Proposed Ruleset for Smash 4 Tournaments

[BSP]

2. Stages to Strike:

-Final Destination Larger Battlefield with no platforms
-Battlefield
-Yoshi's Story Small Battlefield + randall
-Dream Land 64 Big Battlefield
-Fountain of Dreams Battlefield + moving platforms

Back on topic though: I'm seeing interesting thoughts, but I still think what happened with Brawl is what's going to happen again. The only way to really stop it is to convince the most prominent TOs otherwise. Good luck with that though.

 

[Mr.Showtime]

MLG circuit happened in 2010

DDD was considered a strong(er) character from 2008-2010ish iirc

Yea I do remember that well when I was at the scene at the time. I played in a couple of Gigabits tournaments in Orlando. I remember watching CO18 play a bunch of amazing matches back in the day. As for recent Brawl tournaments, I've been away from the scene for too long.

 

[LiteralGrill]

...is this still being argued

...why shouldn't it be?

 

[Ripple]

Hi Overswarm.

can confirm, stagelist dwindling down so that my best CP against MK was BF (since YI was banned against me every time as I am was a DK main) got really tiring and stupid.

 

[Ripple]

double post

 

[smashbro29]

Stages with slow deliberate hazards (Halberd) should be totally kosher.

 

[Ghostbone]

K Overswarm, that's some nice data you have on Norfair's balance.
Shame that the inherent randomness and bull**** of the hazards still makes it a bad stage rofl.

It's like looking at WarioWare or Pictochat's balance and claiming that makes them ok stages.

I mean I doubt items would create significant character imbalances either, they're still bad for competitive play.

Stages with slow deliberate hazards (Halberd) should be totally kosher.

The claw isn't slow, or deliberate, it randomly targets one person, kills at a reasonable %, or just sets up frame traps/punishes the opponent did nothing to earn.
The laser can also set itself at the ledge making it impossible to recover, though that's a much rarer occurrence compared to the claw affecting the outcome of the game every time it's played on (multiple times even...)

 

[Overswarm]

Thank you Oversawm for submitting data! About time we see some numbers!

I really really don't want to take 30 years and write a 40 page essay........but....*sigh*...I'll try to summarize as much as I can.

Starting with the MK Usage sheets. Both pages have both counter picks and neutral stages on them. I think Win / Loss data would prove to be more useful.

I'm kind of confused why Brinstar is much lower on the second picture. Was this from two separate tournaments? Because Brinstar was REALLY high in the first picture and low in the second one. Same thing goes for Smashville. Anyways, I'll continue.

If I recall correctly, the first one is specifically MK and the 2nd global; I'm not entirely sure though. It's been three years since crunching the data and I don't have all the original stuff yet. I didn't notice it at first, but the first set is % and the 2nd is raw, which indicates the 2nd is global and the primary is specific. Good catch on the Brinstar thing, I should have seen that.

Overswarm, if you have another character sheet such as this, it would prove to be helpful. Say, Olimar or D3. Meta Knight is a character who is good all around and its really difficult to show a true importance on this data. Although, I'm not sure what you're trying to convey the meaning by this data, I might not have read something right during your post. Pretty much, what is this trying to prove, or you are just showing interesting facts? To me it seems like Meta Knight has a huge variability of where he can be played, and the reason why some of the stages were so low, were just due to people choosing another stage instead of that particular one, especially if all were allowed in these tournaments.

This is just old data kind of for funsies for the most part. Corn asked to see some of it and this is all I could scrounge up. I've gone through 3 laptops since 2010 and don't have all the original stuff on me so I can't go through everything in my post history to find it since some is behind the BBR wall. It gives an idea on what data can mean and how to interpret it; you're on the right track by asking for sheets on something like Olimar or D3. I went over other characters as well but this was all created during the MLG circuit and the MK ban discussion v 4(?) or something like that, so the focus was on MK. In the future I plan on having a database set up to be able to pull info on any character in Smash 4, so keep thinking on what data would be useful.

This is good data right here, but I think it can go against you. A player that has 3 stocks is due to a player having skill especially represented on a neutral stage. However, in the second picture, MK has barely ever wins with 3 stocks, if at all. This could be do due to the abuse of the moving screen. Its a lot harder to live on and more room for SD as well as easily gimping players for being off of position. That is why its difficult to obtain a 3 stock in a stage such as this.

As I said before, I would like to see more characters if you have it, so I can either prove this theory further or prove me wrong. Because once again, MK is good everywhere.

I wish I had more data to show you, but I'm definitely not looking any more :B

You'd have to take my word on it, but, no, MK isn't good everywhere. MK is just good. There's a very specific difference in that wording. His only negative stage was Frigate Orpheon (below 50% win rate), other than that he had higher than 50%. So he's not BAD on stages. But there's a stark difference between "not bad' and "good", and Norfair and Rainbow Cruise didn't really make the cut. In a game where you can CP only 1 or 2 stages and you only get 1 ban, the top 3 or 4 are all that are ever going to be important. Norfair and RC weren't even in the top 5. Starters were in the top five though. Predominately so. Percentage, not raw, of victories. Chew on that! :B

As for "a player having 3 stocks is due to a player having more skill" is kind of a BS argument that people should stop making. This is an assertion, and has no valid backing. Arguments without evidence should be dismissed without evidence. It's presented solely as a "Well, your data proves me wrong UNLESS...." argument. It's not to further discussion on what's true or right, it's to further discussion towards you BEING right in your previously held beliefs. That's unhealthy and should stop.

That said? The data was naturally normalized and then artificially normalized via a focus on only top players, only top segment of bracket, and entire bracket. You're looking at entire bracket (the most important). The data was consistent.

It wasn't skill that was being a divider there. The stages are practically synonymous. There's what, a 4% gap in 2 stock victories between the two? MK had a whopping 0% 3 stocks on Rainbow Cruise, his counterpick, and 2 or 3% on Smashville? Rainbow Cruise isn't more polarizing on a global scale OR on an MK scale than Smashville is.

Would Olimar and ICs do worse on it? Yeah, I'm sure, but the entire cast? Virtually no change! They're close enough to where you can't really distinguish between the two in terms of "how badly characters get beaten by MK".

As for the tournament attendance sheet, I don't know what could be "exactly" the cause of it. Could be due to the player interest in Brawl at the start because it was a new game, then people running away from it later for disliking it. At least that's what it looks like to me, but I may be biased here. I don't honestly think this has to do with the range of stages. Also note, that in December, its moving back up again.

I will also agree with Caps. People who just blatantly state, "I agree or disagree" without reason should be ignored due to their lack of reason.

Agreed and agreed. When I first brought it up it was mostly the same. "Like it or not, tournament attendance is down". Melee kids liked to laugh at this, but their numbers were worse than Brawl's then. Melee and Brawl both went through the cycle where the last year or so was kinda "meh" and then picked up again right before Smash 4, but Brawl had a serious lapse early on that Melee didn't have. Now Melee DID have a huge advantage with being part of an MLG; it was basically Melee's lifeblood. Without MLG, people probably wouldn't be playing Melee right now and I'm not joking. It led a lot of credence to the game and there was a notable change after Melee was picked up, and that momentum changed how Melee looked at itself.

