Official Stage Legality Discussion

[Eternal Yoshi]

Snake can't get chaingrabbed by Dedede. All he has to do is jab and he's out of his space. Yoshi, Falcon, Mario, Lucas, Pit, and Toon Link can jab to escape too. You can't do both ICs. One can F smash you if you grab the other.

Back on topic.

As Sakurai Said yesterday, hold X or Y to ensure that you get MK 1-1. The KO barriers there are shockingly close though so prepare for low percentage KOs.

 

[Mic_128]

Here we go. Man, you guys post a lot. [/hypocritewithover2kposts]

Wait, so why are you banning stages for "infinite stalling by running away" then? It's the only reason so far I've seen that you used to ban a stage with. And you got it wrong as well, Hyrule wasn't banned for people running away, it was banned because of the underground where you can just tech everywhere, which is exactly why 1-2 should be banned. The time limit is there to keep tournaments at the right pace etc

Hyrule was banned for both the 'cave of life' and the ability to do a kill, and then run away for the rest of the match while waiting for the time limit to run out.

There is a certain time/area where the fish can appear, and it can even be airdodged. It's the players responsibility to navigate themselves away from being eaten by the fish, failure to do so is NOT the stage's fault, but their own.

While I partly agree with that, but when the hazards are 1 hit kills, I have to disagree. The stage should not be scoring the killing blow unless the victim is severly damaged.

Like I said, only a "noob" would make that mistake. And I literally mean that. You do NOT have go down there, in any circumstance.

Other than being knocked down there, or to get to a place to fighti in a style other than right up close.

Sadly, your issue with insisting that SMI is a "free kill" for Dedede actually represents you as being clueless, not me. There is a lot more to SMI than Dedede's chaingrab, yet presented with multiple examples of what can go on with the stage, you ignore it and insist that Dedede has an autowin on that stage.

Auto-win? No. A free kill against a few characters when grabbed on that stage? Yes.

You can gauge things that are random, ie. that have the potential of introducing luck, but you can not gauge something as "too strong" and attempt to rework balance with stages.

Why not? We did for Fox in Melee.

You do NOT have to have edgeguarding on a course to have it fair for competitive play. That stage already has water, no grabbable ledges, and rarely presents edgeguarding opportunities in the first place. This is the MOST ridiculous argument yet. There is NO edgeguarding on walk-off courses either.

If there is any edge to a stage, and a stage with no edges does not exist (short of someone making a box stage) and the act of guarding that edge is edge guarding, wether it's walkoff, grabable, or neither.

Any wall can be exploited in the same way! That's like saying "some walls are okay, but others are not!". Why? How the hell can you make that judgement?

SMI's defining feature is the walls. Corneria isn't. SMI is a smaller stages with walls blocking both edges that go up as high as is posible. Corneria is a tiny fin that's but a small part of the stage, and while ccould be used to prolong life, it's not to the point where you bounse off it, into a second wall, of which you then bounce into the first again, ect. You bounce off and die.

If you really can't notice the difference yourself...

Hyrule WAS banned because people can run away, NOT because you could tech.

As said above, it was banned for both. Score a kill and then just tech the time away.

The fish definitely never comes if you are physically standing on ground.

Hate to break it to you, but it does if that ground is at least partly submerged under water.

Anyway, you think SMI shouldn't be banned because nothing has proven it broken, but what about the tech-fest going on in there? You do ban stages for infinite stalling, well this is an infinite tech-fest.The fact that DDD owns this stage is just part of the reasons, even though it seems enough for the BackRoom right now: <Me quoted>

Perhaps I should have reworded that as "If it gets banned, it would be because DDD can get an auto-kill against some." Not wanting to mislead, sorry, but unless I say "the backroom" consider it my own opinion.

Personally I think we should do away with the horrible misnomer "neutral" to refer to available initial stages of the set. Some other word should be used to refer to them. "Standards" or something, I dunno.

That was something that was being discussed in the BRoom a while ago about changing "Neutral" to "Random" but I think everyone got distracted. It'll probably be brought up again when people back there start laying things down.

Yeah this has been annoying the cr@p out of me, I really can't get any point across and no1 actually replies to points about a stage, they just go on and on about one little thing and then keep saying there might be ways to avoid it.

The problem is, there very well might have. Should we have banned Dedede as a character when we found he could chain grab characters? Heck no, we let him play and, bam, we're finding ways for characters to get out of there. the "Prove it's broken before banning" is one of the best things to do when looking at things. Innocent before guilty and all that (with the exception of a guy announcing he's guilty (Sakurai saying "The scale is, say, about as same as that Temple stage—you know the one I’m talking about? It’s New Pork City. It is a city of chaos. At any rate, it’s big, so if all someone does is run away, there will be no end to it")

If a stage is 'broken', prove it. Which is hopefully what will happen after a few months of tournaments and such. Things that are broken will appear, while those that seemed broken, are discovered to have cracks.


