Pyr
Smash Lord
The mere suggestion of randomness in Smash Brothers is enough to make people vehemently hate a new idea. That’s why this suggestion for a stage selection protocol in a tournament setting will get a lot of push-back by default, but I would like a discussion of the methodology to be had. After much thought and after reading many, many discussions on stage selection and legality, I’ve come up with this. Thus, I present:
Semi-Random Stage Selection Protocol
Why even consider it?
Smash Ultimate is giving us a truly unique opportunity with stages this time. With nearly every stage returning, we’re getting a huge number of legal-possible stages. From problems that made stages unviable (all the stages banned due to Metaknight existing in Brawl, for example) being solved, to once-banned stages that could of been unbanned but were not, and to stages that were utterly broken that have been fixed (think Smash 4 Plaza during a transition), the possible legal list is utterly huge. Simply put, a traditional stage striking method is not possible without either a cost to time or to the playable stages.
That said, other methodologies that have been presented have had some major issues. “Category selection” inevitably ignores things like blast zones and stage nuances in favor of putting stages into categorized groups. “All Hazards Off” lists tend to turn unique stages, such as Fountain, into a re-branded staple stages, such as Battlefield. And, even then, we still must go through a striking process, so the same amount of time commitment at the cost of variety. SRSSP is a fast, for the most part no-nonsense selection method that allows for something new and, in my opinion, refreshing, to the whole process: on average, as neutral picks as possible every game.
Current stage selection, after game 1, always ends up in the following scenarios:
a) You lose and get to take your opponent to their 2nd-5th worst stage or to your 2nd-5th best stage.
b) You win and get taken to your 2nd-5th worst stage or their 2nd-5th best stage.
This has been how it’s always been in Smash: the losing player gets to potentially force an advantage for themselves, or a disadvantage for their opponent, in every single game. It also tends to kill a bit of the variety seen in stages. This also unevenly impacts newer competitive players who might not know the stage list and advantages and disadvantages to individual matchups and characters. Lack of knowledge isn’t an excuse, of course, but from a “bar of entry” standpoint, it can suck for newer players.
SRSSP eliminates the forced advantage and disadvantage while also allowing a losing player to, more often then not, not get stuck on a bad stage by chance. It also eliminates the 5-minute introduction and discussion for the stage list at the beginning of every single local (I’ve ever been to). It’s also extremely straightforward so newer players should be able grasp the concept immediately: the game chooses for us and we can veto that choice once per game if we lost last game.
How it works:
On game 1 of a set, the stage played on is random within all available stages. For game 2 and onwards, the stage selected stays random and the losing player gets a “veto” of the stage selected. It shall depend on the following, since I was not able to firmly confirm how random stage selection is shown prior to character selection and I couldn’t find a definitive source online:
To further explain the clause of characters remaining the same if the stage is unknown prior to character selection, this is meant to prevent reaction to an opponent’s/your pick, which this form unfortunately allows.
“How it works” advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages:
Stages Themselves:
In my research, it seems apparent that hazards on and off are not a stage-by-stage deal. This, unfortunately, means that this method is inflexible with a stage list that has both hazard on and hazard off stages. In many of the “Category selection” methods I’ve read about, a lot of unique stages end up being close-to-reskinned versions of already-existing staples. The primary example is Fountain of Dreams becoming pretty Battlefield. That is a major loss to the overall variety we’re trying to keep with this method and unfairly favors characters that are excessively good on tri-plats. That said, it does offer the highest overall number of available stages.
In the end, hazards on allows for all stage architypes to be playable while also allowing unique stages to be playable as well. It does cost us unique designs that are otherwise not available, such as Warioware. Whichever set gives us the best balance of variety, balance, and unique should be considered the official one. Because of that, and because of the untested nature of stages themselves, I won’t offer a stage list for this posting.
Thank you for reading. I’m a long-time tournament-goer that has been to many, many locals and a few majors/super majors and, to me, this process feels viable, overall fair, and efficient. I stopped playing for a year to focus on life issues and I’m looking forward to re-joining the local SmashBros community when Ultimate drops. I hope that, at the very least, good discussion can be had in regard to random stage selection.
Semi-Random Stage Selection Protocol
Why even consider it?
Smash Ultimate is giving us a truly unique opportunity with stages this time. With nearly every stage returning, we’re getting a huge number of legal-possible stages. From problems that made stages unviable (all the stages banned due to Metaknight existing in Brawl, for example) being solved, to once-banned stages that could of been unbanned but were not, and to stages that were utterly broken that have been fixed (think Smash 4 Plaza during a transition), the possible legal list is utterly huge. Simply put, a traditional stage striking method is not possible without either a cost to time or to the playable stages.
That said, other methodologies that have been presented have had some major issues. “Category selection” inevitably ignores things like blast zones and stage nuances in favor of putting stages into categorized groups. “All Hazards Off” lists tend to turn unique stages, such as Fountain, into a re-branded staple stages, such as Battlefield. And, even then, we still must go through a striking process, so the same amount of time commitment at the cost of variety. SRSSP is a fast, for the most part no-nonsense selection method that allows for something new and, in my opinion, refreshing, to the whole process: on average, as neutral picks as possible every game.
