Official Stage Legality Discussion

[Denzi]

Well then, don't play Falco on Distant Planet. It's a counterpick for a reason ;D

I'm not saying it should be banned or anything, I'm just saying that your point about the walkoff wasn't entirely true.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

In my experience it's very hard to actually get behind someone on Distant Planet to pull them up the walk-off if they don't want you to. Slopes are a bit weird so any dash action on the ground will actually take Falco more time if he's going downhill; any trick to grab them from the back that worked on Final Destination might not work on Distant Planet or at least will take longer and give them more time to respond. You were referring to Falco basically slipping behind the opponent and doing a pivot grab, right (maybe with a fancy pants movement technique to make it faster)? I'm not really as familiar with Falco as I'd like to be; some analysis of just how long it takes him to get behind opponents and which characters from 0% he can walk up the entire slope to their death would probably be relevant (if you actually follow him to near the top of the slope, you're just dumb and deserve to lose your stock). I'll look into that and say more about this stage later; I sadly just have no time right now...

 

[Deoxys]

Circle camping. You put a little damage on the enemy, then just run the heck away for the remaining 6 minutes. They go one way, you go the other... it's like kids playing tag around a car; an easy stalemate.

Plus there's a CoI (cave of immortality).

Distant Planet
Jungle Japes
Green Greens

I think most of us who really have a lot of experience on these stages agree they are fair... but they're "under attack" regardless. I'll inevitably wall of text about them soon, but maybe some strategy would be in order first. How should we go about trying to convince TOs to not ban them or, in some cases, unban them? My experience shows a stubbornness in talking about stages and a terrifying trend toward ban, ban, ban... I think well presented arguments for legality designed to appeal to multiple stage philosophies might be the best bet, but does anyone else have anything to add about the strategy for defending them?

About Distant Planet in particular, I think it's losing because no one cares about it. I think "heating up" the argument on that stage would probably cause it to be generally legal instead of the current trend toward generally banned.

I think GG should be banned just because it is sometimes luck-related and I think luck shouldn't be added by stages.

I think you should add that Norfair is probably up for banning, although I sure hope it isn't banned....

 

[Titanium Dragon]

Halberd should be a starter because you shouldn't use random stages. Really, this goes back to the fact that random stages suck and stage striking is awesome. I see no real argument not to have the most fair 7/9 stages as starters regardless of things like hazards since, if you feel those things hurt you, you can avoid them. I think the Halberd is a pretty good candidate for that group. I'm definitely "biased" in the sense that the Final Destination/Smashville/Battlefield/Yoshi's Island all on random way of handling the first match in the set is literally the worst possible reasonable option for Mr. Game & Watch (So I have a 50/50 of playing on one of my worst stages in the first match? That sounds fair to me...). That's also really heavily biased in favor of the Ice Climbers since they have a 3/4 of getting their best stages.

I think the real issue is that you end up with ugly situations where one character is favored on two stages and others three; I've seen people claim this for the Yoshi/MK matchup, and MK gets the three. If Yoshi had three favorable stages vs MK, and MK had only two, then every time Yoshi, not MK, would get the favorable stage. And this of course begs the question of whether or not the matchup is inherently in MK's favor in the first place; if our arbitrary rules are favoring MK, then maybe those rules need to be examined. I'm not sure how true it is that this is so, but it is certainly a real possibility. Is Yoshi really advantaged on the stages he is "advantaged" on, or is he disadvantaged by the other three? Is there even a difference?

Banning stages has to be approached very carefully, but I think even the overall neutral stage construction isn't approached carefully enough from the standpoint of promoting fairness.

 

[deepseadiva]

Well, I'd reply to some posts here, the new stage list is out (supposedly) tomorrow - so I'll just wait till then.

But I'm sure the SBR won't take the "Different = OMG BAN" approach.

 

[Mr.T 07]

awwww why must the sumnit and wario ware be banned? just cause the stage can help you out in a pinch? if people are dumb enough to get owned by their surroundings then thats their own fault.

 

[Mattsy]

Can anyone tell me why Shadow Moses and Bridge of Eldin are banner, specifically? The walk-off sides look like the only really bad parts about either stages, but Mario Circuit, Green Hill Zone and Distant Planet all have at least one walk-off side, plus worse stage distractions able to kill and damage you, and are still counterpick.

So yeah, I'm a bit confused.