The attendance drop could have been a lot of things, but anyone "on the ground" and actually playing in Brawl wasn't complaining about Brawl. Sure, there were a couple of wanna-be cool kids on the forums going to Brawl tournaments and getting 0-2'd and saying "This game sucks, Melee's sooooooooo much better", but Brawl players actually liked Brawl. I personally helped build the midwest-east scene and with the help of Kel, Alpha Zealot, Keist, and Nope saw a large, thriving community grow. We had the most average tournament attendees per capita in the entire USA in Ohio and for several months had the highest tournament attendees period, which is huge. Standard 50+ man tournaments, once a month 80-100 man tournaments. House tournaments on impromptu weekends that had people not making it out of pools and not advancing to a 32 man bracket.

I got to personally watch them leave, and the majority of it was "I can't play my character". Wolf mains, Link mains, Jigglypuff mains, Pikachu mains, Donkey Kong mains, Marth mains... you name it. I was a vocal anti-ban for a while and told people "you just have to learn the matchup, he's good but not unstoppable" and I was wrong. I played with DSF when he visited for some time and saw such a vast improvement in my ability as MK it was laughable. That was the first clue. The second was when my ROB, the best in the nation at the time, was playing DSF's snake, the best Snake in the nation at the time, and we had close matches back and forth. It was a lot of fun and eye-opening to play one of my favorite matchups like that. Then he picked MK and it was consistent 2 stocks. I picked MK and then could beat his MK, trade games back and forth. I did better vs. his Snake with MK just emulating his play, I hadn't practiced with MK at that point. From there I started watching and listening and practicing with MK. I eventually became heavily pro-ban because I saw what MK was doing to both my region and the metagame.

People weren't silent about that. They'd come up to me and complain about MK at tournaments, and then they'd stop showing up. Asking them why? Meta Knight. "Why even bother playing Luigi? I don't mind playing an uphill matchup but I have to work SO MUCH HARDER than the guy playing MK. I could just pick up MK myself but I don't WANT to play MK". Stuff like that. They felt it was impossible or unfair, and it was.

I got to hear individual reasons for why people quit, and it was never "Brawl is campy" or "I don't like Brawl". It was "I don't like Meta Knight" and "I lost all my counterpicks".

Overswarm:
Smashville - 834
Norfair - 81

3 Stocks:
Smashville - 71 or 8.5%
Norfair - 4 or 4.9%

2 Stocks:

Smashville - 315 or 37.8%
Norfair - 26 or 33.3%

1 stock:

Smashville - 448 or 54.79%
Norfair - 50 or 62.96%


Timeouts removed from equation, but not from total

Is this from MK only still or just all characters? This further proves my theory of reasoning about life expectancy on controversial stages that deter from actual skill.

I wish I could live in the world you live in. People complain about Norfair being too unfair and too strong a counterpick, MK destroys too hard on that stage, rabble rabble rabble. I show data showing MK actually destroys more on Smashville and people say "Well this obviously just shows the player is able to indicate their skill more strongly, Norfair detracts and gives random results!"

Bull****. It does nothing of the sort and anyone who thinks that not only doesn't know how to read data but should be ashamed of themselves for religiously pursuing a single path at all costs like a zealot. Do you honestly think you'd be saying the same thing if I switched Norfair and Smashville on that list? Of course not! You're coming from the pre-approved mentality of "Smashville is fair". It's not, get over it.

Smashville leads to higher 3 stocks and 2 stocks than Norfair. You have more one-sided matches on Smashville and Norfair. THAT is all you can get from this data. I could see the other data and I can tell you that the "starters" fit the bill of CPs more often than most of the CPs did, but even then Norfair and Smashville are practically the same. If your crazy zany counterpick Norfair that is on the edge of being banned has a whopping 5% difference in Smashville then that's some pretty tame ****.

This data leaves a stalemate on both sides of the spectrum. It doesn't tell us win/loss ratio and exactly as you said "high occurrences doesn't mean a character does well". Although, we can make assumptions on this data. Such as D3 being a horrible pick for Norfair due to his inability to chain grab.

I want to point something out here though that you said in a previous post. You said something along the lines of tiers being different due to the choice of stage selection. I never disagreed on this statement, but I did point out that if there were to be any changes, it would probably effect the middle-tier. I was correct at that since D3 isn't shown much on Norfair (remember this is just an assumption). Ice Climbers also go along with this category as well. This is because the inability to chain grab on a stage like this.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. I unfortunately don't have win/loss ratios with me; I had them with MK at one point but no longer have them. This is just usage, which gives a strong indicator of how people feel.

This is pretty much close to what I imagined. Meta Knight being the most played character on Norfair (because he has the highest advantage there) as well as Smashville. The only major difference in character selection that can be seen is Ice Climbers and D3. Low-tier characters can't even play well on Norfair at all. Look at Samus, Shiek, Pokemon Trainer, and Zelda. This shows that if you wanted to competitively based on character selection, its really not that fair to choose Norfair as a stage for "so and so" character.

Meta Knight's win % on Norfair was under par. As in below his average.

If you want to really get into the nitty gritty, a lot of people were willing to switch TO Meta Knight (as virtually everyone has him as a secondary), which inflated his usage numbers (shown in the graph). He just happened to do better. I compensated for the idea of "Ah ha! MK did worse because so many people chose him as their secondary pick on Norfair and had less practice" too, btw. Didn't change the data, especially since most of the time it turned it into MK dittos (which obviously don't change win/loss rate and were removed).

I'll bring a scenario by you. Player A is really good at tournaments. Has won many times with D3 in Brawl. Next tournament Player A joins has Norfair as a neutral stage. Player A joins knowing that the particular stage completely screws D3 over. Instead of playing as D3 for the tournament he goes to his secondary, Meta Knight, who is great at Norfair.

This is what's going to happen. Middle-tier might drop a few steps. Low-tier will become unplayable. And the S-Tier will be played more than any character at a tournament with stage selections available such as this. This ruins variability. This ruins "skill". If Player A decided to go D3 and ended up playing against a Meta Knight, he would try his best and lose. This is where stage becomes the benefactor of decisions and not player skill. Selecting a stage isn't considered skill.

Okay, here's another scenario. That D3 player, Player A, loses on Norfair with his secondary. He then switches to Dedede and takes his MK opponent to Shadow Moses Island (bear with me).

What you're arguing here is not only should Player A be able to pick Dedede (who can basically only play flat/plat stages well), but no one should be able to counterpick him on a stage he does well. On top of that, you think some cardinal sin has occurred that he had to switch characters!

If you pick a limited character like Ice Climbers you're supposed to need a secondary. It's how smash works. You don't warp the ruleset so Ice Climbers can play on all available stages with no disadvantage.

