Official Stage Legality Discussion

[buenob]

lol, guess i'll stop posting until then? timed information release is fine for a company, but it really excludes outsiders from the decision making process... unless there's some real feedback on which direction things will be going, i'm bowing out for a while

i've made my opinion heard, and people have posted theirs in resopnse, I really think we've all made really valid points and we're just going to be re-hashing old arguments (or just repeating in some cases), i just feel this is the natural place in the debate for some sort of decision to be made, or more information from a more knowledgeable party to stimulate new ideas...

 

[infomon]

I think a new rule list is supposed to be coming, like.... today...... ? or am I confused and that was just the tier list?

 

[Deoxys]

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.

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.

I didn't say the stages would never favor any characters over others, I said that they shouldn't "deeply hurt one character or heavily aid the other." There should be a as little as possible stage advantage given to either character after stage striking.

For purposes of rulesets, not everything is relative between the two characters; when the ruleset is established, no one knows which characters will be played. Ergo, the rules must be established so that the first stage, after stage striking, is as unbiased as possible regardless of who the two characters are. This is one of the several reasons Norfair, for instance, would make a terrible starter. Even if we wanted to make higher tiers do worse by manipulating the starters, we wouldn't be able to do so without making every set stupid. We'd end up making few characters viable, since low tier characters are less likely to be able to adapt to the stages that also hurt some of the high tier characters. Effectively, there would be different tiers for the first game (pros would only play the characters that handled the weird stages well, like DDD), and in games 2 and 3 the tiers would be the same way they are now. There won't be a starter list that weakens enough of top tier characters to make more characters viable since there will always be a top tier character that does well on most of them.

Moreover, what is "fair"? Is 50-50 fair?

Fair is that we can choose to play whomever we want and know that the tourament organizer's rules don't stack the odds against that character by using unusual stages in place of simple, representative ones.

Or is "the tier list" fair?

I don't think I get what you're trying to ask, because what I interpret that question to mean is completely irrelevant to this thread. If it's an important part of the discussion, please rephrase the question for me.

I think without taking into account matchup percentages, you're going to end up with a biased set of netural stages,

No; the definition of bias is such that the stages are only biased if they make certain characters better than the average of how good those characters are on all stages. Thus, a stage is only biased if it increases or decreases a character's average chance of winning against a certain opponent.

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,

On the contrary, starter stages are as representative of all the stages in the game as possible. Thus, this does nothing to make the case for a system that would aim to hurt high tier characters over the tried-and-true system of starters.

and there may well not be stages which are "even" in any given matchup, especially on a limited list.

Exactly! That's why Amazing Ampharos and I strongly support using stage striking with at least seven starters.

I think a new rule list is supposed to be coming, like.... today...... ? or am I confused and that was just the tier list?

It was supposed to be out 3 days ago. <_<


Now that I've completely covered what I think of that matter, I have a question to ask everyone!

What's best for 9 starters?

Battlefield
Final Destination
Smashville
Yoshi's Island
Pokémon Stadium 1
Lylat Cruise
Halberd

+

two of

Pokémon Stadium 2/Delfino Plaza/Castle Siege/Pictochat

You can list them from best starter to worst starter, or you can just tell me which two you think would be the best starters.

Personally, I think PS2 is clearly a better starter than the rest of those, although since I haven't heard anyone else give their opinion on the matter I decided to make it one of the choices. I think Delfino Plaza is the second best starter of those four, and can't decide between CS and PC because I think they're both bad starters.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Part of what you have to look at with a stage like Norfair is the variance in characters. I'm not convinced the stage is actually a good Olimar stage, but let's run with it and say that it is. For a character who is actually really good on Norfair, we can take Mr. Game & Watch or Meta Knight. Now look at how "great" of a stage Norfair is for the Ice Climbers or Sonic or basically anyone else who sucks at jumping around. That's a huge gap; the variance in the matchups on Norfair is simply much bigger than it is on Smashville. It's not unfair; Norfair is a fantastic counterpick. However, it's just not starter material.

Also, consider that we do need a set of starters, not just one. Norfair and which other stages would be starters? Making the starters have such radically different character leanings from each other ends up making the starter selection process a little too important; just look at how tethers change in value between Norfair and Frigate Orpheon, and then just imagine a starter system that had both of them included. Stage striking would indeed greatly alleviate the problems a list with higher variance would bring, but given that there are 1296 matchups to worry about, I doubt we have any hope at all of making an extreme list actually produce fair results in all of them (fair as in the matchup doesn't deviate too far from what would be expected on an arbitrary stage). With the 7 stage striking list, I can't find even one matchup that is really damaged by it.

Delfino Plaza is what I think is the best out of those four; King Dedede is really the only "problem" with that stage (stage striking easily fixes it). Also, walls are really overrated; King Dedede and Diddy Kong are pretty much the only characters who can do infinites on the short Delfino Plaza walls (and even then only infinite if you ignore that the stage will eventually move). All my experiences on this stage indicate to me that it's just a fantastically fair level.

PictoChat would be next if people didn't hate it so much. The ceiling is a bit high, but it's not radical. The Kirby rock glitch basically doesn't matter. The drawings are really very equal opportunity, and I think it's pretty obvious that in terms of character balance this is one of the top 9 stages in the game. It's not "practical" to use as a starter because a large number of players harbor an intense, irrational hatred for this stage, and it is true that once in a while really dumb things happen here (like the line being drawn at just the wrong time to erase the left ledge as you were recovering to it).

I think Castle Siege (a stage people REALLY need to learn how to spell) is #3 in terms of character balance out of these. Chaingrabbing is a bit worse here than elsewhere, and in general the stage is a bit more radical. It's still not that bad, and as long as it got struck in the obviously more skewed matchups here, I don't think it would be a problem. I think in terms of practical application, it would be the best "9th stage".

