Project M Recommended Ruleset

[Narpas_sword]

Green Hill Zone (S)
Fountain of Dreams (M)

These two are so close to being exactly the same size.
The main difference is FoDs floor hitbox is lower.

 

[SunJester]

These two are so close to being exactly the same size.
The main difference is FoDs floor hitbox is lower.

Its late, and I might be crazy, but I swear I saw Joe's stage list thingy, and BF and FoD were almost the same size (stage size wise)

Edit:

Just checked, Smashville is slightly bigger than BF, which is slightly bigger than FoD, which is slightly bigger than GHZ.

Hmm!

 

[Narpas_sword]

GHZ and FoD are near exact. They are both slightly smaller than BF
YS and WW are a lot smaller than GHZ and FoD

 

[nimigoha]

I like your idea; there's a difference between "we have the ability to have more stages on the list than Melee, let's do it" and "we need loads of stages".

Do we need 10 stages? Are there not redundancies or do people really think we have 10 unique stages that people can agree on? What about 7 or 8?

And breaking it down into sizes and classes is exactly what we need to do.

The PMDT definitely has an influence on this though. Since GHZ was moved to the "starter row" in 3.5 it's become one of my favourite stages, whereas before I barely played on it.

A unified ruleset (or at least a stagelist for starters) will be controversial for now but beneficial in the long run. Otherwise we'll have things like "X beat Y" "yeah but because stage Z was legal at that tournament" when we can easily avoid this.

 

[eideeiit]

Just wanted to say a universal stage list should be agreed on also for balance's sake. Balance as in Fox upsmash.

Might as well toss out my suggestion:

YS, WW, GHZ, FoD, BF, SV, PS, YI, DL
(........S............) (.......M........) (......L......)

Full List Stage Striking

2 bans

If you think FLSS is dumb the CPs would be YS, GHZ, YI and DL

I'm not quite sure whether to have GHZ or WW as a CP when not FLSSing. Also I personally would like to see what switching DL with Norfair would bring about.

You can never ban all small stages, but can choose which small one you want to go to. Same with large ones. You get to ban both BF and DL if you can't handle platform camping.

 

[Rizner]

This was simply a matter of finding the most agreeable stages and putting them into a stage list. I'm okay with FoD being moved to a starter, DL being removed, and putting in either Norfair or Lylat. Even then, there seems to be a lot of hate for those stages. My suggestion for keeping DL was simply one of familiarity, everyone knows the stage, and everyone has played tournament matches on the stage. I think you're right though, its a crap starter.

So:

Starters:
Green Hill Zone (S)
Battlefield (M)
Smashville (M)
Fountain of Dreams (M)
Pokemon Stadium 2 (L)

Counterpicks:
WarioWare (S)
Yoshi's Island (M)
Final Destination (M/L)?
Norfair/Lylat Cruise (M)
Distant Planet/Dreamland (64) (L)

I think having two large stages or two small stages now is redundant for starters, they're just going to get banned and end up on the middle stage. Which is why I (now) think starters should only have one small and one large stage, incase its agreeable for both parties. FoD is debatable here, but from what I can gather from other's opinions, its probably the least polarizing medium stage that isnt Battlefield or Smashville.

Gives us 5(6) Medium, 2 Small, 3(2) Large. So we have to ask a question, do we unquestionably want someone to counterpick us to the stage size of their choice (Large or Small) ?

If we definitely want a counterpick then we'd have to go with

Starters:
Green Hill Zone (S)
Battlefield (M)
Smashville (M)
Fountain of Dreams (M)
Pokemon Stadium 2 (L)

Counterpicks:
Warioware (S)
Yoshi's Story (S)
Dreamland (L)
Distant Planet (L)
Yoshi's Island/Norfair/Lylat Cruise (M)

Which would give us 3 Small Stages and 3 Large stages, and 4 medium stages.


We could always keep this real simple and pull a Melee and just have those five starters, no bans, maybe one or two completely agreed upon counterpicks.

So:
Starters:
Green Hill Zone (S)
Battlefield (M)
Smashville (M)
Fountain of Dreams (M)
Pokemon Stadium 2 (L)

Counterpicks:
Yoshi's Island (M)

I think it comes down to, do we want a really neutral stage list, or do we want a counterpick heavy stage list.

I'm a bit over my head here, I don't have the knowledge that most people do. I (admittedly) was going off of the stages that I saw popular tournament usage for, and the most "agreeable" stages in PM. I'm just glad someone decided to explain why they disliked the stage list. Its just counterproductive to say you don't like something without suggesting changes, or saying you want a stage without saying which it would replace.

Regardless, this really is something I'd like to see discussed. I think the varying stage lists and rules just aren't cutting it anymore, something standard, like what melee has, would be really nice.