Oh, and in regards to 1-1 and 1-2, why would it have been banned because of randomly getting 1-2? It's not at all hard to just reset the match. I know a tourney of where Sky Pillar is Counterpick (yes, counterpick) but if it's Cresslia(sp?) with the spinny discs of doom, the stage is reset.

 

[Empy]

SMI's defining feature is the walls. Corneria isn't. SMI is a smaller stages with walls blocking both edges that go up as high as is posible. Corneria is a tiny fin that's but a small part of the stage, and while ccould be used to prolong life, it's not to the point where you bounse off it, into a second wall, of which you then bounce into the first again, ect. You bounce off and die.

Which is exactly my point and the reason I think we should look at each stage to see what it's like, not just sort them down by having walls or being walk-offs.

Perhaps I should have reworded that as "If it gets banned, it would be because DDD can get an auto-kill against some." Not wanting to mislead, sorry, but unless I say "the backroom" consider it my own opinion.

My bad actually, because it was in the same post as my question to how the backroom looks at this, I mixed your 2 answers together. It tasted quite well though.

That was something that was being discussed in the BRoom a while ago about changing "Neutral" to "Random" but I think everyone got distracted. It'll probably be brought up again when people back there start laying things down.

Random seems like the best description, even though nearly everyone knows what a "neutral" stage means. Anyway, how do they stand on this "strike-out" system. Personally, I like the random, the strike-out has the problem that when there is only 1 neutral stage really annoying for a character (FD for mine) I could simply ban that and be in favor the first match nearly every time. However it still removes a random aspect, hard choice here.

The problem is, there very well might have. Should we have banned Dedede as a character when we found he could chain grab characters? Heck no, we let him play and, bam, we're finding ways for characters to get out of there. the "Prove it's broken before banning" is one of the best things to do when looking at things. Innocent before guilty and all that (with the exception of a guy announcing he's guilty (Sakurai saying "The scale is, say, about as same as that Temple stage—you know the one I’m talking about? It’s New Pork City. It is a city of chaos. At any rate, it’s big, so if all someone does is run away, there will be no end to it")

If a stage is 'broken', prove it. Which is hopefully what will happen after a few months of tournaments and such. Things that are broken will appear, while those that seemed broken, are discovered to have cracks.

Actually, I think what HyugaRicdeau meant (and I'm pretty sure about myself) was that it seems to be like a stage can only get a ban here once it has been proven broken towards imbalance. So like when I was pointing out some stuff about the walls on SMI, I kept getting replies about DDD's free kill and not about being able to tech around there. Now I think being able to tech around the most is not what Smash is all about.

So the innocent till proven guilty way is fine with me, but I think some things can be proven guilty with common sense or experiences from Melee, etc... Like the fact that having huge walls on both sides, highly promotes teching around. We really don't need to host a tournament to prove this.

Oh, and in regards to 1-1 and 1-2, why would it have been banned because of randomly getting 1-2? It's not at all hard to just reset the match. I know a tourney of where Sky Pillar is Counterpick (yes, counterpick) but if it's Cresslia(sp?) with the spinny discs of doom, the stage is reset.

True, true, I did point out what I saw as problems with 1-1 early I guess I just got lazy from answering the same thing over and over again. Anyway, I think 1-1 has serious issue's because of the many different aspects, the fact that it is sidescrolling and walkoff make each other slightly worse. The fact that you have a lot of obstacles which can block you from going to the right makes both of those before slightly worse and the fact that people can grab and backthrow you makes the things mentioned above way worse. The pipes make it real easy to trap people on top of all this, most characters are higher then most pipes and someone on top of the pipe can simply dtilt to keep them trapped there. Obviously you will be able to counter this, but it all adds up to give it a great number of aspects that distract from actual gameplay.

Edit: resetting a match can be pretty hard actually, you have to press 4 buttons at the same time, which is more then any other combo in Smash requires.

Btw, about Sky Pillar, I hate Palkia as well, certainly his spin attack and the slowing down time thing. It might just be me but I don't really like any of the effects there, not even for "fun ffa 4 friends on a couch" matches.

Here we go. Man, you guys post a lot. [/hypocritewithover2kposts]

I would like to say that I won't do it again, however, I don't want to lie to a mod, because of being banned, hunted down and forced to play the Wario stage over and over again.

 

[star_wolf86]

IMO, Mushroomy Kingdom shouldn't be entirely banned.

1-2 should be banned, 1-1 shouldn't.(check out the last japan time, it is possible to disable 1-2).

1-1 really isn't that bad. Sure, it's moving, but it's moving very slowly. No other problems here.

