Event - MLG Anaheim 2014 So now that we know MLG hosts ridiculous smash tournaments...

[Raziek]

Something people seem to be missing is that MK is going to **** pretty hard no matter how many stages there are. By that logic, 9 really isn't any worse than 7, since more characters gain than lose from the additional stages.

MK is amazing on almost every stage in the game. Reducing the starters to such a small number that he becomes limited, and the meta-game centers around flat/plat characters + MK is why a low amount of starters is a bad idea.

edit: Ninja'd by AZ. ._.

 

[Deleted member]

People need to stop talking about MK. "Less MK friendly" stages still has MK at an advantage, so it is entirely pointless to craft a stagelist with MK in mind when no matter what you do every stage will have him with an advantage.

Even if you can't remove his advantage (which you certainly can't, I agree), making any effort to try and balance the game as much as possible (without hacking) would be good wouldn't it?

 

[Flayl]

Anybody feel like addressing striking VS Dedede?

 

[Raziek]

What sounds more balanced to you, a game with 3 or 5 starters where the only high placing characters are MK, Snake, Falco, Diddy, and ICs, or a 7 or 9 starter where Most of those characters still place, but we see much more diverse results, akin to those at MLG? Pikachu, ZSS, Marth, Wario, Lucario, Olimar, etc. ALL benefit from a larger stage-list.

Falco, Diddy and ICs hurt a bit, but that's because they AREN'T VERSATILE CHARACTERS. There's no reason to be handicapping the rest of the cast so that a select few are artificially inflated.

edit: @ Flayl, give me the list of starters you'd like to see used, and I'll take a shot at it.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Even if you can't remove his advantage (which you certainly can't, I agree), making any effort to try and balance the game as much as possible (without hacking) would be good wouldn't it?

And that is exactly what happens with a 9 stage starter list and a diverse overall stage list.

More characters have more options with more stages. This is a fact. People try to refute this by saying "well MK gets more options" but MK already has an advantage on every stage, so giving him more options does nothing to improve MK since he already has all the options he needs to win whether the stage list has 3 stages or whether it has 20. But it does give other characters options like Ganon on Norfair, or Peach on Green Greens or Donkey Kong on Norfair or Diddy on Picto or Pikachu on Norfair or ZSS on Norfair...the list goes on.

 

[Flayl]

wow i just realized with that stage list characters that can get chaingrabbed by D3 and don't camp him to death have to ban castle siege, delfino, final destination and pokemon stadium

there isn't any thought process, it's either strike those or get 0-death'd, wall chaingrabbed or FD chaingrabbed

then characters that could take him to battlefield now have to play against him on smashville

I was talking about this post

 

[Deleted member]

What sounds more balanced to you, a game with 3 or 5 starters where the only high placing characters are MK, Snake, Falco, Diddy, and ICs, or a 7 or 9 starter where Most of those characters still place, but we see much more diverse results, akin to those at MLG? Pikachu, ZSS, Marth, Wario, Lucario, Olimar, etc. ALL benefit from a larger stage-list.

Falco, Diddy and ICs hurt a bit, but that's because they AREN'T VERSATILE CHARACTERS. There's no reason to be handicapping the rest of the cast so that a select few are artificially inflated.

edit: @ Flayl, give me the list of starters you'd like to see used, and I'll take a shot at it.

I guess at this point it gets to just opinion, but I would rather see in the top 16:

4 MK
3 Snake
3 Diddy
3 ICs
3 Falco
(This is the EXTREME case, where no "Randoms" make it)

Than

8 MK
8 Randoms.

EDIT: AZ: I said it earlier in the thread (it's buried there somewhere), but I'll be honest, I know very little about brawl. BUT, I've heard many people say above (people from both sides), that characters like ICs, Falco, and Diddy will benefit vs. MK with a smaller, MK-unfriendly stagelist. If this is wrong then please ignore what I am saying, as I have been misinformed.

 

[Raziek]

Well, I don't necessarily know if I agree completely with Delfino being a starter. It's my personal opinion that Frigate Orpheon is better suited for it, since the stage's only flaw is the lack of the right side on transition 1, whereas Delfino is plagued by walk-offs and walls on nearly every transition.