Edit: We'll probably spend weeks crafting our perfect stage list, and everyone is going to just run it back to PS2 or SV all the time lol.

Starters:
Warioware (S)
Battlefield (M)
Smashville (M)
Fountain of Dreams (M)
Pokemon Stadium 2 (L)

Counterpicks:
Green Hill Zone (S)
Yoshi's Story (S)
Dreamland (L)
Distant Planet (L)
Yoshi's Island/Norfair/Lylat Cruise (M)

I like this one, but with new info posted I just switched ww and ghz from what you posted

Also I haven't tried flss, but would like to test it out.

 

[DrinkingFood]

On the flip side of "It mostly negates advantage a player has for mastering multiple characters." is "mastering multiple characters completely negates the stage counter-picking process"

That's a good thing. Counterpicking stages is not a skill we highly value testing, rather it's a requisite to testing the skill of the loser to the skill of the winner.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

I already tried proposing the FLSS system in the other thread... I got promptly ignored(as in, no one bothered to even reply to the suggestion and I made brought it up multiple times). So I stopped trying. It's really hard to get rid of tradition I guess.



DP does need to go. It is way to similar to PS2 to be of any true relevancy and be anything but redundant. I'd much rather see something like Lylat or Metal Cavern or second phase non-transforming Frigate or first phase non transforming Castle Siege or something like that.

I totally understand the ignored part. I kept trying to solve issues I saw with this starter list and nobody cared. Granted, the thread was winding down...

If DP had a higher ceiling, would you get behind it?

So:

Starters:
Green Hill Zone (S)
Battlefield (M)
Smashville (M)
Fountain of Dreams (M)
Pokemon Stadium 2 (L)

Counterpicks:
WarioWare (S)
Yoshi's Island (M)
Final Destination (M/L)?
Norfair/Lylat Cruise (M)
Distant Planet/Dreamland (64) (L)

or

Starters:
Green Hill Zone (S)
Battlefield (M)
Smashville (M)
Fountain of Dreams (M)
Pokemon Stadium 2 (L)

Counterpicks:
Warioware (S)
Yoshi's Story (S)
Dreamland (L)
Distant Planet (L)
Yoshi's Island/Norfair/Lylat Cruise (M)

or

Starters:
Green Hill Zone (S)
Battlefield (M)
Smashville (M)
Fountain of Dreams (M)
Pokemon Stadium 2 (L)

Counterpicks:
Yoshi's Island (M)

Edit: We'll probably spend weeks crafting our perfect stage list, and everyone is going to just run it back to PS2 or SV all the time lol.

Agreed on the perfect stage list part. These lists are much better in my opinion, maybe it wasn't fair for me to cherry pick that list, but I was reading the thread and that post was there as I was responding.

FoD is in a weird spot. The physical stage is between GHZ and BF almost exactly. However, its blastzones are eerily similar to GHZ to be on a starter list together (also those blastzones make most consider it a small stage). So while FoD, if you consider it medium, is probably the most agreeable medium, you can't have it and GHZ on the same starter list. Counterpicks are different because of the platforms, but in a limited stater list it just won't work out imo.

Someone else suggested WW, FoD, BF, SV, PS2. The issue with that is it favors small stages too much if you consider FoD a small stage. It definitely favors small blastzones though. If you are going to have Dreamland on a starter list, you have to have WW/YS and vice versa.

Anyways, back to your lists. Basically, its about choosing a fair 3rd medium stage (if we structure our starter list this way. If you ask anyone, they might consider any of these as medium stages (and still be sane : )
Battlefield, Smashville, Lylat, Yoshi's Island, Norfair, and Fountain.

We already have BF and SV. Lylat has weird ledges and some don't even want it at all, so probably best to assume that wouldn't work out. FoD is too similar to GHZ, a stage everyone seems to agree on, so we can get rid of that one. That leaves us with Yoshi's Island and Norfair. Norfair's main stage is actually leaning towards the large stages, but its blastzones are small. People have issues with camping on this stage, however much merit that has. Yoshi's Island is just a weird stage. It has weird valleys, a tilting platform, blargwhiches, fly guys, but the stage itself and its boundries are firmly in the medium category.

Make with all of that what you want, but just like large stages, all the medium stages past Battlefield and Smashville are weird and hard to agree upon.

 

[robosteven]

If DP had a higher ceiling, would you get behind it?

If DP had a higher ceiling I'd never go there.

 

[TheGravyTrain]

If DP had a higher ceiling I'd never go there.

Why do you go there now? Its essentially PS2 with a Smashville ceiling. The higher ceiling suggestion is to make a reasonable big stage besides DL/Skyworld since people have issues with them.