Mr. T - Not really, when you're trying to face a great pooponent with killer combos who'll KO you the instant you blink, having to hack at some random block grow big for twenty seconds isn't too great. More than that, the introduction of items effect after minigames and the diversion of focus away from each other and onto other things is a primary reason why the smashball is banned, right?

 

[Deoxys]

awwww why must the sumnit and wario ware be banned? just cause the stage can help you out in a pinch? if people are dumb enough to get owned by their surroundings then thats their own fault.

Yes, it's clearly my fault if both myself and my opponent complete the Wario Ware "minigame" and he gets invincibility while I become giant.

I think the real issue is that you end up with ugly situations where one character is favored on two stages and others three; I've seen people claim this for the Yoshi/MK matchup, and MK gets the three. If Yoshi had three favorable stages vs MK, and MK had only two, then every time Yoshi, not MK, would get the favorable stage. And this of course begs the question of whether or not the matchup is inherently in MK's favor in the first place; if our arbitrary rules are favoring MK, then maybe those rules need to be examined. I'm not sure how true it is that this is so, but it is certainly a real possibility. Is Yoshi really advantaged on the stages he is "advantaged" on, or is he disadvantaged by the other three? Is there even a difference?

Banning stages has to be approached very carefully, but I think even the overall neutral stage construction isn't approached carefully enough from the standpoint of promoting fairness.

First of all, our rules for starters are NOT arbitrary. I'm assuming you were unclear of the definition of the word, or otherwise misunderstand the situation. Having "only" 5 starters is very practical, and although 7 or 9 starters may be more fair, many players are reluctant to spend any more time striking stages.

The matchup is inherently in MK's favor in the first place. Yoshi relies heavily on the CG in the matchup, and the majority of stages limit its usefulness. Yoshi is really advantaged on the stages he is "advantaged" on, just because those stages enable him to use the CG to its maximum potential. For this reason, adding Halberd and Lylat Cruise/PS1 (the 2 next fairest stages) to the starters would make things even more in MK's favor. Also, I have decided that I believe Castle Seige, Pictochat, and Delfino Plaza are all too unfair to use as starters.

tl;dr, Yoshi and Bowser players should move to Japan so they can "pwn" on FD every game against MK.

pooponent

LOL

 

[Denzi]

awwww why must the sumnit and wario ware be banned? just cause the stage can help you out in a pinch? if people are dumb enough to get owned by their surroundings then thats their own fault.

The Summit isn't banned for the fish so much as it's banned for the non-grabbable edges.

Can anyone tell me why Shadow Moses and Bridge of Eldin are banner, specifically? The walk-off sides look like the only really bad parts about either stages, but Mario Circuit, Green Hill Zone and Distant Planet all have at least one walk-off side, plus worse stage distractions able to kill and damage you, and are still counterpick.

So yeah, I'm a bit confused.

Shadow Moses = DeDeDe infinate chaingrab against the wall mostly.
The reason BoE is banned is because if you are grabbed anywhere on the stage by D3, you die, gaurenteed. Other stages it's either hard to get a grab on the small walkoff portion, or there's some sort of obstacle/stage hazard that gets in the way.

 

[Deoxys]

The Summit isn't banned for the fish so much as it's banned for the non-grabbable edges.



Shadow Moses = DeDeDe infinate chaingrab against the wall mostly.
The reason BoE is banned is because if you are grabbed anywhere on the stage by D3, you die, gaurenteed.

Well, the summit is banned because the fish and is made worse when the fish is accompanied by non-grabbable edges. Non-grabbable edges are totally legit. OHKO hazards are not. That said, even if you could grab the edges the stage would still probably be banned. Any stage were a Falco grab can = a stock on the right and the left should be banned.

Also, it takes forever to finish some matches on BoE with pros.

 

[DuskMarthWater]

...Just a few quick points:

1. Mute City in Melee had no ledges and it was still legal. In fact in Melee as a whole, if you made one small mistake you lost a stock because your opponent is probably going to pull some rapetastic combo on you, and unless you have good DI you won't live through it, or at least you'll take a lot of damage. Port Town isn't legal because of the cars. They kill MK at under 20%, and heavier characters at like 50%-ish. The no ledges has nothing to do with it. But yes, it is banned. It's not the worst of a banned stage though...I wouldn't mind if it were legal. Until that one time when my opponent does a fthrow and launches me into the cars and kills me...

2. Green Hill Zone and Mario Circuit really should not be legal Mattsy. BoE and SM should be fairly obvious though, due to their straightforwardness.

