Official Stage Q&A and Discussion

[Kink-Link5]

Don't all stages with platforms "platform stack"? PS2 promotes combos exclusive to the layout of having a main stage platform layered under two floating platforms, just as much as Wario Ware allows specific combos with three layers. I can think of plenty of arguments for why Wario Ware is a poor starter for several matchups, but none that have to do with "because the platforms are stacked," at least no more than the intricacies of platform layouts of other stages.

 

[thespymachine]

Competitive depth is counterbalanced by variety; that's a fundamental principle. The most balanced fighter would only have one character in it. Obviously all fighters have more. What I'm saying is things as small and insignificant and dealable as randall, wispy, and a different platform layout shouldn't exclude a stage from being neutral.

Competitive depth =/= balance. Depth is the product of the variety of viable options (variety is necessary for depth); balance is the existence of viable options throughout the game. So, it's true that the most balanced fighter would be one with one character and one stage, but it would have no depth compared to a game with two characters and one stage. (Example: Tic-tac-toe is balanced, but has no depth because of how small the playing board is and the lack of options you have.)

'Neutral' is a somewhat subjective term as well. My first post on here I stated that 'neutral' to me was the lack of chaotic variables. And other believe that 'neutral' is the evening out of MUs. Under my definition, randall and wispy would not be neutral factors.
And different platform layout, in itself, doesn't call for 'banning.' (more on that later in my reply to Kink-Link)

Curious as to why Dreamland is in the second list of filters. Also FoD and YS are completely absent. Now I'm a little confused, because those three stages are more tame and "neutral" than GHZ and WW (and in the atmosphere of the current discussion, Norfair, Rumble Falls and Metal Cavern).

DL's wind has the least affect on a match than FoD's moving platforms and YS's shyguys and randall; and GHZ, WW, Norfair, RF, and MC has no hindrances (or as little as SV or DL) on the stage. Once again, under my standard of 'neutrality' of a stage.

By refusing to just play with these minor oddities of neutral stages, and ask for fixes instead, we are breaking that model. If we knew that there were no more updates, we would have the opposite mindset.

I would have the same mindset. I don't think PS1 should be legal at all in Melee; starter should be BF - FD, FoD, YS, and DL counterpicks.
And I would go for a BF, PS2, & SV starter list if we had to.

In melee, stages were legal until they were demonstrated to be broken. Hell, Pokemon Stadium was a neutral until recently. Mute City, PokeFloats, Rainbow Cruise... All these stages were definitely not neutral (moving to cp here), but we didn't exclude them until we were sure that they were disruptive to the competitive environment.

Not when we thought that they were bad. <-- By the way, negative public opinion and theorycrafting are often spoken with strong words from vocal minorities. It is very dangerous to use things like that as "evidence"

Do you see what I'm getting at? We're coming at the problem from the other end, and I think it's for the wrong reasons. The problem with starting from the smallest, most neutral set and trying to expand is that you're never going to expand, because you've started out too strict, and you've focused on that. It's much easier (and imo better) to start with the largest set of neutrals we can, and narrow them down if any are demonstrably not neutral after evidence is gathered through competitive play and tournaments.

I see the movement of Melee's stages from what they had in MLG to what they have now as evidence that it's trying to become more strict, removing hindering elements. This is, as well as your point of gathering evidence for ourselves, are reasons why I'll pick newer stages in our stagelist before ones that are in Melee, since there is still a bit of knowledge to have from them.

And, again, it comes down to the term 'neutral.' To me, it's plain to see what is and isn't neutral; but basing 'neutral' on the 'evening of MUs' provides for a far more difficult time in narrowing down. If making it easier is your goal, define 'neutral' as a stage with no chaotic elements.
As for a better way to determine the stagelist, it was suggested by you that if certain elements (of stages) helped/hindered characters that there were character balance issues. I think by having vast amount of stages would only slow down the character balance process. So, by going with a 'chaoticless' neutral stage list, character balance would be easier, and thus create a better game.
Now, I realize that this is in the context of what we have now - ie, a dev team still working on the game, thus able to balance as they go. Even so, having no chaotic elements is 'better' than having a few.

From this, should be discuss what is a better definition for 'neutral?'

Don't all stages with platforms "platform stack"? PS2 promotes combos exclusive to the layout of having a main stage platform layered under two floating platforms, just as much as Wario Ware allows specific combos with three layers. I can think of plenty of arguments for why Wario Ware is a poor starter for several matchups, but none that have to do with "because the platforms are stacked," at least no more than the intricacies of platform layouts of other stages.

By "platform stack" I mean literally a phaseable platform directly above another phaseable platform, ie WarioWare. (Phaseable meaning able to drop through from on to of, and jump through from below. Halberd's stage itself is a jump through from below stage, which I think greatly reduces the stage's viability)
The stage itself I would describe as a 'ground platform,' where it is the lowest (and most centered) portion of the level gravity permits play.

With that said, I do think different platform layouts are needed (other than the basic BF layout). I like the platform layouts of Lylat, Jungle, Rumble Falls, and Yoshi's Island with just a bit of tweeks.

 

[Eaode]

Competitive depth =/= balance. Depth is the product of the variety of viable options (variety is necessary for depth); balance is the existence of viable options throughout the game. So, it's true that the most balanced fighter would be one with one character and one stage, but it would have no depth compared to a game with two characters and one stage. (Example: Tic-tac-toe is balanced, but has no depth because of how small the playing board is and the lack of options you have.)

Sorry, I should have said "balance" not "depth"

'Neutral' is a somewhat subjective term as well. My first post on here I stated that 'neutral' to me was the lack of chaotic variables. And other believe that 'neutral' is the evening out of MUs. Under my definition, randall and wispy would not be neutral factors.
And different platform layout, in itself, doesn't call for 'banning.' (more on that later in my reply to Kink-Link)

Okay, I do like this definition a lot better. The beef with the hesitance against different layouts isn't with your definition specifically, it was things others in this thread had said before.

However, you should be careful how you define "chaotic factor" I would somewhat agree with wispy (although the effect is usually mostly negligible) and for shyguys (same thing, usually not a huge deal but still exists). But randall is not random and follows a specific timing, just ask any Falcon main in melee. So then it becomes a question of do we want players with this knowledge to be rewarded, or do we want to remove this strategic element as a factor? Yes most of the time is is encountered without strategic knowledge and in that sense, maybe it is chaotic. But with a certain skill, a player can know this.

I would say we should strive to limit "random" influences on stages. As far as I know, the Shy guys and wispy don't follow timers so you have ground against them there, insofar as they affect matches, which isn't much.

I would have the same mindset. I don't think PS1 should be legal at all in Melee; starter should be BF - FD, FoD, YS, and DL counterpicks.
And I would go for a BF, PS2, & SV starter list if we had to.

I think this part is a point of real contention. A one-stage starter list is absolutely gross, and really unnecessary. All of the melee starters are starter worthy. And the minute "chaotic" effects? If you don't like them, that's what stage striking is for.

And, again, it comes down to the term 'neutral.' To me, it's plain to see what is and isn't neutral; but basing 'neutral' on the 'evening of MUs' provides for a far more difficult time in narrowing down. If making it easier is your goal, define 'neutral' as a stage with no chaotic elements.

Good, we agree here. Unless a character is unbeatable on a certain stage, MU's shouldn't determine stage viabilities.

As for a better way to determine the stagelist, it was suggested by you that if certain elements (of stages) helped/hindered characters that there were character balance issues. I think by having vast amount of stages would only slow down the character balance process. So, by going with a 'chaoticless' neutral stage list, character balance would be easier, and thus create a better game.
Now, I realize that this is in the context of what we have now - ie, a dev team still working on the game, thus able to balance as they go. Even so, having no chaotic elements is 'better' than having a few.

I don't think we're helping them at all if we limit the stages we play on. The character balance things will become apparent regardless, we're only limiting our playing field unnecessarily. Also it seems stupid to stifle the competitive scene as an attempt to help them balance faster. All in all, it seems a moot point to me.

From this, should be discuss what is a better definition for 'neutral?'

I would modify your definition and say that a neutral stage is one that
1) Lacks mechanics that are both random and game-changing (Terrain does not count as a mechanic here, unless it's morphing terrain a la Pokemon Stadium.)
2) Doesn't skew a matchup by a large degree.

This still requires tweaking, namely a way to determine how much is too much. For example, MC being good for bowser isn't the same as Mute City being good for Peach and Jiggs. DL64 being good for samus peach and jiggs isn't the same as Green Greens being good for Fox.