 

[Scatz]

All I'm going to do is copy/paste what I had because, outside of DMG, no one really refuted any points I made outside of a low overall ceiling (which is already a problem due to all the available stages being low outside of Dreamland and Skyworld). Added a few things just to close up any potential questions.

Keeping balance towards stage size in starters and counter-picks, the most logical setup is similar to what we've been running:

*S = Small, M = Medium, L = Large

Starter:
Yoshi's Story (S)*
Battlefield (M)
Smashville (M)
Green Hill Zone (S/M)*
Pokemon Stadium 2 (M/L)

Counter-picks:
Final Destination (L)
Dreamland (L)
Wario Ware (S)
Fountain of Dreams (S/M)*

* = interchangeable

That gives 3 small, 3 large, and 2 medium with one small/medium stage. The last stage is the most controversial considering that the other outright medium stages are Yoshi's Island, Lylat Cruise, and Norfair. GHZ and FoD are bigger small stages because of the blastzones vertically being more suited towards medium size stages (FoD being closer to medium overall than GHZ). Overall, we have to keep one of the S/M stages to maintain a balance of 3/3/3. That leaves YI, LC, or Norfair as the potential medium stages; however, everyone is so volatile with the choices that I feel it won't get too far.

With a 9 stage starter + 2 bans, the loser of game 4 will be able to pick between 5 stages left (with DSR active). So, this makes it to where you'll have to win on a weaker stage unless you plan to hold onto that stage until the last game of the set (provided neither player switches characters). I think this is the most optimal with what's currently in our stage pool.

If you were to change this to a 1 stage ban, then things get dicey because you ensure that you give players two concrete stages they can use until the character CP comes into play. With the character CP in play, banning two creates sort of a weird vortex where players will have to consider the lesser of the two evils, and in most cases, they wouldn't want to waste a ban on a potential 2ndary counter play unless there's a stage where the matchup becomes absolutely abysmal. At the same time, this makes the Bo5 almost a guarantee seal at game 3 or game 4. The only exception to this is character switching to negate (or lower) the effectiveness of the vastly different stages.

Adding more stages would be much harder to deal with because the only other small-esque stage is Metal Cavern, but it's only small when you're near the edges. Everywhere else is medium sized (blastzones and stage size included). From there, you'd have a decision of YI, LC, and Norfair as your medium stage again, then you'd have a dilemma with the large stages. All proclaimed large stages have medium vertical blastzones except for Dracula's Castle and Kongo's Jungle. Just from this alone, I'd probably keep things to a 9 stage limit. Makes things much less complicated imo.

My list is just going with what we have in the stage pool. People generally are fine with PS2 moreso than Dreamland. That's why I just wrote it that way. I don't care what changes the starter lists makes in terms of whether Dreamland should replace PS2 or w/e, but a decision should be made because we're all just going in circles at this point.

I listed YI, LC, and Norfair together because they have similar numbers to classify as a medium stage, but people are constantly disagreeing with each other on it. So, I put it outside of the list and deal with the stages we already have to fill a 3/3/3 ratio. The list may favor slightly smaller blastzones, but when you break it down in multiple sections, I think it's okay with what we got.

*L = Low, M = Medium, H = High

Vertical Blastzones:
YS (L)
GHZ (M / H)
SV (M / H)
BF (M / H)
PS2 (L / M)

Horizontal Blastzones:
YS (S)
GHZ (S)
SV (M)
BF (M)
PS2 (L)

Vertical BZ wise, Dreamland & Dracula is the only viable options, but Dreamland is over the top because the jump from medium ones to it is around a 40 unit jump. Dracula's is actually the best option for VBZs because it's actually in the sweetspot numbers (220-230). Horizontal BZ wise, we have a ton of stages that are over 200 units (mostly starting at 220+). I don't think there's any need to touch this part of list because PM allows for more combo enders that make the slightly larger HBZs seem normal.

If we really needed to add a large stage, then Dracula's Castle makes sense despite the HBZ being slightly wider than Dreamland's. Though, the platform movement is questionable.

I'm not talking about anything needing rework. I'm using what we have now. Fix the stages later after we get a list out now.

I don't see a big difference in changing the ratio. A 2/5/2 & 3/5/3 ratio just does the same thing in terms of a 3/3/3 w 2 bans ratio. You're going to get CP'd to one of the extreme stages either in the beginning of a set or at the end. Changing the ratio to that only makes more mid-sized stages available, but seeing as how everyone has a problem with the other available mid-sized stages (YI, LC, NF) I don't see the worth in going through the trouble. At the end of the day, I believe it's safe to say that 1 small/large stage will get banned through a set. Which leaves a potential mix of (in a Bo5 set):

1 S / 3 M / 1 L
1 S / 2 M / 2 L
2 S / 3 M / 0 L
2 S / 2 M / 1 L
0 S / 3 M / 2 L

In these cases, players will be using medium stages more and will probably use at max 2 of the extreme stages. When you think about the ways this could play out, the counterpick possession matters ONLY in game 2. So, it's more likely to see a strong counter pick stage early on than later, but we've also seen where players counterpick heavy late in the set to prevent typically being 3-1'd. So, when considering how stage selection is going to play out, using your staple pick early (let's say small stages) means you'll have to win on larger stages, and when you flip the scenario, it's still similar because you'll have to win on smaller stages. Thankfully, you have variance in the reduced selection so it isn't complete failure.