Pokemon Stadium 2 would be great for 11 starters! Really though, it doesn't fit in with the 9 starters since it's easily the least fair of the options presented (I used to think this stage was somewhat more fair than it actually is if you want to dredge up my old posts). I don't care that everyone thinks Ness is a joke; Ness vs Jigglypuff on the wind form of Pokemon Stadium 2 is about as far from "neutral" as you will find (hint: Pk Thunder goes up several times faster than she can fastfall, and a smart Ness's Pk Thunder isn't something you can air dodge). Ness exploits the wind form to the extreme, but Pit should be able to do the same sort of thing. It's just not really fair in "extremely floaty character versus someone who can spam upward" matchups. Also, plunging down aerials are way too good on the wind form since they fall at the normal rate; I don't think my silly key spamming should really be rewarded like that on a 9 stage starter. The electric form is pretty silly too; guys like Ganon and Bowser lose horribly on it because they can barely keep up with the conveyor belts. It doesn't seem that bad messing around with it by yourself, but try being an ultra slow character on that form against a character who has no trouble navigating that form at all being used by someone who has full confidence in doing as such. It's not really very "neutral". The stage really is mostly fair; it's an excellent counterpick, and I'd agree that it's a good candidate for a starter relative to most stages. However, if we are limiting ourselves to 9 (which is as far as most of the community is willing to go, if even that far), I think it's clear that this is the stage to leave out.

Also, about those seven stages, I don't think it's clear that Lylat Cruise and the Halberd are the "least fair" out of them. On Lylat Cruise, you can just learn the stage better to be able to recover consistently with Wolf, Ness, Lucas, Ike, or whoever else you want to, and things like Snake's "invisible C4" are just tricks on your eyes and not actual material advantages. On the other hand, the advantages Final Destination gives to chaingrabbing and projectile spamming are not something that go away when you learn the stage, especially when we remember that this game has a bunch of chaingrabs that don't work very well on or under platforms (all those jump break release grabs are about 10x as good on Final Destination than anywhere else). Ideally we'd just always use seven so this sort of argument wouldn't matter, but five is pretty popular and handled in a way that I'm not convinced is ideal. Does anyone else have thoughts on that?

 

[buenob]

i'm 100% convinced that 5 starters is too little... I think 7 is the ideal number as you can add in variation without adding "rediculous" levels like norfair... (side note, why do people beef on norfair all the time, and why is it so often counterpicked lol)

I still think ps1 should be counterpick because the level changes promote camping with all characters... the one level switch in castle sIege is really only terrible against d3, and it's pretty easy to say semi-offensive while staying out of his grab range if he's only staying on the bottom area

I would go with FD, BF, SV, YI, halberd, castle siege, delfino... those combine to make a pretty even spread of playstyles while maintaining the philosophy of 'interfere the least'

 

[Titanium Dragon]

I didn't say the stages would never favor any characters over others, I said that they shouldn't "deeply hurt one character or heavily aid the other." There should be a as little as possible stage advantage given to either character after stage striking.

Define "deeply hurt one character or another".

See, this is the problem - there isn't a good definition of this. Is one character "deeply hurt" if the matchup isn't 50-50? Or is the other character "deeply hurt" if they're "supposed" to have an advantage, but don't?

This is why this doesn't work. I would tend to say "fair" is "equal chances of winning", which means you'd want a stage wherein the matchup was 50-50. The problem is that there is no practical system for doing this; different characters have different numbers of stages which favor/disfavor them versus other characters, and thus a universal list is impossible; even if you had every stage in the game on the list, you wouldn't end up on an "even" stage.

Fair is that we can choose to play whomever we want and know that the tourament organizer's rules don't stack the odds against that character by using unusual stages in place of simple, representative ones.

How are "simple" stages fairer than "complex" stages?

Answer: They aren't.

There's nothing about FD which inherently makes it fair, yet it is a "neutral" stage.

I don't think I get what you're trying to ask, because what I interpret that question to mean is completely irrelevant to this thread. If it's an important part of the discussion, please rephrase the question for me.

The point was you don't have an objective standard for fair.

Let's say there was a stage which gave Yoshi a 50-50 matchup against MK. Would that be fair (because it is a 50-50 matchup) or unfair (because MK is supposed to have the advantage vs Yoshi)?

No; the definition of bias is such that the stages are only biased if they make certain characters better than the average of how good those characters are on all stages. Thus, a stage is only biased if it increases or decreases a character's average chance of winning against a certain opponent.

But that average changes depending on which stages are legal in the first place, so its not an objective nor reasonable definition.

Plus, you can't just drop CF into a graduated cylinder and say "Oh, 2 mL of goodness."

On the contrary, starter stages are as representative of all the stages in the game as possible. Thus, this does nothing to make the case for a system that would aim to hurt high tier characters over the tried-and-true system of starters.

I disagree. Heck, people have commented on how many stages have hazards and similar things, which really makes them greatly unrepresentative, rather than representative.

Exactly! That's why Amazing Ampharos and I strongly support using stage striking with at least seven starters.

Seven starters is not better or worse than five starters for fairness in any way. This is based on flawed assumptions.

Let's say we had the following stages:

Yoshi +4
Yoshi +1
MK +1
MK +3
MK +4

Now, we add an MK +2 and a MK +3 stage. Now, the stage that Yoshi ends up on, rather than being MK +1, is MK +2. Conversely, if we added two Yoshi-favoring stages, then we'd end up on Yoshi +1 rather than MK +1.

This is the fundamental problem I pointed out above - a stage which advantages neither character may lie more towards one end than the other.

What's best for 9 starters?

I think any such list should have at least one moving stage and at least one stage with hazards.

Part of what you have to look at with a stage like Norfair is the variance in characters. I'm not convinced the stage is actually a good Olimar stage, but let's run with it and say that it is. For a character who is actually really good on Norfair, we can take Mr. Game & Watch or Meta Knight. Now look at how "great" of a stage Norfair is for the Ice Climbers or Sonic or basically anyone else who sucks at jumping around. That's a huge gap; the variance in the matchups on Norfair is simply much bigger than it is on Smashville. It's not unfair; Norfair is a fantastic counterpick. However, it's just not starter material.

