Official Stage Q&A and Discussion

[GuruKid]

Tournament stagelists are a common issue sparking lots of debate amongst the Smash community, and with Project M's abundance of legal stages this game is definitely no exception. What makes for a legitimate tournament stagelist? Should a certain stage widely regarded as neutral/counterpick/banned be reconsidered and placed in a different category? Could our current common methods behind the stage selection and ban process use some refinement? Discuss everything related to Project M's stages including legality and tournament stagelists or feel free to ask a stage-specific question here!

 

[Life]

Spoiler

Stage Rage Social:M

...nah, not likely.

But the handful of you that have seen me talk about Brawl stages know how I feel about stages in the abstract. I'll see how PM's stages develop before making calls on the specifics, but in general, more stages is better. Given that PM is a hack, there ought to be a ton of legal stages in the end--probably too many to include in any one tournament, so maybe a rotation would be in order?

But enough about me.

Curious how we feel about removing the counterpick stage category? It's rather odd to have a group of stages that aren't legal for game one but are totally fine for the rest of the set, and it arbitrarily biases the game 1 stage in favor of certain characters (depending on the individual list obviously, but imagine how, for example, Ike and Lucario mains would feel if all of the starter stages had side walls versus none of them).

 

[Translucent]

I just hope that there is five neutrals:

Smashville, Battlefield, Green Hill Zone, Pokemon Stadium 2, and one other.

I really think that amlost all if not all stages in Project M could be counterpicks because of all the major changes they have gotten.

 

[#HBC | Joker]

I understand the spirit of the Starter/Counterpick system, but in a game with so many characters, it's almost impossible to have a legitimate list of completely "neutral" stages. Somebody in this big *** cast is gonna have an advantage over others on any given stage, so there's really no point in trying to say "these stages are good for everybody, and these have to wait til later".

We should do away with the Starter/Counterpick system immediately. It doesn't succeed at what it was meant for. Everybody in Brawl just plays on smashville anyway.

That said, I like the stages they currently have on Page 1 of the SSS. That's a fine legal stagelist as far as I'm concerned.

 

[GHNeko]

I just hope that there is five neutrals:

Smashville, Battlefield, Green Hill Zone, Pokemon Stadium 2, and one other.

I really think that amlost all if not all stages in Project M could be counterpicks because of all the major changes they have gotten.

You think GHZ is worthy of being a starter?


Why is that?

 

[Shiny Mewtwo aka Jigglysir]

I want Brinstar legal.

Ivysaur can heal himself constantly on that stage

 

[#HBC | Joker]

I want Brinstar legal.

Ivysaur can heal himself constantly on that stage

Also 2 usmashes = instant fully charged solar beam

ban plz

 

[trash?]

I understand the spirit of the Starter/Counterpick system, but in a game with so many characters, it's almost impossible to have a legitimate list of completely "neutral" stages. Somebody in this big *** cast is gonna have an advantage over others on any given stage, so there's really no point in trying to say "these stages are good for everybody, and these have to wait til later".

We should do away with the Starter/Counterpick system immediately. It doesn't succeed at what it was meant for. Everybody in Brawl just plays on smashville anyway.

That said, I like the stages they currently have on Page 1 of the SSS. That's a fine legal stagelist as far as I'm concerned.

I never really took the idea of "true neutral stages don't exist" as a reason to ditch this current system, but in hindsight it makes a hell of a lot of sense.

Idea: Make a fairly big list of stages (I wanna say 10 would be a good number), have each player take off two stages each, let the good ol' random button take it from there. It's simplistic, but right now we don't have an absolute idea of how all the stages will work with certain MUs beyond "bowser is disgusting on small stages", so this would work out nicely for experimenting.

 

[#HBC | Joker]

I don't see anything wrong with just striking from the full legal list until a stage is mutually agreed on.

 

[Master WGS]

The problem is that's time consuming. Starters succeed in making the first match a quick decision, which is important. As much as I love a huge and varied stage list, I understand starting with a small list and then jumping to a bigger list as a simple factor of time management. We can't have every match waiting for two guys to strike some 19 stages, that's absurd.