Current stage selection, after game 1, always ends up in the following scenarios:
a) You lose and get to take your opponent to their 2nd-5th worst stage or to your 2nd-5th best stage.
b) You win and get taken to your 2nd-5th worst stage or their 2nd-5th best stage.
This has been how it’s always been in Smash: the losing player gets to potentially force an advantage for themselves, or a disadvantage for their opponent, in every single game. It also tends to kill a bit of the variety seen in stages. This also unevenly impacts newer competitive players who might not know the stage list and advantages and disadvantages to individual matchups and characters. Lack of knowledge isn’t an excuse, of course, but from a “bar of entry” standpoint, it can suck for newer players.
SRSSP eliminates the forced advantage and disadvantage while also allowing a losing player to, more often then not, not get stuck on a bad stage by chance. It also eliminates the 5-minute introduction and discussion for the stage list at the beginning of every single local (I’ve ever been to). It’s also extremely straightforward so newer players should be able grasp the concept immediately: the game chooses for us and we can veto that choice once per game if we lost last game.
How it works:
On game 1 of a set, the stage played on is random within all available stages. For game 2 and onwards, the stage selected stays random and the losing player gets a “veto” of the stage selected. It shall depend on the following, since I was not able to firmly confirm how random stage selection is shown prior to character selection and I couldn’t find a definitive source online:
- If the stage is known prior to character select, the losing player or team get 1 veto upon character select. This will occur before any character switches can take place. If the losing player vetoes, the game is backed out to stage selection and random stage select is initiated again. At this point, the stage is “locked” and players proceed to the character selection process.
- If the stage is unknown prior to character select, both players choose characters as normal and begin a game. As the countdown from the match beginning occurs, the losing player can elect to Veto the stage received by buffering a pause input and/or by communicating with their partner that they shall be vetoing that stage selection. This MUST be done prior to the beginning countdown from ending. Else it shall be considered as an unfounded pause, to which normal rules of pausing a game in progress apply. If initiated, the game ends and characters remain the same. (more on this below)
To further explain the clause of characters remaining the same if the stage is unknown prior to character selection, this is meant to prevent reaction to an opponent’s/your pick, which this form unfortunately allows.
“How it works” advantages and disadvantages:
Advantages:
- Bypasses the strike and ban phases of stage selection. This is important because the massive amount of available stages would force 2 unfavorable conditions: a) even longer ban/strike phases, and b) otherwise legal stages getting banned out of necessity to shrink the stage list. A random pick doesn’t care how many total stages there are.
- It makes the stage selection process as efficient and as consistent as possible (an extension of the former point). Smash tournaments run long. Anything to lower the time needed to move through a set, while not heavily impacting the quality of those sets, should be considered.
- In the future, it will be possible to create an App for the purpose of the selection process. The concept is simple, but I’m not an App Dev outside of Smash, so I cannot say to the difficulty, just that the possibility is there due to other RNG-apps in existence. This would streamline the process for random selection. It would allow for a stage to be directly selected, or vetoed and re-selected, without moving through any menus or games, regardless of how Ultimate eventually handles the system.
- It allows the player who lost to retain the feeling of “control” the old striking system has, which I feel is a major part of why people would be apprehensive with SRSSP. I believe this is a fundamental part of the system and it’s why I named it “Semi-Random.”
- Although mitigated by the selection App mentioned in advantages, if Ultimate random selection functions in the “initially unknown” way, some players may abuse this to “reset the momentum” of their opponent. Therefore, the veto is limited to a single instance per game. Unfortunately, momentum killing would still exist outside this system, but this system, pre-app with the initial unknown selection, would be another tool that can be used by an offending player.
- People may feel they lost because they got “unlucky” in the stage pick, regardless of if they get to veto a stage. Though the odds of this occurring are low (4 poor stage selections in a row out of the entire stage list), it will inevitably occur and become a point of contention for a player.
Stages Themselves:
In my research, it seems apparent that hazards on and off are not a stage-by-stage deal. This, unfortunately, means that this method is inflexible with a stage list that has both hazard on and hazard off stages. In many of the “Category selection” methods I’ve read about, a lot of unique stages end up being close-to-reskinned versions of already-existing staples. The primary example is Fountain of Dreams becoming pretty Battlefield. That is a major loss to the overall variety we’re trying to keep with this method and unfairly favors characters that are excessively good on tri-plats. That said, it does offer the highest overall number of available stages.
In the end, hazards on allows for all stage architypes to be playable while also allowing unique stages to be playable as well. It does cost us unique designs that are otherwise not available, such as Warioware. Whichever set gives us the best balance of variety, balance, and unique should be considered the official one. Because of that, and because of the untested nature of stages themselves, I won’t offer a stage list for this posting.
Thank you for reading. I’m a long-time tournament-goer that has been to many, many locals and a few majors/super majors and, to me, this process feels viable, overall fair, and efficient. I stopped playing for a year to focus on life issues and I’m looking forward to re-joining the local SmashBros community when Ultimate drops. I hope that, at the very least, good discussion can be had in regard to random stage selection.