With that said, I do think different platform layouts are needed (other than the basic BF layout). I like the platform layouts of Lylat, Jungle, Rumble Falls, and Yoshi's Island with just a bit of tweeks.

Yes good.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Neutral stages are ones that don't benefit or hinder one character directly more than the other due to the mechanics and design of the stage. There isn't a single stage that doesn't skew matchups in some form or another, but whether that skewing is something that effects the outcome of a match is what matters. There's no fundamental reason to state that Halberd is less neutral than FD.

 

[DMG]

Well, actually you could argue that the flying platform parts with sharking are similar to Delfino/Mute City for being really good to Peach/Jiggs

 

[-Ran]

I find Greenhill zone to be too green. :|

 

[DMG]

IT SHOULD BE YELLOWHILL ZONE

Yellow

 

[Oracle]

Dmg the reason that mute city is so good for peach and puff is that there are no ledges meaning you cant sweetspot so fastfallers get edgegaurded all day. The stages here have ledges so thats not really a problem

 

[DMG]

I know it's not the same, I just disagree that there's no argument for Halberd < FD

 

[thespymachine]

Sorry, I should have said "balance" not "depth"

I figured something was up. You used the same words in different ways. It's all good.

However, you should be careful how you define "chaotic factor" I would somewhat agree with wispy (although the effect is usually mostly negligible) and for shyguys (same thing, usually not a huge deal but still exists). But randall is not random and follows a specific timing, just ask any Falcon main in melee. So then it becomes a question of do we want players with this knowledge to be rewarded, or do we want to remove this strategic element as a factor? Yes most of the time is is encountered without strategic knowledge and in that sense, maybe it is chaotic. But with a certain skill, a player can know this.

I would say we should strive to limit "random" influences on stages. As far as I know, the Shy guys and wispy don't follow timers so you have ground against them there, insofar as they affect matches, which isn't much.

Yeah, I'm trying to distinguish 'chaotic' from 'random.' We all know that Randall isn't random, but he provides situations when below stage-level isn't viewable and he can pop up seemingly randomly. 'Random' is more so an unpredictable nature, where 'chaotic' - as far as I'm using these terms - is the moments of unpreparedness (for whatever reasons).

I think this part is a point of real contention. A one-stage starter list is absolutely gross, and really unnecessary. All of the melee starters are starter worthy. And the minute "chaotic" effects? If you don't like them, that's what stage striking is for.

Whether I play on them isn't completely up to me though. I can strike as many chaotic stages, but that doesn't mean I can strike them all or that my opponent won't strike the only 'neutral' stage. And, I'm only limited to one ban, so my opponent has a selection of a lot of chaotic stages.
I don't think being able to strike/ban chaotic stages out is relevant unless the number of chaotic stages equals the amount of strikes/bans you have.

I don't think we're helping them at all if we limit the stages we play on. The character balance things will become apparent regardless, we're only limiting our playing field unnecessarily. Also it seems stupid to stifle the competitive scene as an attempt to help them balance faster. All in all, it seems a moot point to me.

Moot yes. But it was simply to counter your 'easier and better' argument.

I would modify your definition and say that a neutral stage is one that
1) Lacks mechanics that are both random and game-changing (Terrain does not count as a mechanic here, unless it's morphing terrain a la Pokemon Stadium.)
2) Doesn't skew a matchup by a large degree.

This still requires tweaking, namely a way to determine how much is too much. For example, MC being good for bowser isn't the same as Mute City being good for Peach and Jiggs. DL64 being good for samus peach and jiggs isn't the same as Green Greens being good for Fox.

I still don't know if I agree with #2. Especially if we're going to allow hard CP's for lower tiered characters and not ones for high tiers - it's just trying to balance the game through rulesets, where the purpose of the rules is to create neutral fighting ground; balance is for the devs. I would be more for it if the 'large degree' was one that gave advantage to only one character and hindered all the rest. But even that is difficult, because, overall, a better character will have advantages on more stages than a worse character.
So, I think we should stick with #1 for now.

 

[Eaode]

I still don't know if I agree with #2. Especially if we're going to allow hard CP's for lower tiered characters and not ones for high tiers - it's just trying to balance the game through rulesets, where the purpose of the rules is to create neutral fighting ground; balance is for the devs. I would be more for it if the 'large degree' was one that gave advantage to only one character and hindered all the rest. But even that is difficult, because, overall, a better character will have advantages on more stages than a worse character.
So, I think we should stick with #1 for now.

Yes, this is true, the matchup thing is a can of worms. So let's stick to number one

If possible, Perhaps extend the definition to include "chaotic factors" such as stage hazards and such. For example, I agree that the first match should be a test of player versus player, character versus character as much as possible. Obviously playing this game well always implies knowing how to use the stage. But I will agree that the first match should not be testing players on how to use things like full stage transformations, or damaging hazards (a la halberd, castle siege, ps1, pictochat, etc)

By this logic (i.e. not discriminating stages based on matchup skewing), stages like skyloft and warioware are also fitting the description.

So a stage list would look something like
-Battlefield
-Smashville
-Pokemon Stadium 2
-Skyworld
-Dracula's Castle
-WarioWare
-Green Hill Zone
-Rumble Falls
-Final Destination
-Norfair
-Metal Cavern
-Skyloft
-Fountain of Dreams
-Yoshi's Story (Melee)*
-Dreamland 64*

*These two, by our definition, posses "chaotic factors" It's up to us to decide whether shy guys and wispy woods have enough of an effect to warrant exclusion.

Note that I still do not consider Randall a chaotic factor. Being an off-screen moving platform is not enough imo, and is also somewhat true of smashville. In both cases, once someone is in a position to use the off-screen platform, all the data necessary to knowing its location is available to the player (in SV it will be visible, in YS randall will either be visible or in the stage, and timer will tell which side he will emerge on.)

Now, with this large of a stage list, I'd be willing to let YS and DL64 go if we wanted to strictly adhere to the "chaotic factor" ruling. Our real problem now is the minor issue of tournament regulation, and making the stage striking of a 13 stage list viable and not too time consuming.

 

[thespymachine]

If possible, Perhaps extend the definition to include "chaotic factors" such as stage hazards and such.

So, as a rough draft of the first few rules of "neutralness" for stages, we'd have (totally up for debate and revision, just throwing them out there):
1) Full-Moveset and No-Damage: Lack of elements that affect the ability of the players to use their characters full set of moves and movement (ie, PS1 stage near-edge on rock transformation in Melee), and lack of elements that do damage to the characters (ie, Brinstar lava).
2) Predictability: Lack of mechanics/elements that are random (ie, unpredictable - item drops, shy guys) and chaotic (ie, partially unpredictable - DL wind, Randall).
3) Consistency: Lack of 'game-changing' elements - elements that are part of the stage and/or appear or change during game-play and have elements of #1, #2, and/or are sudden/abrupt (regardless of predictability).
*do any of these cover walk-offs or weird ledges?

For example, I agree that the first match should be a test of player versus player, character versus character as much as possible. Obviously playing this game well always implies knowing how to use the stage. But I will agree that the first match should not be testing players on how to use things like full stage transformations, or damaging hazards (a la halberd, castle siege, ps1, pictochat, etc)

By this logic (i.e. not discriminating stages based on matchup skewing), stages like skyloft and warioware are also fitting the description.

So a stage list would look something like
-Battlefield
-Smashville
-Pokemon Stadium 2
-Skyworld
-Dracula's Castle
-WarioWare
-Green Hill Zone
-Rumble Falls
-Final Destination
-Norfair
-Metal Cavern
-Skyloft
-Fountain of Dreams
-Yoshi's Story (Melee)*
-Dreamland 64*

*These two, by our definition, posses "chaotic factors" It's up to us to decide whether shy guys and wispy woods have enough of an effect to warrant exclusion.

Note that I still do not consider Randall a chaotic factor. Being an off-screen moving platform is not enough imo, and is also somewhat true of smashville. In both cases, once someone is in a position to use the off-screen platform, all the data necessary to knowing its location is available to the player (in SV it will be visible, in YS randall will either be visible or in the stage, and timer will tell which side he will emerge on.)

Now, with this large of a stage list, I'd be willing to let YS and DL64 go if we wanted to strictly adhere to the "chaotic factor" ruling. Our real problem now is the minor issue of tournament regulation, and making the stage striking of a 13 stage list viable and not too time consuming.