Is there any stage without considerable matchup variation though? FD's lack of a platform helps out some projectile spammers, whereas Battlefield's platforms protect from some of it (Yoshi's eggs, for instance, as well as similar projectiles with parabolic arcs). Is FD "fair" because it allows the projectile spammers to spam, or is Battlefield "fair" because it hurts their ability to rain down death from above?

PictoChat would be next if people didn't hate it so much. The ceiling is a bit high, but it's not radical. The Kirby rock glitch basically doesn't matter. The drawings are really very equal opportunity, and I think it's pretty obvious that in terms of character balance this is one of the top 9 stages in the game. It's not "practical" to use as a starter because a large number of players harbor an intense, irrational hatred for this stage, and it is true that once in a while really dumb things happen here (like the line being drawn at just the wrong time to erase the left ledge as you were recovering to it).

Thing is, its predictable WHEN the stage will change, the actual forms are at least somewhat predictable, it gives warning, and, honestly, people being scrubs isn't really relevant.

I personally enjoy stages with more variation, as it makes adaptability more important.

 

[Deoxys]

Also, consider that we do need a set of starters, not just one. Norfair and which other stages would be starters? Making the starters have such radically different character leanings from each other ends up making the starter selection process a little too important; just look at how tethers change in value between Norfair and Frigate Orpheon, and then just imagine a starter system that had both of them included. Stage striking would indeed greatly alleviate the problems a list with higher variance would bring, but given that there are 1296 matchups to worry about, I doubt we have any hope at all of making an extreme list actually produce fair results in all of them (fair as in the matchup doesn't deviate too far from what would be expected on an arbitrary stage). With the 7 stage striking list, I can't find even one matchup that is really damaged by it.

This.

Delfino Plaza is what I think is the best out of those four; King Dedede is really the only "problem" with that stage (stage striking easily fixes it). Also, walls are really overrated; King Dedede and Diddy Kong are pretty much the only characters who can do infinites on the short Delfino Plaza walls (and even then only infinite if you ignore that the stage will eventually move). All my experiences on this stage indicate to me that it's just a fantastically fair level.

Sound reasoning. The ceiling is really low when it lands at the pillars, but it's brief enough not to make things unbalanced.

PictoChat would be next if people didn't hate it so much. The ceiling is a bit high, but it's not radical. The Kirby rock glitch basically doesn't matter. The drawings are really very equal opportunity, and I think it's pretty obvious that in terms of character balance this is one of the top 9 stages in the game. It's not "practical" to use as a starter because a large number of players harbor an intense, irrational hatred for this stage, and it is true that once in a while really dumb things happen here (like the line being drawn at just the wrong time to erase the left ledge as you were recovering to it).

Well, Pictochat is very long. Additionally, some characters evade the opponent pretty effectively and merely avoid contact for all but the most beneficial transformations, and basically "stall" legally. To top it off, if the vertical spikes appear and DDD grabs you it's just another instance where many characters will lose a stock. Out of these, the height of the ceiling and the width of the stage are my greatest concerns. For this reason, I'm not convinced that it makes a better starter than Castle Siege.

I think Castle Siege (a stage people REALLY need to learn how to spell) is #3 in terms of character balance out of these. Chaingrabbing is a bit worse here than elsewhere, and in general the stage is a bit more radical. It's still not that bad, and as long as it got struck in the obviously more skewed matchups here, I don't think it would be a problem. I think in terms of practical application, it would be the best "9th stage".

OK, I'll spell it right henceforth.

Pokemon Stadium 2 would be great for 11 starters! Really though, it doesn't fit in with the 9 starters since it's easily the least fair of the options presented (I used to think this stage was somewhat more fair than it actually is if you want to dredge up my old posts). I don't care that everyone thinks Ness is a joke; Ness vs Jigglypuff on the wind form of Pokemon Stadium 2 is about as far from "neutral" as you will find (hint: Pk Thunder goes up several times faster than she can fastfall, and a smart Ness's Pk Thunder isn't something you can air dodge). Ness exploits the wind form to the extreme, but Pit should be able to do the same sort of thing. It's just not really fair in "extremely floaty character versus someone who can spam upward" matchups. Also, plunging down aerials are way too good on the wind form since they fall at the normal rate; I don't think my silly key spamming should really be rewarded like that on a 9 stage starter. The electric form is pretty silly too; guys like Ganon and Bowser lose horribly on it because they can barely keep up with the conveyor belts. It doesn't seem that bad messing around with it by yourself, but try being an ultra slow character on that form against a character who has no trouble navigating that form at all being used by someone who has full confidence in doing as such. It's not really very "neutral". The stage really is mostly fair; it's an excellent counterpick, and I'd agree that it's a good candidate for a starter relative to most stages. However, if we are limiting ourselves to 9 (which is as far as most of the community is willing to go, if even that far), I think it's clear that this is the stage to leave out.

I didn't think about that Ness thing. However, I highly doubt a good Bowser will "lose horribly" because of the conveyor belts. I mean, when you have infinite jumps, why would you friggin' care? Are there really more matchups where PS2 has to be struck than where Castle Siege has to be? I can't think of that many floaty characters.

Also, about those seven stages, I don't think it's clear that Lylat Cruise and the Halberd are the "least fair" out of them. On Lylat Cruise, you can just learn the stage better to be able to recover consistently with Wolf, Ness, Lucas, Ike, or whoever else you want to, and things like Snake's "invisible C4" are just tricks on your eyes and not actual material advantages. On the other hand, the advantages Final Destination gives to chaingrabbing and projectile spamming are not something that go away when you learn the stage, especially when we remember that this game has a bunch of chaingrabs that don't work very well on or under platforms (all those jump break release grabs are about 10x as good on Final Destination than anywhere else). Ideally we'd just always use seven so this sort of argument wouldn't matter, but five is pretty popular and handled in a way that I'm not convinced is ideal. Does anyone else have thoughts on that?

I have the same thoughts on that as you. Honestly, I'm starting to think that Lylat Cruise is fairer than FD and YI. It's funny that just a week ago mains of characters with bad recoveries had me thinking that PS1 was more fair than LC.

Define "deeply hurt one character or another".

Ok, making the chance of that character winning decrease by 15% or more.

