit MK to keep him legal (who will now be fine with the stage)
2) The people who think the stage is "gay" (i.e. they suck at it), who will keep arguing...

 

[Ultra_(MQJ3)]

Going with the above posts, MK had 2 virtually impossible match-ups at RC and Brinstar. I always thought that RC was a decent cp, but mk made it ridiculous. (I just plain hate brin though.) You can only ban one stage, so if you just pushed a game 3 in a set against a legit mk, you'd be done with both stages legal.

Akaku, I'd fall into your 1st category.

 

[Akaku94]

Most people will, Ultra. Some people hate the stages, and used MK as an excuse, but there's nothing bannable about either.

 

[chaosmaster1991]

Most people will, Ultra. Some people hate the stages, and used MK as an excuse, but there's nothing bannable about either.

Wouldn't a character being (close to) unbeatable on a stage be a legitimate ban criteria for that stage?

I suppose this would fit better into the philosophical thread, but w/e...

Let's assume a mediocre character, and a stage that has no general flaws (two stages if you're assuming a stage ban), neither are banable on their own.
Now a strategy is discovered that gives that one character 99:1 MUs on that/those stage(s) with the rest of the cast.

Adding a stage ban is not an option because it has too much of an impact on the overall cast, so what do you do? Ban the character or ban one/both stages?

 

[Grim Tuesday]

You ban the stages.

Your ultimate goal when creating a ruleset should be to
a) Cater to your players
b) Preserve as much game depth as possible
c) Avoid any and all double standards

So unless somehow the stage provides for more game depth than the character (super duper unlikely) the stage will have to go.

 

[Pachinkosam]

i hate rainbow cruise a waste of stage

 

[chaosmaster1991]

You ban the stages.

Your ultimate goal when creating a ruleset should be to
a) Cater to your players
b) Preserve as much game depth as possible
c) Avoid any and all double standards

So unless somehow the stage provides for more game depth than the character (super duper unlikely) the stage will have to go.

I see. Would your answer be different if my example had used a good character instead of a mediocre one? What about a bad character in that situation?

 

[Grim Tuesday]

If it was a good character, I would feel the same way.

If it was an overpowered character, I'd say to ban the character.

If it was a bad character, it'd depend on the character itself:

If the character was broken on the stage, but said character was also very technical, I'd allow both the character and stage to be legal because if you play against a main of said character, you could always ban the stage and then (presumably) beat it on it's counterpick.

If it was an easy to use character, I'd say to ban the stage or else people would be forced to waste their stage ban on the stage out of fear of a pocket "character x".

 

[chaosmaster1991]

Now if we could only draw a proper line between a good and an overpowered character...

Anyway, I think that's it from my side, thanks for your time.

 

[Wave-Guiding Hero]

Now if we could only draw a proper line between a good and an overpowered character...

Anyway, I think that's it from my side, thanks for your time.

I think a character that has a tier completely to himself and has no bad matchups is pretty definitely on the side of overpowered, but that's just my opinion.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Now if we could only draw a proper line between a good and an overpowered character...

Anyway, I think that's it from my side, thanks for your time.

You're very welcome

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I think a character that has a tier completely to himself and has no bad matchups is pretty definitely on the side of overpowered, but that's just my opinion.

Not only is metaknight completely overinflated in the USA (he almost certainly is not his own tier), but there are also several characters who go debatably even with him (Olimar, Marth, Diddy, Falco). Generally a favorable comparison to, say, Magneto in MvC2, ChunLi in SF3S, or the like.

 

[C.J.]

Not only is metaknight completely overinflated in the USA (he almost certainly is not his own tier), but there are also several characters who go debatably even with him (Olimar, Marth, Diddy, Falco). Generally a favorable comparison to, say, Magneto in MvC2, ChunLi in SF3S, or the like.

With a super low LGL and super duper conservative stage list, Diddy and Falco, sure. Even ignoring RC/Brinstar, not a chance. Marth you have Mr. R/Leon bias =p I'd wait for Apex for that one if I were you. Olimar maybe sorta debatable. IC maybe sorta debatable.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Not only is metaknight completely overinflated in the USA (he almost certainly is not his own tier), but there are also several characters who go debatably even with him (Olimar, Marth, Diddy, Falco). Generally a favorable comparison to, say, Magneto in MvC2, ChunLi in SF3S, or the like.

A character with multiple even match-ups could not dominate the largest Smash continent in the world to the extent that MK has. It just isn't feasible.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

A character with multiple even match-ups could not dominate the largest Smash continent in the world to the extent that MK has. It just isn't feasible.