3. Onett should be CP, as Meno just explained. Just because it's not a good CP for YOU doesn't mean that it's not a good D3 or Ike CP.

4. Pictochat should stay legal.

5. Meno's last post on the page before this with Titanium Dragon's quote perfectly explains everything.

6. Summit is actually banned because it screws with the gravity, there's a stupid fish that eats you, If you touch the rapidly moving water when the stage TILTS(and don't try and argue that Lylat tilts too, because that's WAY less of a tilt than this) you die faster than you can blink-literally.

7. If camping were ever an issue on banning things, then NOBODY WOULD PLAY BRAWL.

EDIT: If a match takes you a long time on BoE, then your opponent isn't good enough. ONE GRAB. That's all it takes.

 

[Deoxys]

EDIT: If a match takes you a long time on BoE, then your opponent isn't good enough. ONE GRAB. That's all it takes.

What if neither player has a CG...? It's perfectly possible.

Also, I've been fthrown into the cars on PTAD and I still support its legality since I took that chance in the first place.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Okay, here comes a lot.

Most people want to ban the Summit because they are too bad at this game to avoid the fish, but it needs to be banned anyway because it has a loop so it's really not worth arguing over at this point (a shame since otherwise it's a cool stage). WarioWare would be a cool stage and honestly a candidate for not just counterpick but starter status with no reward system, but the fact that it completely randomly gives you invincibility (and giant size) makes it pretty much completely broken and obviously ban-worthy. It's a really big shame to be honest, but we can only look for the best set of rules based on how the game actually is.

About the stage striking, do consider that "advantage" on a stage isn't a simple yes/no. With the Yoshi/Meta Knight example and the 5 stage striking (which is really worse than 7/9 but still better than random), Meta Knight will get a favorable stage, but he'll get his least favorable stage. If we look at the stages at, say, +3 Yoshi, +1 Yoshi, +1 MK, +2 MK, +4 MK (completely arbitrary), you end up playing on +1 MK which is pretty fair (stages that are 100% neutral in matchups are pretty rare). That's a lot better for Yoshi than Meta Knight having a random (and as I'm sure Deoxys hates, luck based) chance at getting stages even more favorable to him, right? For that matter, I don't care if Yoshi is low tier; if he gets the +3 Yoshi stage as the first stage, that's really unfair to the Meta Knight player.

For a dramatic example, consider Mr. Game & Watch versus the Ice Climbers. With the random system, it's basically like this.

Battlefield: Mr. Game & Watch has a sizeable advantage
Final Destination: Ice Climbers got a free counterpick and a huge advantage out of stage
Yoshi's Island Brawl: Ice Climbers got a pretty good stage for them
Smashville: Ice Climbers got a pretty good stage for them

Even if we contend that we only wanted to make these four stages possibilities, isn't it obvious that it's totally unfair if random selects Battlefield or Final Destination in this matchup? It could very, very easily decide the winner or loser of a tournament completely by luck if we assume that each of us will be winning on our counterpicks (since presumably we will be picking from our best stages in both cases). When you put this in the lens of all the legal stages and see that almost all the rest are better for Mr. Game & Watch in this matchup than three out of these four, it begins to raise even more questions about whether your system is promoting fairness at all.

In practice it is very easy to run stage striking, and I cannot think of a single matchup in which taking Battlefield/Final Destination/Yoshi's Island Brawl/Smashville/Lylat Cruise/Pokemon Stadium 1/Halberd or Delfino Plaza (pick one) and doing a 7 stage starter striking is unfair. Against that ICs player, I'd strike Final Destination, Yoshi's Island Brawl, and then either Smashville or Pokemon Stadium 1 (it would be a somewhat hard choice on the last one). He'd obviously strike Battlefield, Lylat Cruise, and the 7th stage. So we end up playing on either Smashville or Pokemon Stadium 1... both very fair stages for the matchup. How is that not better than random? Can anyone come up with even a single matchup in which this produces unfair results?

About the SBR stage list, well, the old list didn't seem to stop players who wanted to ban more stages, but most people who wanted to allow a bunch of stages just gave up on every stage it banned. The way the current culture is going, the side that wants to keep banning stages (and any new SBR list will inevitably ban more stages) is winning, and it's largely because the side that wants to allow stages is putting up a fairly incompetent argument while the other side is very aggressively getting their agenda implemented at real tournaments and promoting their simple, clear philosophy on stages. I don't think a SBR stage list really changes this reality; what it really does is just show the direction of the culture on the "debate". I don't think if we want to try to save stages that it will only serve as a warning sign for just how dire the situation is becoming.