1-2 is moving just as slow as 1-1, however it also has a ceiling, and several obstacles(check it out. it definitely has more obstacles than 1-1). It's almost like a moving version of the fight club from Hyrule Temple(the lower cave area near the bottom of the stage). DO NOT WANT.

 

[Mega_$m@sh]

umm you guys need to see gamebattles cuz the rules are almost set in stone lol

 

[Firestorm88]

Oh, and in regards to 1-1 and 1-2, why would it have been banned because of randomly getting 1-2? It's not at all hard to just reset the match. I know a tourney of where Sky Pillar is Counterpick (yes, counterpick) but if it's Cresslia(sp?) with the spinny discs of doom, the stage is reset.

Seeing a lot of talk about resetting 1-2 to get 1-1 and stuff. This isn't necessary. All you crazy Dojo defects >=O The last Dojo update revealed a way to pick the stage you want:

http://www.smashbros.com/en_us/gamemode/various/various38.html

You can ensure you go to World 1-1 on the Mushroomy Kingdom stage by holding down a button as you select the stage. For the GameCube and Classic Controllers, hold down the X or Y Buttons. For the Wii Remote control scheme, use the A Button, and for the Nunchuk and Wii Remote combo, hold down the Z Button.

If you feel like you’d like to play Mushroomy Kingdom’s World 1-2, you can choose that one as well. When playing with the GameCube or Classic Controller, hold down the L Button or R Button while selecting the stage to go to World 1-2. When using a Wii Remote, hold the B Button, and when using the Nunchuk and Wii Remote combo, hold down the C Button.​

Edit: I'd like to add that my opinion is neither of these stages should be legal, but just pointing out that "can't be chosen" should not be an argument against them.

 

[Mega_$m@sh]

Posting my thoughts regarding the rules and how I believe they should look.

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Alright, seeing how all of the topics seem to spread the ideas around the board, I felt I should share all of my own thoughts in one complete topic. There is a summary list at the bottom of this post.

I will not go as far as saying these should be how GB runs competitive ladders, but I strongly feel that these are along the right lines. Take it as you will, discard them, do whatever you want with them, administrators/rulemakers.


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Team Attack

In doubles, this is necessary. Because allies do not need to worry about damaging each other with their projectiles, this makes projectile spamming incredibly easy to pull off, and very, very effective. I've personally done a friendly match online with teams and Team Attack disabled (which is default; you cannot damage your teammate), and they performed an alternating Pit arrow assault. As soon as one hit, another one would keep me in the air for the first one's second arrow to hit, and it kept going from there. It was inescapable, even through tap DI. Had they not stopped, they probably would've been capable of pushing me completely off the side of the screen with that attack alone. My teammate was down already, but the concept is what matters here.

There is also another common abuse of Team Attack being disabled that I see usually when one teammate is already down on a team; one character grabs the lone opponent, the free ally attacks the grabbed character mercilessly, usually with a powerful attack that has a lot of startup lag (Warlock Punch, etc.). These are indeed possible when Team Attack is enabled, but are far more difficult to pull off without hitting your ally in the process. Something of this proportion should be limited as much as possible.


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Stage Choices

This is the one I was debating in a few other topics; some stages simply do not need to exist in a competitive ladder environment.

The neutral stages are essential choices to ensure fair and balanced environments for both sides. Nothing inside any of those stages is hazardous that would greatly affect the outcome of the battle; it's a pure, clean match. Those stages that are generally accepted are:

~ Yoshi's Island
~ Battlefield
~ Final Destination
~ Lylat Cruise
~ Smashville

And others that I feel would also be acceptable:

~ Pokemon Stadium (Melee)
~ Luigi's Mansion
~ Skyworld

The following stages should be banned without requiring much testing for the reasons defined next to them:

~ Wario Ware (Inconsistent microgame rewards being given to players performing the same task, introduction of buffs to characters through use of awarded items)
~ New Pork City (Chimeras, oversized)
~ Distant Planet (Walk-off ledge on the left, enemy eating you on the right)
~ Yoshi's Island (Walk-off ledge on the right)
~ Rumble Falls (Stage rising rapidly promotes survival over combat, spikes in certain places provide pitifully easy KOs)
~ Summit (Fish during ice sliding sequence, reduced gravity during ice sliding)
~ 75m (Donkey Kong can be used for easy KOs, stage hazards litter the environment, walk-off ledges on both sides)
~ Big Blue - Melee (Bouncing on the track away from vehicles is near guaranteed KO)

I've seen some other choices being debated, but here are the flaws I find in some of the more commonly shown stages:

Hyrule Temple - Cave of Life. Basically, the lower level of the stage allows characters to survive to insanely high levels of damage by teching off ceilings or walls around the "cave". It drags battles on. In Melee, Fox was also a problem, being able to fire one shot at the opponent and run the time out to win. Also, there are now infinite or 0-death combos that can be performed against walls; Temple has 4 locations where these are possible.