Like I mentioned multiple times, adding in another medium stage as the 10th would be fine if we could come up to an answer. Lylat and YI are similar in terms of edges (making recovery harder or edgeguarding easier, and Norfair is sort of this FD/PS2/DK64 mix. There's nothing wrong with any of these stages, but apparently people got issues stating jank without the proof behind it. DP isn't in this list because it's 98% identical to PS2. A completely redundant stage that should be reworked imo, and if it did, making the blastzones higher (and maybe reversing the platform layout) would be the most ideal in giving it originality.

 

[Cubelarooso]

If DP had a higher ceiling, would you get behind it?

I've made a thread for discussing what we'll need from stages in the future so that this thread can stay focused on what we'll do for a ruleset right now.

On that topic, I also question the motive behind 7 minutes. I don't see enough benefit to make it worth going into the menu and changing (especially since PM players have been accustomed to just booting up and playing).

 

[robosteven]

Why do you go there now? Its essentially PS2 with a Smashville ceiling. The higher ceiling suggestion is to make a reasonable big stage besides DL/Skyworld since people have issues with them.

People already think DP is huge for some reason, making it actually huge would just make it another stage people would have issues with like Drac's.

To answer your question though, personal preference.

 

[Deleted member]

I still disagree with the characters first selection for counterpicks. It mostly negates advantage a player has for mastering multiple characters.

this is a mixed argument tbh, and it can totally go both ways. on one hand, we grandfathered in the traditional CP system from melee with stages first, but melee only has ~8 characters at most for serious tournament play so the difference in stages is more pronounced. i think for melee the traditional system still makes sense. for PM though, its pretty easy to get a stage + character and blow out the opponent on a pocket CP choice. for example, lately i've been playing sheik and doing sheik things, and the opponent will win game 2, and game 3 my opponent will ban....idk something, and then i'll go marth on FD and ruin them for no real reason other than that i got that combination. so i'm not certain that it negates that advantage.

on the other hand, pseudo-forcing the community to implement this system as the new standard gives us a much better perspective on the bigger question, which is "what exactly do we want our CP system to be doing?". it may be better or worse than the traditional system, and we'll know which it is and why after playing it for 4-6 months. the fact is, our community is fundamentally grassroots from a game we made up, there's no harm in experimentation to make it better in the long run.

--------------------

as an aside, the timer is lower to help with tournament efficiency in the event of time-outs. people always talk about time-outs and how they should be prevented, which is frankly pretty scrubby behavior. we seriously need to recognize a time-out victory as a legitimate alternate win condition. a 7 minute timer is another test in this regard. personally i think the timer should be 6 minutes, although it won't affect 95%+ of tournament matches anyway. if you dont like it, i have to ask- why? is 8 minutes any better? if you want to start having more PM tournaments, the reality of our game right now is that we have to share venues and tournaments with other smash games for the most part, we need to be cutting down on lengthy sets that hold up multiple brackets. when i came up with the 4 stock 8 minutes for melee in 2005 it was not a big deal, and i fail to see why it is a big deal now.

edit:

There's nothing wrong with any of these stages, but apparently people got issues stating jank without the proof behind it.

as frustrating as this may seem, we do not need "proof" to ban a stage from the stage list. the point of a rule set (and by extension the stage list) is to ensure that all players present subjectively feel that the best players are accurately determined. this is why we do not play with items, because it can lead to spontaneous wins and losses that we as a community feel do not feel are merited. there is nothing wrong with items, and the better player will still win almost every time, but almost isnt good enough for us, and thats totally fine. similarly, playing stages that feel bad to the subjective player base is a similar violation of what we're going for. this is also why we allow the gentleman's clause, because it extends the players an opportunity to enjoy their game with no detriment to how the community views the legitimacy of the tournament. if everyone hated smashville for whatever reason, i assure you it would be banned as well.

 

[robosteven]

Compared to most fighting games I've watched, PM and Melee sets are still pretty long. I have no problem with a shorter timer.

 

[Jacob29]

I have no problem with a shorter timer. I have a problem with you stating that reducing it to 7 minutes will definitely help without any evidence towards that.