Anyway, how does this argument look for Distant Planet? Do note that the goal here is to convince as wide of an audience as possible with many different outlooks as per why stages should be allowed, not just to justify it under my personal philosophy as per why stages should be allowed.

Distant Planet

Why it's not broken: The first "bad" thing on Distant Planet is the hazard that can, in theory, instantly kill the player. However, this "hazard" requires the player to willingly interact with it in virtually every case to be killed; the danger level of the creature is roughly comparable to the falling blocks on Rainbow Cruise. You will die if you keep standing on them, but if you just hop on them briefly and then jump off like any sensible person would, you face literally no danger. The second, and only other really worrysome "bad" thing, is the walk-off edge. This edge is not like other walk-off edges, and most of the abuse typical of such edges is impractical here. One factor that limits abuse is the rain. The rain is a feature that gives several seconds of warning before appearing, but when it does it simply and non-dangerously slides characters on the slope down it. The practical effect is that anyone camping the walk-off will be forced away. Secondly, the stage provides several very weak items. These items do mostly low damage (under 10%) and inflict almost no knockback and even at 999% cannot kill or even combo into anything from being thrown at an opponent. In general they are simply not worth paying attention to except to set up for glide tosses. However, if the opponent is camping the walk-off, they become useful as they can be thrown at the opponent with no risk, and the camper will have no opportunity to get them himself unless he gives up his not so unfair position. It basically lets the entire cast use the projectile pressure strategy to defeat the walk-off camping. Working together, these factors make camping the walk-off a simply nonviable strategy on this stage.

Chaingrabs are also not that worrysome here. Due to the layout of the stage, it is very easy to avoid being to the left of the opponent when you are both on the portion of the stage with the walk-off; even slightly smart play will mean that the grabs that can lead into walk-off abuse will be rare. Even more, one of the two chaingrabbers, Falco, is very unlikely to be able to walk opponents off this. It requires Falco, by my personal testing, nine down throws to walk Link (a very susceptible character to Falco's chaingrab) up the entire slope to his death. The slope, while seemingly helpful to Falco at first, actually seems to hurt as it causes the victim to hit the ground earlier and thus have an opportunity to tech away from the down throw. I do not believe Falco can chainthrow any character up the entire slope; at absolutely worst only a very small handful of characters need fear such a death. That leaves only King Dedede as a worry to begin with, and as I said earlier, this stage provides many opportunities beyond virtually all other stages with walk-offs to avoid a fatal chainthrow. It's really like Corneria was in melee. It has a "bad" feature like Corneria's wall, but it implements it in such a way so that the typical abuse on that feature just doesn't work on this stage to a great enough extent that it's fair. All in all, this stage is not broken in any way at all.

What this stage adds to the game: Distant Planet is likely to be a relatively obscure counterpick if allowed, but it does offer several unique features that are interesting, fair, and all around good things to have in the game. The fact that the stage has "two right ledges" combined with the presence of the monster makes this stage a potentially good option for characters like Olimar who have poor recoveries; Distant Planet is exceptional in giving the player an opportunity to recover. The water seems scary at first, but an experienced player will notice that it creates a "sliding" effect. Melee veterans will see the power of this; using the momentum boost provided by the water to lead into attacks is simply awesome. The platform layout on this stage is also completely unique, and characters like Marth, Ike, or Mr. Game & Watch stand to be able to gain the small, interesting sort of advantages we like to promote on counterpick stages. It all works together to make this a stage where some players will be able to say "hey, I can use this feature to help my character out a bit" but, when it comes down to it in a tournament, you won't be saying "that's so unfair!" when it gets picked. Isn't that the gold standard for a counterpick stage?

Do you guys find that convincing? Is there anything I should add or take out to make it a stronger argument? I do care about this stage and am, regardless of what any revised ruleset says, not prepared to give up on it because it's really not a bad or even a questionable stage.

 

[Deoxys]

Great post AA. Many North Atlantic tournaments these days use those 4 stages you mentioned, and give each player one strike, and then do random between the final two. To me this doesn't really save time (especially since random has to be set each time) and just makes things less fair. In your IC/GW example, this means that IC always would have an advantage in the first match.