Along with YS and DL, Dracula's Castle, SV, Norfair, GHZ, and FoD have 'chaotic factors.' They are to much less degree though, when compared to YS. It would depend on how strict we adhere to the rules (which I think it should be completely strict) and how we define our rules.
It's not just Randall's offscreen issues, but the fact that he's off-stage too. I think both make a bad combination.

And, as far as my thinking goes right now, I'm not making a distinction and creating 'neutral' and 'cp' lists. I think having one list is good. Especially with striking, because it takes the whole scope of stages into account for both players to establish what they think as the least hindering to them and least helpful to their opponent - which will typically be a stage that we would consider 'neutral' anyways.

So, with the hypothetical list you made (removing YS and DL), we have 13 stages.
I don't think this is too bad. We'd just have to figure out an easily understandable and somewhat quick set of striking rules. Also, are we thinking there will be bans?

I think that's all I've got for now.

 

[traffic.]

precursor edit- DL64 and FoD would be because from what I understand there is no set timer for their moving elements, but the rest in absolutely no way are random.

I think it would be doing a great disservice to the game to remove YS because of Randall, ESPECIALLY when there is nothing random about his movement, and is otherwise a fantastic (my favourite) stage that Randall makes a great point of difference. Smash Brothers is entirely based around the core concept of environment, and removing anything that makes the maps different is acting against the evolution of the game (and as far as Im concerned the entire point). Norfair and Drac's Castle are two of my favourite maps now, Norfair for being awesome in teams, and Drac's is where I do all of my tech practice. I really like Eaode's list, and with the more maps available, the more inclined to spend less time worrying about it I am. And really, DL64 ban because of wind? We've had that wind for almost 20 years, if you dont know its coming, you're bad and you should feel bad about whining about it.

I think it's more important that we embrace new map designs with P:M, and removing Yoshi's from legal play would make me vomit with rage.

 

[Eaode]

DC, SV, Norfair, GHZ, and FoD are all fine, in my honest opinion. The most Borderline one I guess is Dracula's. Norfair's plats give slight help to recoveries, but no more than SV does, and much more consistently than SV.

Striking could be
P1
P2 P2
P1 P1
P2 P2
P1 P1
P2 P2
P1

Alternatively, with less back and fourth (BURST STRIKING? dunno if people would like it)

P1
P2
P1 P1 P1 P1
P2 P2 P2 P2
P1
P2

That seems a little clunky, so in all honesty I would go with two options:
1) strike stages with the first format
2) each player gets two bans (strikes) and then select a random stage from the remaining starters.

After the first match, the list should get wider, with stages coming in for CP that are legal-worthy but not starter worthy
(Ps1, Halberd, Pictochat, Castle Seige(?) DL64, YS, YI(?) KJ64(?) [cp list still up for debate/narrowing])

Each player would get two bans and then do advanced slob picks for CP as usual.

EDIT: I still agree with traffic that YS and DL64 are benign enough to remain on the list, but we are running through a formal definition and if they did, it would as an exception to the rule based on the limited extent that it can negatively affect matches.

EDIT2: Traffic we're are defining "chaotic" as a slightly larger superset of "random." for example, Randall is not random because he follows a set timer. But him saving someone at an unpredictable time is "chaotic" because the person being in the scenario had very little to do with Randall's timer, making it "chaotic" in the scope of the specific situation.

 

[traffic.]

^^ also, I read up and saw the split of definitions there. In that light, being randomly saved by Randall is part of the wonderful joy of YS, and is equally likely to happen to both players. I like the excitement of being saved by Randall/YI platforms, yelling AWW FRIEND has been a huge part of smash for me and coming from other fighters the "chaotic" nature of the maps has been the most immersive part of the game for me.

Now I'm certainly not picky about maps, but from the list available, there are 4 distinct "neutral starters" that stick out.

Smashville
FD
PS2
BF

these are pretty much the mainstay maps in terms of universal appeal with slight variation and pretty much provide the best first round experience for open tests of skill. I would streamline it to start there, and then strike the list in half. If there are 15 maps, each player bans 4, leaving 7 random choices. It allows for a combination of damage control and adaptability, which is necessary for all around growth as a player. You should be learning to play on a variety of maps with differences between them, provided they aren't broken or ******** (Brinstar I'm lookin at you) I think the more maps that provide an even and diverse experience is best.

 

[Eaode]

^^ also, I read up and saw the split of definitions there. In that light, being randomly saved by Randall is part of the wonderful joy of YS, and is equally likely to happen to both players. I like the excitement of being saved by Randall/YI platforms, yelling AWW FRIEND has been a huge part of smash for me and coming from other fighters the "chaotic" nature of the maps has been the most immersive part of the game for me.

It's important to separate personal biases from competitive decisions. The random saves may be a very fun part of the game for people, but it's still a competitive detriment (especially on Yoshi's Island (brawl))

Now I'm certainly not picky about maps, but from the list available, there are 4 distinct "neutral starters" that stick out.

Smashville
FD
PS2
BF

these are pretty much the mainstay maps in terms of universal appeal with slight variation and pretty much provide the best first round experience for open tests of skill. I would streamline it to start there, and then strike the list in half. If there are 15 maps, each player bans 4, leaving 7 random choices. It allows for a combination of damage control and adaptability, which is necessary for all around growth as a player. You should be learning to play on a variety of maps with differences between them, provided they aren't broken or ******** (Brinstar I'm lookin at you) I think the more maps that provide an even and diverse experience is best.

This is why we started with the largest list possible and are narrowing it down on quantifiable criteria. Also I doubt players would care for a system where soo many stages get struck at once. Also what if I want to strike FD? why should those four be automatically in the pool? The purpose of striking is to narrow the pool to a stage that both players are relatively happy with.

 

[traffic.]

I did not mean to imply that those 4 would be included in the remaining 7, simply as the most standard or plain maps they are often easy to reach a happy and quick decision for the first round. I think it's just a matter of balancing what maps I really really dont want to play, and striking, in this case, the bottom 25% of my map preference is fair, if the entirety of the list is for all intents and purposes, quite balanced.

 

[Kink-Link5]

This exact discussion is the very point of my stage selection system

11 stages
2 whole-set Bans after character selection for each player in ABBA order
Strike from remaining 7 for game 1 in BABAAB order
Winner of game one strikes one stage, loser chooses a counter pick from remaining 6
Winner selects character, Loser selects character
Loser opts to take port priority

Or

13 Stages
3 bans ABABBA order
Strike from 7 in BABBA order
Winner strikes 1 and loser counterpick from 6

Or

13 Stages
2 bans ABBA
Strike from 9 BAABBAAB
2 strikes and counterpick from 7

15 gets a little complicated and inclusive of really questionable stages like Skyloft.

Need some help for Striking/banning by stage total:

4 strikes/bans: ABBA
6 strikes/bans: ABABBA
8 strikes/bans: ABBAABBA
10 strikes/bans: ??????????


The point of a stage list is to be an acceptable combination of:

Simple/Easy to remember: Smaller stage lists have more of this than large ones
Quick to happen: Few neutrals make this happen better than more neutrals
Balanced for matchups: A wide assortment of varying stages has this more than a list of stages that are functionally similar, but at the same time, smaller variance creates less of a "wild card" effect
Avoid degenerative gameplay: Depends entirely on the stages chosen, like matchup balance, is up to interpretation, as some people find a stage skewed toward camping to be degenerative, while others find a stage that allows particular styles to be effective degenerative, and still others find non-player controlled elements to be degenerative.

There is no list that can perfectly encompass all four traits because they're naturally contrary.

Mine is specifically made to, in theory at the least, create an "individual stage selection" for every set that is tailored to the characters and styles of both players. I can not say for certain how the use of secondaries would effect how balanced/healthy it is for the game, but it's something that really needs hard testing done. My only player base loses every game we play regardless of characters/stage so it isn't much help.

 

[thespymachine]

DC, SV, Norfair, GHZ, and FoD are all fine, in my honest opinion. The most Borderline one I guess is Dracula's. Norfair's plats give slight help to recoveries, but no more than SV does, and much more consistently than SV.

EDIT: I still agree with traffic that YS and DL64 are benign enough to remain on the list, but we are running through a formal definition and if they did, it would as an exception to the rule based on the limited extent that it can negatively affect matches.

Yeah, I think there is a distinction of 'chaotic factor' among chaotic stages. I haven't had any problems with Norfair or DC, but there have been a handful of times where SV, GHZ, and FoD have messed up some things.
I'm more lenient to start off than what my posting suggests; I just like to adhere to a standard in order to keep results very relateable throughout. I don't have a problem with DL, simply because the effect of the wind is usually very, very little and that's the only thing that screws things up. YS is different though. It's the angled edges, walls up to the ledge, shy guys, and Randall - all of these factors, I believe, put YS at least to medium CP and at most banned (I lean toward banned).