Think of this situation:

6 minutes into a game, 1 fresh stock left on two players.

One of the players is capable of timeouts. He sees the clock and sees this:

1 minute left.

So he goes for the timeout.

2 minutes left.

So he plays normally assuming it's too hard to timeout for that long.

You can't just say that reducing the time always reduces tournament run time as it might provoke more timeouts

 

[Cubelarooso]

people always talk about time-outs and how they should be prevented, which is frankly pretty scrubby behavior.

playing stages that feel bad to the subjective player base is a similar violation of what we're going for.

These positions seem contradictory.

If we assume 5% of matches go to time under both systems, every set goes to match 3 (top 8 going to match 5, 2 sets for grand finals), double elimination with bracket pools top 2 get out, then a 64-player tournament would save a little more 20 minutes by using a 7 minute timer instead of 8. If we assume every set is a blow-out, it's still ~13 minutes.
That actually does seem like a respectable exchange for the cost of going into the Rules menu, so it's probably worth testing.

Why should fair stages that some players subjectively dislike because they don't wish to adapt to the game they're playing be banned, yet stages that objectively unbalance the game and give one player an automatic advantage be legal?
If a player chooses YI or something, wouldn't that suggest that they subjectively like the stage, and that the other player doesn't dislike it enough to ban it?
Players should be rewarded and punished based on how well they can mix up their strategies to account for the stage they're playing on. Allowing or restricting different strategies is what defines stage variety.

 

[Strong Badam]

I don't really have much issue with a shorter timer (most matches would finish naturally in under 6 minutes), but I think if we're trying to shorten set time then the obvious way to do so is to reduce resources. And by resources I mean stock count.

 

[Rizner]

this is a mixed argument tbh, and it can totally go both ways. on one hand, we grandfathered in the traditional CP system from melee with stages first, but melee only has ~8 characters at most for serious tournament play so the difference in stages is more pronounced. i think for melee the traditional system still makes sense. for PM though, its pretty easy to get a stage + character and blow out the opponent on a pocket CP choice. for example, lately i've been playing sheik and doing sheik things, and the opponent will win game 2, and game 3 my opponent will ban....idk something, and then i'll go marth on FD and ruin them for no real reason other than that i got that combination. so i'm not certain that it negates that advantage.

on the other hand, pseudo-forcing the community to implement this system as the new standard gives us a much better perspective on the bigger question, which is "what exactly do we want our CP system to be doing?". it may be better or worse than the traditional system, and we'll know which it is and why after playing it for 4-6 months. the fact is, our community is fundamentally grassroots from a game we made up, there's no harm in experimentation to make it better in the long run.

--------------------

as an aside, the timer is lower to help with tournament efficiency in the event of time-outs. people always talk about time-outs and how they should be prevented, which is frankly pretty scrubby behavior. we seriously need to recognize a time-out victory as a legitimate alternate win condition. a 7 minute timer is another test in this regard. personally i think the timer should be 6 minutes, although it won't affect 95%+ of tournament matches anyway. if you dont like it, i have to ask- why? is 8 minutes any better? if you want to start having more PM tournaments, the reality of our game right now is that we have to share venues and tournaments with other smash games for the most part, we need to be cutting down on lengthy sets that hold up multiple brackets. when i came up with the 4 stock 8 minutes for melee in 2005 it was not a big deal, and i fail to see why it is a big deal now.

edit:



as frustrating as this may seem, we do not need "proof" to ban a stage from the stage list. the point of a rule set (and by extension the stage list) is to ensure that all players present subjectively feel that the best players are accurately determined. this is why we do not play with items, because it can lead to spontaneous wins and losses that we as a community feel do not feel are merited. there is nothing wrong with items, and the better player will still win almost every time, but almost isnt good enough for us, and thats totally fine. similarly, playing stages that feel bad to the subjective player base is a similar violation of what we're going for. this is also why we allow the gentleman's clause, because it extends the players an opportunity to enjoy their game with no detriment to how the community views the legitimacy of the tournament. if everyone hated smashville for whatever reason, i assure you it would be banned as well.

The timer is tricky, because a smaller timer can make larger average set lengths. Time outs is a legitimate strategy, but I don't think it's what we want the focus of matches to become. When you reduce it to 6 or 7 minutes, more timeouts will be attempted (although not necessarily achieved). It's worth testing in smaller environments first imo to actually track average game lengths before it becomes the tournament standard.

 

[Jacob29]

Yup i agree that stock reduction would be a better way of time reduction.

 

[Frost | Odds]

I might like this ruleset if not for the terrible, redundant inclusion of PS2 and Distant Planet. Why should I have to ban the same stage twice? :/

Also, there are 2 small stages (WW and FoD - 3 if you include GHZ, which I do not because its lack of platforms makes it play like a large stage) and 5 large ones (Dreamland, FD, PS2, DP, YI), which is absolutely ruinous for slow characters and those who like high platform density (see also: GHZ and SV).