Also, I don't think you knew that the plants grow on the slope sometimes, too. I don't think this changes the stage's fairness much, especailly since a player must approach the camping opponent from the left to be CG'd to death.

Haha, I forgot Frigate Orpheon existed for a while! I propose this as the starter list:

Starter
Battlefield
Final Destination
Smashville
Yoshi's Island
Pokémon Stadium 1
Lylat Cruise*
Halberd*
Frigate Orpheon**
Pokémon Stadium 2**
*For 7 or more starters
**For 9

IMO the MOST fair way to decide the first match is to use these 9 starters and use stage striking.

And yes. I find Delfino less fair than PS2 or FO.

Also, as players become more and more patient on Pictochat, I think we'll find that matches played there will often time out. IDK if this means we should extend the time limit or not, and if we do if it should be solely on Pictochat. If it gets to the point where a Pit vs MK match will always time out, would that make the stage any more bannable in anyone's eyes?

If we look at the stages at, say, +3 Yoshi, +1 Yoshi, +1 MK, +2 MK, +4 MK (completely arbitrary), you end up playing on +1 MK which is pretty fair (stages that are 100% neutral in matchups are pretty rare). That's a lot better for Yoshi than Meta Knight having a random (and as I'm sure Deoxys hates, luck based) chance at getting stages even more favorable to him, right? For that matter, I don't care if Yoshi is low tier; if he gets the +3 Yoshi stage as the first stage, that's really unfair to the Meta Knight player.

Yeah, I hate luck like that. I'm fine with chance being involved in weighing decisions (like Norfair, Pictochat, and even YI(M)), but hate when even the most cautious play can't negate its impact on the match (Wario Ware).

 

[Kage Me]

Frigate, neutral? More neutral/counterpick, or even just counterpick. It's a very nice stage, but the moving part on the right has a non-grabbable ledge, which is quite disadvantageous to characters like Olimar when it's not above the static part of the stage.

 

[buenob]

i gotta say I use it as a serious counterpick because I play rob and any character with lagless up-b moves reign supreme on that level... way too biased to be considered 'neutral' imo

 

[Deoxys]

Frigate, neutral? More neutral/counterpick, or even just counterpick. It's a very nice stage, but the moving part on the right has a non-grabbable ledge, which is quite disadvantageous to characters like Olimar when it's not above the static part of the stage.

I didn't say it was neutral; I said that if 9 starters are used that it should be the 9th starter. It's fairer than Delfino, Castle Seige, or Pictochat. For every starter there are characters that have advantages/disadvantages. Just because ZSS, Link, TL, Samus, Olimar, Ivysaur, Sheik, and Lucas have trouble recovering on one of the sides on one of the transformations doesn't mean that it's as unbalanced as DP, CS, or PC. I can probably name that many characters that have an advantage of equal magnitude on FD.

 

[buenob]

i gotta say, like 90% of the cast has a significant disadvantage compared to the other 10 (and i don't say that the 10 have an advantage, since it really is just hurting the other person and _not_ hurting those)... pretty much any char who's up-b is a tether or an attack gets boned... with no ledge to land on, they are _forced_ to land on the ground, and therefore they will have landing lag, and it's extremely punishable...

not to mention of they get hit off the platform and then it moves up, a lot of characters are all of a sudden having a way harder time getting back on really for no reason

i really think delfino is a pretty neutral level... i really don't mind playing d3's on it, and because it mixes up so much, pretty much every char has a section they are good/bad at... it's all about stage control to keep your opponent from taking advantage of the parts where you're char isn't as good

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

This is the kind of fruitless discussion that leads to no one being convinced of anything... Frigate Orpheon's merit as a starter doesn't seem to be the main point here. If we want to promote more permissive stage rules, spending the whole time arguing the more minor points is a really bad way to do it. I think you underrate the fairness of Delfino Plaza, but regardless Halberd is really just as good and probably less controversial. Is there anyone who thinks there is anything fundamentally unfair about the seven stage Battlefield/Final Destination/Yoshi's Island Brawl/Smashville/Lylat Cruise/Pokemon Stadium 1/Halberd starter stage set? Can anyone see any matchups in which that set doesn't produce fair outcomes? If we want to try to use this topic to make coherent positions that might convince actual TOs and would not earn the laughter and/or enmity of players who prefer to ban more stuff, that seems like a list we might have some success promoting.