Striking could be
P1
P2 P2
P1 P1
P2 P2
P1 P1
P2 P2
P1

I like that. Simple enough.

After the first match, the list should get wider, with stages coming in for CP that are legal-worthy but not starter worthy
(Ps1, Halberd, Pictochat, Castle Seige(?) DL64, YS, YI(?) KJ64(?) [cp list still up for debate/narrowing])

I'm still for one list of stages throughout. And I'm still a definite no on PS1, hard nos on YS, YI, and CS, and open for the others.

^^ also, I read up and saw the split of definitions there. In that light, being randomly saved by Randall is part of the wonderful joy of YS, and is equally likely to happen to both players. I like the excitement of being saved by Randall/YI platforms, yelling AWW FRIEND has been a huge part of smash for me and coming from other fighters the "chaotic" nature of the maps has been the most immersive part of the game for me.

I too am a fan of Randall moments, but as far as the competition goes, I think it's detrimental to the spirit of competition. Though it is a huge fun factor for spectator and casuals.

Now I'm certainly not picky about maps, but from the list available, there are 4 distinct "neutral starters" that stick out.

Smashville
FD
PS2
BF

these are pretty much the mainstay maps in terms of universal appeal with slight variation and pretty much provide the best first round experience for open tests of skill. I would streamline it to start there, and then strike the list in half. If there are 15 maps, each player bans 4, leaving 7 random choices. It allows for a combination of damage control and adaptability, which is necessary for all around growth as a player. You should be learning to play on a variety of maps with differences between them, provided they aren't broken or ******** (Brinstar I'm lookin at you) I think the more maps that provide an even and diverse experience is best.

I agree that SV, FD, PS2, and BF are the most 'neutral' as far as our definition goes.

As far as random stage selection providing room for adaptability - stage striking and our counterpicking rules, imo, provide more than enough room for adaptation. All random choice does is make the knowledge of what stage will be chosen unpredictable; you're still able to prepare yourself for the stage as it loads. And, in addition, adaptation comes into account when the same stage is selected again - you have to adapt to the other player's new approach to the stage.
Basically, there is plenty of adaptability to be expressed as is.

This exact discussion is the very point of my stage selection system

....

I'm for no bans throughout a set. So, none of your lists include my frame/perspective for this discussion. And I can also see that, in reverse to your first statement, the point of this discussion is eventually get to discussing what stage-striking rules will be (it's vise-versa though).


With that, I posit some questions:

1) Should there be stage bans? Why?

1-A) If there are stage bans, how do we determine how many bans there are? (ie, dependent on amount of games per set, or amount of stages, etc)

1-B) If there aren't stage bans, does this affect the amount of stages that are legal?

2) Should there be a distinction between 'neutral/starter' and 'counterpick' lists? Why? How would a/no distinction affect stage selection ruleset and stage list development?

3) If you had to choose, should the stage selection ruleset or stage list be developed first?

[there's probably more questions I can ask, but yeah]


My answers:
1) No, because I believe the entirety of a set between two opponents should have the opportunity to be expressed on all stages that are deemed competitive worthy by the community.
1-A) The longer the set, the less bans + the longer the stage list, the more bans. As far as what this means in exact numbers, here's a rough sketch: =<7 stages - no bans, ever; 8-9 stages - 1 ban; 10-11 - 2; 12-13 - 3; ... | Bo3 - 2 bans; Bo5 - 1; >=7 - 0. (bans dependent set length are relative to amount of stages though)
1-B) I don't think so. It could make some more strict with stages that are borderline to them.
2) No, because the distinction is only needed when there is a drastic separation in 'neutrality' of stages, which isn't necessarily a problem with the stage choices in PM. Having a distinction would make striking quicker/easier, if there was only striking of starters.
3) I think selecting a list of stages, at least a general one, would be a better start.

 

[traffic.]

The other point of difference I failed to address was I agree that while bracket play does call for more strict protocol in terms of player control, PM provides opportunity for change and updates, and I think the more appropriate approach would be to provide a loose guide for what needs have to be met. I hope its encouraged for new stages and content to be presented to the community, as PM has the potential to take Smash from a franchise to a genre, as long as we are constantly trying to improve it in all regards. For that, I would say that at this stage in development, strict rules in certain areas would be detrimental to the organic growth of the game.

I propose the experiment of letting the people decide; come up with an easy list of criteria that a stagelist has to meet, providing a certain number of neutral and CP maps, and using the collected data to determine a standard moving forward. If there is a growing number of acceptable maps, make tournaments decide on 11, 5 starters, 2 additional neutrals, and 4 CPs, establish most popular. or whatever. The people who are already holding large PM events are not spending their time restricting the rules and barring new ideas, they're testing them out and seeing where the game takes us. Change and fluidity are good, guys

First round played on a random neutral starter, for ex:

Yoshi's Story
Fountain of Dreams
Battlefield
Dream Land (N64)
Final Destination

Opt: allow 1 strike each from initial list. Also obviously the five starters should be up to consideration, but melee's five seemed like a reasonable example.

The remaining legal maps (which should be based on their own merits, not which are "more" legal to eliminate choices, just have certain criteria to meet) should be lumped into the categories of Neutral or CP, and if there is a large number of entrants, a stagelist can be picked from the growing list of legal maps. We need to encourage change and evolution, and I see no reason why people cant agree to play whatever legal maps they choose. Can you imagine what would have happened to Starcraft if there was only ever 8 maps? Different maps do create different elements of gameplay for players to adjust to and figure out, that's the point.

 

[Greenpoe]

This exact discussion is the very point of my stage selection system

11 stages
2 whole-set Bans after character selection for each player in ABBA order
Strike from remaining 7 for game 1 in BABAAB order
Winner of game one strikes one stage, loser chooses a counter pick from remaining 6
Winner selects character, Loser selects character
Loser opts to take port priority

1st character pick should always be blind picks.

 

[luzbwl]

I've been reading some of this posts and I think that a lot of people don't realise something, but first I want to say this: in a perfect world we would be playing a perfectly balanced game where match ups are 5-5 and the stages wouldn't change that but still require a diferent take on each match up by the players, being all of them fun, interesting and unique. That would be a smash game I would love to play! We wouldn't be discusing about stage lists nor complicated counterpick rules. We would not need to diferentiate between starters and counterpicks. We could have very easy rules like loser picks stage and character or winner picks stage and loser character or loser picks stage and character and the winner picks character before the loser. HECK! we could even have the stage always in random.

Now, to this day all of the smash games have lots of sillynes in them, they are not perfectly balanced and require a lot of rules to make them competitive and relative balanced games. The diference with Project M (DIFERENCE!) is that is still being developed, and for the little time I've been watching this forum it looks like they care about making a balanced competitive game. So this makes me think that we should make legal in tournament play as much as posible and break this game down so the developers know what is exactly worng with the game. I mean this game is in freaking beta! We should play all this stages and tell them exactly what is the degenerate strategy predominant in them and wich characters are the problem in said stages. And some of this problems will only arise in the highest level of competitive play, because it's one thing to have intermediate players examine the game and high level players brake the game and see if it degenerates. The intermediate players could find some broken stuff but doesn't mean that what they found is actually broken at high level, it might not be an issue.

In sumary: play with everything, even the bull****, so the developers can accurately fix it. This could be that perfect game that we all would love to play, an altough nothing is perfect we could at least say we did a lot to get near.

PS: English is not my native tongue, and I would apreciate if you point any mistake I've made so I can write better (in my country I could get paid pretty well if I tell them I can write pretty well in English, lol).

 

[-Ran]

If you add too many stages as Starters, you run the risk of players being over-saturated with choice. I've witnessed far too many players pine away minutes during the initial striking phase. With the similarities of many the stages, the best idea might be to with a rotation of starters for a tournament series:

Starter Set One:
-Final Destination
-Skyworld
-WarioWare
-Yoshi's Story (Melee)*
-Skyloft

Starter Set Two:
-Smashville
-Fountain of Dreams
-Norfair
-Metal Cavern
-Dracula's Castle

Starter Set Three:
-Pokemon Stadium 2
-Green Hill Zone
-Battlefield
-Dreamland 64*
-Rumble Falls

It would allow your scene to have a changing metagame, and something new to play on every month if you're doing monthlies.

 

[Kink-Link5]

1st character pick should always be blind picks.