Bridge of Eldin

Dedede has an almost guaranteed KO on this stage set up by simply grabbing, down throwing, running over and catching them, repeating until they are eventually pushed off the side of the stage. Check this out (1:00): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M-WMrOszRg

I read of the problem with players complaining about only "neutral" stages being picked. This bothers me tremendously, as just about every other stage in the game promotes some different type of strategy that is probably not balanced for a ladder ranked on player skill. Stage choices arguments player skill very much, as it becomes both a distraction and a needless hazard to the game flow.

I'll use the most extreme example, Wario Ware. The game flow is immediately disturbed whenever a microgame is played. Players stop trying to battle each other and instead attempt to accomplish the goal of the microgame to be rewarded a bonus that would make you quite capable of KOing the opponent with ease, and as such, it is almost essential to attain these rewards. However, the next problem is that the rewards are inconsistent. Even though both players have successfully taunted at the correct time during the screenshot, one player recieves super mushroom while the other recieves invincibility (Star effect). This is a huge disadvantage, as the other person is a larger target for the invincible one to mercilessly wail on. It's just not right.

Consider what each stage will provide for the sake of competition, not for the sake of diversity. After all, GameBattles's goal is to provide a competitive and fair environment for all to play in, correct?


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Stock Time Limit

This keeps the matches in a moderately controlled time frame; I don't see why this wasn't suggested before. 7 minutes is a decent amount of time for both singles and doubles, perhaps 8 would be the highest it should go, as I have had matches last around 7:20 at times where neither character was capable of KOing the other and instead kept racking up damage. Really, anything that requires more time than that is a campfest. In combination with the 5-minutes break limit, best 2 of 3 matches last, at maximum, 31-34 minutes, depending on 7-8 minutes. A decent amount of time, I'd say.


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Communication Issues

The "no forms of communication" rule I've seen is basically impossible to enforce. Nobody is listening in on your games, anyone can chat over things such as instant messengers, cell phones, Skype, Ventrillio, etc., and nobody could prove that any conversation was going on at any time. It really should be done away with; it only prevents two people from playing online with the same Wii in teams for the fear that they could easily communicate and break rules.


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In Conclusion

This is the basic idea we've got:

Singles

~ 4 stock
~ 7 minutes (8 minutes could be debatable)
~ No items

Doubles

~ 4 stock
~ 7 minutes (8 minutes could be debatable)
~ No items
~ Team Attack On

Acceptable Stage Choices

~ Yoshi's Island
~ Battlefield
~ Final Destination
~ Lylat Cruise
~ Smashville

And others that I feel would also be acceptable:

~ Pokemon Stadium (Melee)
~ Luigi's Mansion
~ Skyworld
~ Frigate orpheon
~ Delfino Plaza
~ Halbred
~ Shadow Moses Island

The rest would either have to be debated or simply banned for the time being. It would be more effective to tell the community what they can play instead of what they cannot play so you can sort out the problem without ruining the flow of the ladder for a brief amount of time.


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I doubt everyone will take the time to read all of this, but if you even just skim it, that would be great. Remember: I am not petitioning to change the rules here; I'm only suggesting what would improve the environment and make it suitable for a real competitive ladder. Thanks for your time.

 

[Corner-Trap]

Empy

The only point I ever tried to get across to you was that it was unreasonable to try and ban stages for imbalances, because we honestly don't know what is broken and what is not. This is why I had so many stages on counter pick, because I want these stages to be tested out in tournaments first before we deem them imbalanced in anyway. Randomness and infinite stalling are two highly obvious traits that are detrimental to tournament play, thats why agreed to ban stages with those properties. Every other stage needs more proof that they're broken before any kind of ban is administered. Doing so before thorough testing is done, is simply bad procedure.

 

[Oracle]

I think that Mega Smash is mostly right, with a few exceptions.

The legal stages should have no randomness or hazards, even if they are easily avoided, so the game is a test of skill, not luck. No walk off stages or wall stages should be legal because of chain grabs, infinite jabs against a wall, etc.

IMO, Frigate Orpheon should be a counterpick because even though it's simple, the flip thing can screw people over. Skyworld could be legal, but it is hard to recover with some characters and it is easy to spike by hitting people off of the ceilings at lower percentages.

 

[Firestorm88]

Mega Smash, this discussion is focusing more on an offline tournament environment. 3 stock will likely be the standard due to time constraints. Time Limit has always been a part of tournaments and will continue to be, again, due to time constraints.

As for stages, I disagree with Distant Planet. I disagree with banning everything else. GameBattles is a horrible website.