Sorry to be the guy who brings up a problem rather without mentioning a real solution, but that's why we need to start with a small list if we're going to do any sort of striking method.

 

[#HBC | Joker]

The problem is that's time consuming. Starters succeed in making the first match a quick decision, which is important. As much as I love a huge and varied stage list, I understand starting with a small list and then jumping to a bigger list as a simple factor of time management. We can't have every match waiting for two guys to strike some 19 stages, that's absurd.

Sorry to be the guy who brings up a problem rather without mentioning a real solution, but that's why we need to start with a small list if we're going to do any sort of striking method.

No, the starter thing does not cut down on time. You know how many counterpicks there are in most Brawl stagelists? You can usually count them on your hand. How much time do you think it takes to strike 5 stages? You know how Brawl tourneys actually cut down on stage selection time?

"Wanna strike, or just go to smashville?"

"Smashville is cool with me bro"

Done.

Once the PM metagame develops, we'll find a stage some stage (probably still smashville) that is actually neutral, or a favorite of the community at large. We don't need to pretend that there's a whole list of them, there's not. People can just go to that stage if they need to save time, it's gonna happen anyway, but for the people who actually want to strike stages because they think it's going to significantly affect their matchup? Let them go to any stage that's legal, instead of arbitrarily excluding certain ones for no legitimate reason.

 

[batistabus]

Hmm...that makes a lot of sense.

The PMBR could even create a stage from scratch that would have all the qualities of a "true neutral" (or as hope as they could possibly hope to get) if it needed to come to that. Personally, I think that'd be pretty neat.

 

[GHNeko]

I honestly wish the community would drop the phase "neutral" and erase it from their vocab completely.

It's a poor choice of a word and starter fits the role for all intents and purposes, far better than neutral ever could.

That being said, I say we establish that FD should be banned from being a starter. We have enough stages guys. It's okay to make it a CP.

No one is going to hurt you. Trust me.

 

[trash?]

As it turns out, a stage in a platformer-fighter that doesn't have platforms might be a tiny bit lopsided in matchups.

What's the default list, exactly? Are we just counting the bottom row on page 1 (which is supposed to be the most popular stages, from what I can get), or the entire page (because the entire first page is supposed to be the more tourney-viable ones)?

 

[Yobolight]

I would rather have the strategy involved in the picking of banning and picking stages, than introduce the random button.

The less random stuff, the better.

 

[`dazrin]

There is no "default" list. This game is still in it's infant stages, so there is yet to be a pre-determined list of stages for all tournaments to generally abide by.

Gurukid, as the OP of this thread, I highly recommend you paste some of the recommended stagelists found in the OP of the smashmods thread. These lists have been tried and true, and are a decent general starting point to guide up and coming TOs into the right direction.

With as many viable stages as there are in PM, it's very difficult to have a solidified stagelist everyone can agree with.

 

[Evilagram]

I would say that stages with walls in them should be re-opened for examination as legal stages, seeing as we don't have wall infinites anymore.

We don't have a lot of engine limitations that the stage pick rules were built around in Melee, and we have a wider assortment of legal stages overall. I think stages like Onett, Saffron City, Hyrule Castle, and maybe Fourside (hesitant on this one because of the divide in the middle) should be brought into standard rotation, or Counterpick rotation, because we don't have significant reasons to worry about them boiling down the match into who can abuse the walls.


This is unrelated to stage legality, but I'd appreciate it if the stage list were edited more in future versions (such as replacing Port Town Aero Drive with Mute City), stages that lack ledges have them added (such as Mute City and Frigate Orpheon), and that Dracula's Castle's main platform be flattened a bit, moved further into the background or something because it obscures recovering characters or ledgehanging characters from a lot of angles (okay, I admit I haven't played 2.5 yet, so this may have been fixed already and I have no idea).

What I'd really love is if in casual play, I could completely turn off random stage restrictions.