Of course, it's entirely something that can be opted for and players opting for it have priority over those that don't want it, as with any other ruleset. Same goes for gentleman's clause.

Stage bans affect both players. If player A bans a stage, neither he nor player B can select it.

 

[Overswarm]

I'm coming into this thread late!

If anyone actually wants to test any stage, let me know and I'll make it legal at one of my events. My events will be small but one of the reasons I'm holding them is to test this stuff.

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

The issue with this is that it limits what stages can be available in total.

Think of it this way:

In a hypothetical scenario, let's say that Bowser and Marth both like small stages that let them kill really early.

Let's say that the only stage available to them in all of the legal stages are Wario Ware, Metal Cavern and Yoshi's Story.

Now let's say Jigglypuff and Peach love them some huge stages.

The stages available to them are Dream Land and Kongo Jungle 64.

Let's say these are the only available stages.

In this scenario, Jigglypuff and Peach always get a bad stage and Bowser/Marth always get a good stage.

On top of the amount of time this takes, you find that certain characters simply don't have enough good stages for them while others do.

There are similar problems with "you get 3 bans" and "our starters are thee to seven flat/plat stages with very similar sizes and layouts".

The reason the stage striking system was created was so that we can have a wide variety of initial stages that we can strike from that are

A) unobtrusive
and
B) simple to understand
and
C) different enough from one another where you can't just replace one with another

so that you end up on a stage that is not good or bad, but agreeable for both parties. If this ever does NOT occur, someone has made a mistake with their stage list or the players did not strike properly.

The counter-pick system works by accepting that certain matchups aren't fair. Yes, jigglypuff is good on Brinstar and yes, Marth is bad on brinstar. That's why we pick the stage first then let you choose your character. It rewards diversity and the ability to adapt and allows for the full diversity of smash to exist.

It's possible to arbitrarily limit stages to only a select few, but if that's the case you are arbitrarily choosing which characters have an advantage. This happened in Melee, happened towards the end with Brawl, and with Project M there's no real reason for this to occur.

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.

The issue with this is that it eliminates variety and makes characters that are better on more stages more likely to be chosen and "pocket" characters to be eliminated. If Ike is good, but can't be played on big stages, circumstances could dictate Ike as useless.



What is basically comes down to is do you want Project M to arise organically or mechanically?

If mechanically, then you're just picking arbitrarily. You don't have to make sense, go for i t.

If organically, then you need to have legitimate reasons. This can be frustrating and more "grey" then arbitrary rules like "nothing can hurt you on the stage if it is legal" or "no small or big stages".

Seriously, by the time this game is finished nearly every stage should be legal (excepting nostalgia bait like Fourside, Corneria, etc). Maybe not all at one tournament, a rotation might be good to keep things shook up, but other than that what's the point of having stages you never use?

^that is correct

The more legal stages you have, the better.

At the end of the day, there's really only a few things you have to ask when it comes to making a stage list:

1) Does it produce random winners, or is it predictable to a good degree? Do we have evidence for this?

2) Does a random event result in potential swings in regards to in-game performance (e.g., hazards)?

3) Does the stage promote strategies that are nigh unbeatable, completely focus on only one or a few aspects of smash (such as teching) and/or focused on running the timer as the dominant strategy?

4) Does a small selection of characters use this stage as an "auto win" and, upon banning, still have a backup?

5) Is this stage so difficult to learn that it should be considered too far removed from core smash to be applicable to the metagame?


#5 could be an example of Brawl's original pictochat. I loved pictochat and it was a good stage, but it was difficult to understand. People still think that the bullets can kill you (they can't unless you DI to your death) or that hazards can spawn on you (they can't, you have a full second to move), or just don't know how the transformations work. It was otherwise a unique and great stage. But regardless of other thoughts, you could make the argument that it was too difficult for the average smasher to learn.

#4 could bring up something like Brinstar in Melee. While other characters could use it effectively, Jigglypuff did phenomenally well there. If you banned Brinstar, you just were taken to Mute City afterwards. Was this fair? That's a legitimate question, you'd just have to prove that Jigglypuff did well in general, not just against certain characters.

#3 could be an example of SSE: Jungle in Project M. I like the stage a lot and currently have it legal, but I could forsee Sonic making this stage hell if he gets a stock lead. Just run the timer from one side to the other, win that way. If that becomes the strategy to beat and it is actually a winning strategy, this stage might need to be removed. "Cave of Life" stages also fall into this category.

#2 "random" is the key word here. Something like Jungle Japes is removed from this because the Klaptrap is on a timer (:07 and :05 for the right and left, respectively, in M); given that it is easy enough to understand it's a non-issue. It's the player's fault for being there or the opponent's benefit for hitting them there. Not a starter, but a CP.

There is RARELY a stage for #2. Something like Fourside could be considered random

#1 is kind of an umbrella for the others. Really this is the only "important" one. At the end of the day, if you play on a stage 100 times and the better player wins 100 times, any complaint about the stage can boil down to "I don't like it and/or don't want to learn it". It's pretty straightforward. Competitive environments need consistent results and if it delivers, any tinkering is just spice.

I repeat: if a stage doesn't result in a worse player beating a better, practiced player, it really has no reason to be banned other than making the game more enjoyable / fair, which is more arbitrary and grey.

1) Should there be stage bans? Why?

Yes. Smash is a game of matchups. If someone plays Ice Climbers and can take me to FD at will, they have gained a huge advantage. The only solution would be to ban FD. You find similar situations with other characters, resulting in a much smaller, more bland stage list.

A simpler solution is the ability to ban a stage.

1-A) If there are stage bans, how do we determine how many bans there are? (ie, dependent on amount of games per set, or amount of stages, etc)

One. No more, no less. A stage ban isn't an attempt to make the opponent play on a stage that is GOOD for you, it's an attempt to make your opponent not take you to a stage that is best for them.

Allowing multiple bans defeats the purpose of counterpicks and improves the performance of characters that are good on certain types of stages.

To clarify, there's only one FD. But there's like a dozen Battlefields. If I can ban your FD but you can't ban all my battlefields, if I have an advantage on battlefield then I just have an advantage. Replace with high ceilings / low ceilings, large/small blastzones, etc., etc.

There will be stages that are really bad for some characters and really good for others. This is GOOD.

1-B) If there aren't stage bans, does this affect the amount of stages that are legal?

There are stage bans. If there weren't, the amount of stages that would be legal would be incredibly small and even then would result in character bias.

2) Should there be a distinction between 'neutral/starter' and 'counterpick' lists? Why? How would a/no distinction affect stage selection ruleset and stage list development?

A no distinction list, as shown above, restricts a stage list to being "even". You're forced to have the same amount of all types of stages so that one type of stage isn't unfairly used. I mean would FD ever be played in this scenario?

3) If you had to choose, should the stage selection ruleset or stage list be developed first?

The stage list should be "absolutely everything is legal until it is shown to be broken" in any tournament environment.

Given M's unique ability to CHANGE stages, this should be incredibly easy.

If we play on Jungle Japes and record Klap Trap KOs and see that in 23 matches there were a total of 2 klap trap KOs, we can say "oh hey, that isn't an issue at all".

But if we see 10 timeouts, we can say "oh, people found a way to camp on Japes that is highly effective and/or the game can't naturally finish". Rather than saying "ban it" we could then eliminate certain ledges, make the stage slightly smaller, add a ramp between the platforms, make the blast zones closer on the sides, change SOMETHING rather than eliminate it all together.

If you add too many stages as Starters, you run the risk of players being over-saturated with choice. I've witnessed far too many players pine away minutes during the initial striking phase. With the similarities of many the stages, the best idea might be to with a rotation of starters for a tournament series:

Starter Set One:
-Final Destination
-Skyworld
-WarioWare
-Yoshi's Story (Melee)*
-Skyloft

Starter Set Two:
-Smashville
-Fountain of Dreams
-Norfair
-Metal Cavern
-Dracula's Castle

Starter Set Three:
-Pokemon Stadium 2
-Green Hill Zone
-Battlefield
-Dreamland 64*
-Rumble Falls

It would allow your scene to have a changing metagame, and something new to play on every month if you're doing monthlies.

This is a good idea. It could also be done inbetween pools or brackets (odd/even or every next one has a different list, etc.) depending on the environment.

 

[Overswarm]

Also, here's what I'm doing to test hard counterpicks and character usage:

Spoiler

The purpose of the event is to increase knowledge of Project M and establish a solid understanding of multiple characters and stages.