See, this is the problem - there isn't a good definition of this. Is one character "deeply hurt" if the matchup isn't 50-50? Or is the other character "deeply hurt" if they're "supposed" to have an advantage, but don't?

Not necessarily; yes, often.

This is why this doesn't work. I would tend to say "fair" is "equal chances of winning", which means you'd want a stage wherein the matchup was 50-50. The problem is that there is no practical system for doing this; different characters have different numbers of stages which favor/disfavor them versus other characters, and thus a universal list is impossible; even if you had every stage in the game on the list, you wouldn't end up on an "even" stage.

Yes, but you can end up with a stage that is most representative of how the characters generally do against each other.

How are "simple" stages fairer than "complex" stages?

Answer: They aren't.

There's nothing about FD which inherently makes it fair, yet it is a "neutral" stage.

They make factors like starting location less important.

The point was you don't have an objective standard for fair.

Let's say there was a stage which gave Yoshi a 50-50 matchup against MK. Would that be fair (because it is a 50-50 matchup) or unfair (because MK is supposed to have the advantage vs Yoshi)?

Let's stop talking about it in terms of "fair" and "unfair" but in terms of "biased" and "unbiased." In that case, that stage would be biased.

But that average changes depending on which stages are legal in the first place, so its not an objective nor reasonable definition.

On the contrary, there are very few stages that only some good players think should be legal but not other ones. Sooner or later the metagame will be developed enough that people will realize Skyworld and Port Town Aero Drive are fair, and that Mario Circuit, Green Hill Zone, and Corneria are not. Regardless, the average BARELY changes even as those stages vary; Skyworld makes DK, Ike, and tethers a bit worse while making MK better, while MC, GHZ, Corneria, and PTAD mostly just make DDD better.

Plus, you can't just drop CF into a graduated cylinder and say "Oh, 2 mL of goodness."

Indeed, but his matchups are quantifiable when there is an established set of legal stages, and barely vary as stage legality changes within reason.

I disagree. Heck, people have commented on how many stages have hazards and similar things, which really makes them greatly unrepresentative, rather than representative.

Count the number of non-******** stages with hazards and compare it to the number of non-******** stages without hazards and you will see that this is wrong.

Seven starters is not better or worse than five starters for fairness in any way. This is based on flawed assumptions.

Let's say we had the following stages:

Yoshi +4
Yoshi +1
MK +1
MK +3
MK +4

Now, we add an MK +2 and a MK +3 stage. Now, the stage that Yoshi ends up on, rather than being MK +1, is MK +2. Conversely, if we added two Yoshi-favoring stages, then we'd end up on Yoshi +1 rather than MK +1.

This is the fundamental problem I pointed out above - a stage which advantages neither character may lie more towards one end than the other.

Well, I would estimate an actual scale of advantages for the stages in the Yoshi/Mk matchup to be:
Battlefield +2 MK
Final Destination +4 Yoshi
Smashville +1 Yoshi
Yoshi's Island +3 MK
Pokémon Stadium 1 +1 Yoshi
or
Lylat Cruise +1 MK

So for 5 it is either +1 Yoshi or +1 MK

For 7, both LC and PS1 are used, and Halberd is added so it results in +1 MK
(Halberd +2 MK)

When 9 stages are used, these are added, and it stays +1 MK

Castle Siege +4 Yoshi
Delfino Plaza +4 MK

In this instance, they are equally effective. If you'd like, I can provide examples where more starters are superior.

I think thought the best setup is:

Starter
Battlefield
Final Destination
Halberd
Lylat Cruise
Pokémon Stadium 1
Smashville
Yoshi's Island

Starter/Counter
Castle Siege*
Delfino Plaza*
Pictochat**
Pokémon Stadium 2**

Counter
Brinstar
Distant Planet
Jungle Japes
Frigate Orpheon
Luigi's Mansion
Norfair
Onett
Pictochat
Pirate Ship
Pokémon Stadium 2
Port Town Aero Drive
Rainbow Cruise
Skyworld
Yoshi's Island (Melee)

Counter/Banned
Green Greens
Norfair*

*For 9 or more starters
**For 11 starters
*Tbh I don't know the mechanics of the timing of the fire torrents and whether it's random well enough to decide this.

It is important that both Skyworld and YI(M) are legalized simultaneously, as Skyworld by itself would make MK have insane matchups.

That said, I have specific ideas for rulesets as well, but that's not related to this thread.

 

[Mic_128]

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

The SBR has recently been discussing the starters and various changes that might work, might not, ect.

And I can't say for sure, but I think it'd be safe that new rulelist/stage selections would be out for quite a while before july.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

People being scrubs doesn't matter in principle, but it matters in practice. Do we want to make the perfect rules that we can get no one to support? Half the east coast players like to go around calling most of the counterpicks "gay" which doesn't actually mean anything, but their position is popular regardless. I don't know if you noticed, but a large number of policy makers and tournament hosts see eye to eye with this position. A big problem is that "our side", that is the side that likes lots of stages and is generally passionate about stages, is not presenting a competent argument. We're focusing too much on things that we have no hope of ever convincing anyone of, and it's resulting in some tournaments taking ridiculous steps in terms of how thin their stage list is. We're arguing against them banning Port Town and Skyworld while they are banning Jungle Japes and Norfair... If we care about actually producing a result of better stage rules, we have to pick our battles here. PictoChat as a starter is not a battle worth picking.