 

[Testament27]

skyworld is anything but neutral. should be counterpick. i think we can all agree on that. Im a firm believer in banning frigate orpheon. you can make the argument that its still neutral and there is ample warning before the flip, but after playing so many matches there, that does not matter, people get screwed and lucky. it should be counterpick at best, banned imo.

mushroomy kingdom imo is a ban. its too easy for dedede or anyone with an infinite to get kills. MK in particular dominates this board. of course, one could make the argument that its no different from rainbow cruise, which i would say touche to because they both share many similarities. However, the difference is in the variety of environment presented in rainbow cruise as opposed to mushroomy. rainbow goes from a normal platform stage (the ship) to a obstacle course, to a obstacle course with walls, and back again. there is ample partiality to everyone. thats why its neutral.

 

[Mic_128]

I would like to say that I won't do it again, however, I don't want to lie to a mod, because of being banned, hunted down and forced to play the Wario stage over and over again.

Yes, because you guys need to stop discussing things when I'm not around

MegaSmash, dont copy-paste other people's work. That is clearly not yours, since your last post here was "Gamebattles has rules lol"

GameBattles will not be making the 'official' rules of smash tournaments, that's what the Smash Back Room here does, and they purposly aren't rushing it.

Also, why ban Yoshi Story Melee for walk off edges, but not mention the banning of any other walk-off stage? :/

And telling people what they can play instead of what they can't is a horrible idea. They've basically banned counterpicks for now, which is both stupid (how can you see if smething's broken or not?) and unfair for people who perfer to play on some of the counterpick stages?

 

[Firestorm88]

I think the reason they're banned on GameBattles is due to Brawl's way of picking stages online. This is again a reason for why online rules and offline rules should be written up completely separately.

 

[Corner-Trap]

Lets not talk about neutral stages, because we already have a fairly good list of 5 of them, we honestly don't need anymore. We also need to stop talking about banning walk-off and wall stages because we don't have any real proof that they're broken.

 

[ShadowLink84]

Bridge of Eldin

Dedede has an almost guaranteed KO on this stage set up by simply grabbing, down throwing, running over and catching them, repeating until they are eventually pushed off the side of the stage. Check this out (1:00): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M-WMrOszRg

The only person that can ge t infinite chain grabbed is donkey Kong, everyone else can escape well before he can take them out of the stage.Only way he can infinite chain grab them is if they are up against a wall.
the DDD chain grab argument should no longer be used.

 

[Empy]

Empy

The only point I ever tried to get across to you was that it was unreasonable to try and ban stages for imbalances, because we honestly don't know what is broken and what is not. This is why I had so many stages on counter pick, because I want these stages to be tested out in tournaments first before we deem them imbalanced in anyway. Randomness and infinite stalling are two highly obvious traits that are detrimental to tournament play, thats why agreed to ban stages with those properties. Every other stage needs more proof that they're broken before any kind of ban is administered. Doing so before thorough testing is done, is simply bad procedure.

I understand what you are trying to say, but I also said that SMI has the main problem, of stalling by teching. Anyway, let's just leave that subject for now, I don't think we'll be able to agree on it anytime soon.

Yes, because you guys need to stop discussing things when I'm not around ?

I know, can't you lock this thing when you log off or something?

Also, why ban Yoshi Story Melee for walk off edges, but not mention the banning of any other walk-off stage? :/

I laughed about that as well, Mario Circuit has it's walkoff way closer. And so far, I've been able to play that stage pretty well. Even against DDD, although the chaingrab thing does get annoying. It irritates me way more then in Melee, I think because it's so slow but still works, makes you look stupid.

Lets not talk about neutral stages, because we already have a fairly good list of 5 of them, we honestly don't need anymore. We also need to stop talking about banning walk-off and wall stages because we don't have any real proof that they're broken.

Agreed.

 

[Big Bob]

I know that this is a strange opinion, but I don't think Norfair has anything that would make it tournament-banned. The lava is a random element, sure, since sometimes you can't see it coming, but I RARELY find it destructive. The cars on Port Town are much more dangerous than the lava, and you can just air dodge or shield the giant wave that comes. As far as layouts go, Norfair has an extremely balanced layout that's a lot different than any other stage (it doesn't favor particular characters). Not only that, but the stage has a giant anti-camping measure. The biggest knock against it is now one of the reasons to play it.

 

[Mic_128]

I know that this is a strange opinion, but I don't think Norfair has anything that would make it tournament-banned. The lava is a random element, sure, since sometimes you can't see it coming, but I RARELY find it destructive. The cars on Port Town are much more dangerous than the lava, and you can just air dodge or shield the giant wave that comes. As far as layouts go, Norfair has an extremely balanced layout that's a lot different than any other stage (it doesn't favor particular characters). Not only that, but the stage has a giant anti-camping measure. The biggest knock against it is now one of the reasons to play it.

It's not strange at all.

 

[Empy]

It's not strange at all.

Darn you! I was about to say something just like that. However, I was smart enough to think, nah, let him be, he won't come back to read replies anyway.