As such, the rules have been modified for singles! This will not be a standard tournament! I want people to play many games with many characters on many stages so we can increase our knowledge base. If you think a certain stage is broken for a certain character in a certain matchup or any other combination, use it, abuse it, and we'll put a star next to that stage and list it as "banned by (player)" and you'll get some money.

Doubles:
10 or more teams: Standard double elimination bracket.
9 or less teams: Round Robin pools, with the top 2 teams from each pool moving on into a double elimination bracket. 1st in pool A will play 2nd in pool B and vice versa.

4 stock, 8 minute timer. Other standard rules apply (seen in singles).

Singles:


Singles will be an iron man event, pools only. No bracket.

Each player will pick 3 characters privately and put a star/asterisk next to the character they will be using first. This may change between each set, but doesn't have to!

They will then show each other their sheet, pick their characters, and stage strike from the starter stages to pick their first match.

After this first match is completed, the winning player will reduce his own personal stock using Project M's stock control option to the same amount of stock he had at the end of the game (as shown on screen prior to the game ending).

The winning player will then ban one stage and must remain that character with that amount of stock.

The losing player will then pick a new character AND stage.

This will continue until one player has lost all stock.

Special notes:

In the event of a dual-suicide, swallowcide, or any other sort of dual elimination, both characters are simply eliminated and you put a star next to your next remaining character in private as you did for your first character and the set moves on.

In the event of a sudden death on the LAST character of both players or should the time run out with equal stock on the last character of both players, it will simply be counted as a tie between the two players (neither will earn a set win, 0 stock remaining for both).

Should the time run out, each player will simultaneously lose one stock each until both characters are eliminated or one character is the victor with more stocks.

EXAMPLES FOR SINGLES:

Overswarm plays Kiest in his pool
Overswarm secretly picks Mario, Peach, and Bowser. He stars Peach.
Kiest secretly picks Wolf, Fox, and Falco. He stars Fox.

They then show their characters to one another and stage strike from the starts and play Peach vs. Fox.

Kiest wins with 2 stock left. Kiest then lowers his personal stock to 2 while leaving the primary stock count to 4.

Overswarm picks Bowser and takes Kiest to a stage of his choosing. Overswarm wins with 3 stock remaining.

Kiest then picks another character and the process repeats itself until Kiest is left with Wolf with 2 stocks and Overswarm has no characters left to pick. Kiest then WINS with TWO STOCK REMAINING, which will be put into the pool sheet as "+2".

Crews

Draft crews will be decided by 1st and 2nd from singles. Second place in singles will get first pick, then 1st place, so on and so forth.

There will be 4 stocks per player, 8 minute time limit (2 minute per stock). The stock count / time may be lowered by the TO's call based on time and player amount so that it doesn't take forever.

In the interest of sanity, only starter stages will be used in the crew battle and any stage can be used any number of times.


General Rules (for all tournaments)
All Setups must run the most recent version of Project M.

* 4 stock, 8:00 minute timer
* Items OFF and set to NONE
* Buffer OFF
* Ties result in both characters being eliminated
* If each player has one stock remaining and the match ends due to a suicide move (Ganon's side-B, DDD's swallow, holding someone in a grab on a platform as it moves out of the boundaries, etc.), both players will lose those characters.
* Non-first party controllers must be inspected by TO staff before use in tourney.
* Any action that can prevent the game from continuing (freezing, disappearing characters, game reset, etc.) will result in forfeiture of the match for the player that initiated the action. You are responsible for knowing your own character and must be wary about accidentally triggering one of these effects.
* Overswarm's stupid rule: You cannot counterpick a stage that has been played before in that set, period.

Stage Strike from Starters for the first match of the set in "1331" fashion:
1. First player strikes one stage.
2. Second player strikes the next two stages.
3. First player strikes the next two stages.
4. Second player strikes one stage.

Singles | Starters [9 stages]
- Smashville
- (Frozen) Pokemon Stadium 2
- Battlefield
- Dreamland 64
- Yoshi's Story
- Fountain of Dreams
- Final Destination
- Yoshi's Island: Brawl
-Metal Cavern

Singles | Counterpick: [11 stages]
- Green Hill Zone
- Dracula's Castle
- Skyworld
- Wario Ware
- Pokemon Stadium 1
- Skyloft
- Rumble Falls
- Battleship Halberd
-Norfair
-Jungle
-Castle Siege
Page2:
-Rainbow Cruise
-Brinstar
-Frigate Orpheon
-Port Town Aero Dive
-Delfino Plaza
-Lylat Cruise
-Pictochat
-Jungle Japes

"Excuse me, I can't help but notice I hate (stage name) and it happens to be on your list. You're an idiot for not seeing as I do, what gives?"

I'm not going to pigeonhole Project M. All of the stages there are meant to be there until proven guilty within the confines or Project M. Stages may be added or removed in time.

If you think a stage is broken for reason X or reason Y, show me by doing it in the tournament! If it results in too degenerate gameplay or is such a heavy-handed counter-pick across the board that it is impossible to really deal with for any reasonably matched players, it will be removed post-tournament and you'll win money!


Pool rules:
Pools will be divided and chosen by Overswarm. The number that advances to a new pool is determined by how many entrants show up, so I can't really tell you in advance.

Each pool will play their 3 character iron man set and record a "0" (for no stock remaining) or "+#" for how many stock you have remaining. For example, if you have won your set with a Fox with 2 stock and an unused Jigglypuff, you would write +6.

Advancing is determined by SET WINS, then STOCK REMAINING, then HEAD TO HEAD.

So you could have +8 on all your victories, but if someone else won every set with +1, they'd still be ahead of you. Sets first, stock remaining second. We just care about winning, not how badly!

The tournament will be finished with one final pool, with top 4 getting money.

In the result of a 3-way-tie, stock remaining from previous pools will be added to determine the victor.

In the result of there being no previous pools or the stock remaining from them not breaking the tie breaker, a one character, 4 stock rematch on a starter stage chosen by stage striking will occur.

If THAT doesn't break the tie, then stock remaining will choose the victor.

If that STILL doesn't break the tie, there is witchcraft afoot and Overswarm will come up with something on the fly.

What it basically comes down to is everyone plays only in pools instead of brackets and instead of doing 2/3 sets they instead do a one-man crew battle. Just replace people with characters. So instead of me, person A, and person B playing squirtle/ivy/charizard as a crew, I play those 3 characters on my own.

Instead of CPing stuff, the winner just stays their character with the same amount of tsock they hey had last time and get hard countered by the opponent, stage AND character. It is meant to be unfair.

But it also gives us a lot of knowledge. You can think that Jigglypuff is still great in Project M on Brinstar, but if it turns out she gets destroyed by Bowser, Charizard, Ike, and a myriad of other characters your worldview might change.

 

[DMG]

Pictochat was more than "hard to learn". A lot of transformations on their own are not too bad at all, and certainly would have been more than acceptable if there was a pattern or a bigger visual indicator beforehand of what the stage was going to shift to. Because it is random though, and with not much of an indicator before the changes take effect (Hazards do not spawn instantly, however walls do spawn instantly or near instantly), it's kind of poopie. For most stages with random effects, the random part tends to be location (time as well). Pictochat will always draw missiles in the same spot, always draw walls in the same spot, but you aren't sure which effect will come up. Smashville will have the balloon float in sometimes, but that's it. You KNOW it will be the balloon everytime. The platform Ghost might come up on the left or right side, but that's it. You know that when something will happen, it is the Ghost (or the stupid *** Shy Guys).

If something random happens on Pictochat, you don't know what exactly it will be. You might get rockets, might get the wind, spikes fire ladders diagonal line etc. That's not a hopeful sign for its legality lol. P:M stage people did some decent work on Pictochat, especially involving the hazards. You could probably make a case for CP status in P:M, but screw Brawl Pictochat.


Edit: In that case OS, what might happen though is Jiggs gets taken down a notch on Brinstar vs those specific characters, is still **** vs the rest of the cast, and then those characters that are even "gayer" than Jiggs on Brinstar also turn around and get huge advantages on people. Like on big stages: Fox and Falco might get competiton from Sonic and Pit on huge stages, at the cost of the rest of the cast also now having trouble from Pit and Sonic on those stages. It all really depends on how strongly people get advantages on stages, cause I don't think people would mind larger stages if Sonic or Pit didn't have that timeout potential. Smaller stages if Bowser wasn't going to super molest the cramped area around him. If those characters liked the stage/s, but weren't going BS mode on everyone. Having a bunch of characters that only "sorta like" the particular stage or group, will probably be much healthier than any number of characters really ****** on a CP.