That aside, most of those stages aren't auto-lose. Castle Siege can be dealt with reasonably feasibly by staying on top of the canopies during second transition, and not getting grabbed during the stage change.

Pokemon Stadium is just a matter of camping during fire and rock, and that happens half of the time ANYWAY. Not really a Dedede-specific problem.

FD is obviously one of his best stages, there's no denying that, so you strike it.

I'm not really seeing a huge problem with Dedede here. Most of the stages you listed can be dealt with, you aren't FORCED to strike them. On that note, Dedede follows a similar pattern as MK here. He's quite good on the majority of the listed starters, so he'll have more control over the starting stage. Why is this that big of a problem? It's part of his character traits that causes it, not so much the stage list.

@puu, Your first situation isn't even close to accurate in terms of numbers. If you've seen any EC tourney results, it's more like this:

9/10 MKs
2 Snakes
1 Diddy
1/2 ICs
1/2 Falcos

Maybe a random Wario or something.

When I said that the diversity includes those characters, I didn't mean in EVEN proportions. Far from it, in fact.

 

[Overswarm]

I was talking about this post

?

Why do they have to ban Delfino? Delfino sucks for D3 o_O

There's like... one transformation you have to worry about, but other than that it's not a good D3 stage at all.

 

[Raziek]

?

Why do they have to ban Delfino? Delfino sucks for D3 o_O

There's like... one transformation you have to worry about, but other than that it's not a good D3 stage at all.

I usually agree with most of what you post, but are you forgetting that almost every grounded transition is either flat, has walk-offs, or has walls? It's chain-grab city!

edit: The default form of Delfino is a reasonably bad Dedede stage, I will agree. The platforms interfere with bair camping and it's not so long that he chain-grabs forever. If Delfino was JUST its initial incarnation, it would be a great starter. It's the fact that every time you're NOT on that platform, the stage is pretty janky. Water, Walk-offs, Walls, etc.

 

[AlphaZealot]

AZ: I said it earlier in the thread (it's buried there somewhere), but I'll be honest, I know very little about brawl. BUT, I've heard many people say above (people from both sides), that characters like ICs, Falco, and Diddy will benefit vs. MK with a smaller, MK-unfriendly stagelist. If this is wrong then please ignore what I am saying, as I have been misinformed.

The only stage where MK does not have an advantage against all of the characters you just mentioned is FD, which MK will ban every single time they run into Falco/Diddy/Ice Climbers. Keep in mind to the "advantage" that Diddy or Falco or Ice Climbers have on MK on FD is arguable (as in, MK probably still has the advantage but some disagree and say the other characters have a very slight advantage).

Really the only thing you can do that will allow Falco/Ice Climbers/Diddy to compete vs MK without always being at a disadvantage in every game of the set is to ban every single stage but FD and make every single game be played on FD. Funny enough, this is probably something that most people on the EC would want to do, but if Smash ever boils down to just a handful or less tournament stages I'll just leave and go play Street Fighter.

Raziek: now that you mention it, Frigate being a swap into the 9 stage starter list does sound like an attractive possibility.

 

[Raziek]

The only stage where MK does not have an advantage against all of the characters you just mentioned is FD, which MK will ban every single time they run into Falco/Diddy/Ice Climbers. Keep in mind to the "advantage" that Diddy or Falco or Ice Climbers have on MK on FD is arguable (as in, MK probably still has the advantage but some disagree and say the other characters have a very slight advantage).

Raziek: now that you mention it, Frigate being a swap into the 9 stage starter list does sound like an attractive possibility.

I'm glad you agree.

I'm gonna plug a thread I made a while back in the Stage Discussion forum that received SOME attention, but not a ton, since very few people frequent it.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=268086

In that thread, I discuss the pros and cons of a 7/9 starter list, and I gave my suggestions for stages to be used.

I've been running small biweekly tournaments in my area for a few months now (we're up to 6 so far), and I've had great success using 9 starters with Frigate Orpheon instead of Delfino. It's become quite common, and has stood the test of a good starter stage.

Just my 2 cents on that.