Edit, I thought this green emoticon guy sticked out his tongue to show he was joking, I didn't know he was sick.

 

[Mic_128]

He's not sick, urg is sick.

 

[Empy]

He's not sick, urg is sick.

Well he looks pretty green to me and he's sticking his tongue out like we have to look down his throat to see if it's red or not. Saying he's sick is the only logical conclusion. Unless of course you assume he is sticking his tongue out on a set interval, then he would be counter-sick. He's definitely not neutral though.

(staying on topic ain't that hard)

 

[AlexX]

Lets not talk about neutral stages, because we already have a fairly good list of 5 of them, we honestly don't need anymore. We also need to stop talking about banning walk-off and wall stages because we don't have any real proof that they're broken.

But some stages are arguably neutral. Luigi's Mansion and Frigate Orpheon are examples of this.

Besides, just 5 neutral stages? That's pretty low considering Melee had 6 neutral stages and almost half as many total stages as Brawl does...

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

The final list of recommendations from the Back Room for melee rules had 8 neutral stages as they added Rainbow Cruise and Kongo Jungle. This didn't apply for most of melee's lifespan, but I think taking this as a final ruleset for melee makes discussing stage rules for brawl take on a different light.

http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=137382

If Rainbow Cruise can be neutral in melee, I don't see why Battleship Halberd, Castle Siege, and Delfino Plaza all shouldn't be neutral in brawl (along with, maybe, Rainbow Cruise itself?). Pokemon Stadium 1 also really didn't change that much with the windmill more being something you adapt to as being new less than something that ruins the level; why move it? We're looking at at least nine neutrals if we use this philosophy though arguments could be made for higher numbers.

On that note, they allow Princess Peach's Castle in a game where waveshining definitely exists so walls shouldn't be automatic disqualifications. Mushroom Kingdom II is also allowed there in a game where waveshining still definitely exists so walkoffs shouldn't be auto-DQ'd. That being said, Bridge of Eldin seems like an odd ban choice no matter how you look at it.

 

[Eten]

There is no reason for us to try to buff up the number of neutral stages in neglect of actual neutrality. If neutral stages comes out to 5 different stages or 20, so be it, they just should all fit in the well defined definition of "neutral" with no exceptions. I think neutral stages are done best by being simple and consistent.

 

[Corner-Trap]

I know that this is a strange opinion, but I don't think Norfair has anything that would make it tournament-banned. The lava is a random element, sure, since sometimes you can't see it coming, but I RARELY find it destructive. The cars on Port Town are much more dangerous than the lava, and you can just air dodge or shield the giant wave that comes. As far as layouts go, Norfair has an extremely balanced layout that's a lot different than any other stage (it doesn't favor particular characters). Not only that, but the stage has a giant anti-camping measure. The biggest knock against it is now one of the reasons to play it.

All of Norfairs hazards are clearly visible, and aren't that powerful in the first place, so your opinion isn't that strange.

 

[Firestorm88]

I'm really not seeing the argument for neutrality with regards to Luigi's Mansion. Remember, the neutral stage is picked AFTER character. Picking someone like Toon Link and randoming Luigi's Mansion which makes all his B moves close to useless isn't my idea of a neutral map. Obviously each stage gives slight advantages and disadvantages against certain characters, but Luigi's Mansion seems like a counter-pick to me, not neutral.

 

[FakeKraid]

A lot of good points have been made here. I don't have a lot to add in terms of details or specific suggestions; the rules that Travis and the Team Arlington people agreed on after Critical Hit seem good to me. But one thing sticks in my mind. I know a lot of us are attached to the old Melee stages, but there is one major difference between the Melee stages and the new Brawl stages--namely, the Brawl stage edges are way farther out than the Melee stage ones. On Corneria, for instance, Dedede can kill most characters off the right edge of the stage (the one without the wall) with a forward throw at less than 80%. This holds true for every single Melee stage, and I think it accounts for some of the low % kills even in the game they were originally from (especially Jiggsie's). One of the reasons people live to higher percentages in Brawl is the edges are so far out. When considering the legality (and especially the neutrality) of any Melee stage, we need to take into account that fact, considered in the light of the admittedly different game flow that Brawl has.

 

[AlexX]

There is no reason for us to try to buff up the number of neutral stages in neglect of actual neutrality. If neutral stages comes out to 5 different stages or 20, so be it, they just should all fit in the well defined definition of "neutral" with no exceptions. I think neutral stages are done best by being simple and consistent.

But if the hazards don't significantly affect gameplay, why should they be treated as badly as ones that do?

If Kingo Jungle and Rainbow Cruise were made neutral in Melee, why can't ones with equally minor issues in Brawl be considered neutral?