 

[Fox Hater]

The only thing about i dont like about counterpicking is that the winner gets to change character, and so far I think ( and Im happy with the stages allowed for counterpicking and neutral) that I dont think there is need for winner to change characters anymore.

PM should start making the difference so other smash people could forget this silly rule -_-

 

[DMG]

I

Some of the stages you listed are also kinda huge. You'd have concerns about timeouts because of how much room you have to cover. Would suck if Sonic or Puff or xyz got super free wins because your character doesn't traverse as fluidly as them.



Fox Hater: what do you propose then? Because not being able to change characters actually makes CPing much more polarizing and lame. It means if you are the loser of game 1, you have to plan very carefully for game 2 and 3 because whatever you CP with game 2, if you win that game then you're stuck not being able to switch. The loser still gets to try and CP the guy when he switches characters, but taking away the ability to switch means matches will be more polarizing. Win game 1, lose horribly to opponent's CP game 2, then I CP HIS CP character and **** it game 3.

 

[bubbaking]

If winner doesn't get to change character, he gets completely counterpicked twice. You're Samus and you just beat my Fox? Oh, well let me CP Yoshi's real quick, and while I'm at it, I might as well pick Marth too. You see what I mean?

This was supposed to go on Smashmods, but oh well...

I do 11-13 stages total, match 1 characters are chosen, each player bans 2 (or 3 in 13) stages, then strike 121221 on the remaining 7. Winner then picks a character, loser picks a character, the winner soft-strikes 1 more stage just for the next match, and the loser can CP from the remaining 6. Emphasizes getting a fair legal stagelist for every individual set without the muddle of unnecessary stages.

Player with weaker port priority gets to decide who strikes first.

BF, DL, YS, SV, GHZ, PS2, PS1, FoD, WW, FD, DC(, NF, HB)

This is practically the same concept as my system:

[collapse='My system']

The TO creates a list of stages that he thinks are competitively feasible for his tournament. This list MUST contain an odd number of agreed starters for the initial standard stage striking.

Here's how a set with my system would work. Before characters are even chosen for the first match, the two players each pick a certain number of CPs from the total list of stages to be used. The order of picking would be the same order as stage striking for the initial match. If the set is a Bo3, then 2 CPs will be picked (order of P1-P2). If the set is a Bo5, then 4 CPs will be picked (order of P1-P2-P2-P1). If the set is a Bo7, then 6 CPs will be picked (order of P1-P2-P2-P1-P1-P2). These chosen stages plus the starters are now the only stages allowed during that set.

Now for the actual set procedure: For the first match, blind picks are done for character selection, as usual. Then you have regular stage striking. If the TO selected 3 stages as starters, then stage striking is P1-P2. If 5 stages were selected, then striking is P1-P2-P2-P1. If 7 stages were selected, well....you get the idea. After the first match is played out, you have standard Melee procedure. Winner bans a stage, Loser CPs a stage from the list of CPs + starters that was established at the very beginning of the set. Winner chooses a char. Loser CPs a char. Play out the second match and rinse and repeat until the set is over. Each player only gets one ban for the set (and only after they've won a match).

Now, the reason I say that only 4 CPs should be picked for a Bo5 is that the first match will only be on a starter anyway. That leaves a maximum of only 4 matches on which CPs will be allowed. Of course, starters can be chosen (and banned) for CPs as well and allowing only the number of CP stages that I have stated, combined with bans, actually encourages a little more play to be had on neutrals than just the first match.