Why not?
10unsupportedproposition

 

[Grim Tuesday]

I thought my support would be obvious, let me spell it out to you more clearly with the help of a hypothetical example.

Lets imagine you have a character who goes roughly even with Marth, Olimar and Falco. Just for argument's sake, we'll call him "Diddy Kong".

You see, if Diddy Kong was a real character (which I assure you, he isn't) Diddy Kong would've probably had around 400 people place with him in tournament this year.

Again, if we pretend that Diddy Kong is a real character, we can also pretend that he has won around 10% of tournament money also for this year. I know, I know, I am making a lot of stuff up here, but unfortunately, there just aren't any examples which support my argument :/

Anyway, where was I. Ah yes, now let us assume that there is this character called "Meta Knight" who doesn't go even with Diddy Kong, Falco, Olimar and Marth. In fact, some might say that he beats all of those characters. We could assume that such a character would have a larger player-base than Diddy Kong, because he is a much better character, to take a stab in the dark I'd say around 1500 placings in tournaments this year.

Finally, we should assume that this made-up character (MK) who is vastly superior to our other made-up character (DDK) would also win considerably larger sums of money. Probably around 45% of tournament money, if I was to guess.

tl;dr If Meta Knight was only slightly better than Diddy Kong (which seems to be what you are saying), he would not have such a massive player-base and rake in such large amounts of money. You can cast doubt on John and Ripple's data all you want, but even if we assume all of these crazy things (MK only has a higher number of players because he looks cooler, MK only wins more money because all of the best players in America use him, etc...)... It still doesn't add up.

 

[chaosmaster1991]

Would MK still have that userbase and amount of money won if RC and Brinstar had been banned 2(?) years ago, when their combination with MK was first seen as a problem?

I know I said I was done, but =/

 

[Grim Tuesday]

He might have... slightly less?

MK doesn't need those stages to win, lol.

 

[chaosmaster1991]

He might have... slightly less?

MK doesn't need those stages to win, lol.

Naturally not, but most of the good characters don't "need" X stage legal to win either.

What I'm getting at is mostly the following...

Let's simplify this a bit and say MK goes somewhat even with a few characters in general, but absolutely destroys them on Brinstar and RC.
As long as that combination exists, you are more or less forcing people to pick up MK as a secondary in order to compete on their opponent's CPs. However, it's not enough with just picking him up, you actually need to invest a decent amount of time into him, so that you can win the ditto (would be pretty pointless otherwise).

I would imagine a decent amount of people would then think "When I have to use MK anyway to compete, might as well main him" or something along those lines.
Following that, you get higher useage, and naturally higher winning numbers for him. Then you also give that image to lower levels of play, and even more people start picking him up and it kinda goes on like that.

Of course that's just a thought experiment, but I wouldn't be suprised if keeping those stages legal had a great influence on the metagame in the long run.

 

[Ghostbone]

So, relating to the talk of banning stages and characters, if there was a terrible character, who lost to every other character in the game on almost every stage, but on one particular stage (which is perfectly legitimate otherwise), just happened to beat every other character 100:0 (and it's impossible to enforce a discrete ban on the tactic for whatever reason), then I'd say ban the character, as he's contributing nothing to the metagame overall, and is only serving to limit us from playing that stage.

How do others feel about this? Should stages always be sacrificed if it means keeping a character in the game? Or are some characters not worth saving?
The closest to a real example I can give is in Melee, with Masterhand on Corneria, if Corneria was actually a legitimate stage otherwise...
(but clearly Masterhand is a glitch character, and most likely banned anyway)

Situations like these need to be prepared for with the next smash...

Anyway on the talk about MK and RC/Brinstar....
Rainbow Cruise/Brinstar might contribute to people picking up MK, but the amount of people playing him has no bearing on his abilities in-game, and banning them wouldn't cause people to drop MK, it might just slow down the increase in MK mains. MK has shown to be just as dominant without those stages, so clearly it's not a fault of the stages but the character.
I don't claim to know the regions in the US that well, but doesn't he dominate the most in areas with really conservative stage lists?

I would imagine a decent amount of people would then think "When I have to use MK anyway to compete, might as well main him" or something along those lines.
Following that, you get higher useage, and naturally higher winning numbers for him. Then you also give that image to lower levels of play, and even more people start picking him up and it kinda goes on like that.