 

[Juushichi]

Actually, Raziek that is a very good idea. I think Frigate Orpheon offers more as a starter stage than it does than Delfino. Delfino is nice, but defintely counterpick material. Good point to make.

 

[iRJi]

So Diddy, Ice Climbers, and Falco don't suck!



People need to stop talking about MK. "Less MK friendly" stages still has MK at an advantage, so it is entirely pointless to craft a stagelist with MK solely in mind when no matter what you do every stage will have him with an advantage.

There are approximately 1,200 different possible MU's in this game. A 9 stage starter list will get you a fair starting stage more often for the majority of those match ups then a 5 stage starter list (especially when your typical 5 stage-starter list is almost entirely stages with the same exact attributes!).

And that is exactly what happens with a 9 stage starter list and a diverse overall stage list.

More characters have more options with more stages. This is a fact. People try to refute this by saying "well MK gets more options" but MK already has an advantage on every stage, so giving him more options does nothing to improve MK since he already has all the options he needs to win whether the stage list has 3 stages or whether it has 20. But it does give other characters options like Ganon on Norfair, or Peach on Green Greens or Donkey Kong on Norfair or Diddy on Picto or Pikachu on Norfair or ZSS on Norfair...the list goes on.

I am sorry to say, but a lot of this seems... eh. This is almost like saying you should not ban planking from MK because he still has an advantage in the MU, and because of that it makes it irrelevant. As you can now see, what I just claimed is not true, and the same kinda goes for your posts as well.

Now, to be fair, you should not cater to MK just because he has every stage in his advantage, which you are right about. Just the reasons you stated are bleh.

To OS: The reason why I think 7 is better is because of the end result of stages that will be selected. As you already know, more stages means more striking at once, and therefore will always end up with a different result. I simply state that 7 is better then 9 because the end result of 7 would be more beneficial to more of the cast then hindering it. You already know how I am, I hate talking theory and would rather test it personally, and I actually intend to do that, which is the reason why I am talking to NJ to change the stage list and some of the rule set. Just off of my studies, I would see 7 having more character diversity then 9.

 

[CR4SH]

This is almost like saying you should not ban planking from MK because he still has an advantage in the MU

No, you shouldn't ban planking because it makes no freaking sense. If it's a big enough problem that it breaks the game, you need to ban the character.

 

[ADHD]

There's going to be alot of things being stated over and over form this point over. But like AZ and OS, I'M NOT WRONG NEVER NEVER NEVER.

So I'll get to all this later, peace.

 

[Overswarm]

I'm not wrong because I don't argue about things I don't fully understand. If I don't understand, I ask questions until I do.

 

[ADHD]

I'm not wrong because I don't argue about things I don't fully understand. If I don't understand, I ask questions until I do.

You're right, you probably should not argue at all if it's about something you don't understand and rather state a whole bunch of silliness backed up by contradicting facts.

 

[AMKalmar]

The problem with these arguments is that most people don't want to understand the other party's point of view. They just want to prove that they're right whether or not that is true.

 

[ADHD]

The problem with these arguments is that most people don't want to understand the other party's point of view. They just want to prove that they're right whether or not that is true.

It's pretty evident to me that his argument is ludicrous and enhances metaknight despite him saying it makes him worse. AZ is just pulling points out of his *** from nowhere.

 

[AlphaZealot]

It is pretty obvious to me that there has been absolutely no evidence that MK has been enhanced by the stagelist/ruleset and that the two MLG events so far have had below average MK results and average MK results.

I now have two national tournaments worth of results to show you are incorrect in that MK will dominate with this stage list any more than the EC stage list.

 

[AMKalmar]

My comment wasn't directed at anyone, it was a general observation.

 

[Judo777]

Nothing against u ADHD but i also dont think its fair for u to argue about MLG especially when u only went to 1 of the 2 events. And the one in question with all the upsets you were not present for.

 

[Masky]

You're either deliberately obtuse or need to think before you post.

"varying diversity" has nothing to do with smashballs. That doesn't even make any ****ing sense, you just pulled something out of the air and said "I'm pretty sure this is a point".