EVERY stage gives an advantage or disadvantage depending on players and matchups. If we make only flat/plat stages legal, we get the tier list we have now. If we banneed them all and had stages like Rainbow Cruise, Japes, Norfair, and Brinstar as our only stages we'd likely have an increase in Wario players. The tier list is determined by how well your character can play in his environment. The stage list directly shapes the tier list.

If you say that skill is not important, then what's the importance of playing? Overswarm, you said it somewhere on this topic that skill does not matter, all that matters is winning or losing.

Overswarm:
What, exactly, do you think "Fighting Skill" is? Actually, nevermind. I don't care. Because there's no such thing as "fighting skill". There's winning and losing, period. You can win by playing well and lose by placing worse than your opponent. That's competition.

This statement right here one day is going to bite you. By saying this, you are not promoting people to play this game. Instead you are trying to make it extinct. Anything that is considered competitive is a representation of skill. You take away skill and what do you have? Answer: No Competition. You're going to lessen the roster and customability even more. Going to LITERALLY be revolved around Meta Knight. This has to be the worst thing I've heard from anyone and I wish that no one would ever use this quote again.

The game DID revolve around Meta Knight and I did my best to stop that. You might have read a thing or two about it if you were on the forum in the past 5 years.

More importantly, it's correct. There is no "skill". There's winning and losing. You want a definition for skilled? A skilled player is one who wins, period. You don't like that he's campy? Tough. Don't like that he chain grabs? Tough.

People moaned that Mew2King was ruining Melee when he started chain grabbing everyone and focusing solely on u-throw u-air u-air with Fox. People said that Ken "lacked skill" when he beat Bombsoldier by chaingrabbing; they said Bombsoldier was "way better" than Ken because of how flashy and fast he was and that Ken "got lucky that he could chain grab".

It's all bull****. There's winning and losing. If something turns out to be overcentralizing, it gets removed. Until then? Win with it. If you think a stage is a super good CP or a character is OP, win with them. That's how you be competitive. To think otherwise is scrub logic.

Read this post once again. Having things different are not the issue here. Walk-off stages are banned due to infinite chain-grabbing. You allow stages such as this, everyone will just counter-pick a stage such as this and play as D3. If people are going to "win by playing" as Overswarm said, why the hell would they choose any other character?

Walk-off stages were never banned due to infinite chain-grabbing. People thought that at times, but it was never the case. Walk-offs are banned because it essentially randomizes results, but even then it's a case-by-case basis.

If you have a walk-off and you are at high %, what is the best option for you to do? Stand by the edge, get ready to shield grab, then backthrow. What's your opponent going to try to do? Grab you or hit you off the side blast zone. If you're behind, what's your best optoin? Stand by the edge and get ready to shield grab and back throw. This essentially boils the game down to an RPS match. This isn't theorycraft, this was shown by results. The average % on a stock was remarkably lower than other stages.

Stages like Mushroom Kingdom II actually didn't have as much of a problem with this, but that's a whole other ball game.

 

[LiteralGrill]

K Overswarm, that's some nice data you have on Norfair's balance.
Shame that the inherent randomness and bull**** of the hazards still makes it a bad stage rofl.

It's like looking at WarioWare or Pictochat's balance and claiming that makes them ok stages.

On Norfair every 30 seconds the stage will tell you what is about to happen. At about 7:30 (sec) into the match 1 of 3 things will happen. Either the screen will pan out to 1 side which will indicate that the lava wall will appear on that side in about 10 seconds, or you will see the screen start to shake, letting you know that lava plumes will be coming in about a second. However the last option is that nothing can happen at 7:30. (sec) However, if nothing happens at that time then nothing will continue to happen until 7:00 (sec).

Let me expound on each of these further. The lava plumes actually hit generally 5 seconds after the 30 second mark so actually at 35 seconds. However the screen should shake around the 30 second mark letting you know they are coming. The screen can however shake without sending lava plumes however its still a good heads up. However where the lava plumes hit and how many show up are in fact random.

The only thing that appears to mess this up a little is that when the giant lava wave comes up because (like i said earlier) that is completely random it appears that the second clock can be shifted by about 10 seconds. however all i ever noticed was a shift of no greater than 10 seconds from where it last was in reference to the 30 second interval.​

So, the gist of how this works is:

• The Lava Plumes and the Lava Wall operate on 30 second intervals.
• The screen will shake prior to the arrival of the lava plumes.
• The Lava Wave CANNOT occur while the plumes or wall is active, and only if the floor is BELOW stage level.
• The Lava Wave seems to shift the "hazard clock" by about 10 seconds.

 

[Ghostbone]

I already know all of Norfair's mechanics Capps (except for the fact that the lava wave's damage seems to be random, it's weird).

If nothing else, the fireballs/pillars coming from the background make the stage bannable.
The fact that the stage can also randomly decide to bring the wall (with the side being random and favouring one player) and the floor up forcing you to fight over one platform, and whoever was lucky enough to be closer gets a free punish from that, is also silly.

 

[Overswarm]

K Overswarm, that's some nice data you have on Norfair's balance.
Shame that the inherent randomness and bull**** of the hazards still makes it a bad stage rofl.

Everyone pay attention.

This is how you know someone is being illogical.

Seriously, not joking. Read what he said and think about it.

K Overswarm, that's some nice data you have on Norfair's balance.

1. Your data shows Norfair is balanced

Shame that the inherent randomness and bull**** of the hazards still makes it a bad stage rofl.

2. It can't be used as a stage


There's no if, and, or buts. If you think hazards on a stage effect the outcome of tournament games, you can collect data on it. If you collect the data on it and it says that the stage IS balanced then your hypothesis was wrong.

It's experimentation at its most fundamental.

"I noticed an isolated incident in which a player got hit by a lava stream. This caused him to lose this stock and then he lost the game."

Is a valid observation.

"I wonder how often those hazards appear, or if they're even always dodgeable? How often do these hazards actually affect the match?"

Are valid questions.

But hey guys, I'll bet you $100 I can survive for 8 minutes on Norfair without getting hit by the hazards. You know how I know I can do it? Because they're dodgeable. Load it up yourself, give it a shot. It'll take 8 minutes of your life and you'll learn something.

How often do the hazards actually affect the match? That's easy to check. You could do it specifically by viewing matches where a hazard hit (thus showing direct correlation), or look at damage taken - damage given by opponent to see how much damage you take by the stage (indirect). You could also simply look at how often the stage is picked, the win/loss ratios, and the stock count.

But first you have to give an accurate assessment of the situation. What % of matches will be 3 stock, 2 stock, and 1 stock? What % of hazard-related losses would be deemed unacceptable? We know the answer isn't "any". We leave PS1 and Castle Siege and Smashville and Halberd legal, and they all have glitches or hazards that can kill you. So what % of hazard-related losses would be unacceptable? 2%? 5%? 15%? Pull a number out.