This was one of the problems in Australia, pretty much people would either pick up MK, or quit because they didn't want to. And now the scene is dying or dead in many states :/

But anyway, you have to think what causes MKs significantly higher usage, it's because of how good he is, I mean you'd expect a pretty linear relation of strength of character vs use of character wouldn't you?
You can't argue that MKs good because he has high usage, that doesn't make sense when you look at the cause and effect. You could argue any other character could dominate with that much usage...but no other character would get that kind of usage. Hypothetical situations with 50% of people maining Ganon are useless, because they would do badly, and switch to other characters who would do well, and you'd no longer have the problem with Ganon.
With MK though, the number of people using him is just increasing, he's just taking away from the game more than he contributes, which is why many people wanted to ban him.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

@Grim: it does not follow at all that Metaknight would be "less overused" if he wasn't as good. In fact, him being overhyped may be a very large part of the problem, dontcha think? And a lot of the very best players in the country starting to use him because of that hype... Not saying he isn't the best, but claiming that he's clearly miles away from everyone else because of that on a balance sense is nonsense.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

If he was over-hyped, his usage would decrease over time as people who are attempting to main him would realize that he is over-hyped.

Obviously, the opposite is happening with MK, so it stands to reason that he is either under-hyped or correctly-hyped.

 

[ぱみゅ]

The difference with him and other hyped chars is that he's easy to pick up, and easy to use for Counterpick someone to a stage they do not know (like Brinstar or RC) and get a random win (I'm not saying he's an autowin, but sometimes it looks like because people don't know certain stage).
And after this, some players feels they are better with him and keep picking him. Then, they start figuring matchups and increasing their winning rate (again, not because of the character, but because they start playing him properly).

 

[Grim Tuesday]

The MK MU is the most practiced in the game, he definitely isn't easy to pick up in a scene with good players.

 

[ぱみゅ]

The MK MU is the most practiced in the game, he definitely isn't easy to pick up in a scene with good players.

That's pretty much the point.
Not every scene is good, not every player is aware of the Matchups, and that's the kind of things that allows a random MK to grow in a certain scene, and that makes players to think he's "too" broken.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Sorry, maybe I shouldn't have said good.

Any area with an established scene will not bow down to some random guy picking up MK.

 

[theunabletable]

I would like to point out something that I don't think maybe people ever talk about.

but MK makes people better players. A lot of people will start winning more when they pick up MK. Although some of it might be attributable to MK being broken, not all of it really should be. I think it's a little more deep than that. I think largely, in-game concepts apply really simply to MK, and he's an easier character to pick up, in that you pretty quickly learn what you should be doing as a player.

I would say that a large reason why MK makes players do better is because... well playing MK... you really learn the game faster. Like you'll become a better PLAYER faster if you pick up MK than if you were to pick up another character. You might get better results out of brokeness of the character, but really, I would say that most of it is getting better results out of more rapid improvement as a player. I mean EVERYONE knows the matchup. If everyone knows the matchup of your character, you're not going to have to just learn the matchup of their character, you're really going to have to step up your skills as a player to do well, not just your ability to play a character, y'know?

Like a character like ICs can get away with doing semi-well if the player knows how to play the character really well. It won't take him super far, but his method of improvement seems to show more quickly when he works on his ability to play his character, and not on his ability to play the game, simply because his character's gimmicks and abilities are really good, and he's not quite forced as much to rely on player-vs-player skills.

A random MK won't end up ****** everybody, but a random who focuses hard on getting good as an MK player might cease being a random faster than other people, and begin to beat everyone faster, if that makes sense.

The average MK player will end up more skilled than the average most other characters, imo (and this probably applies to some extent at slightly higher levels). I think it's akin to those people whose mindsets are to abuse everything they can to win, and to play their matchup the hardest they can, and counterpick the most gay they possibly can, don't progress as fast as a player, y'know? Those people HugS talks about in that fantastic blog he made a while back?

although I might just be crazy

 

[KirbyandSonicrock14]

* Corneria

Why is that stage ban?

 

[ぱみゅ]

Long story short, it is banned because of fin camping and certain wall abuses.
Some people may bring the whole "stage is too short upwards" thing, that I don't consider ban-worthy.

 

[KirbyandSonicrock14]

Long story short, it is banned because of fin camping and certain wall abuses.
Some people may bring the whole "stage is too short upwards" thing, that I don't consider ban-worthy.

I mean you should ban it when you have characters like DDD and Falco. But not every character can do that. I mean if you run into a Falco or DDD main just ban the stage against them. Is there anybody else can abuse the wall?

 

[-LzR-]

Everyone can abuse the wall.

 

[KirbyandSonicrock14]

Oh....now I remember why you guy banned.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Just have every stage legal >_>