Anyway, extremely floaty characters who have trouble on the wind form. Jigglypuff and Samus are the two biggest victims as they basically can't do anything at all. Toon Link is only "saved" by his plunging down aerial, but recall that it's extremely high risk. Zelda and Peach are both very floaty and will have a very bad time with it. Luigi, R.O.B., and Lucario could run into some trouble here too. Ness is just the best at exploiting this sort of thing by the way; Peach, Yoshi, Link, Zelda, Toon Link, Pit, Pikachu, Ness, Lucas, and Snake all have options to spam upward with varying degrees of success (basically, the floatier you are, the more of these characters are actually a problem for you). About the conveyors, I didn't consider Bowser's infinite second jumps, but regardless I'm not convinced that's enough to help him when someone like Pit is spamming arrows at him from the middle. It's pretty easy to force him to land like that and then exploit the fact that he really has very bad mobility on the coveyors. Anyway, even if Bowser was a bad example, you can easily take Ike as a replacement example; I'm really not sure what he is supposed to do on this form except ledgestall with Aether. You also have the ground form with a wall which isn't a particularly bad thing itself, but the stage has all of the other things along with it. I'm not really convinced that the various forms "cancel" each other with advantages and disadvantages; Ness, Pit, and King Dedede don't seem to have any bad forms. I think it would be struck more often than Castle Siege; in what matchups is Castle Siege really that bad anyway? The main problem there is that you are forcing two strikes against King Dedede for 2/3 of the cast right off the bat (three really since you will obviously strike Final Destination too if you are looking to be dominated by his chaingrab) which does run you into some trouble in those matchups possibly.

Anyway, the way you presented starters in the end is something I can agree with and I think we've developed a pretty good defense for; should we move back over to discussing a few of those "at risk" counterpicks? Jungle Japes seems like another stage we can all agree about on "why would anyone ban this?".

PS: The stage is spelled "Onett". Many of the towns in EarthBound had gimmick names. Onett, Twoson, Threed, Fourside!

 

[Deoxys]

Oops. AA, you're officially my editor now, lol.

Honestly I think if there's no pattern to the timing of the torrents of flame on Norfair that it should be banned, despite the list I put up a second ago. Tbh I didn't think most people would agree, but I don't know enough about it to decide I guess.

It should be noted that the car on Onett comes at a regular interval, during which DDD can CG about 50% (assing grab immediately after car passes the spot the grab is initiated), plus do his bthrow. IMO that's not unreasonable, and the cars can be used to force him out of camping.

Jungle Japes... are people really banning this? They know the klaptrap is at a regular, easy to count, 10 second interval, right? That already eliminates the random factor, unless people are complaining that the random spawing point of each player at the start is THAT important. I mean, even Falco's not gamebreaking there! Therefore, even Falco can't camp perfectly there.


Anyone else worried how many TOs are banning Yoshi's Island (Melee) or Distant Planet?

 

[Mmac]

Anyone else worried how many TOs are banning Yoshi's Island (Melee) or Distant Planet?

Yoshi's Island Melee, Yes. That stage is pretty much the only stage that gives almost every character a fair chance against MetaKnight, due to how much the stage's terrain plays against his favour.


Plus Yoshi is 80:20 against him on that stage

Distant Planet I really don't see anything wrong with it. It just has a weird terrain structure. Walk offs are completely avoidable and unusable at times. The creature is completely easy to avoid getting eaten from. The pellets also adds some strategy to the mix

Infact, I believe most people only ban the 2 stages only because of the strange terrain. That alone shouldn't make it banned at all.

I personally only want 5 Neutral Stages. 7 Just seems to radical, especially if we must add a stage like Halberd to the mix where the "Bunker" and the small ceiling add a sizable advantage/disadvantage to some characters.

I want Lylat to be Neutral too, without giving PS1 the boot, but in order for that to happen, we need to change the striking system, or allow it to have Even amount of stages

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

How is Halberd radical at all, and which matchups does it give a bigger advantage in than Final Destination gives Yoshi against Wario? Even if you think it generally would need to be struck, why would it be a big deal if such a "bad" stage were a starter? Wouldn't it just get struck every time and not be a problem and let us keep both Lylat Cruise and Pokemon Stadium 1? It's kinda senseless to be conservative about starter stages when you use stage striking; it's not like you actually have to play on the starters at random or anything crazy like that...

Yoshi's Island (Melee) does not give Yoshi an 80:20 on Meta Knight; that would be a ridiculously powerful counterpick like Ness v Bowser on 75m counterpick. It actually would be an argument to ban it if the stage actually were that radical...

Deoxys, on one hand, there is indeed no timing or pattern to the fire that shoots out of the background on Norfair. However, it gives very clear warning when and where it is going to come, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't come at the same time any of the other hazards are around which increases its predictability. It's defintely something you can essentially always handle on reaction (maybe if you get your shield broken or something you can't, but that's obviously being silly and your fault anyway). An experienced player who knows Norfair well will only be hit by those when his opponent outplays him; Norfair is definitely fair. It's not a stage that should be floated for banning at all really; time has proven that Norfair works.

 

[ShadowLink84]

First off - the apples don't explode... The kill around 100%, which I think is reasonable. They always spawn in the center of the stage, always in at least a trio. The only "random" aspect is when they do so actually appear. I consider them predictable enough to be a complete non-issue. This also concerns the "unfair" healing of 7%.

Actually they do indeed explode sometimes.
Its just rare.

 

[CHAOSvsORDER]

Why is Big Blue banned? What's the over powering strategy?

 

[ShadowLink84]

Why is Big Blue banned? What's the over powering strategy?

Lack of stable ground, fighting the stage moreso than the opponent, several characters can simply D throw you to your doom. Basically its a bad stage.

 

[Sonicdahedgie]

Lack of stable ground, fighting the stage moreso than the opponent, several characters can simply D throw you to your doom. Basically its a bad stage.

I've never seen anyone throw an opponent onto the road. When it does happen, it's probably a rare thing. A person can avoid this anyway by not staying near the edges of individual cars.


I almost never see anyone die from landing on the road when playing big blue. The level offers platforms constantly through out the stage, and keeps the level from being flat and overly simple. I think it's a great stage, who's banning should be debated.

 

[ShadowLink84]

I've never seen anyone throw an opponent onto the road. When it does happen, it's probably a rare thing. A person can avoid this anyway by not staying near the edges of individual cars.

Which is hard to do consider the cars are not very large to begin with and often will have large gaps between them. you are constantly having to jump from car to car instead of focusing on the opponent.

I almost never see anyone die from landing on the road when playing big blue. The level offers platforms constantly through out the stage, and keeps the level from being flat and overly simple. I think it's a great stage, who's banning should be debated.