Because if you don't have one, you're guessing.

It's like looking at WarioWare or Pictochat's balance and claiming that makes them ok stages.

I mean I doubt items would create significant character imbalances either, they're still bad for competitive play.

You don't even know what you're talking about.

The claw isn't slow, or deliberate, it randomly targets one person, kills at a reasonable %, or just sets up frame traps/punishes the opponent did nothing to earn.
The laser can also set itself at the ledge making it impossible to recover, though that's a much rarer occurrence compared to the claw affecting the outcome of the game every time it's played on (multiple times even...)

The claw clearly targets a specific player and gives several seconds notice. It's easily dodgeable by shield, air dodge, or simple movement. The laser gives the same warning and, no, cannot block the edge. If you're going to spout stuff off at least get your facts right. The only time it can block the edge is when the laser is ending, sending out a wider hitbox. Other than that moment you can snap to the edge by sweetspotting. It looks like it's covering it, but it's not; you can pause and tilt the camera. The only way the laser can actually be near the edge anyway is if a player PUTS it there, so I'm still not even sure what you're talking about.

 

[LiteralGrill]

I already know all of Norfair's mechanics Capps (except for the fact that the lava wave's damage seems to be random, it's weird).

If nothing else, the fireballs/pillars coming from the background make the stage bannable.
The fact that the stage can also randomly decide to bring the wall (with the side being random and favouring one player) and the floor up forcing you to fight over one platform, and whoever was lucky enough to be closer gets a free punish from that, is also silly.

A much better response then "rofl" for sure. Difference of opinion, I think all hazards are reasonably avoidable, especially when you have the timer available. But it's probably not worth us fighting over it.

 

[Overswarm]

A much better response then "rofl" for sure. Difference of opinion, I think all hazards are reasonably avoidable, especially when you have the timer available. But it's probably not worth us fighting over it.

BS on that. Hazards have the same effect on the game that platform layout does. If he thinks the hazards affect the outcome, he can document it and prove it. If he shows that hazards show the outcome, stage gets banned.

He can theorycraft all day, it's not what the data has ever said.

 

[LiteralGrill]

BS on that. Hazards have the same effect on the game that platform layout does. If he thinks the hazards affect the outcome, he can document it and prove it. If he shows that hazards show the outcome, stage gets banned.

He can theorycraft all day, it's not what the data has ever said.

Oh, us two have just had previous discussions in the past, and it's pretty much both of us hitting brick walls. More of the reason why I don't want to debate on this one, pointless for either of us.

 

[Ghostbone]

1. Your data shows Norfair is balanced



2. It can't be used as a stage


There's no if, and, or buts. If you think hazards on a stage effect the outcome of tournament games, you can collect data on it. If you collect the data on it and it says that the stage IS balanced then your hypothesis was wrong.

K so, I expect you to legalise WarioWare as it's a balanced stage.

But hey guys, I'll bet you $100 I can survive for 8 minutes on Norfair without getting hit by the hazards. You know how I know I can do it? Because they're dodgeable. Load it up yourself, give it a shot. It'll take 8 minutes of your life and you'll learn something.

Oh man overswarm, did you know something about Brawl?
It tends to be a multiplayer game, you know, there's an opponent that you're fighting.
Turns out your opponent can throw you into hazards, apparently you never thought of that?
Turns out while avoiding hazards, your opponent can take advantage of that and punish you even though they didn't earn it, you never thought of that either?

But first you have to give an accurate assessment of the situation. What % of matches will be 3 stock, 2 stock, and 1 stock? What % of hazard-related losses would be deemed unacceptable? We know the answer isn't "any". We leave PS1 and Castle Siege and Smashville and Halberd legal, and they all have glitches or hazards that can kill you. So what % of hazard-related losses would be unacceptable? 2%? 5%? 15%? Pull a number out.

Because if you don't have one, you're guessing.

You could legalise WarioWare under the same logic you're presenting here.
I completely admit it's a subjective line. I say Halberd, Norfair and items are too random for competitive play, you probably say only items and WarioWare are too random. You're not right, neither am I right, so I suppose we should just see what the majority prefers?

(It's not only the randomness, it's how the randomness forces one player to commit to an option, giving their opponent a free advantage)

You don't even know what you're talking about.

Oh please explain rather than ignoring the argument, rofl.

Because you're presenting data on character imbalances and claiming that they show Norfair's a fine stage.
When you could also find data on how WarioWare is a "balanced" stage (in fact randomness tends to be a balancing factor itself as it always favours the player who would normally lose, since a player who's winning doesn't need the random advantage) based on W/L ratios.

The claw clearly targets a specific player and gives several seconds notice. It's easily dodgeable by shield, air dodge, or simple movement.

Seems I'm going to have to point something obvious out to you again, in this game we have a thing called an opponent, who can punish us for committing to an option that the claw forces us to use.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyb7BwVZP68&t=15m38s
Please tell me what bowser could have done here.
If he air-dodges he dies, if he up-b's marth gets a free punish (tipper smash would kill at that % too)
All because the claw randomly targeted him and not Marth (if it targeted Marth he would have easily got back on stage.

The laser gives the same warning and, no, cannot block the edge. If you're going to spout stuff off at least get your facts right. The only time it can block the edge is when the laser is ending, sending out a wider hitbox.

Play D3 or Wario or anyone without an easy ledge snap below the stage, and say that again, because you're wrong lol.

 

[LiteralGrill]

K so, I expect you to legalise WarioWare as it's a balanced stage.

Where are your charts showing it doesn't effect win rates though?

Seems I'm going to have to point something obvious out to you again, in this game we have a thing called an opponent, who can punish us for committing to an option that the claw forces us to use.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pyb7BwVZP68&t=15m38s
Please tell me what bowser could have done here.
If he air-dodges he dies, if he up-b's marth gets a free punish (tipper smash would kill at that % too)
All because the claw randomly targeted him and not Marth (if he targeted Marth he would have easily got back on stage.

Play D3 or Wario or anyone without and easy ledge snap below the stage, and say that again, because you're wrong lol.

Wow, we did this already. Leon could have easily seen the claw getting ready to strike so he made sure to know Bowser out in that direction. NOT ONLY this, but our friend Leon took a risk in making sure he could get the last hit in that would hit Bowser, and made sure to even roll to make sure he'd gave good positioning with the claw. Seems to me like this guy has phenominal stage knowledge and used it to his advantage.

Also, you need to stop putting the video there. A few bits before you can see that both players are fighting for control of that area and Acid loses it BEFORE Leon makes his amazing moves. Yes, the Bowser player even was trying to leverage it in his favor, Leon just did so BETTER.[/quote]

 

[Ghostbone]

They were fighting normally
Claw randomly decided to favour Marth giving him a kill, rather than favouring bowser giving him a free ticket back on stage.

That's what I see.
Tbh the claw is one of the worst hazards in the game because it's so obviously a huge advantage for one player they did nothing to earn. At least hazards like lava and cars are indiscriminate.