Here's an example Bo5 set. Assume that the TO is using 7 neutral starters and 14 CPs for a total count of 21 stages (this is the exact number of neutrals and CPs that Melee-FC used). In this list of stages, the seven starters are designated as S1 (Starter 1), S2, S3,……,S7 and the counterpicks are CP1 (Counterpick 1), CP2,.....,CP14. Alright, we have 21 stages, right?
Before characters have even been chosen for the first match, Player 1 (P1) chooses a counterpick (let’s say CP1) to include in the set. Player 2 (P2) chooses two counterpicks (CP2 and CP3) to include in the set. P1 then chooses the last counterpick (CP4) to include in the set (note that this is the same order that stage striking for the first match uses). Now that all the counterpicks for the set have been chosen, the rest are “discarded”. Now P1 and P2 blind-pick their chars. Now stage striking is done for the first match. P1 strikes S1. P2 strikes S2 and S3. P1 strikes S4 and S5. P2 strikes S6. Now the first match takes place on the one neutral starter left, S7. Let’s say P1 wins and he bans CP1 (he may have decided to ban the CP he picked before the set after he learned exactly what his opponent’s chars were). P2 counterpicks CP4 (he may have decided to use the CP his opponent picked before the set after learning what his opponent’s chars were). Now P1 chooses a char for that CP stage. Then P2 chooses his char. Now let’s say P2 wins this second match and he decides to ban S1 (starters are still bannable). Now both players have set their bans for the entire set. Now P1 counterpicks CP2. P2 picks char. P1 picks char. Rinse and repeat until the set is over.

I highly recommend that DSR be used for this ruleset but, of course, it would be up to the TO.

[/collapse]
[collapse='More on my system']

Read it through. Our systems really are quite similar, as Hyper pointed out to me before. I still like my system, though, because it gives the TO freedom to include whatever stages they feel are tournament viable. After all, I don't think we want a 'Recommended Stagelist' that everyone is forced to follow. Rather, it would give TOs the final say. That's not a big issue, though.

The other thing I like my system for, which is somewhat of a big deal, is that it avoids the whole loophole in Kink's system entirely because all the other stages are eliminated completely from the set. Not only that, it is more familiar, because after the initial CP picking process, the set is practically identical to the MBR's ruleset, which most Melee players are completely familiar with.

I'm already hosting a tourney with JC's ruleset, but the next time I get a chance, I'd like to test this one out to see its effectiveness.

To be more specific, as Kink said, under his system, if Player A bans 2 stages before the entire set even starts, Player B is now no longer allowed to have any control over whether those stages are played on or not. If Ridiculously Advantageous Stage 1 (R1) and Ridiculous Stage 2 (R2) are banned by Player A, Player B may not use either of these stages to his benefit, even when he's losing, but Player A can call either of them out whenever he's in a pinch and wreck Player B with it. This problem is magnified by the fact that, on the counterpick, Player A gets to CP the stage AFTER characters are already chosen and locked in. Player B only gets to safeguard against ONE of these ridiculous stages with his strike.

Under my system, at the very beginning of a Bo5 set, Player A would have to use up his two CP picks just to have those stages included. He'd be banking his entire losing strategy on those two CPs and even then, Player B could still use his Winner's Ban to cover one of those CPs after he won. Neither of the players has to worry about any other random stages from the TO's stagelist being brought out, because all other stages will be completely removed from the set before it starts (Removed From Play, as it were, for all you YuGiOh fanboys ). Think of it as each player having his own compact stagelist inside the TO's grand stagelist. Every player would be able to have his own personal stagelist that matches his own characters, playstyle, and losing strategy that he could 'carry around' from tourney to tourney, and he would couple this 'sub-stagelist' with his opponent's under the TO's master list. After they've joined and made up for any discrepancies (same CP in both lists, perhaps), all other stages are eliminated. No shenanigans allowed.

[/collapse]

Granted, this system is for those who still want a large number of stages to be legal at tournaments.

 

[Fox Hater]

The thing is that this rule has been taken for granted always and no one from recent times has taken the time to analyze why this counterpick rule was created in the first place. And its not because of lame 'cause in other Fighting game u dont pick a character when you win...

Back in the days we competitive players were frustrated and thought unfair that if someone wins the first match , It was almost a gurantee win the third match if you had a character who dominated X stage. For example ( Fox green green, Peach/ Jigs Mute city or Brinstar ) and so forth. It was the only reason why the rule to change character after loser pick stages was created at all.

Now days for example melee uses only neutral stages and Pokemon Stadium which means stages affect the match, but not in a way to make it unfair (ex. I pick brinstar and Jigss and is a automatic win vs space animals...) well not anymore.