Its good that YOU never see people die from landing on the road in Big blue but it does happen especially for slow characters who have bad recoveries.

THe platforms are extremely small which goes back to what I said about lack of stable ground.
You are constantly fighting the stage and there are several characters who get major advantages from these conditions.

B ig deal its not overly flat and simple, that means nothing because of the fact that the stage is what takes over the game and that is not what it is about. NOr is the game about who can Dthrow the opponent off a car first, who can camp the best or hop from platform to platform the best.

It is a bad stage period.

 

[deepseadiva]

Actually they do indeed explode sometimes.
Its just rare.

What. LIES.

Vid? I've never heard of this.

 

[CHAOSvsORDER]

Which is hard to do consider the cars are not very large to begin with and often will have large gaps between them. you are constantly having to jump from car to car instead of focusing on the opponent.



Its good that YOU never see people die from landing on the road in Big blue but it does happen especially for slow characters who have bad recoveries.

THe platforms are extremely small which goes back to what I said about lack of stable ground.
You are constantly fighting the stage and there are several characters who get major advantages from these conditions.

B ig deal its not overly flat and simple, that means nothing because of the fact that the stage is what takes over the game and that is not what it is about. NOr is the game about who can Dthrow the opponent off a car first, who can camp the best or hop from platform to platform the best.

It is a bad stage period.

But does it have an overpowering strategy that renders it unplayable? Like, Bridge of Eldin has DDD CGs and such, but as far as I know Big Blue doesn't have anything like that. If it just "a bad stage" that is no reason for banning. it should just stay CP. If no one is ever going to pick it, then fine w/e, but as far as I know it does not have a reason to be banned.

 

[Sonicdahedgie]

If a character has a bad recovery, he has a bad recovery regardless of the stage. Big Blue is more likely to help characters with bad recovery anyway. The cars move close and even into the blast zones. A character doesn't have to get back to the center of the stage to recover.

 

[Mic_128]

Actually they do indeed explode sometimes.
Its just rare.

I can't say about it in Brawl, but the apples do occasionally explode when landing from the tree.

 

[deepseadiva]

I can't say about it in Brawl, but the apples do occasionally explode when landing from the tree.

So this is Melee we're talking about?

I've never seen this happen in Brawl, anyone have any proof or something?

 

[CHAOSvsORDER]

I am assuming we've all read Playing to Win, right? Unless something is game breaking it shouldn't be banned. Are the apples REALLY that gamebreaking? Do all strategies on the stage revolve around the apples and thus the stage is rendered unplayable because of the over powering strategies involving apples? They don't seem much different than the pellets in Distant Planet, other than higher knockback.

 

[deepseadiva]

I am assuming we've all read Playing to Win, right? Unless something is game breaking it shouldn't be banned. Are the apples REALLY that gamebreaking? Do all strategies on the stage revolve around the apples and thus the stage is rendered unplayable because of the over powering strategies involving apples? They don't seem much different than the pellets in Distant Planet, other than higher knockback.

Yes, I'm pretty sure everyone is on this same page. The apples on Green Greens don't matter.

- unless they explode.

 

[CHAOSvsORDER]

I don't remember the apples exploding, personally. Or maybe they exploded and I just don't remember because of all the explosions from the bombs.

 

[IvanEva]

Exploding apples? Wha!? Video or it didn't happen.

The question of whether Big Blue should or should not be banned all comes down to what kind of game you're willing to play. I, personally, prefer a more "open" game where I am given the option of using the stage itself to my advantage more than just edgeguarding wise. I too am of the opinion that if there isn't any super overpowering strategy that results in the game being brought down to just that one tactic, bans aren't worthy. Big Blue brings a lot more variety to the game. Of course, Smash has potential for so much variety that it can really turn away from the Street Fighter wannabe style we tend to play it as, resulting in a game that is perhaps too crazy to be played competitively (I disagree but...).

 

[ShadowLink84]

What. LIES.

Vid? I've never heard of this.

I have no need to lie.
It has happened to me four times out of over 30 games I had on green greens.
I cannot record it but I can use a hack to send you the replay data.
I'll PM you once I have it.

But does it have an overpowering strategy that renders it unplayable? Like, Bridge of Eldin has DDD CGs and such, but as far as I know Big Blue doesn't have anything like that. If it just "a bad stage" that is no reason for banning. it should just stay CP. If no one is ever going to pick it, then fine w/e, but as far as I know it does not have a reason to be banned.

Bad stage as in, bad competitive stage.
You know what i mean so don't act like you do not.

Bridge of Eldin wasn't only banned due to DDD's CG, just like GHZ isn't banned just cause of walk offs.
Its several factors.

Big Blue has you fighting the stage. There is also the great advantages bestowed to characters like Pit who can constantly harass opponents without being in any danger of failing to recover.

If a character has a bad recovery, he has a bad recovery regardless of the stage. Big Blue is more likely to help characters with bad recovery anyway. The cars move close and even into the blast zones. A character doesn't have to get back to the center of the stage to recover.

Wrong. A character like Ganondorf would do better on a stage like Green greens because the distance he needs to recover is much shorter.
He gets placced on more equal groundwhere character like Sonic, who have beast recoveries aren't as great at recovering.

On BB, characters with bad recoveries DIE.
As soon as they land on the ground they immediately get sent off screen and die. Very few characters can deal with it and even when they can, have issues dealing with a character like PIt who can play keep away the entire time.

You can't fight the opponent cause you are fighting just to stay on stage.

 

[infomon]

It's not apples, but there's definitely the green greens exploding glitch thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQG9TEiGjKo

 

[ShadowLink84]

It's not apples, but there's definitely the green greens exploding glitch thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQG9TEiGjKo

No Infzy I swear on my Sonic which is full of steak that the apples explode on green greens upon landing.

 

[Deoxys]

How is Halberd radical at all, and which matchups does it give a bigger advantage in than Final Destination gives Yoshi against Wario? Even if you think it generally would need to be struck, why would it be a big deal if such a "bad" stage were a starter? Wouldn't it just get struck every time and not be a problem and let us keep both Lylat Cruise and Pokemon Stadium 1? It's kinda senseless to be conservative about starter stages when you use stage striking; it's not like you actually have to play on the starters at random or anything crazy like that...

