Petition to make Dreamland the only legal stage

[The Star King]

Hyrule-only for Peru makes sense:

Dreamland only for Japan makes sense:

It's a culture thing.

USA ruleset should be Saffron City (hail corporate) + Sector Z (hail military) only then.

 

[ballin4life]

the game is for all practical intents and purposes infinitely deep. Stage variety is for scrub a dubs, it takes attention away from the actually interesting parts of the game.

So stage specific tactics and strategies are "gimmicks" and not "interesting" (at some level all strategies and tactics are stage specific..,). Beating people and playstyles is "interesting" (even though a person and their playstyle can vary depending on the stage - it's like a whole new challenge!).

Do you feel the same way about other games too? Should Melee be only one stage? How about other genres? Only one map in a shooter game and only one level in a racing game?

Why even have different characters? I don't want to learn the "gimmicks" of 12 different characters - that would take away from the interesting part of the game!

 

[Shears]

USA ruleset should be Saffron City (hail corporate) + Sector Z (hail military) only then.

And very high items (hail consumerism).

 

[Battlecow]

whole new challenge!).

Do you feel the same way about other games too? Should Melee be only one stage? How about other genres? Only one map in a shooter game and only one level in a racing game?

The melee players and theorists that I respect have all been pushing for battlefield only for a while now (and stages like congo/peach's would NEVER be legal in a post-2010 melee ruleset), and as the community becomes less stupid the stage list steadily shrinks in every smash game. Other fighting games are all essentially one stage only (although honestly that's not much of an argument for me--smash is and should be unique). I don't know anything about shooters, but I can tell you that if football players had to play a third of their matches on a baseball diamond, or if games 5-7 of a chess set had 49 squares on the board, the players would be ****ing pissed.

Why even have different characters? I don't want to learn the "gimmicks" of 12 different characters - that would take away from the interesting part of the game!

One of the things I like about 64 is the fact that there are so few matchups to learn that you can learn all of them extraordinarily well.

I view character as a choice that my opponent can make, a facet of his playstyle that I have to learn and adapt to. The interactions between character and character are, in my mind, a lot cooler and deeper than the interactions between character and stage, which seem extraneous.

Basically it boils down to what's fundamental to the game and what's a distraction. I think everyone kind of knows that a character is kind of part of a playstyle whereas stages are outside of the pvp dynamic

 

[Shears]

A lot of your points are solid but I wouldn't compare it to football players having to play their games on baseball diamonds, I would compare it to baseball players playing their games on baseball diamonds because in baseball, all the parks are different and you don't see baseball players complaining that there needs to be a change to the sport to make all parks the exact same. The players embrace it and they like it because its what makes their sport unique and gives a new dynamic to certain pitchers, fielders, and batters that make some stronger and some weaker and the sport more complex and interesting. Different parks give the players a true home field advantage, and I like to think its the same with stages. Having a counterpick makes it feel like its your home field, you know you're in it and if you can just steal a game at their home field, you can win the world series of smash. The game doesn't change entirely, its still the same game with the same strategies and the same play style, but theres small variations that can make the game more exciting and require better management. The counterpick removes a specific combo or makes a move less useful, it doesn't turn the game upside down. If you have a pitcher that is susceptible to home runs and you're playing in a short park, you don't want him pitching because he can take a beating there, so you manage your pitching rotation to work around it or take the loss and beat him at your home field. If you have a character that is strong on the ground and dies off stage and you're counterpicked to a stage that doesn't allow for a good ground game and its played mostly off stage (peachs) then you have to manage your character selection or take the loss and beat him back at dreamland.

A counterpick doesn't win the set, it just keeps you in the game and gives you a chance to get back in it and figure out your opponent and change momentum. If its DL only, and you lose the first match, for spectators its not as much fun because you can realistically predict the outcome, 2-0. But with a counterpick you say ok, this guys taking game 2, game 3 will be back at DL but game 3 is a coin flip, if he does enough in game 2 he can get in the other guys head and steal 3 to grab the set. It adds composure and an extra element to the mind game. Its like kicking a field goal early in football when you're down on the scoreboard. The field goal isn't going to win the game, theres still more to play, but the field goal gives you momentum, it gets in the opponents head, it keeps the win in sight and it gives you a chance to figure it out and rally for a win. DL only is like touchdown only in football, its great for Madden (friendlies) but in the competitive world (tournaments) it makes it hard to keep the game competitive because it will typically be first score wins.

The way I see all this movement towards communist uniformity is everyone trying to make the game like chess. Every person has the exact same starting position, exact same moveset, exact same board, the only variable is the person himself. If thats how everyone wants it then why don't you all become communists and play chess like Garry Kasparov? Or simply play the game with TAS and each player picks what they will do, advance the game a frame, pick next move, advance the game a frame, so on and so forth until a winner is decided. Smash is LIKE chess, not smash IS chess.