 

[hizzlum]

I think that battlefield, final destination, pokemon stadium, smashville, and Yoshi's Island (SSBB) are obvious neutrals with really no counter arguement. Lylat cruise is sort of debateable as a neutral beacuse of the tilting, but that really doesent change much

 

[Corner-Trap]

I'm really not seeing the argument for neutrality with regards to Luigi's Mansion. Remember, the neutral stage is picked AFTER character. Picking someone like Toon Link and randoming Luigi's Mansion which makes all his B moves close to useless isn't my idea of a neutral map. Obviously each stage gives slight advantages and disadvantages against certain characters, but Luigi's Mansion seems like a counter-pick to me, not neutral.

1) Neutral stages aren't chosen for the fact that they're neutral, this why I want to change the word to starter stages so people will stop misinterpreting it.

2) With the strike out system, we won't have to worry about getting a bad stage as the first one.

 

[AlexX]

I'm really not seeing the argument for neutrality with regards to Luigi's Mansion. Remember, the neutral stage is picked AFTER character. Picking someone like Toon Link and randoming Luigi's Mansion which makes all his B moves close to useless isn't my idea of a neutral map.

The mansion is incredibly easy to smash to bits, at which point it becomes another Final Destination.

 

[Corner-Trap]

But if the hazards don't significantly affect gameplay, why should they be treated as badly as ones that do?

If Kingo Jungle and Rainbow Cruise were made neutral in Melee, why can't ones with equally minor issues in Brawl be considered neutral?

Neither Kongo Jungle, or Rainbow Cruise were neutral in Melee, they were counterpick.

I think that battlefield, final destination, pokemon stadium, smashville, and Yoshi's Island (SSBB) are obvious neutrals with really no counter arguement. Lylat cruise is sort of debateable as a neutral beacuse of the tilting, but that really doesent change much

PS needs to be put on counterpick. Neutral stages are suppose to be simple with the least amount of variance, and PS doesn't fall into that category. I never agreed with it being neutral in Melee because it goes against what a neutral stage is suppose to represent. Also Lylat Cuise isn't debatable, is simply is neutral. It doesn't tilt, thats just the background playing tricks on you.

 

[wWw Dazwa]

Neither Kongo Jungle, or Rainbow Cruise were neutral in Melee, they were counterpick.

Rainbow Cruise was used in MLG as a neutral for awhile. Kongo Jungle is sometimes neutral in teams to be a 6th random stage in place of Fountain of Dreams being banned (due to lag)

Speaking of which, are any stages candidates of banning due to lag in teams?

 

[hizzlum]

Corner-Trap lylat does actually tilt but i agree that it should be neutral. And since PS was neutral in melee it is an obvious pick in brawl. Youre right that it is odd for a transforming stage to be neutral but most of the time it is in the basic form

 

[Corner-Trap]

Rainbow Cruise was used in MLG as a neutral for awhile. Kongo Jungle is sometimes neutral in teams to be a 6th random stage in place of Fountain of Dreams being banned (due to lag)

Speaking of which, are any stages candidates of banning due to lag in teams?

Corner-Trap lylat does actually tilt but i agree that it should be neutral. And since PS was neutral in melee it is an obvious pick in brawl. Youre right that it is odd for a transforming stage to be neutral but most of the time it is in the basic form

Someone else pointed out to me that it tilts, but when I played it for a few matches I deemed that it was simply the background messing with my head. But if it really does tilt then I guess you're right. And just because PS was neutral in Melee doesn't mean we should automatically make it neutral in Brawl. As I said before, I never agreed with it being Neutral in Melee in the first place. A stage that transforms goes against everything a neutral stage is meant to represent, and the windmill is much more bothersome now.

 

[hizzlum]

Windmill is now a pain ur definitly right about that. It acts as a wall and can be used to tech attacks that would send you flying off the left side of the stage

 

[Mic_128]

There is no reason for us to try to buff up the number of neutral stages in neglect of actual neutrality.

It's things like this that prompt the serious discussion of changing "Neutral" stages to "Random" Stages.

 

[AlexX]

Neither Kongo Jungle, or Rainbow Cruise were neutral in Melee, they were counterpick.

They weren't during most of Melee's lifespan, but even so, this topic disagrees with you:
http://smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=137382

 

[FakeKraid]

Incidentally, speaking of the difference between "Neutral" and "Random", I thought that they were called neutral because they were inert and did not actively affect the match, not because they conferred no benefits to one character over another. Otherwise, it would simply be false to call Dreamland 64 and Final Destination "Neutral" in Melee, given the obvious advantages those stages give some characters (e.g. Falco's unescapable laser spamming on FD and Peach's basic immortality on Dreamland).

The reason I say this is because, for instance, Lylat Cruise is most definitely a neutral in the first sense, that it does not actively affect the match. It is not, however, neutral in the sense of giving no advantage to any character. For one thing, the Battlefield-esque edges (I mean Melee Battlefield, of course) are terrible for characters whose Up-B moves send them up and forward at a set angle (such as Mario and Charizard).