Halberd won't always get struck, though.

Yoshi's Island (Melee) does not give Yoshi an 80:20 on Meta Knight; that would be a ridiculously powerful counterpick like Ness v Bowser on 75m counterpick. It actually would be an argument to ban it if the stage actually were that radical...

Wow. It totally shocks me to hear you say that bit about banning. I mean, MK vs Diddy is like that. I don't think a stage should be banned because it's deemed "too good of a counterpick." Who are we to decide that character X is unworthy of being so good on CP? As long as skill is still involved and either player can win without one of them making errors, I cannot justify banning a stage for changing matchups too strongly.

Deoxys, on one hand, there is indeed no timing or pattern to the fire that shoots out of the background on Norfair. However, it gives very clear warning when and where it is going to come, and I'm pretty sure it doesn't come at the same time any of the other hazards are around which increases its predictability. It's defintely something you can essentially always handle on reaction (maybe if you get your shield broken or something you can't, but that's obviously being silly and your fault anyway). An experienced player who knows Norfair well will only be hit by those when his opponent outplays him; Norfair is definitely fair. It's not a stage that should be floated for banning at all really; time has proven that Norfair works.

I played a few long matches on Norfair and focused on monitoring the hazards (while trying to learn to use tap jump on with both my index finger and thumb on control stick). They clearly had a flow to them, with a set amount of time between each one. Thus, I now am certain that the stage is fair.

 

[ShadowLink84]

Norfair should be legal cause of the music **** it!

 

[Deoxys]

Norfair should be legal cause of the music **** it!

Agreed! That Golden Sun song is TOO PRO. This is the opposite of why Hanenbow should stay banned.

Yes, I'm pretty sure everyone is on this same page. The apples on Green Greens don't matter.

- unless they explode.

I disagree. Sometimes the apples heal, which matters greatly. Being healed randomly is different than being given a throwing item randomly: the throwing item can be played around strategically, virtually negating its effect most of the time, while being healed isn't something that can be played around. Despite this, I think items are particularly valuable since they allow characters to cancel their momentum more quickly.

Starter
Battlefield
Final Destination
Halberd
Lylat Cruise
Pokémon Stadium 1
Smashville
Yoshi's Island

Starter/Counter
Castle Siege
Delfino Plaza

Counter
Brinstar
Distant Planet
Frigate Orpheon
Jungle Japes
Luigi's Mansion
Norfair
Pictochat
Pirate Ship
Pokémon Stadium 2
Port Town Aero Drive
Rainbow Cruise
Skyworld
Yoshi's Island (Melee)

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Big Blue and Rumble Falls are really in the same boat. They aren't fundamentally unfair, but they're too radical for most people. Rumble Falls is a bit more fair than Big Blue too (Big Blue has the flaw of "shield pushback kills").

Anyway, time to do a Jungle Japes write up. This will hopefully be enough to convince even people who do not like stage diversity. Tell me if I miss anything.

EDIT before the long thing: I agree that the Halberd won't always be struck. I was just saying that, even if it were, it wouldn't be that big of a deal.

80:20 is pretty crazy, and I don't think Meta Knight vs Diddy is ever that bad on any stage. Maybe "80:20" just indicates a stronger bias to me than it does to you. 80:20 is like King Dedede vs DK on Final Destination to me; it's essentially game ruining. I don't think any stages, even banned ones, actually produce that particular magnitude of advantages from matchups that weren't already close to that bad anyway though. They tend to either produce "nearly literally unwinnable" which is much worse than 80:20 or "very powerful but reasonable to overcome" which is much less bad than 80:20. I agree that it's not even obvious that 80:20 would be grounds for a stage ban, but it would be an argument which is all that I said...

Also, about the timing of the hazards on Norfair, there is a "rhythm" of sorts, but I think which hazard appears (rising lava, fire walls, big wave, fire pillars) is completely random. I also haven't been able to obsere any set timing even if it appears kinda "regular". Were you able to get anything numeric?

Jungle Japes
Why it isn't broken: Jungle Japes has one hazard in Klaptrap. Klaptrap appears 3 seconds into the match and then periodically every 10 seconds. To keep it simple, Klaptrap appears on the right side of the map in the water when the seconds digit on the timer reads 7 (XX:X7:XX). This is completely predictable; there are no "random" deaths by Klaptrap. This means that his only practical effect in matches where both players are aware of his mechanics is being a potential interruption for ledge stalling, something I'm sure no one is going to complain about. The rushing water is another concern, but it's not so bad.

Please allow me to dismiss an old myth about this water being biased against characters with bad recovery. I have personally tested it, and I am sure that every character in the cast, including Link and Olimar with zero pikmin, can recover if you drop from the left ledge of the middle platform and hold right until you fall into the water (if you don't hold right, Link and zero pikmin Olimar can't recover but I think everyone else can; the distance difference is small but crucial). If you fall off the furthest left ledge and don't hold any direction, the entire cast cannot recover. Even Meta Knight or Jigglypuff just can't get out of the water before being swept away. It is true that this water is fatal to land in if you land too far to the left in it, but it is simply untrue that the water is biased against any characters except for a pretty small section of it which is less of the bottom of a stage than is usually especially dangerous for characters with bad recoveries. The worst thing the water does against any specific character is kill Olimar's pikmin, but in most cases on this stage, that will not prevent him from recovering as long as he keeps his head and uses his double jump and small height gain from using pikmin chain not at the ledge intelligently (this may actually be a GOOD Olimar level because gimping him by holding the ledge isn't a big deal here). It's really reasonable to just think of the water from beneath the furthest left ledge extending to the left blast zone as a partial lower blast zone with a small strip of water being fatal to only some and the remaining majority of the water being fair for all characters and not very dangerous. Even better, the fact that the water is rushing along with Klaptrap means the water has literally zero usefulness for stalling.

Otherwise, there's really nothing to hate on this stage. The small platforms favor some characters, but they are perfectly approachable and fair. The large blast zones exist, but they too are not inherently unfair.