PM team has in a way fixed some stages to make them look similar to what melee "neutral stages offer" no random BS and add a lot of variety.

I think its unfair that when you lose and a pick a stage that makes you feel comfortable (from a list that contains neutral stages) someone gets the chance to change characters.

So in a way you are countering the couterpick or why have it anyway.

Lets say someone decide to pick yoshi story because is smaller or pokemon stadium 2 because he saw a pattern and wants to punish it... well he cant because I just pick another character and everything resets from the beggining only that I have the lead in score 1-0.

even if both players changes character. For me it doesnt make sense.

I hope I havent confused you and I made myself clear on my point

My suggestion, loser picks to change character or stage.

If someone has a better suggestion I welcome to share it please

And for the record allowing the winner to change character doesnt help people who are loyal to one character specific, dont get confused. If you are samus and I beat you in the first game and you pick a stage who gives u prefer ( lets say cause its large and you can space better) well Ive seen your patter already and I pick another charcter who is better against samus and GG to your cournter pick

 

[bubbaking]

The counterpicking topic was brought up on Smashmods as well. This was, IMO, the best idea that came up:
[collapse=Counterpick stage OR character, not both]

Lower port striking first is how it's been done in Melee for a while, but that's because different ports give different starting points on each stage in Melee. It's not that important in P:M/vBrawl. IIRC, the game checks the # of players present in a match, not their actual ports.

It seems the worse problem here isn't even the stages, but the way characters are chosen after the stages are selected. You can't truly counterpick a stage if someone can just go to someone good on that stage.

The main issue with your suggestions is, how would the stage be chosen if the loser chooses to CP his character and not the stage?

What if we did something like this?

After match loser decides A or B:

A. Counterpick Stage
1A. Winner bans stages (3)
2A. Loser Picks Stage.
---
Neither player gets to pick their character. The bans allow the winner to not get overly screwed, but the loser still gets to pick a stage to gain a slight advantage from.
---
B. Counterpick Character
1B. Loser selects character
2B. Stage strike with the original neutral stages.

Obviously discussing the rules of A and B. Possibly allowing the winner to select a character first in B resulting in 3 steps.

I actually like this idea a lot (), but I think the format of B should be tweaked a little. I think the stage striking should happen first (with the loser striking first), then the winner can pick a char and the loser can CP a char. This would be like a modified version of the already present standard Melee rules. Instead of the loser outright picking a stage, stage striking would occur. The loser should still get his advantage from striking first (and getting the final word on the strikes) and from CPing a char, but it won't be as extreme as just CPing both the stage and the char.

[/collapse]

Basically, this idea gives a slight advantage to the loser without giving him the chance to make the next match completely one-sided for free.

 

[DMG]

Other fighting games do not have stage CPing (or usually no meaningful differences in stages barring Tekken Walls and SC stuff). Smash is different from those games and they don't have the winner switch rule because they don't have Ryu vs Akuma on FD, BF, Dreamland, Castle, etc.

If we do not want stage CPing, then we would play on the same stage every set and just let the loser switch, which isn't Smash really. Shifting the stage and preventing anyone from switching is a possibly unfair and unfun advantage even if both players stay the same character. One character might just be bad on FD in the MU, but **** on Yoshi's. You guys play, loses on FD so he picks YI. He can't switch, you can't switch. It's still gonna be a lame MU lol.

The best answer is to just make sure stupid stages aren't legal. If you do that and let CPing players have as much freedom as possible, you can't go wrong. CPing both character and stage shouldn't be a big deal IF the stages legal aren't silly to begin with. That's where you get into trouble, because even though some of these new stages are pretty and exciting, they may not be that great for competitive play.

 

[bubbaking]

The thing is that this rule has been taken for granted always and no one from recent times has taken the time to analyze why this counterpick rule was created in the first place. And its not because of lame 'cause in other Fighting game u dont pick a character when you win...