 

[LiteralGrill]

They were fighting normally
Claw randomly decided to favour Marth giving him a kill, rather than favouring bowser giving him a free ticket back on stage.

That's what I see.
Tbh the claw is one of the worst hazards in the game because it's so obviously a huge advantage for one player they did nothing to earn. At least hazards like lava and cars are indiscriminate.

Leon earned the ability to better deal with the situation by setting himself up for success, Acid HAD that advantage but lost it right before the claw was ready. How did Leon NOT earn his stage control?

 

[Ghostbone]

Leon earned the ability to better deal with the situation by setting himself up for success, Acid HAD that advantage but lost it right before the claw was ready. How did Leon NOT earn his stage control?

Because it was a 50-50 chance?
He didn't earn anything, it was a coin toss that could have randomly favoured bowser instead.

 

[LiteralGrill]

Because it was a 50-50 chance?
He didn't earn anything, it was a coin toss that could have randomly favoured bowser instead.

He earned the ability to have better options in reacting to the hazard.

 

[Overswarm]

Hi Overswarm.

can confirm, stagelist dwindling down so that my best CP against MK was BF (since YI was banned against me every time as I am was a DK main) got really tiring and stupid.

Here's one of the victims!

Remember when you got to try CPs against me and got to learn what worked and didn't?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moq9B4kLsBc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEPOtY5JwiY

That first match might actually be the first recorded instance of scrooging. I did it vs. you before it even had a name. Kinda funny that the SV match was more janky than Luigi's Mansion. :D

I miss early Brawl.

 

[Overswarm]

K so, I expect you to legalise WarioWare as it's a balanced stage.

I would but we've already seen that it effects results. Getting the mega mushroom when your opponent gets the star especially. It's actually worse than getting nothing and your opponent getting the star. You just get wrecked!

 

[Ghostbone]

I would but we've already seen that it effects results. Getting the mega mushroom when your opponent gets the star especially. It's actually worse than getting nothing and your opponent getting the star. You just get wrecked!

Nah but Overswarm, it's entirely possible to run away while mega because you have super high mobility (good luck catching mega wario...). Not to mention the fact that you can prevent your opponent from winning the minigame easily most of the time. (that or -gasp- they earned the victory by having stage control when it transformed! Not luck at all right?)
You just have to outplay your opponent, clearly balanced.

Just as you claim it's entirely possible to deal with the claw randomly targeting you, or having the lava wall spawn on your side of the stage or having a fireball aimed at you while you're being juggled so you have to air-dodge and get frame trapped by the opponent.

 

[Overswarm]

Nah but Overswarm, it's entirely possible to run away while mega because you have super high mobility. Not to mention the fact that you can prevent your opponent from winning the minigame easily most of the time.
And you just have to outplay your opponent, clearly balanced.

Just as you claim it's entirely possible to deal with the claw randomly targeting you, or having the lava wall spawn on your side of the stage or having a fireball aimed at you while you're being juggled so you have to air-dodge and get frame trapped by the opponent.

I'll make this as simple as I can for you:

If you believe that gasoline is a good fire starter, all you have to do is light a match and document the results.

In our case, all we have to do is watch the stages and ask the right questions. When I talk, I'm not spouting off random bull**** out of the air. I'm talking from years of experience testing these stages and logging events and collecting data.

You want to prove Wario Ware is a legal stage? Go for it. I already did tests and found it should be banned. The results were randomized in nature both by the random nature of the rewards and by the random nature of what the challenge was. Getting the umbrella one and being on the opposite side and your opponent becoming mega and just destroying you has a habit of altering results.

The claw on Halberd? Not so much.

 

[ぱみゅ]

lol GB just lol
Acid tried to recover quickly into the stage while the Claw was preparing, he didn't succeed and died for that. I don't see the big deal about that.
Bowser doesn't have many options when offstage anyway, he was at the worst possible situation at the worst possible moment.

/not in the mood


Also, I can't avoid comparing your current arguments to Jebus' back in the day, he used to say something along the lines of "any hazard and obstruction should always be banned because sooner or later it will affect the match".
*IMO* (key word) avoiding and abusing hazards is a skill.

Alsoalso, I love it how you have implied several times in your posts that you used to think that having more stages was beneficial and then you gave up upon the mainstream.

 

[Ghostbone]

I'll make this as simple as I can for you:

If you believe that gasoline is a good fire starter, all you have to do is light a match and document the results.

In our case, all we have to do is watch the stages and ask the right questions. When I talk, I'm not spouting off random bull**** out of the air. I'm talking from years of experience testing these stages and logging events and collecting data.

You want to prove Wario Ware is a legal stage? Go for it. I already did tests and found it should be banned. The results were randomized in nature both by the random nature of the rewards and by the random nature of what the challenge was. Getting the umbrella one and being on the opposite side and your opponent becoming mega and just destroying you has a habit of altering results.

The claw on Halberd? Not so much.

You're saying Norfair doesn't alter results based on watching gameplay/documenting results.
When it definitely does, that's obvious after watching any single game, the hazards force you to play a certain way.
To what degree does it alter results? Well according to you not enough to ban it, according to me (and a lot of people) it's enough to ban it.
There's no difference between that and claiming that WarioWare isn't random enough to ban, it's subjective and we should go with what the majority prefers (which is not having random hazards affect gameplay)

And you haven't proven to me Norfair should be legal, or that Halberd should be legal. (in fact your data for Norfair shows that more matches go down to last stock, meaning there's more variation in results/a smaller skill gap on the stage)
In fact I posted video evidence of Halberd drastically affecting a game.

 

[Mr.Showtime]

As for "a player having 3 stocks is due to a player having more skill" is kind of a BS argument that people should stop making. This is an assertion, and has no valid backing. Arguments without evidence should be dismissed without evidence. It's presented solely as a "Well, your data proves me wrong UNLESS...." argument. It's not to further discussion on what's true or right, it's to further discussion towards you BEING right in your previously held beliefs. That's unhealthy and should stop.

No no, I think I have either worded it wrong, or you have misunderstood my quote. I'm saying more data could have probably helped clarify the the issue at hand. Either learning more to one side or the other. I wasn't saying IFs, WOULDA, COULDA, SHOULDA, etc.

It wasn't skill that was being a divider there. The stages are practically synonymous. There's what, a 4% gap in 2 stock victories between the two? MK had a whopping 0% 3 stocks on Rainbow Cruise, his counterpick, and 2 or 3% on Smashville? Rainbow Cruise isn't more polarizing on a global scale OR on an MK scale than Smashville is.

I think more information probably would have helped here. With low numbers, a small increase in a digit can increase a percentage by a large amount. I wish we had more data to see in regards to RC being played so that we could compare them more accurately.