What this stage adds to the game: This stage has the largest blast zones of any potentially legal stage, allowing characters who prefer high ceilings a chance to shine. The small platforms to the sides produce interesting close range battles; they really aren't very practical to camp due to how easy it is to attack through the floor of this stage, but they add a lot to gameplay anyway. This stage is mostly known for being a Falco counterpick, and as a Falco counterpick it manages to be powerful enough for him to be useful but not powerful enough to really be unfair, especially since the lower elevation of the middle platform makes it much easier for characters trying to approach him to avoid lasers. On the other end of the tier list, this stage is a very fair but very useful counterpick for Jigglypuff with perfect spacing for Rollout, lots of opportunities for jumping around, and her kind of blast zones. Several other characters could consider this a useful counterpick too, but it never crosses the line and becomes "too much". All in all, this is a good stage; it's a fair counterpick, and it gives certain characters exactly the kind of help you'd expect from a fair counterpick. It should be legal universally.

 

[brinboy789]

stuff

AA laying down the law every post i see from you has way too much logic and info

 

[Deoxys]

80:20 is pretty crazy, and I don't think Meta Knight vs Diddy is ever that bad on any stage. Maybe "80:20" just indicates a stronger bias to me than it does to you. 80:20 is like King Dedede vs DK on Final Destination to me; it's essentially game ruining. I don't think any stages, even banned ones, actually produce that particular magnitude of advantages from matchups that weren't already close to that bad anyway though. They tend to either produce "nearly literally unwinnable" which is much worse than 80:20 or "very powerful but reasonable to overcome" which is much less bad than 80:20. I agree that it's not even obvious that 80:20 would be grounds for a stage ban, but it would be an argument which is all that I said...

Also, about the timing of the hazards on Norfair, there is a "rhythm" of sorts, but I think which hazard appears (rising lava, fire walls, big wave, fire pillars) is completely random. I also haven't been able to obsere any set timing even if it appears kinda "regular". Were you able to get anything numeric?

OK, so I exaggerated the MK vs Diddy matchup on RC. Nonetheless, we must remember that 80:20 is (just) 4 out of 5 games played there by good players of equal skill. Does a good DK really win 1 out of 5 games against a good DDD on FD? I just don't see it happening.

Which hazard appears is completely random (after the first one) as far as I can tell, although the same hazard will never come twice in a row. I will go research how much time is between the hazards now. IDK how complicated it will end up being, but I can feel that there's order to the madness.

 

[CHAOSvsORDER]

Bad stage as in, bad competitive stage.
You know what i mean so don't act like you do not.

Have you actually played on big blue, or are you just theorizing? I've played on it a lot the road isn't all that bad. Being shield pushed and being carried to your death almost never happens(at least not to me). Big blue isn't much worse than Japes. The road isn't as bad as the water because of the klaptrap. In anycase, you have not stated what the overpowering strategy is that makes it so ban worthy. It just seems as if you don't like this stage.

 

[danielkon369]

why would anyone like to banned falcos laser lock!?

 

[Titanium Dragon]

Halberd won't always get struck, though.

If it is such a bad stage for your character, yes, it will always get struck unless you suck.

I played a few long matches on Norfair and focused on monitoring the hazards (while trying to learn to use tap jump on with both my index finger and thumb on control stick). They clearly had a flow to them, with a set amount of time between each one. Thus, I now am certain that the stage is fair.

Its not particularly difficult to see them coming anyway, honestly. The only really annoying hazard is the gigantic wall of lava, and that creates an interesting fight for the platform (or you can get through it without being damaged other ways as well; I've done so accidentally before with a ledge grab recovery, and I'm sure there are other means of evading the damage as well if you knew what you were doing).

Regarding Big Blue, it gives some characters virtually 100/0 matchups on it. Something like that cannot be tolerated.

Who does it give such unbeatable win percentages, and why?

I disagree. Sometimes the apples heal, which matters greatly. Being healed randomly is different than being given a throwing item randomly: the throwing item can be played around strategically, virtually negating its effect most of the time, while being healed isn't something that can be played around. Despite this, I think items are particularly valuable since they allow characters to cancel their momentum more quickly.

You have to control the central platform to really take advantage of the apples, so its still quite interesting. Honestly, it isn't a big deal and it isn't more important than, say, being able to chuck them at people. I think the stage explosion glitch is a bigger deal if it isn't predictable.

Jungle Japes Writeup

I tend to agree.

 

[ShadowLink84]

Have you actually played on big blue, or are you just theorizing?

This is stupid. Do you go around blatantly assuming that anyone disagreeing with you didn't play on the stage?
Seriously.

Let alone even if I didn't, I wouldn't need to play on a stage. I just need to know that randomly appearing cards/platforms and instant death upon landing on the road +ability to camp someone to death=bad

I've played on it a lot the road isn't all that bad.

Try using Pit.

Being shield pushed and being carried to your death almost never happens(at least not to me).

No one cares about your experience.

Big blue isn't much worse than Japes.

Really?

The road isn't as bad as the water because of the klaptrap.

klapttrap runs on a 10 second interval. The water runs slower and you can recover more easily. you also aren't dealing with a constantly changing landscape.

In anycase, you have not stated what the overpowering strategy is that makes it so ban worthy. It just seems as if you don't like this stage.

It seems like you cannot read otherwise, your statement would not have been made. Let alone an overpowering strategy is not necessary since the entire time, characters are fighting the STAGE not each other.
It interferes with gameplay to an extreme degree, otherwise, Rumble falls shouldn't be banned!

I
Its not particularly difficult to see them coming anyway, honestly. The only really annoying hazard is the gigantic wall of lava, and that creates an interesting fight for the platform (or you can get through it without being damaged other ways as well; I've done so accidentally before with a ledge grab recovery, and I'm sure there are other means of evading the damage as well if you knew what you were doing).

Why are you fighting for the platform? Fight regularly then shield the lava wall which hardly damages your shield. Or jump over it, or dodge it, no one should fight over the platform.

 

[ShadowLink84]

thought I hit edit =(