 

[mixa]

for spectators its not as much fun

stooop

 

[Battlecow]

Baseball would be a better game with identical stadiums, money reasons/historical exigencies are why such (bad) variation hasn't been corrected. Still a baller game, though.

As far as spectators, eh. Yeah I'm in favor of appealing to them and I'd even sacrifice a little competitive integrity for it, but I wouldn't, for example, legalize Sector Z (obviously). For me, it's too much of a concession to determine a stage list based on what's "fun to watch" for the uninitiated (and in my experience, new players are just fine with DL only and once they've played a couple games there will straight up rebel if you try to take them to peach's while telling them that bumpers and moving plats are just fine if you take an elevated game-theoretic view of things)

 

[Shears]

Maybe I should have left out the spectator line because it seems to have overshadowed the competitive advantage of having counterpicks. You can use counterpicks to rally yourself, not only in the game, but your mind and composure. It can give you a confidence boost and it can get in the head of your opponent which can lead them to get nervous under pressure and you can steal a win. I think having CPs is better competition, not just better entertainment and that was the point I made after I mentioned spectators. Everyone talks about mind games, and how the game is all about mind games and played in your mind, taking away a counterpick takes away a huge mind game battle. Determining your CP means you have to evaluate your opponents gameplay, their strengths and weaknesses, their character(s), your gameplay, your stengths and weaknesses, and your chatacter(s). DL only means game 2, and maybe game 3, are for the most part going to be a rehashed game 1, which means the mind game barely changes, and your player vs player dynamic effectively lasted for one game not a whole set. I know theres changes and adaptations to the mind game that can be made on DL, but the degree of which it can change is limited by stage limitation.

Case 1: I get wrecked on DL. I go to Peachs and get wrecked. Outcome doesn't change, CP didn't matter, I go cry myself to sleep that night.

Case 2: I get wrecked on DL. I go to Peachs and win. Get wrecked on DL again. Outcome doesn't change, better player wins but for a moment I felt I had a chance and I know my opponent isn't bulletproof, I'll figure it out and beat him next time.

Case 3: I barely lose on DL. I go to Peachs and win, using this game to prolong the set, figuring out my opponent, seeing what I need to do and prepare myself to get vengeance on DL. Lose on DL again (either wrecked or barely). The CP kept the set close and with how close the first game was, forced the opponent into working harder and playing better to make sure game 3 wasn't lost. The CP didn't change the outcome but it certainly changed the effort and mind game considering the hype and pressure of the final game.

Case 4: I barely lose on DL. I go to Peachs and win, using this game to prolong the set, figuring out my opponent, seeing what I need to do and prepare myself to get vengeance on DL. Win on DL and win the set. The CP played a huge part in the set in the minds of both players. I still needed to win on DL but the CP allowed me the time and observation to outplay my opponent (which is what the argument for DL is, player v player not player v player v stage).

In no way does the CP damage the integrity of the game or its competition. In cases 1 and 2 it was meaningless and in cases 3 and 4 it was productive, but it was never destructive.

The CP doesn't directly win the set. It kicks the field goal to force overtime (college rules, both have a shot), with momentum and pressure that is handled mentally by a player to overcome the other player's mental handling of the same situation.

 

[Battlecow]

Adding excitement artificially is lame. We could do a lot of things to make matches closer, but we shouldn't. Let skill speak for itself.

 

[Shears]

I don't think its artifical. Having CPs, in my opinion, makes the game more like a sport and less like turn-based chess. (Both with timers of course).

Would you be open to playing DL only and playing with TAS, with each player giving an input and then frame advancing (assuming it wouldn't take hours)? The way I see it, that is just an extrapolation of where DL only advocates want the game to go.

 

[Sedda]

I don't understand what's jank about the other two stages. The bumper is right up there, visible all the time. Moves a little. No ledges to grab on seems to open up some possibilities for different playstyles. I don't know what's janky about Congo other than not being Dreamland. The barrel is not random. The platforms always move at the same speed. I'd argue that the music is better if it wasn't for that god-awful intro (god damnit kondo).

Why is it so easy to get things banned with you guys but so difficult to open things up? Gimpland ****ing sucks **** that tree

We're already playing Smash. That seems to be janky enough.

 

[Annex]

Not being a part of this argument made me realize how ridiculous it looks
lol

 

[ballin4life]

I can tell you that if football players had to play a third of their matches on a baseball diamond

I suppose you think every football game should be played in a dome?

if games 5-7 of a chess set had 49 squares on the board, the players would be ****ing pissed.