 

[Overswarm]

Pictochat was more than "hard to learn". A lot of transformations on their own are not too bad at all, and certainly would have been more than acceptable if there was a pattern or a bigger visual indicator beforehand of what the stage was going to shift to. Because it is random though, and with not much of an indicator before the changes take effect (Hazards do not spawn instantly, however walls do spawn instantly or near instantly), it's kind of poopie. For most stages with random effects, the random part tends to be location (time as well). Pictochat will always draw missiles in the same spot, always draw walls in the same spot, but you aren't sure which effect will come up. Smashville will have the balloon float in sometimes, but that's it. You KNOW it will be the balloon everytime. The platform Ghost might come up on the left or right side, but that's it. You know that when something will happen, it is the Ghost (or the stupid *** Shy Guys).

There were dedicated "safe zones" on the stage.

Being in a bad place is still the result of careless action. It's like walking into the street and getting hit by a car coming around the corner; don't be in the street.

They also weren't random entirely; they only existed once per iteration. If you saw the bullets, you'd never see the bullets again until all the other transformations finished.

They also were timed. There was the same amount of "in between" and "on screen" time for each transformation.

If something random happens on Pictochat, you don't know what exactly it will be. You might get rockets, might get the wind, spikes fire ladders diagonal line etc. That's not a hopeful sign for its legality lol. P:M stage people did some decent work on Pictochat, especially involving the hazards. You could probably make a case for CP status in P:M, but screw Brawl Pictochat

The only reasons I'd be against Brawl Pictochat are

1) the line

and

2) hard to learn

#2 is more prevalent, but #1 is bad too. The left side of the stage is the "safe zone"; basically stay near where it has yellow text and you will be hit by nothing. The "line", however, goes over the left side of the stage and unlike the hazards that damage you, spawns IMMEDIATELY and BLOCKS THE LEFT LEDGE. I haven't tested this yet in M, but if it does I'd hope they'd change it.

It spawns immediately, so you can literally up+b with Marth, see it start to spawn, and not grab the ledge in the meantime.

Given that the left side is also the "safe zone", it means you'll be more often hit out on the left side and can do nothing about it. Pretty ****ty.

Edit: In that case OS, what might happen though is Jiggs gets taken down a notch on Brinstar vs those specific characters, is still **** vs the rest of the cast, and then those characters that are even "gayer" than Jiggs on Brinstar also turn around and get huge advantages on people. Like on big stages: Fox and Falco might get competiton from Sonic and Pit on huge stages, at the cost of the rest of the cast also now having trouble from Pit and Sonic on those stages. It all really depends on how strongly people get advantages on stages, cause I don't think people would mind larger stages if Sonic or Pit didn't have that timeout potential. Smaller stages if Bowser wasn't going to super molest the cramped area around him. If those characters liked the stage/s, but weren't going BS mode on everyone.

If Jiggs, Ike, Bowser, Charizard, G&W, Peach, and Wario all just suddenly wreck faces on Brinstar and just absolutely destroy everyone else...

good

It's a counterpick. People should pick up those characters or ban that stage.

As for big stages (like Jungle), you can't really put timeouts into the same equation as just being able to kill earlier / survive longer.

Assuming timeouts weren't an issue, and cave of life wasn't an issue, then Hyrule Temple would have been a fine stage if, and only if, there wasn't a second Hyrule Temple available.

It's okay for a small selection of characters to do very well on a certain stage and have their own "we're awesome" party there because everyone has those stages (for the most part).

Attempting to water down the game to stages that characters only "sorta like" makes for a bland stage list and, more importantly, does absolutely nothing to solve the problem.

"Falco's too good on FD!"

Okay, we remove FD.

We follow that logic and now our stages are Battlefield, Smashville, and Fountain of Dream.

Turns out we just replaced the problem of "this character wins too much on this stage, and this character wins too much on THAT stage" with "now all the stages are similar enough to where the same characters do better on these stages across the board".

If the Ice Climbers are just broken on FD, the solution is to allow players to ban Final Destination, not remove it from the stage pool. If you do, you limit a ton of stages.

Wario ware? Gone. Yoshi's story? Definitely gone. FD? Gone. Dreamland? Gone. Brinstar? Gone. Rainbow Cruise? Gone. Japes? Gone. Metal Cavern? Definitely gone (just play ivysaur there).

So on and so forth.

You should encourage lopsided stages. In Melee the biggest disaster was Fox; him being good on so many stages made it kind of a "duh" thing to pick him. Similar issues occurred in Brawl with Meta Knight.

People then decided that these stages were what was REALLY making those characters good. So they banned rainbow cruise and japes and onett and whatever else they thought was "too good" and went for a "conservative" stagelist.

Fox and MK still were super good characters, only difference was that now DK couldn't take MK to japes, so he had an even harder time.

 

[DMG]

Safe zone only applies to hazards (walls and other transformations cut into that area more), and doesn't take into account being thrown or hit into them either. Dedede could sit under the plant and try to throw someone into 3-4 different hazards from that one spot. The transformations are still random, and being diluted out of the selection process once they have occured is not really a convincing argument that it's ok.

 

[Overswarm]

Safe zone only applies to hazards (walls and other transformations cut into that area more), and doesn't take into account being thrown or hit into them either. Dedede could sit under the plant and try to throw someone into 3-4 different hazards from that one spot. The transformations are still random, and being diluted out of the selection process once they have occured is not really a convincing argument that it's ok.

Why would being thrown into the hazards be a bad thing? If I'm Dedede and I grab you and throw you into a bullet, good on me. D3 earned it.

Regardless, we tested this pretty extensively. The timing of being thrown into the hazards was so strict it was more often than not possible to just air dodge through them if not outright DI away from them. Counting how often people got hit by the hazards at a particular tournament when watching a few Diddys CP there, I saw a whopping 3 hits on the Diddy over the entire tournament.

At the end of the day, they were avoidable by those that knew what they were doing and how to react to them. Most of the time someone WAS hit by a hazard, it was due to someone hitting them into it or someone choosing to be hit by it (most often the fire for DI purposes).

 

[DMG]

Promoting stronger CP stages sounds less healthy than the tamer stages, because you are almost directly encouraging specific polarization and character selections based on those stages. Especially if stages are being used as crutches for characters to compete with the top/high tiers, instead of having good fundamental traits that allow them to be viable on the rest of the 20+ stages. If Ness can manage an even MU vs Fox on Japes, bless his little heart. What sounds better? Being even on all of the starters vs Fox, instead of making the stage list a bunch of 1 hit wonders that will tend to be autoban for a large number of characters because "Oh great he picked big stage and Sonic, or janky stage and Bowser". Hard CP's will be more polarizing, and will lead to more "free win" situations.

For every match that a character gets "boosted" by Brinstar or SSE Jungle, there's another match where they will likely get trampled as the next group gets their version of Brinstar or SSE Jungle. We're not improving the overall viability of the cast by doing this, just severly swinging the game from match to match based on the stage. Instead of doing that, we could stick with the boring stages like SV BF etc and work on balancing the cast so that out of the 7-9 stages chosen, Ness doesn't have to pick the ugliest gnarliest one to MAYBE go even with a top tier and so that we avoid more 7:3 MU swings because of lopsided stage aspects.


Edit: The only stages I'm really concerned about are the larger stages due to camping. Smaller niche stages like Cavern I'm all in favor of using and creating more of.

 

[thespymachine]

I've been reading some of this posts and I think that a lot of people don't realise something, but first I want to say this: in a perfect world we would be playing a perfectly balanced game where match ups are 5-5 and the stages wouldn't change that but still require a diferent take on each match up by the players, being all of them fun, interesting and unique. That would be a smash game I would love to play! We wouldn't be discusing about stage lists nor complicated counterpick rules. We would not need to diferentiate between starters and counterpicks. We could have very easy rules like loser picks stage and character or winner picks stage and loser character or loser picks stage and character and the winner picks character before the loser. HECK! we could even have the stage always in random.

Now, to this day all of the smash games have lots of sillynes in them, they are not perfectly balanced and require a lot of rules to make them competitive and relative balanced games. The diference with Project M (DIFERENCE!) is that is still being developed, and for the little time I've been watching this forum it looks like they care about making a balanced competitive game. So this makes me think that we should make legal in tournament play as much as posible and break this game down so the developers know what is exactly worng with the game. I mean this game is in freaking beta! We should play all this stages and tell them exactly what is the degenerate strategy predominant in them and wich characters are the problem in said stages. And some of this problems will only arise in the highest level of competitive play, because it's one thing to have intermediate players examine the game and high level players brake the game and see if it degenerates. The intermediate players could find some broken stuff but doesn't mean that what they found is actually broken at high level, it might not be an issue.