This would be a lot better if DP and YI were removed as counterpicks. YI is kind of terrible in a tourney setting for the same reasons as YS: the RNG element of the recovery ghosts and the interference of the shy guys; on top of the angled stage that results in a lot of silliness, not to mention that it contributes to the clear large-stage bias in this list.

EDIT: I do like a time limit of 7 or even 6 minutes, though. It's a shame that time is looked down upon as a somehow illegitimate win condition.

 

[Strong Badam]

Yoshi's Island is great and isn't a large stage. It's basically the same platform length as Smashville.

 

[Frost | Odds]

Yoshi's Island is great and neither YI or FD are large stages. YI is basically the same platform length as Smashville.

I love playing on YI in friendlies, but I don't think the support ghosts are a healthy element for tournament play - though the white shy guys were a brilliant addition that largely mitigates that issue. I stand corrected vis a vis its size; but I'm compelled to point out that both the support ghosts and SV's platform both increase their respective stages' sizes for at least some percentage of the time, thereby advantaging fast/campy characters.

FD may not be terribly huge in absolute terms, but the lack of platforms make it difficult for many characters to maneuver, functionally making it much more difficult to advance in terms of stage position, and therefore "bigger", especially against opponents with strong dash dance or projectile games. Again, this also applies to GHZ and SV.

I realize I'm pretty biased on that account, but Bowser is hardly the only character negatively affected.

EDIT: If there's some sort of competitive niche that's filled by those two stages, I'd argue that Lylat does it far better due to its lack of random elements, the platform layout, and the ledge that manages to be unique without being infuriating. If the list looked like this:

Starter Stage List:

• Green Hill Zone
• Smashville
• Battlefield
• Pokémon Stadium 2
• Dreamland 64

Counter Pick Stage List:

• Wario Ware
• Fountain of Dreams
• Final Destination
• Lylat Cruise

... I'd be a lot more amenable. 9 stages feels much more lean and polished than 10, and Lylat is both much less redundant with PS2 than is DP; and it's way less random and 'janky' (eugh, I hate that word) than YI; but it maintains good gameplay properties of both.

I wouldn't even mind axing FoD (or replacing it with Norfair- which adds similar flavor with less silliness, plus it helps us differentiate from Melee), but it's a solid counterpick against Fox for basically any character, which alone makes it pretty okay in my book.

I think I'm up to half a dozen edits on this thing now? Lmfao

 

[Leafeon]

I don't understand the yoshi's story hate. Many of the most memorable best melee matches happened there. Its a shame. I feel Warioware is only getting selected over it because of the newness.

Saying something pretentous, Umbreon, like "it will no way be anywhere near a legal stagelist" without justification does the stage and its history a disservice. Just because you and Adam don't like it doesn't make it any less solid of a stage.

iirc randall can mess with some tether recoveries, just like balloon used to be able to mess with ness's recovery.
Other than that, I think Umbreon just thinks it's too small. similar to how dreamland is too big.

History ("becuz melee") is not a good enough reason to take in stages from old, to be frank.

 

[Sandfall]

• Wireless controllers should be discouraged or banned because of interference, unreliability (battery life), and time hindrance.

I'm sorry, but this is a terrible idea. I swear by the Gamecube controller, but I do know quite a few people who play with the Wiimote + nunchuck or with a classic controller. It doesn't take very long at all to sync a Wiimote, and they are definitely reliable. Just ban Wavebirds and make people take the batteries out of their Wiimotes between matches. Simple as that.

It's silly and unfair to ban someone's controller of choice for the minimal convenience it will bring. Please don't alienate these players.

 

[Strong Badam]

That's actually probably a leftover artifact of the Melee ruleset he copy/pasted and then edited for this.

 

[skellitorman]

I already tried proposing the FLSS system in the other thread... I got promptly ignored(as in, no one bothered to even reply to the suggestion and I made brought it up multiple times). So I stopped trying. It's really hard to get rid of tradition I guess.

DP does need to go. It is way to similar to PS2 to be of any true relevancy and be anything but redundant.

I am also in agreement that PS2 and DP should not be in the same list (most importantly, not this current list). As for FLSS, I think it’d be best if the questions regarding the stage list itself (in the thread that Cubelarooso posted not too long ago) are answered first (which should lead to an agreed upon stage list). Once we have an agreed upon stage list, then it should be quite simple to argue for or against FLSS.

For those who missed his post-

I've made a thread for discussing what we'll need from stages in the future so that this thread can stay focused on what we'll do for a ruleset right now.