Other FGs also don't have different stages that completely change how certain MUs work. Marth vs Jiggs on FD or BF? Arguably even. On YS? Probably Marth's favor. On DL64? Probably Puff's favor. Other FGs don't have that kind of variation between stages.

Edit: Ninja'd; DMG is too good. I should CP him.

 

[trash?]

I like the idea of "you either counter with a character, or a stage". There was one idea from smashmods that just went with "get a bunch of neutrals, to hell with CP stages forever" that I didn't mind, though.

In my mind (though I'm likely to be proven wrong), counter-picks should work in a way that you can make a 6-4 matchup a 5-5 one, not make a lopsided matchup even worse. So if you wanted to be a character loyalist, you could still have strategic options to work with. I feel like that's the best thing you could make out of them now, a nice way to address the problem with a lot of fighting games where people have to have a small handful of characters they have an understanding of, just in case they have a MU they can't deal with normally.

Because as... far as I can tell, it was normally used just to hide big character flaws (and in the case of FD, make it so certain characters can play nicely with spacies).

 

[roymaster803]

So I played the new Norfair and it's nice. Could be a CP. Only the bottom platform is grabbable though. Seems to be a good stage. The 2 side platforms move from time to time, but they aren't a problem.

 

[Fox Hater]

Like I said before you cant really argue that stages (although they affect the matches) makes a match unfair because they have been studied before for long time. And we already have NEUTRAL stages for competitive play which benefit but doesnt make any match unfair. If a stage makes it an unfair match for a character then it should be on the neutral stage list. if it makes comfortable to play for some characters, hey thats the beauty of smash its still doesnt make it unfair to beat jigs in Dream Land 64...

Personally I like

B. Counterpick Character
1B. Loser selects character
2B. Stage strike with the original neutral stages.
or

Counter pick stage: Winner ban a stage first and stay with character.


That way if loser decides to pick a stage the winner has to stay but at least could take out one stage that he doesnt like fighting with his main. - Please note that stages that are available for counterpick are considered neutral and the PM crew has make sure to fix some stages that were broken to add more variety, we are not talking about bringing back mute city, brinstar, green green or corneria to the CP list.

Also since PM stage list for competitive is bigger winner could be allowed to ban 2 stages, but this should be tested before implementing

what do you guys think?

How could we address this concern to PM TOs?

And I like B cause if you change character at least we make sure both are comfortable in the stage they are playing.

I really want to try and talk about this at apex

 

[bubbaking]

And for the record allowing the winner to change character doesnt help people who are loyal to one character specific, dont get confused. If you are samus and I beat you in the first game and you pick a stage who gives u prefer ( lets say cause its large and you can space better) well Ive seen your patter already and I pick another charcter who is better against samus and GG to your cournter pick

Lolz, first of all, I know this wasn't directed at me but I main Samus and I secondary Sheik. If I was Samus for the first match (that you say I lost), I CP another stage, and you try to CP my stage CP by changing chars, I'll just switch to Sheik. That's why the loser is given the last say in choosing characters. This just encourages people to have proficiency in using more than one character, which isn't a bad thing. In fact, in any balanced game, being able to use more than one character SHOULD be necessary or else one should get used to fighting bad MUs. It just so happened that, in Melee, people could get by for entire tournaments with solo Fox/Falco/Jiggs/Sheik. P:M is (hopefully) aiming to change all that. Solo mains is not a good reason to eliminate the Winner's char CP. Either get better or pick up another character.

What if I used Samus and I beat someone's Marth on DL64? Well now he can CP Yoshi's and I'm stuck in a terrible MU on a terrible stage. You're basically telling me to plan games in advance when choosing my character. Welp, I guess I can't ever choose a 'bad char' for xyz bad MU that said bad char happens to be good at, 'cause now I'm stuck on him and I'll be CP'd really hard next game.

 

[Dubforce]

You think GHZ is worthy of being a starter?


Why is that?

I was going to ask as well. If GHZ is a starter, then why not warioware? I see them as practically the same stage. I think they are both way too small and should only be used as counter-picks for people with ****ty MU's against floaties.