I guess you're not a proponent of Fischer random chess?

One of the things I like about 64 is the fact that there are so few matchups to learn that you can learn all of them extraordinarily well.

12 matchups is few enough to learn extraordinarily well (for one character, 144 if you want to learn all matchups for all characters), but it's too hard to learn 2 stages?

I view character as a choice that my opponent can make, a facet of his playstyle that I have to learn and adapt to. The interactions between character and character are, in my mind, a lot cooler and deeper than the interactions between character and stage, which seem extraneous.

Both seem equally valid to me. I don't see any crucial difference between increased depth coming from multiple stages vs increased depth coming from multiple characters (especially when, as Shears has been saying, the two often go together quite well as a character can play quite differently on different stages).

Basically it boils down to what's fundamental to the game and what's a distraction. I think everyone kind of knows that a character is kind of part of a playstyle whereas stages are outside of the pvp dynamic

Adding more stages will increase the depth of the game (assuming the stages are good for competitive play, which is a different argument).

However, you say that smash64 is "deep enough" already with just one stage and that there's no point to adding more depth through stage variety. I guess I've seen a similar argument in Quake Live (where there are 10+ maps that have been used in tournaments before) that some players don't want to have to practice 7+ maps to get ready for a tournament - the game is "good enough" with just a 5 map pool.

Overall though I think the increased depth afforded by stage variety is worth it, especially when the alternative is to just have one stage.

 

[Battlecow]

the game is infinitely deep for all practical intents and purposes so we don't need to artificially complicate it. Learning stages is weird and static knowledge whereas characters depend on the opponent and playstyle and stuff and are cool and fun

Your anti-examples for chess and football are bad and you should feel bad about having made them

 

[asianaussie]

stage variety is great, it's unique to smash amongst fighters and fundamental to what the game is

artificially spartanising the game? there's nothing wrong with that, but why not play to smash bros's strengths? may as well just call it the street fighter ruleset

 

[ballin4life]

the game is infinitely deep for all practical intents and purposes so we don't need to artificially complicate it. Learning stages is weird and static knowledge whereas characters depend on the opponent and playstyle and stuff and are cool and fun

How a stage plays certainly depends on the opponent, playstyle, character, etc. I don't really think that's debatable.

So it now comes down to "learning stages is weird'?

Removing stages is artificially restricting the game, not artificially complicating it (artificially to me implies man made rules outside of the game itself).

Your anti-examples for chess and football are bad and you should feel bad about having made them

I kind of wanted to use this line earlier but decided it was beneath me.

I actually think football really might be better if all games were played in a dome - snow/rain games at least are typically boring and sloppy (kind of the equivalent of playing on a bad stage like Saffron). Anyway I don't really understand what your problem is with those examples. At the very least they show that some people have a different point of view with regards to your chess and football examples.


I also very much agree with @ asianaussie above. I think I summed it up pretty well in the last few paragraphs of my previous post.

 

[MrMarbles]

this pole is biased as it does not include bringing hyrule back. This is why i did not vote, however i am against making any more stages illegal

Edit: i don't ever want to get to a point in my smash career where i realize that i'm not good at playing smash, just good at playing dreamland

 

[NovaSmash]

this pole is biased as it does not include bringing hyrule back. This is why i did not vote, however i am against making any more stages illegal

Edit: i don't ever want to get to a point in my smash career where i realize that i'm not good at playing smash, just good at playing dreamland

winning on peach's doesnt make u good anyways

 

[Cobrevolution]

why doesn't it?

 

[rawrimamonster]

Needs more gamesharks and battlefields so I can see people whine about the ledges.

 

[NovaSmash]

why doesn't it?

because the stage is awful and you are too dumb to realize this

 

[Cobrevolution]

why don't you provide actual points instead of resorting to insults?

what about the stage is bad? why does winning on it prove nothing about you or your opponent? are you implying that if you beat someone on peach's, it doesn't count as a real win?

funny how you leave the skype chat because you're annoyed by me and then you go back and do the same thing right here

here's why i think peach's is good: decent size, improves platform game, forces you to pick better recovery options for characters and to avoid gimps
here's why i think peach's is bad: too dynamic in terms of changing (wedges move up and down, bottom plat moves too much to either side), negates most characters' recoveries, provides a buff for top 2 and a nerf for everyone else, no ledge to grab so ledge di is essentially useless

winning on peach's does not negate you as a player; it is incomparable to winning with items on, where luck can be the deciding factor. if you lose on peach's, you were outplayed by your opponent. you can't blame the stage if you lose - "but i was falcon and couldn't recover!"

guess what? shouldn't have been off the stage in the first place.

now was that so hard? can you do something similar instead of making yourself look like a fool?