-----------------------------------

This would be a lot better if DP and YI were removed as counterpicks. YI is kind of terrible in a tourney setting for the same reasons as YS: the RNG element of the recovery ghosts and the interference of the shy guys; on top of the angled stage that results in a lot of silliness.

I agree with this, despite my personal preference for YI. I would be in favor for LC although I think many would find it preferable for LC to be more “player friendly” by addressing the background, and possibly the angles/ledges.

It's a shame that time is looked down upon as a somehow illegitimate win condition.

One possible reason as to why timeouts are viewed negatively is because of the player interactions. From my understanding, most matches in PM end well under 7 minutes, because players are actively trying to engage and “fight” each other.

When matches lead to timeouts it is usually because at least one of the players avoided interaction and “ran away” for a good portion of the match. A match with such little interaction may be boring and uninteresting to watch. Furthermore, to be able to win a match by “running away” and throwing non committal projectiles, as opposed to engaging with commitment and “fighting,” may seem very “lame” for many people.

In other fighting games, time outs are sometimes viewed differently among knowledgeable spectators because of the skill and engagement/commitment required to achieve the timeout.

FD may not be terribly huge in absolute terms, but the lack of platforms make it difficult for many characters to maneuver, functionally making it much more difficult to advance in terms of stage position, and therefore "bigger", especially against opponents with strong dash dance or projectile games. Again, this also applies to GHZ and SV.

Although lack of platforms definitely makes it difficult for Bowser to move around, I disagree with the notion of this making the stage “bigger.” Most characters have functional mobility without platforms. The only other characters aside from Bowser that I see this affecting is Ganondorf and maybe DDD (DDD has waddles and multiple jumps).

Furthermore, without platforms, it is much more difficult for the opponent to run away or escape the “corner,” (edge of the stage). I would argue that fundamentals (that would be seen in other traditional fighting games) apply more significantly on FD for this reason.

Regardless, Bowser should be able to move (as in he should have better mobility).

 

[Blitzus]

When are we banning characters?

But in all seriousness:
Green Hill Zone (S)
Battlefield (M)
Smashville (M)
Fountain of Dreams (M)
Pokemon Stadium 2 (L)

Counterpicks:
Warioware (S)
Yoshi's Story (S)
Dreamland (L)
Distant Planet (L)
Lylat Cruise (M)

I could also see Skyworld being legal if the platforms were completely visible (I'm embarassed of how often I actually miss landing on a platform). Would not be surprised to see it go, though.

Dracula's. As of now, Dracula's has too much chaos happening. If it could be made to have a single platform layout or predictable platform movements (See: Smashville) and probably pare off a lot of blast zone from the side, it'd be interesting.
The main draw for Dracula's is that it's a large stage with NON-JANKY (Stares deeply at Distant Planet) walls.

Would also like to add that I'm completely fine with reducing stock count. Sounds fair and even efficient. I could probably imagine PM being a category at more events if it was less intrusive on other ones.

3 stock 7 minute?

 

[Leafeon]

YI is kind of terrible in a tourney setting for the same reasons as YS: the RNG element of the recovery ghosts

You're wrong, by the way. The recovery ghosts are not RNG, nor is Randall.

The RNG behind Yoshi's Island's ghosts was removed in 3.5 afaik.

 

[Deleted member]

I'm sorry, but this is a terrible idea. I swear by the Gamecube controller, but I do know quite a few people who play with the Wiimote + nunchuck or with a classic controller. It doesn't take very long at all to sync a Wiimote, and they are definitely reliable. Just ban Wavebirds and make people take the batteries out of their Wiimotes between matches. Simple as that.

It's silly and unfair to ban someone's controller of choice for the minimal convenience it will bring. Please don't alienate these players.

seems pretty much irrefutable, will edit.

I have no problem with a shorter timer. I have a problem with you stating that reducing it to 7 minutes will definitely help without any evidence towards that.

we dont have evidence. putting the burden of proof on someone when you know they cant possibly have it in the face of experimentation doesnt make you "right", it makes you look like an ass hat. if you want to refute the point on your grounds, i see your argument and it makes sense on paper but we have no way to validate it without trying it. i simply dont see 3 stock as being reasonable at this point. similarly to lylat, theres nothing wrong it it on paper, but i dont know many players that would consider it valid anyway. for now, we will try 7 minutes and see if theres any difference in either direction. i dont think there will be, and if it doesnt work out, we'll know why and deal with it accordingly. if theres no issue for 3 months, we may try 6 minutes. it may end up back at 8. in the grand scheme of things i dont think it matters much.

 

[Narpas_sword]

When are we banning characters?
View attachment 44543

But in all seriousness:
Green Hill Zone (S)
Fountain of Dreams (M)

Again with this?