About Distant Planet's pellets, they only spawn on the slope far enough down that you have to pretty much give up camping the walk-off to go and get them (I did know about that spawn point). I don't think from the spawn position of the pellets on that slope that any throw other than maybe Ness's forward throw can kill at low percentages (and even that one I'm not sure about), and Ness's forward throw doesn't matter because he would have to get behind you if he was transitioning from walk-off camping. I think it's a fair statement that the pellets are nothing but negative for anyone who would want to camp the walk-offs.Reflectors don't even really help you fight the pellets because they can throw one and then rush you down. If they get hit by the pellet, it isn't too big of a deal, but if they get in and land a grab, the camper's stock is suddenly gone. It's basically low risk high reward for the approacher which makes the camping tactic remain a simply bad idea. I just don't see any reason why Distant Planet should be banned at this point, but given what I see so often in rules, I think other people see it differently. I just hope I am striking at the real issues people have with this level.

 

[buenob]

i would only strongly suggest ps1 not be in the list due to the level changes highly favouring camping... if you're both on opposite sides of the main obstruction, then it's just a better idea to wait it out than attempt to approach...

it's not necessarily in anyone's favour, it just completely "takes over" for a short period of time

 

[Deoxys]

This is the kind of fruitless discussion that leads to no one being convinced of anything... Frigate Orpheon's merit as a starter doesn't seem to be the main point here. If we want to promote more permissive stage rules, spending the whole time arguing the more minor points is a really bad way to do it. I think you underrate the fairness of Delfino Plaza, but regardless Halberd is really just as good and probably less controversial. Is there anyone who thinks there is anything fundamentally unfair about the seven stage Battlefield/Final Destination/Yoshi's Island Brawl/Smashville/Lylat Cruise/Pokemon Stadium 1/Halberd starter stage set? Can anyone see any matchups in which that set doesn't produce fair outcomes? If we want to try to use this topic to make coherent positions that might convince actual TOs and would not earn the laughter and/or enmity of players who prefer to ban more stuff, that seems like a list we might have some success promoting.

I know Halberd is fairer, I was just arguing it as the 9th starter when 9 are used. But yeah, you'd have to be crazy to have a problem with those 7 IMO.

 

[Kage Me]

I didn't say it was neutral; I said that if 9 starters are used that it should be the 9th starter. It's fairer than Delfino, Castle Seige, or Pictochat. For every starter there are characters that have advantages/disadvantages. Just because ZSS, Link, TL, Samus, Olimar, Ivysaur, Sheik, and Lucas have trouble recovering on one of the sides on one of the transformations doesn't mean that it's as unbalanced as DP, CS, or PC. I can probably name that many characters that have an advantage of equal magnitude on FD.

Pictochat, yes, you're right. But Delfino and Castle Siege are both fairer stages than Frigate Orpheon, and they actually have a chance of being picked: Frigate has a good chance of ****** either character, and will thus be struck.

Delfino and Castle Siege offer a mild advantage to chaingrabbing characters, but only briefly and with plenty of chances to avoid it. The stage may kill you during a change (I've seen Yoshi use egg roll while the stage was changing, to find himself off the edge afterwards), but that's really just a matter of knowing the stage.

Frigate, on the other hand, can own recoveries for extended periods of time.

 

[Deoxys]

Pictochat, yes, you're right. But Delfino and Castle Siege are both fairer stages than Frigate Orpheon, and they actually have a chance of being picked: Frigate has a good chance of ****** either character, and will thus be struck.

Delfino and Castle Siege offer a mild advantage to chaingrabbing characters, but only briefly and with plenty of chances to avoid it. The stage may kill you during a change (I've seen Yoshi use egg roll while the stage was changing, to find himself off the edge afterwards), but that's really just a matter of knowing the stage.

Frigate, on the other hand, can own recoveries for extended periods of time.

Good point. Delfino it is, then.

 

[Titanium Dragon]

In response to "That would be unfair to the Metaknight player":

Define "fair".

See, the problem is you're defining fair as "In MK's favor", but there's really no "fair". Its entirely arbitrary. If the standard was a stage where Yoshi had the advantage, it wouldn't be any less "fair".

The reality is that the neutral stages aren't, no stages are, and by changing the neutral stage list you can indeed manipulate matchups to some degree, and there's nothing wrong with giving MK stage disadvantage - goodness knows he has enough advantages already.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Him having stage disadvantages is fair... but he shouldn't have those randomly in the first match (emphasis on randomly; random stage selection is all luck). You should have to counterpick on him to get a stage advantage on him just like everyone else. I know that no stage is completely "neutral", but the stage should be as fair as possible for the matchup. By fair I mean that the configuration or "actions" of the stage should give as little benefit to one player as opposed to the other as possible. Stage striking does that.