 

[banze]

Having more stages only forces you to be better... on every stage, with every character, in everyway

think about it
harder is good

but anyway, I'm the only Brazilian who likes DL best.

 

[NovaSmash]

if having more stages is good then unban hyrule

 

[Battlecow]

Having more stages is bad

 

[The Star King]

This "recoveries are much worse on Peach's Castle" myth needs to stop.

 

[NovaSmash]

This "recoveries are much worse on Peach's Castle" myth needs to stop.

how is that a myth?

 

[MrMarbles]

Fi

if having more stages is good then unban hyrule

Finally we agree on something

 

[Chaostatic]

This "recoveries are much worse on Peach's Castle" myth needs to stop.

The stage hazards make it harder to kill people, so in the purest sense of the word, yeah I guess you could say that all of the characters have an easier time "recovering."

However, when we look at a character's ability to make it back on the stage solely by means of their Up B (or other means of recovery they might have) and not relying on the stage hazards, the characters' recoveries are objectively worse.

 

[Herbert Von Karajan]

This "recoveries are much worse on Peach's Castle" myth needs to stop.

No way to cancel the lag after an up B except for edge canceling.

Now the myth is a fact.

 

[mixa]

the characters' recoveries are objectively worse

as i read the word 'objectively' from the corner of my eye i could see the dude in your avatar giving me a wink

 

[SheerMadness]

The bumpers on Peach's help characters with bad recoveries stay alive longer in a lot of cases.

It's actually easier to gimp them on dreamland IMO.

 

[Shears]

Also, when you hit the moving walls or whatever you call them, you go into a tumble state where you receive intangibility hurtboxes and can't be hit. This can help prevent a player from being comboed off stage because these walls interfere and give them a chance to get back and recover. Edgeguarding is defintely easier on Peachs though. A recovering character has no ledge to sweetspot and protect themself meaning every recovering character will recover with their upb landing lag in full punish mode.

 

[MrMarbles]

being able to recover from underneath the moving platform makes it easier for some characters to recover. like ness and maybe link. yes theres landing lag but your opponent has to take a risk by trying to edgegaurd from the moving platform cuz u can hit them from underneath

 

[Shears]

I don't think thats as risky as you think. Most players are naturally aggressive and so they try to get them in their recovery. You could just sit back, wait for them to upb and read it, then during their landing lag punish. They either die from the punish or you rinse and repeat, eventually that punish will kill.

I'm for Peachs and Congo to remain legal, but you don't have to trick yourself or anyone else that the recovery options are just as good as Dreamland to keep them around. Its pretty apparent that its not. With a ledge, mind games and the rock paper scissors effect can be used to get back on the stage and continue fighting, on Peachs you really don't have that luxury if the edgeguarder knows what they're doing and you're hoping for a mistake mostly.

 

[MrMarbles]

eh i disagree. after the punish it often opens up more options to recover on the second go around since u get ur jump back. this is assuming u are under like 60% or so. if u are over that well then ya u will probably die but u would probably die above 60% on another map anyways

 

[KoRoBeNiKi]

Where's the option for Dreamland + Peach's Castle?

I kinda prefer this, though I like Peach's almost more than Dreamland (though I understand why DL is more neutral.)

I mean who really plays on Congo outside of m2k counterpicking it that one game.

 

[clubbadubba]

-firo wizzy played on congo if i recall

the ability to recover by jumping/upb-ing through the stages bottom platform on peach's and congo adds some pretty solid recovery options in certain match-ups. Plus on peach's high recoveries over the triangle's are pretty sick with fast fall tricks and ****. Some matchups are definitely easier to recover with on peach's than dreamland. Some are harder. I'd bet most are easier on dreamland though.

 

[Combo Blaze]

i won my one match vs killer in congo (lost in DL), also vs battlecow. **** yeah congo!

 

[The Star King]

objectively

You should probably learn what this word means before you throw it around. Or not assume you know everything there is to know about the matter.

You're not gonna impress people by acting like your theorycraft-from-a-random is factual. This isn't the Melee boards.

Anyway, from what I gleaned skimming over this thread, people did a decent job bringing up some advantages recovering on Peach's has over Dreamland. I'm not even necessarily saying recoveries are better on Peach's. I just don't think they're WAY WORSE like some people act they are. There are pros and cons for both.

EDIT: I'm also gonna say that while people are separating the triangles/bumper from edgeguarding, I think they affect edgeguarding and should be counted. For example, if you wanna do the let-them-land-and-punish stuff, this has the disadvantage of letting them get their jump back, which is made all the more relevant because if they end up hitting the sides of the ****ing triangles, they can pretty much always jump back onto the stage without being forced to up-b. Just one example.