I wish I could live in the world you live in. People complain about Norfair being too unfair and too strong a counterpick, MK destroys too hard on that stage, rabble rabble rabble. I show data showing MK actually destroys more on Smashville and people say "Well this obviously just shows the player is able to indicate their skill more strongly, Norfair detracts and gives random results!"

Bull****. It does nothing of the sort and anyone who thinks that not only doesn't know how to read data but should be ashamed of themselves for religiously pursuing a single path at all costs like a zealot. Do you honestly think you'd be saying the same thing if I switched Norfair and Smashville on that list? Of course not! You're coming from the pre-approved mentality of "Smashville is fair". It's not, get over it.

Smashville leads to higher 3 stocks and 2 stocks than Norfair. You have more one-sided matches on Smashville and Norfair. THAT is all you can get from this data. I could see the other data and I can tell you that the "starters" fit the bill of CPs more often than most of the CPs did, but even then Norfair and Smashville are practically the same. If your crazy zany counterpick Norfair that is on the edge of being banned has a whopping 5% difference in Smashville then that's some pretty tame ****.

Haha, think you need to chill a bit on the insults man. Its really hard to take you seriously when you defend with insults.

Norfair has too much random in it. That is my main reason why I'm debating against this. If you knew a fire wave was coming from the left side / right side, sure, I would agree that this would be a fair stage. I have been in matches and I have witnessed matches that a player just so happened to get knocked into the area (where they could have easily lived from DI'ing from the blast zone) that a fire wave started in. I don't believe that to be fair. What made them deserve that free damage or kill? Stuff like this can lead to reasons as why there are less three stocks here. The three stock in Smashville could just very well be Meta Knight's broken gameplay and some rare occurrences. Even pros screw up once in a while (M2K at Evo2013).

You also mention Rumble Falls as a stage where there is circle stalling. It can pretty much happen hear as well by planking around each of the edges. Abusing the invulnerability from planking and constantly running. Could easily do it with characters that have multiple jumps.

Okay, here's another scenario. That D3 player, Player A, loses on Norfair with his secondary. He then switches to Dedede and takes his MK opponent to Shadow Moses Island (bear with me).

What you're arguing here is not only should Player A be able to pick Dedede (who can basically only play flat/plat stages well), but no one should be able to counterpick him on a stage he does well. On top of that, you think some cardinal sin has occurred that he had to switch characters!

If you pick a limited character like Ice Climbers you're supposed to need a secondary. It's how smash works. You don't warp the ruleset so Ice Climbers can play on all available stages with no disadvantage.

EVERY stage gives an advantage or disadvantage depending on players and matchups. If we make only flat/plat stages legal, we get the tier list we have now. If we banneed them all and had stages like Rainbow Cruise, Japes, Norfair, and Brinstar as our only stages we'd likely have an increase in Wario players. The tier list is determined by how well your character can play in his environment. The stage list directly shapes the tier list.

Lol, I don't know how you get the assumption that it was a sin to switch characters, but OK. Sometimes your exaggerations kill me.

That is fine that some characters have a disadvantage of one stage and an advantage in another. The reason for my scenario was just showing possibilities of how predictable each set would be. The idea of having the same matches and mirrors ruins the customization of the game. Its just like what you said about MK, the whole game is revolved around him. Its kind of like doing that again, but with a different character. Its not going to change.

Please note, that I'm fully aware that is not how everyone plays. I brought that up because "starter" stages do not not cause too much controversy between character match ups. I have seen all characters win on those stages, of course Meta Knight is the majority of it. We bring in counter-stages and a few amount of characters are great as you admitted. We both agree on this. My hugest fear is the game turning into Brawl again where one character dominates. I feel with certain stages we'll just be seeing characters over and over again. I know this is your fear too, but we are looking at it on two different perspectives. I feel certain stages that have hazards and / or move will promote this again.

More importantly, it's correct. There is no "skill". There's winning and losing. You want a definition for skilled? A skilled player is one who wins, period. You don't like that he's campy? Tough. Don't like that he chain grabs? Tough.

People moaned that Mew2King was ruining Melee when he started chain grabbing everyone and focusing solely on u-throw u-air u-air with Fox. People said that Ken "lacked skill" when he beat Bombsoldier by chaingrabbing; they said Bombsoldier was "way better" than Ken because of how flashy and fast he was and that Ken "got lucky that he could chain grab".

It's all bull****. There's winning and losing. If something turns out to be overcentralizing, it gets removed. Until then? Win with it. If you think a stage is a super good CP or a character is OP, win with them. That's how you be competitive. To think otherwise is scrub logic.

Wait...what you pretty much mentioned is skill. I don't understand why you say there is none. There is more to a player's skill than just wins. Human error happens all the time. Because someone screws up an input at the wrong time and loses a match doesn't mean they aren't skilled.

Let people moan and complain about certain things, but I don't think your definition of skilled should come to a slim response such as: skilled = winner.

Camping is also skilled, I never argued against that. Stalling on the other hand isn't. Planking from edge to edge in Norfair to waste time to win at a certain percentage isn't skill. Its tedious and obnoxious. Just because a certain character is more friendly to a stage doesn't mean that they can abuse the mechanics of the game to get a win. In this case, its not skill.

You actually brought up good arguments this time. Before we were just sitting on plastic animals on a merry-go-round. Keep it up.

 

[wWw Dazwa]

If anyone else is interested in the data Overswarm is pulling from, to study the data themselves, verify OS's claims, etc, you can find it in this thread: http://smashboards.com/threads/mlg-brawl-2010-matchslip-statistics-and-analysis.304174/

#ShamelessPlug #BringBackPokefloats #HashtagsDontWorkOnSmashboardsWhatAmIEvenDoing

 

[HugS™]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking_(fallacy)

Seriously, look into it.

You want to confirm your hypothesis? Get a data collection scheme going on and collect data for 5 or 6 months and see if any patterns have emerged.

First tournament mentioned - Largest tournament of all time, probably the best sampling of the competitive community in a single tournament setting.

2nd tournament mentioned - My most recent tournament, where I had first hand experience in the results and benefits of the stage list.

3rd tournament mentioned - A haphazard, and by definition, non-cherrypicked tournament that happened to prove my point.

No clue what kind of fallacy you'd be using to assume cherry picking is the situation. But there you have it, I provided reasons that support a lack of cherry picking, while these tournaments continue to prove my point regardless of the fact that I'm not cherry picking. But you don't worry about that, you want me to collect 5 or 6 months of data to prove a pretty obvious fact to you lol.

I'd say that this kind of thinking is why the brawl back room rarely got anything done, but then you'd ask for a regression analysis of dissenting backroom posts vs enacted brawl rulings.

Thems the breaks.

 

[T-block]

Ghostbone, you've heard my YI:B-Pictochat comparison spiel, right?

 

[salaboB]

First tournament mentioned - Largest tournament of all time, probably the best sampling of the competitive community in a single tournament setting.

2nd tournament mentioned - My most recent tournament, where I had first hand experience in the results and benefits of the stage list.