Whether we want to call such stages "Neutral" or "Random" depends on which thing we mean by "Neutral." I am not sure there is such a thing as a "Neutral" stage in the second sense in a game as dynamic and complex as Smash Bros, so if that is what we mean by the word, "Random" would be a better choice. And thus, Mic's point is demonstrated.

 

[HyugaRicdeau]

Try to run it past the mods or some BRoomer then. The problem with this thread is that we can't decide on anything, the BRoom has the final call, so.

Err, dunno if you knew, but a purple name indicates a memeber of the SBR.

I see your point here, the thing is, this has been going on since the start of this thread. However, giving it this many reasons could over-complicate things. I have been trying to ban SMI for quite a while now, just like Skyworld (but SMI more). SMI has both the imbalance (DDD, whether free kill or not, def. imbalance), the stalling and the fact that it changes the game too much. I really think a match played on SMI will have few to do with Smash, if someone is willingly abusing the stage.

Well, if simplicity were of utmost concern we'd ONLY play the "neutral" stages. If we're not interested in "over-complicating things" why even have this thread open? There's no point in not exploring the full theory of it. Regarding SMI, you say DDD is imbalanced by giving him SMI? Maybe I say you're gimping him by taking it away. The point is that I cannot abide banning the stage until it's proven broken in a TOURNEY setting. Win a set for free here with DDD (only if he's not your main) and then tell me it's broken. Your following paragraphs reasoning for its ban are just theorycraft. There's no point in just throwing theory at one another. We have to test it in a tournament. There is no other way.

I agree on this one, I have played with it banned during Melee as well, great disadvantage towards the campers. However, a lot of campers back then were Fox users and they had the advantage on the up kill as well. This seems a lot less in Brawl, so it might be better in Brawl then in Melee. It at least deserves the chance, maybe just because is was such a great stage in 64.

Well personally I believe that if you allowed Corneria in Melee, there was NO reason not to allow Princess Peach's Castle, which is probably MORE balanced.

Avoiding the bomb blocks isn't too hard really and they don't do that much. The apples can be annoying but still, it's indeed good for campers, however, destroying the blocks that aren't bomb blocks mostly takes away a lot of their tactics.

The problem is that they come down at practically random times (though they only come down if some blocks have been broken), which just kill (or save!) people at their will. Also, if you get Fox on one of the far platforms, his laser goes -just- over the middle platform. He can stand there and laser and have it go all the way across the stage. Not that this by itself matters, it's just an example of the stage stunting approaches.

Nearly none of the changes are really big, mostly it's just an extra platform or something. I can't think of 1 drawing that would really be a problem.

The spikes? The cart?

Fine with me, not up to any of us though.

Sure it is, Mic and I are both in the SBR and we like to hear people's arguments.

Very true this, stages have been banned because they tend to mess up the entire metagame developed by smashers. Maybe this is the best way to put it, stages that destroy the metagame (or like I said on my very first post in this thread, stages that **** everything they meet).

Sort of but I wouldn't word it like that. Playing on those stages -is- a legitimate metagame, it's just "too different" from the metagame everywhere else. Of course note that what constitutes "too different" is a matter of opinion.

Please, don't start about making 2 lists, that would only make it more confusing for everyone. Right now, this thread is meant to think about what the BRoom list will look like. Maybe some of the BRoomers will look here to see what our list looks like and take it into account, maybe not, but guiding TO's or deciding or having more then 1 list is really their job and not ours.

I don't think it's too complicated. If you don't like 2 lists, then we can have just a list of all stages, and next to the stage would be the options for the stage.

Incidentally, speaking of the difference between "Neutral" and "Random", I thought that they were called neutral because they were inert and did not actively affect the match, not because they conferred no benefits to one character over another.

It seems to be true on the face of it, but only Battlefield and FD are 100% "inert." FoD has variable height platforms, DL64 has wind, YS has Randall and shyguys, PS has stageforms.

Whether we want to call such stages "Neutral" or "Random" depends on which thing we mean by "Neutral." I am not sure there is such a thing as a "Neutral" stage in the second sense in a game as dynamic and complex as Smash Bros, so if that is what we mean by the word, "Random" would be a better choice. And thus, Mic's point is demonstrated.

You are correct that there is no such thing as a truly neutral stage in practice, only in theory. I and others before me have considered eliminating the random stage select altogether (why add randomness in a way that adds no depth to the game?), so neither is really appropriate. "Starter" or something, as one person suggested, is better.

As far as the DDD CG goes, on any stage, I don't think it is reasonable to ban it or the stage until the majority of evidence shows that it is MORE "broken" than Wobbling was in Melee, which about 90% of the SBR voted should be legal. There's just no way that that much tourney evidence can exist at this point.