Theyre the Same Size.

 

[Cubelarooso]

Evidence for both sides:

| Stage Width | Mid to Side | Stage to Side | Stage to Top | Min to Top | Stage to Bottom
FoD | 127 | 199 | 135 | 203 | 159 | 146
GHZ | 120 | 190 | 130 | 205 | 144 | 105

 

[Blitzus]

Again with this?

Theyre the Same Size.

Not about the size I essentially copied and shifted some stuff around. pay that no mind.

 

[Frost | Odds]

You're wrong, by the way. The recovery ghosts are not RNG, nor is Randall.

The RNG behind Yoshi's Island's ghosts was removed in 3.5 afaik.

Randall isn't RNG in the sense of true randomness, but in terms of whether he's actually there when you happen to get knocked off X side of the stage, it's effectively random.

Whether or not Billy and Suzie are locked directly to the clock [EDIT: they are. Every 25 seconds], the same applies to them. Even if it's not true randomness, once you're knocked off, you have little control over whether that additional asset is going to be available to help you recover. Obviously it's on you to adapt as well as you can to it, but I contest that this pseudorandom element constitutes too much variance to have a place in top level tournament play.

It was accepted in melee due to lack of choice. Now, we've got tons of better options.

 

[Leafeon]

Randall isn't RNG in the sense of true randomness, but in terms of whether he's actually there when you happen to get knocked off X side of the stage, it's effectively random.

Whether or not Billy and Suzie are locked directly to the clock [EDIT: they are. Every 25 seconds], the same applies to them. Even if it's not true randomness, once you're knocked off, you have little control over whether that additional asset is going to be available to help you recover. Obviously it's on you to adapt as well as you can to it, but I contest that this pseudorandom element constitutes too much variance to have a place in top level tournament play.

It was accepted in melee due to lack of choice. Now, we've got tons of better options.

I mean,... it's not random, though. Even if I have no control over it, that doesn't make it random lmao.

I have no control that the tri-platform layout will stay like it is on battlefield so that's not random. and I also don't have the control that the smashville platform will be in the middle when marth wants to chaingrab me. But that's still not random.

If you think the platforms helping people recover is bad for a stage then just say that, haha you don't have to call it random to get that point across.

 

[Jacob29]

we dont have evidence. putting the burden of proof on someone when you know they cant possibly have it in the face of experimentation doesnt make you "right", it makes you look like an *** hat. if you want to refute the point on your grounds, i see your argument and it makes sense on paper but we have no way to validate it without trying it. i simply dont see 3 stock as being reasonable at this point. similarly to lylat, theres nothing wrong it it on paper, but i dont know many players that would consider it valid anyway. for now, we will try 7 minutes and see if theres any difference in either direction. i dont think there will be, and if it doesnt work out, we'll know why and deal with it accordingly. if theres no issue for 3 months, we may try 6 minutes. it may end up back at 8. in the grand scheme of things i dont think it matters much.

Ofc we need to experiment to see if it works.

But I don't think you should be calling for it to be a standard without asking a nearby TO or something to try it out first.

You should experiment first and THEN standardize it not the other way around

Edit: also I didn't know you hadn't tried it. I don't follow the US PM scene perfectly so it might have been tried without my knowledge. Sorry if that makes me an '*** hat'.

 

[InfinityCollision]

As for FLSS, I think it’d be best if the questions regarding the stage list itself (in the thread that Cubelarooso posted not too long ago) are answered first (which should lead to an agreed upon stage list). Once we have an agreed upon stage list, then it should be quite simple to argue for or against FLSS.

I'd agree except for two things: 1) FLSS requires an odd number of stages, starter/counterpick does not and 2) because you effectively have (n-1)/2 strikes in an FLSS system, it may change the way we regard certain stage options. Five or six alternating strikes vs the current two or three for the winner shifts the amount of control each player has over what stage they'll play on in each match, along with eliminating the "starters" subgroup discussion entirely.

 

[Kati]

@ Narpas_sword I couldn't get get the add on to work, as it doesn't show up in the add on menu. I tried both putting it in unzipped, and unzipping it, and then using the .7z compressor to redo the compression.

 

[Narpas_sword]

tbh i have no idea how addons work, and dont use them myself because im PAL and usb load.

I just take the files and put them where they belong on my SD card.

 

[Eisen]

I can't contribute too much to this but can we all just take a moment to realize how great Norfair would be as a starter? Less polarizing than dreamland, has moving platforms like FoD without having "too much" movement, but is big enough to provide the option to characters who benefit from bigger stages without the opponent immediately going "holy **** that stage is ****ing huge/the blastzones are ridiculous"

I dunno, it's just a unique stage that I've always liked, and I always felt uncomfortable with Dreamland as a starter.