Of course, for counterpicks, we can allow quite a bit of "help" from the stage. They are selected to counter the opponent, after all.

 

[Deoxys]

In response to "That would be unfair to the Metaknight player":

Define "fair".

See, the problem is you're defining fair as "In MK's favor", but there's really no "fair". Its entirely arbitrary. If the standard was a stage where Yoshi had the advantage, it wouldn't be any less "fair".

The reality is that the neutral stages aren't, no stages are, and by changing the neutral stage list you can indeed manipulate matchups to some degree, and there's nothing wrong with giving MK stage disadvantage - goodness knows he has enough advantages already.

Yes there is. By "fair" we mean "balanced." That is, a Starter should effect the outcome of the match as little as possible. The match would be in MK's favor because MK is better in general. Having the first stage be biased in favor of some characters would clearly be unfair. Who's to say which characters should get the stage advantage game 1? To propose that unbalanced stages should be encouraged as starters to make the best character worse is absurd. Where do we draw the line? There is no practice way to do something like that. Just because MK is the best character doesn't mean we should give extra advantages to other characters.

TOs shouldn't be "manipulating matchups" with their rulesets.

 

[buenob]

the question becomes, is our normal definition of 'fair levels' creating the tier list?.. I definitely think so

who's to say that "unbalanced" isn't actually "the level which provides the best play style for the largest amount of characters"... that would lead to way more intense matches because then each good character would have more options

obviously that's on overstatement, and there's no question that we are striving to find the best competitive environment... we're just suggesting that maybe our choices of starter levels is skewing the competition in their favour, and by adjusting we can end up with a better competitive system

 

[Mic_128]

(emphasis on randomly; random stage selection is all luck)

The SBR approved way to choose the starting stage is using stage strikes, not random select.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Indeed it is. It's a shame that not all tournaments follow suit.

 

[Deoxys]

The SBR approved way to choose the starting stage is using stage strikes, not random select.

Indeed it is. It's a shame that not all tournaments follow suit.

Word.

the question becomes, is our normal definition of 'fair levels' creating the tier list?.. I definitely think so

who's to say that "unbalanced" isn't actually "the level which provides the best play style for the largest amount of characters"... that would lead to way more intense matches because then each good character would have more options

obviously that's on overstatement, and there's no question that we are striving to find the best competitive environment... we're just suggesting that maybe our choices of starter levels is skewing the competition in their favour, and by adjusting we can end up with a better competitive system

No way would the competitive system be better if the first stage in a match had strong advantages for certain characters. What are you suggesting we use that we could use for starters? Our job isn't to make the best competitive environment, yes, but that's different than making the environment in which the most characters can do well. Even if that was our job, just because often certain starters aren't bad for MK doesn't mean that we could just change the starters in a way that wouldn't make even more characters inviable.

Starters shouldn't influence the match, they should be as close to completely uninfluential as possible. MK doesn't have mostly favorable matchups on Smashville because the level is particularly good for him, but because he's just the best character in a vacuum.

 

[Titanium Dragon]

Starters shouldn't influence the match, they should be as close to completely uninfluential as possible. MK doesn't have mostly favorable matchups on Smashville because the level is particularly good for him, but because he's just the best character in a vacuum.

Starters do influence matches, oftentimes very strongly.

This argument is a bad one. We should indeed choose the "starters" on the basis of matchups, as really, what other metric is there?

 

[Deoxys]

Starters do influence matches, oftentimes very strongly.

Actually it is quite rare that they will influence the match strongly if both players stage strike well and use the current SBR recommendations.

This argument is a bad one. We should indeed choose the "starters" on the basis of matchups, as really, what other metric is there?

I don't think you get what I'm trying to explain. We're trying to have the first stage played always be one that doesn't deeply hurt one character or heavily aid the other. For this reason, the unbiasedness of the starter must be evaluated independently of the probabilities of the outcomes of the other matches in the set.

 

[infomon]

Starters shouldn't influence the match, they should be as close to completely uninfluential as possible. MK doesn't have mostly favorable matchups on Smashville because the level is particularly good for him, but because he's just the best character in a vacuum.