 

[Dubforce]

So I played the new Norfair and it's nice. Could be a CP. Only the bottom platform is grabbable though. Seems to be a good stage. The 2 side platforms move from time to time, but they aren't a problem.

The side platforms aren't grabable? Holy ****...

Then no. No norfair ever.

 

[bubbaking]

It's not really any worse than SV, tbh. On that stage, the platform extends waaay off the stage but it's not grabbable. You just have to commit to either going for the ledge or landing on the platform. It also adds another element to edgeguarding, which is always fun and interesting. The problem I see with that stage is circle camping. Let someone get a decent lead and you may have some serious trouble trying to catch them, since that top plat is so large.

The best answer is to just make sure stupid stages aren't legal. If you do that and let CPing players have as much freedom as possible, you can't go wrong. CPing both character and stage shouldn't be a big deal IF the stages legal aren't silly to begin with. That's where you get into trouble, because even though some of these new stages are pretty and exciting, they may not be that great for competitive play.

That's basically how my system works. The TO makes a stage list (probably pulled from a recommended list that everyone agrees with) and then the two players pull their preferred stages from that TO list for the CP stagelist allowed for that specific set. Neutral stages are set and fixed beforehand by the TO.

 

[DMG]

You mean pull them together, and then strike from them? Because if that's not what you are doing, you're basically doing stage bans at the beginning of the set. I don't like the idea of "settling" what stages you are going to CP from beforehand, or trying to come up with a group of stages I *might* pick from and basically telling that to my opponent/letting him weed it out even further.

 

[bubbaking]

Well it's meant to prevent people from getting too drastic with their CPs. Choosing CPs that you think you'd want before chars are even selected means you shouldn't be picking anything too polarizing, 'cause I could make you hate yourself for it later. The TO's master stagelist shouldn't have any stupid stages anyway. This is just an extra safeguard layer. If I choose two 'ridiculous' stages, you can still ban one, provided you win a match, and there's also still DSR, which would be more important for Bo5's and Bo7's. The system proposed by B.W. also seems really appealing.

Personally I like

B. Counterpick Character
1B. Loser selects character
2B. Stage strike with the original neutral stages.
or

Counter pick stage: Winner ban a stage first and stay with character.

Well, the system is meant to be taken as a whole, as in, the loser picks to either "CP stage" (which still allows the winner to ban a stage and change chars) or "CP char" (which STILL should let the winner change chars but in a different order).

How could we address this concern to PM TOs?

P:M TOs should be frequenting this thread to see what the popular opinion/consensus is.

Edit: To clarify, this is how I think B.W.'s system should be interpreted and used. Make sure to pay attention to the bolded part:

What if we did something like this?

After match loser decides A or B:

A. Counterpick Stage
1A. Winner bans stages (3)
2A. Loser Picks Stage.
---
Neither player gets to pick their character. The bans allow the winner to not get overly screwed, but the loser still gets to pick a stage to gain a slight advantage from.
---
B. Counterpick Character
1B. Loser selects character
2B. Stage strike with the original neutral stages.

Obviously discussing the rules of A and B. Possibly allowing the winner to select a character first in B resulting in 3 steps.

I actually like this idea a lot (), but I think the format of B should be tweaked a little. I think the stage striking should happen first (with the loser striking first), then the winner can pick a char and the loser can CP a char. This would be like a modified version of the already present standard Melee rules. Instead of the loser outright picking a stage, stage striking would occur. The loser should still get his advantage from striking first (and getting the final word on the strikes) and from CPing a char, but it won't be as extreme as just CPing both the stage and the char.

 

[Vro]

Repost from smashmods because noobs talk the loudest

I have a very strong opinion about the stage list and the future of smash stages. I think we can add a ton of competitive stages and modify existing ones to make them more competitive.

Stage picking needs to be 2 things. Easy and Good. No matter how well explained or detailed your instructions are, if it's not easier than quickly going to Battlefield/Smashville (aka player agreement) than the rules are bad. If I have to look at a list of over 10 stages to CP and/or ban, it's not easy.