3rd tournament mentioned - A haphazard, and by definition, non-cherrypicked tournament that happened to prove my point.

No clue what kind of fallacy you'd be using to assume cherry picking is the situation. But there you have it, I provided reasons that support a lack of cherry picking, while these tournaments continue to prove my point regardless of the fact that I'm not cherry picking. But you don't worry about that, you want me to collect 5 or 6 months of data to prove a pretty obvious fact to you lol.

I'd say that this kind of thinking is why the brawl back room rarely got anything done, but then you'd ask for a regression analysis of dissenting backroom posts vs enacted brawl rulings.

Thems the breaks.

Maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong, but all you're proving is that on a limited stagelist a variety of characters can do well. I don't think this is really in contention, the claim there is that it's bland and/or boring and/or alienates potential new players to the scene.

You're not proving that a more varied stagelist shrinks the pool of viable characters or that less skilled players are able to win due to dumb luck because of the stages, which are the key things that matter for banning the stages.

 

[-Ran]

My plans are simple for the events that I might end up running:

I'll aim to have nine stages set aside for the first tournament. I'd ask the players to do stage striking from nine stages to the one they'd want to eventually fight on. For the next event, I'd rotate in/out three stages. I'd actually love for Smash to adopt Stage List Seasons, with counter pick stages rotating every three or so months. It'd be awesome.

Yea, let's do that instead. Stage List Seasons.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I apparently hate myself enough to jump back into this thread again, and I was inspired by all the data crunching. The MLG events were large, but it was only a small handful of the total number of events held. Even still, look at how much analysis was able to be done. If every tournament kept such statistics and we had a huge national database, we could make extremely accurate statements about almost everything. Everyone has already talked about character balance, but we could also bring in randomness. It's pretty easy to measure mathematically how much randomness impacts games. The more random a stage is, the less consistently anyone will win on it. The beauty of this is that it accounts for randomness both in actual events (like how important PictoChat's random drawing is to outcomes) as well as tactically (like how much swingy tactics like camping near walk-offs affect results). When we talk about skill, it has so far been a subjective matter, but we could actually handle which stages test skill more or less completely objectively with cold, hard numbers.

Who would be willing to adopt a paradigm for rule construction based around data and nothing else? I think we've established in these 18 pages that these arguments suck. I could explain that in depth, but honestly, it should be self-evident to everyone. No one is ever convinced of anything they didn't already believe, and in the end, more people lose than win while our whole community loses by our inability to work as a unit. My previous idea was compromise, forcing us all to swallow a little bitter medicine in exchange for something palatable to all of us. I think that's still viable and generally, but data is even better as, instead of splitting things down the middle, we reward whoever is actually right in these arguments while at the same time completely sidestepping the need to have the arguments at all.

It would work like this. We mathematically define, before the game comes out, some bounds of acceptable character balance and randomness in results. This will probably also require us agreeing on what exact stage selection procedure we'll use, but that's a reasonable thing to deal with as well. When the game comes out, we start by banning the stages with trivially demonstrable degenerate gameplay (in other words, pretty much just the very obvious loop stages like Temple; we already know what data they'll generate, and they will severely impede our ability to gather proper data for other stages) and then have a community wide database into which all match results from every tournament are entered. We crunch this data and ban whichever stages are outside of the acceptable bounds, and whether that result is a "liberal", "conservative", or even "something completely unexpected" stage list, we run with it. Periodically, we revise the rules with new data; this accounts for stages that only prove degenerate in more mature metagames. Of course, we can have test events to generate data for banned stages that we suspect may prove fair in a more mature metagame that more accurately understands how to deal with the stage features, and we could do unbans that way. In all cases, we remove the element of human opinion from the particulars of stage policy, and we get stage rules that reflect the truth about how the game really plays.

There are two main downsides to this. The first is that mathematically defining what's acceptable is actually non-trivial, and it's highly likely that whatever numbers you define will end up with stages that hug the borders of those numbers in obnoxious ways. It may be impossible to make good numbers without having real data from smash 4 itself, and that then means that you can't help but introduce opinion to a fair extent (people will support whichever numbers lead to their preferred conclusion). The second is that a realist interpretation of people in general shows that being proven objectively wrong by data is not going to deter a lot of people from advocating for whatever positions they were going to believe anyway, and completely disenfranchising them is going to create a lot of angst while also generating a lot of really stupid arguments that will doubtless try to show how the data is flawed and the game is really more like whatever supports the conclusion that they wanted to reach all along. I think these downsides are far outweighed by the upsides, and going into it we have the advantage that all of us should in theory believe that a data driven approach will result in the stage list we personally favor. Still, it's something to consider; does anyone have any thoughts on this proposition?

As a minor aside, anyone who thinks implementation would be an issue should just put their minds at ease. Our community has no shortage of people well capable of designing the data storage and output systems (I can think of one person very quickly who would jump at this chance), and a culture of gathering and reporting data would probably not be hard to establish given that any TO who declined to participate just disenfranchised his community which is something that no good TO would want to do.

 

[Ghostbone]

Ghostbone, you've heard my YI:B-Pictochat comparison spiel, right?

It's mainly the difference of
Pictochat's randomness has a far bigger effect on the game than Yoshi's Island. (subjective line that has to be drawn somewhere)
Excluding Ness, who does get randomly gimped by the stage (by shy guys or the ghost), the ghost generally only saves you from death, by putting you in an easily abusable position, which is even worse when you consider the characters who are easy to gimp who'd need the ghost in the first place.

And there's the whole thing of, the ghost's don't force you to commit to an option (leading to your opponent getting a free punish), while hazards often do (the pictochat ones included, the safe zone isn't an argument against that). Which is my main issue with pretty much every questionable stage.

AA, using data to determine how balanced a stage is matchup wise is generally fine (though heavy character polarisation leading to most games on a stage being dittos, or just random factors in general can make a stage look more balanced than it is), but it can be really hard to quantify randomness (too many variations outside of the game that might lead to a lower seeded player winning if that's how you'd judge it), and you can't really quantify problems with some stages (like Walk-offs and their generally degenerate gameplay, or RC despite being 100% predictable, giving the more mobile character free punishes as their opponent is forced to commit to options and approach just because of the stage)
Though really, every tournament should collect the data MLG collected, it would be a big help.

You're not proving that a more varied stagelist shrinks the pool of viable characters

If you'd actually read the posts you'd see that he has indeed shown that shrinking the stagelist has lead to more varied results (in melee).
In Brawl? There's honestly not much difference in character diversity.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

You can quantify that stuff with sufficiently large pools of data. The thing with randomness that you're looking for isn't about what in particular is happening in the games; you're looking at how volatile results are on particular stages. Every stage has some chance of an "upset" occurring, but generally a stage that favors "skill" more will be expected to have them more rarely whereas on a stage with nothing but randomness you would expect a 50-50 win rate between all players and therefore for half of the matches to end in upsets. The data itself also tells you who is strong and weak and even in which ways (so you can correct for character match-ups, individual synchronizations with particular stages, etc.). Likewise, degenerate tactics are accounted for in this. If a tactic requires little to no skill and is truly dominating, many players will have completely mastered it and results will be more randomized as opposed to on a stage in which there are no degeneracies. Something like your claim that Rainbow Cruise favors mobile characters is just another part of character balance as well; if mobile characters get a large advantage from Rainbow Cruise, the data would show that. I think all stage problems come down at least to one of the two: character balance or randomization of results (degenerate tactics actually tend to hit both points). Both can indeed be quantized, and since every possible issue can be handled on this dual mathematical axis, I think that makes the proposed road forward feasible.