"in a vacuum": The issues is that this concept is kind of misleading. Tether recoveries might look really crappy in your vacuum, but on a stage like Norfair they do very well. Unfortunately Norfair has the annoying influence of lava, but presumably if you're playing at a high-level, you can move past that enough that it's almost a nonissue. So Norfair's presence means tether characters have less of a disadvantage off-the-bat; which could be seen as a better vacuum, seeing how good the characters do in competitive-levels-of-Brawl, not just flat-levels-of-Brawl.

It's a flaw in Brawl pretty much.... many of the stages that balance the underused characters also happen to have some random gimmicks in them, and we dislike randomness in starter stages. If at a high level if play we see stage-diversity is not anticompetitive but instead is an inherent part of the game (ex. players and their characters should be judged on their ability to deal with environmental factors along with their opponent), then there's good reason to want our starter stages to reflect some of the diversity of situations that face characters in Brawl; without putting anyone at a disadvantage after stage-striking.

I hope I'm making sense

 

[Kage Me]

"in a vacuum": The issues is that this concept is kind of misleading. Tether recoveries might look really crappy in your vacuum, but on a stage like Norfair they do very well. Unfortunately Norfair has the annoying influence of lava, but presumably if you're playing at a high-level, you can move past that enough that it's almost a nonissue. So Norfair's presence means tether characters have less of a disadvantage off-the-bat; which could be seen as a better vacuum, seeing how good the characters do in competitive-levels-of-Brawl, not just flat-levels-of-Brawl.

It's a flaw in Brawl pretty much.... many of the stages that balance the underused characters also happen to have some random gimmicks in them, and we dislike randomness in starter stages. If at a high level if play we see stage-diversity is not anticompetitive but instead is an inherent part of the game (ex. players and their characters should be judged on their ability to deal with environmental factors along with their opponent), then there's good reason to want our starter stages to reflect some of the diversity of situations that face characters in Brawl; without putting anyone at a disadvantage after stage-striking.

I hope I'm making sense

LIES ALL LIES.

But really, most of the gimmicks are anything but random... The only one I could think of right now that's hard to see coming is the Support Ghost. The others have warnings (the rain on Distant Planet, the stage flip on Frigate Orpheon) or aren't random at all (the drawings on Pictochat, the cars of Port Town Aero Drive).

 

[Titanium Dragon]

I don't think you get what I'm trying to explain. We're trying to have the first stage played always be one that doesn't deeply hurt one character or heavily aid the other. For this reason, the unbiasedness of the starter must be evaluated independently of the probabilities of the outcomes of the other matches in the set.

No, you don't seem to get what I'm trying to explain.

You cannot succeed because everything is relative between the two characters.

You can try all you want, but regardless of what you do, the starter stages will advantage some characters and disadvantage others. Its naive to believe otherwise.

Moreover, what is "fair"? Is 50-50 fair? Or is "the tier list" fair? A lot of people seem to believe the random, but that is a bit silly, I think, as it is far more arbitrary. I think without taking into account matchup percentages, you're going to end up with a biased set of netural stages, and even if you do take them into account, you still will end up with such a list as the "neutral" stages are non-universal, mostly have common attributes which aren't even all that representative of all stages in the game, and there may well not be stages which are "even" in any given matchup, especially on a limited list.

 

[shadowtroop]

Sorry to break of from the argument, but what about the legality of the illegal stages? (rotfl)

Wifi waiting room is good to stop projectiles of all characters 'cept ROB

And the results screen (Pitch Black) is a perfect walk-off, though you can't see the ground.

 

[buenob]

You cannot succeed because everything is relative between the two characters.

this is the daunting feeling I've been having for a while concerning the starter // legality issue, and one of the main reasons I really want more input from the SBR... just becuase it's going to be really difficult, doesn't mean we should give up

 

[Mic_128]

More input on what, specifically?

 

[buenob]

i guess, are we hitting the mark or missing it?? is the SBR under the impression that the current set of neutrals provide the best competitive play, or is there discussion going on like the ones going on here?

edit - basically it's just a matter of semantics, and we'll be arguing our point all day on this matter because no one is "wrong", it's just different opinions... it'd be nice to know if going round and round will produce useful results, or if the SBR has already decided that the current system is good, and our debating will for the large part be useless

 

[Kage Me]

i guess, are we hitting the mark or missing it?? is the SBR under the impression that the current set of neutrals provide the best competitive play, or is there discussion going on like the ones going on here?

They'll be releasing a new set of rules in July, if I'm not mistaken. So yes, I would assume that they do discuss things like this.