Many people try to do grouping technique and additional bans, but those rules are inelegant.

Last point before I show my list, many Melee neutrals are not perfect neutrals in PM, in my opinion. FD is seen as neutral by many, but if you think about how much it skews matchups and how often it is banned, why would you think it is neutral? YS is too small just on vertical blastzone, not by stage design. Etc...

Vro's Conservative Stage List

Neutral:
Battlefield
Smashville
Pokemon Stadium 2

CP:
Final Destination
DreamLand 64
Green Hill Zone
Fountain of Dreams
Yoshi's Island

No bans, Dave's Stupid Rule (cannot go back to any stage you won on, unless agreed)

You see a lot of stages missing. There are many, many viable stages such as Dracula's or YS, but I cut them out because they are too different from the others. The blast zones for both stages are extremely different from those in my list above.

This stage list is the most concise and the ones with the least rules. For the sake of competition, I think the stages should be different but homogenous. Allowing even 12+ stages onto the list forces odd rules (group ban or multi ban) and forces players to learn multiple nuances of multiple stages.

I'm all for more stages. But make them better. There is a reason a majority of players like BattleField of Smashville. Reasonable blast zones, easy layout, no centralizing strategy.

Closing words: Imagine if we played like Soul Calibur where the stage picking is always random. What if all stages were so similar and neutral that we could play on all of them?

 

[DMG]

That begs the question though: if they are viable, why exactly cut them? A stage being different is inherently what makes Smash different from other fighters (along with the differences in movement, DJing and fluid air control are different than Tekken SF etc). You can make a balanced game by only playing on 1 stage, 3 stages, neutrals only, and even neutrals + CP's.

 

[bubbaking]

I am also for more variety. I am one of those who was most upset when KJ64, Brinstar, and RC were removed from Melee's stagelist. Variety is good, IMO.

 

[T44]

I would say that stages with walls in them should be re-opened for examination as legal stages, seeing as we don't have wall infinites anymore.

We don't have a lot of engine limitations that the stage pick rules were built around in Melee, and we have a wider assortment of legal stages overall. I think stages like Onett, Saffron City, Hyrule Castle, and maybe Fourside (hesitant on this one because of the divide in the middle) should be brought into standard rotation, or Counterpick rotation, because we don't have significant reasons to worry about them boiling down the match into who can abuse the walls.

Any "walk-off" stage like onett where you can just walk through the blast line will never be tournament legal. The reason they removed the 2nd transformation of castle seige (the walk-off one) was to make that stage more tourney-legal. Also, just because wall infinites may be different doesn't mean you can just completely disregard the walls when trying to determine whether a stage is "neutral", cp, or not legal.

 

[bubbaking]

Walls are strong CP material because of wall-specific techs (Wall-clings/jumps, etc.), but they don't necessarily preclude a stage from being a neutral. However, Saffron and Fourside, IMO, should never be legal because of those small gaps in between buildings. Certain chars would have no problem recovering from between them (chars with WJs, especially) and some chars simply CANNOT recover between them (especially the PK Kids). These stages would also promote camping of the worst kind.

 

[Vashimus]

The side platforms aren't grabable? Holy ****...

Then no. No norfair ever.

Aw it's not that bad. In fact, it's actually becoming one of my favorite stages. Besides the fact I'm a Metroid nut and that I also like the music there.

The diamond layout with the larger top platform works well. Characters that can camp well and have good stage control do really well here. Link, Toon Link, Ivy, Snake and Diddy come to mind. I'm sure Samus would do well here too when she's released too, fittingly enough. Plus the stage boundaries are pretty big, and the platforms moving outward make up for their lack of edges. Never really found too much trouble recovering. Seems like a good CP. That's just me.

 

[#HBC | Joker]

Lol, Wario is sweet on Norfair. You can jump your grounded sideb up to the next level of platforms perfectly. It makes getting around with him there very entertaining. Using the higher platforms for setting up your edgeguards is also pretty sweet.