 

[Sephiroths Masamune]

I always love reading OS posts.

 

[Omni]

I always love scrolling past them. :3

 

[Ulevo]

I always love reading OS posts.

I'd love reading them even more if he took the time to make them slightly longer.

On a more serious note, people are putting a lot of importance on data, specifically the data OS is presenting. I don't care enough to jump in to this discussion with any serious intent until people find a way to concisely talk about what it is they're trying to prove to about 1/2 the amount of words it takes them to type it in, but I'd like to note that data is only as meaningful as the source it was derived from, how it was collected, and how it is interpreted. Data and statistics are very good at lying about things, or specifically helping people lie about things that would otherwise be considered factual.

A large reason why the health and wellness industry is so ****ed up right now is because a lot of its findings for specific diets, products, training regimes, et cetera (and subsequently its marketing schemes) derive its information from one or two studies in isolated conditions. Those findings, typically limited in their results, will provide enough information to imply a truth before it can be concretely confirmed, and so the marketing schemes and "backed by research" anecdotes begin. It's the reason why one minute you're hearing a fad about how eating meat is going to clog your arteries and kill you, and the next minute fads are telling you that you should be eating meat to maintain your figure and stay healthy.

I'm not going to go and claim that the data OS presenting is wrong or right, or that he's correctly or incorrectly using it or communicating it to present his case. I haven't even looked at it. But I think if anyone is going to bother, they should do so properly. Having some data to present is not always better than no data at all.

 

[Overswarm]

Norfair has too much random in it. That is my main reason why I'm debating against this. If you knew a fire wave was coming from the left side / right side, sure, I would agree that this would be a fair stage. I have been in matches and I have witnessed matches that a player just so happened to get knocked into the area (where they could have easily lived from DI'ing from the blast zone) that a fire wave started in. I don't believe that to be fair.

It does. Several seconds before it appears. There are visual cues that show you whether fire plumes or a lava wall will appear.

You also mention Rumble Falls as a stage where there is circle stalling. It can pretty much happen hear as well by planking around each of the edges. Abusing the invulnerability from planking and constantly running. Could easily do it with characters that have multiple jumps.

People brought this up too, but this is simple frame evaluation. If someone is on the 2nd or top platform, simply grab the one below them and then attack. You actually can't effectively plank on Norfair for this reason (and the lava).

Lol, I don't know how you get the assumption that it was a sin to switch characters, but OK. Sometimes your exaggerations kill me.

That is fine that some characters have a disadvantage of one stage and an advantage in another. The reason for my scenario was just showing possibilities of how predictable each set would be. The idea of having the same matches and mirrors ruins the customization of the game. Its just like what you said about MK, the whole game is revolved around him. Its kind of like doing that again, but with a different character. Its not going to change.

Please note, that I'm fully aware that is not how everyone plays. I brought that up because "starter" stages do not not cause too much controversy between character match ups. I have seen all characters win on those stages, of course Meta Knight is the majority of it. We bring in counter-stages and a few amount of characters are great as you admitted. We both agree on this. My hugest fear is the game turning into Brawl again where one character dominates. I feel with certain stages we'll just be seeing characters over and over again. I know this is your fear too, but we are looking at it on two different perspectives. I feel certain stages that have hazards and / or move will promote this again.

More stages does the opposite.

Wait...what you pretty much mentioned is skill. I don't understand why you say there is none. There is more to a player's skill than just wins. Human error happens all the time. Because someone screws up an input at the wrong time and loses a match doesn't mean they aren't skilled.

Let people moan and complain about certain things, but I don't think your definition of skilled should come to a slim response such as: skilled = winner.

Camping is also skilled, I never argued against that. Stalling on the other hand isn't. Planking from edge to edge in Norfair to waste time to win at a certain percentage isn't skill. Its tedious and obnoxious. Just because a certain character is more friendly to a stage doesn't mean that they can abuse the mechanics of the game to get a win. In this case, its not skill.

You actually brought up good arguments this time. Before we were just sitting on plastic animals on a merry-go-round. Keep it up.

Abusing mechanics is what a fighting game IS. "Oh, if I hit him with this move he's still in hitstun and can't move so I can hit him with this move" or "if I grab the edge, I'm invincible and can edgeguard him and he can't hurt me". That's smash. If you find a winning strategy that's stage-specific, more power to you.

 

[Overswarm]

If anyone else is interested in the data Overswarm is pulling from, to study the data themselves, verify OS's claims, etc, you can find it in this thread: http://smashboards.com/threads/mlg-brawl-2010-matchslip-statistics-and-analysis.304174/

#ShamelessPlug #BringBackPokefloats #HashtagsDontWorkOnSmashboardsWhatAmIEvenDoing

Didn't I buy you some random book about a fridge in Ireland for this? XD

First tournament mentioned - Largest tournament of all time, probably the best sampling of the competitive community in a single tournament setting.

2nd tournament mentioned - My most recent tournament, where I had first hand experience in the results and benefits of the stage list.

3rd tournament mentioned - A haphazard, and by definition, non-cherrypicked tournament that happened to prove my point.

No clue what kind of fallacy you'd be using to assume cherry picking is the situation. But there you have it, I provided reasons that support a lack of cherry picking, while these tournaments continue to prove my point regardless of the fact that I'm not cherry picking. But you don't worry about that, you want me to collect 5 or 6 months of data to prove a pretty obvious fact to you lol.

I'd say that this kind of thinking is why the brawl back room rarely got anything done, but then you'd ask for a regression analysis of dissenting backroom posts vs enacted brawl rulings.

Thems the breaks.

Um... That is cherry picking. Like that's exactly what it is. Cherry picking isn't "I don't have reasons" it's "I've hand picked data that proves my point".
This would be hilarious if I didn't think you were serious.
The reason you can't make claims on three tournaments from completely different timeframes and environments is because it doesn't have enough information to give you valid results.
Unless you can say "Well, these 3 tournaments trump results from 100 tournaments over a year span because..." and finish that sentence, your random data doesn't make any sense.
If you want a statistics lessons I can help you out, but someone like Crow would probably be better for it. But seriously, using 3 data points that aren't even on the same scale or timeframe to prove a point is really, really, dumb. I think if you think about it for just a moment you'll realize how silly it is. Hopefully. MAN I hope.