In sumary: play with everything, even the bull****, so the developers can accurately fix it. This could be that perfect game that we all would love to play, an altough nothing is perfect we could at least say we did a lot to get near.

Your post made me realize that my posting, logic, and arguments have been for the 'end game'; I'm trying to define what the final product of PM will be, and applying it to what we have now. With that said, I'll work on addressing this from now on.

If you add too many stages as Starters, you run the risk of players being over-saturated with choice. I've witnessed far too many players pine away minutes during the initial striking phase. With the similarities of many the stages, the best idea might be to with a rotation of starters for a tournament series:

Starter Set One:
-Final Destination
-Skyworld
-WarioWare
-Yoshi's Story (Melee)*
-Skyloft

Starter Set Two:
-Smashville
-Fountain of Dreams
-Norfair
-Metal Cavern
-Dracula's Castle

Starter Set Three:
-Pokemon Stadium 2
-Green Hill Zone
-Battlefield
-Dreamland 64*
-Rumble Falls

It would allow your scene to have a changing metagame, and something new to play on every month if you're doing monthlies.

I previously posted something about this, where for every round in a tournament there is a certain list of stages that could be played on. I like this idea, but I think there should be more stages allowed for matches later in bracket (and what stages should be in what list could be discussed).

1) Should there be stage bans? Why?

Yes. Smash is a game of matchups. If someone plays Ice Climbers and can take me to FD at will, they have gained a huge advantage. The only solution would be to ban FD. You find similar situations with other characters, resulting in a much smaller, more bland stage list.

A simpler solution is the ability to ban a stage.

1-A) If there are stage bans, how do we determine how many bans there are? (ie, dependent on amount of games per set, or amount of stages, etc)

One. No more, no less. A stage ban isn't an attempt to make the opponent play on a stage that is GOOD for you, it's an attempt to make your opponent not take you to a stage that is best for them.

1-B) If there aren't stage bans, does this affect the amount of stages that are legal?

There are stage bans. If there weren't, the amount of stages that would be legal would be incredibly small and even then would result in character bias.

What would be the logic behind not allowing a player/character to be played on their 'best' legal stage? (And/or, why is one of our goals to make sure a player/character can't take their opponent to their 'best' legal stage?)
From my current perspective, it would seem competitively pertinent to have to play against a player's/character's best stage. And if the stage is to such an advantage (across all MUs) for few characters, is that worthy of making illegal?

What in having no stage bans makes a stage list short?
Compared to your 'One ban' rule, no bans would add two more stages to a competitive stage list. (I believe your answer to this last question relates heavily to your answers to my previous questions.)

2) Should there be a distinction between 'neutral/starter' and 'counterpick' lists? Why? How would a/no distinction affect stage selection ruleset and stage list development?

A no distinction list, as shown above, restricts a stage list to being "even". You're forced to have the same amount of all types of stages so that one type of stage isn't unfairly used. I mean would FD ever be played in this scenario?

What makes stages the same 'type' hasn't really been defined, but I'm curious as to why only having only one stage of a singular type is bad? Am I understanding incorrectly that you think that multiples of same-type stages give certain characters more of an advantage, based on this part of your post?:

Allowing multiple bans defeats the purpose of counterpicks and improves the performance of characters that are good on certain types of stages.

To clarify, there's only one FD. But there's like a dozen Battlefields. If I can ban your FD but you can't ban all my battlefields, if I have an advantage on battlefield then I just have an advantage. Replace with high ceilings / low ceilings, large/small blastzones, etc., etc.

It seems to me that only having one or two stages of the same 'type' in a stage list would help diversify the performance of the cast of characters.
From that, I could argue that by keeping multiples of a single type and allowing bans creates a metagame unnecessarily focused heavily on a certain group of characters.
(And I don't think allowing one stage per type is an example of 'balancing the game through rules' because I think that allowing multiples of the same type 'unbalances the game through rules' - meaning it's bringing it to equilibrium, and allowing equal opportunity for expression of the game/characters/stages/etc)

3) If you had to choose, should the stage selection ruleset or stage list be developed first?

The stage list should be "absolutely everything is legal until it is shown to be broken" in any tournament environment.

Given M's unique ability to CHANGE stages, this should be incredibly easy.

If we play on Jungle Japes and record Klap Trap KOs and see that in 23 matches there were a total of 2 klap trap KOs, we can say "oh hey, that isn't an issue at all".

But if we see 10 timeouts, we can say "oh, people found a way to camp on Japes that is highly effective and/or the game can't naturally finish". Rather than saying "ban it" we could then eliminate certain ledges, make the stage slightly smaller, add a ramp between the platforms, make the blast zones closer on the sides, change SOMETHING rather than eliminate it all together.

I agree overall, but do we need to test JJ (any more) to know that it allows for camping too much? I mean, not all stages have been test or are easily theory-crafted, but there are stages that can be.

 

[Kati]

Kongo Jungle 64 with lower platforms, and a solid base for teh walljumps.

http://www.mediafire.com/?1x00k9oqpkp7w7o

*courtesy of Bamsey from Smashmods I think*

 

[Slashy]

Promoting stronger CP stages sounds less healthy than the tamer stages, because you are almost directly encouraging specific polarization and character selections based on those stages. Especially if stages are being used as crutches for characters to compete with the top/high tiers, instead of having good fundamental traits that allow them to be viable on the rest of the 20+ stages. If Ness can manage an even MU vs Fox on Japes, bless his little heart. What sounds better? Being even on all of the starters vs Fox, instead of making the stage list a bunch of 1 hit wonders that will tend to be autoban for a large number of characters because "Oh great he picked big stage and Sonic, or janky stage and Bowser". Hard CP's will be more polarizing, and will lead to more "free win" situations.

For every match that a character gets "boosted" by Brinstar or SSE Jungle, there's another match where they will likely get trampled as the next group gets their version of Brinstar or SSE Jungle. We're not improving the overall viability of the cast by doing this, just severly swinging the game from match to match based on the stage. Instead of doing that, we could stick with the boring stages like SV BF etc and work on balancing the cast so that out of the 7-9 stages chosen, Ness doesn't have to pick the ugliest gnarliest one to MAYBE go even with a top tier and so that we avoid more 7:3 MU swings because of lopsided stage aspects.


Edit: The only stages I'm really concerned about are the larger stages due to camping. Smaller niche stages like Cavern I'm all in favor of using and creating more of.

I still feel like Onett needs a bit more love, it is a great stage for slow characters and a majority of the stage requires knowing when to perform wall techs.

If you need to practice matchups on a stage that's a good thing, it leads to more competitive options and gives more variables for competitive viability. There is nothing wrong with more factors affecting the tier list and matchups, it's the problem when the stage is doing more work than the characters, or when the matchup on a stage is extremely one-sided. No matchup should be worse than say, 80/20, and if a stage is making a matchup worse than that it needs to be banned.

Characters should be balanced for the chosen starter stages, the starters P:M has are fine and there isn't a need anymore starters. The idea of counterpicks should be to add more depth, to cover up imperfect balance, to promote more styles of play, and to serve as an entertaining "come-back" mechanic.

I think we should also come up with ideas for additional custom stages. I think Wifi Waiting Room is a great stage for doubles and the sandbag actually changes the gameplay a bit, it can block projectiles and can actually punish characters for whiffing certain attacks by having them suffer through hitlag.

I think a modified summit should come back too, ice physics really changes things up

I think Green Hill Zone+ could be repurposed as another Sonic stage, it is pretty iconic to the series, and is great for characters who can use walls for recovery, great for characters who can get star KOs, and great for characters who are easily gimped due to the stage's large downward boundaries making meteor smashes much less worthwhile

 

[Kink-Link5]

There's a character on the right edge?

 

[Juushichi]

Yes, Ivysaur.

 

[Zaaji]

I wonder if they will ever change Skyloft because although the background resembles that of the Zelda game, that's all there is. The actual platform, that pretty much resembles the old temple from like 2.0( I think) Look how long that stage lasted...point is what would be an interesting set up. Would be if they made Skyloft like how Delfino Plaza is. Let the main platform take us around Skyloft itself. Areas like Either on top of or inside of the Goddess Statue. Or on top of that weird guy's shop that just chills in the air. What about that lake area too with like the three small platforms surrounded by water? Idk about everyone else, but I think that would be a solid idea for Skyloft.