As I understand it, "character diversity" is increased if larger pool of characters place well. Turning on smash balls would make this happen, as would turning on items. So would deciding the outcome of each match by a coin flip. Those all make the game non-competitive though. Consistent character results are a product of a solid competitive metagame. Of course, there are counterexamples, such as if there was a rule in place that stated "Sonic always wins no matter what", and we eliminated that rule, character diversity would increase and the competitive value of the game would also increase. My point is though that you can't just do anything you want in order to increase "character diversity", because there's a big chance you'll also make the game less competitive.

Then you asked that one girl that you like and you think KIND of likes you because she talks to you when you talk to her (unlike Jessica, that stupid *****) and she gave you the thumbs up and did that cute little wink and smile thing where she kinda turns her head and closes one eye and opens her mouth in a giant smile. She probably practiced that **** or something but you're pretty sure she only does it for you, except for that time Billy was talking to her by the locker and you saw her make that same face, but they haven't dated for months so it isn't a big deal. But she gave you the thumbs up so you're like "awesome, I'm sure this is a valid argument" and then you realized the Daily Show was on and turned on your TV but only got "the moment of Zen" (which is okay, it's like your favorite part). The Colbert Report was on afterwards but you didn't really feel like watching that stuff so you went back to smashboards and you just posted something without fully understanding a point and decided to throw smash balls in there because you're pretty sure Jessica checks your smashboards posts for mentions of her and she'll TOTALLY consider this a compliment.


The above post makes more sense than yours.

Excuse me, what, Huh, what. WHAT???????????

Stage striking has a point. It has a PURPOSE. We used "random" for a long time until some people were like "holy ****ing ****, half these "neutrals" aren't neutrals" (I WAS ONE OF THEM) "neutrals is a misnomer! These kids are getting stages that are COUNTERPICKS at RANDOM for GAME ONE. That is HUGE."

That **** had to GO. We wanted as close to a fair stage as possible for game one and we're like "stage striking yeaaaaaaaah". The idea was they'd both strike the stages that were worst for them in the matchup and end with the best one available.

We went through the stages and picked nine starters and it worked great.

Then someone was like "What the ****ing hell, this is bull****. I picked Ice Climbers and didn't start on a counterpick, that makes these *******s hard to ****ing play". Or something like that. People with intellect rivaled by garden spades decided to get together and scream randomly at passerbys until someone decided to listen and then ended up lowering the stage amount to such a ridiculously low number that it was WORSE than random. Some areas literally had Final Destination, Smashville, and Battlefield, because apparently flat+plat is the holy grail of competitive design.

You're talking like 9 starter stages was a successful tournament accepted standard at one point, but then a minority did not like this, so it was changed as a result of complaints. This is most definitely not what happened. Stage striking with 5 stages was pretty much standard far before MLG was even announced (disagree? just look at the rulesets of all the major national tournaments). The only tournaments I've been to or heard about having 9 starter stages ever were either MLG, or tournaments using the MLG ruleset in order to prepare for MLG. If anything, the situation is the exact opposite from what you're saying; most people WANT either 5 stages with striking or random. The group of people who want 9 stage striking is most definitely a minority.

No one seemed to care that the people saynig "this is awesome" mained characters that did better on this stages.

That doesn't make their arguments invalid. Completely irrelevant, you're just trying to make everyone think of people in favor of the current ruleset as evil/selfish so that we shouldn't agree with them.

We saw the rise of these characters and it wsa because of their guaranteed "good starting stage".

How do you know this? Have you ever considered the possibility *GASP* that some characters are simply better than others? Isn't that why there's a tier list?

Everyone else was at a disdavantage. YOU COULD ONLY PLAY ONE TYPE OF CHARACTER TO DO THIS: Those that did well on flat+plat stages. Characters that played well in dynamic arenas or those without symemtrical aspects got the shaft.

With NINE stages, you can play both characters that prefer flat+plat as well as those that prefer dynamic stages. This creates a wider diversity of viable characters for game one which is the entire point of stage striking.

"Allowing for characters of varying diversity" to be viable IS THE ENTIRE REASON STAGE STRIKNIG WAS INVENTINGAKLSDJGKLASDJGKLASDJAKLSDBJAEKLFBJAERIOUJHAEPGHJAEFKL:

I think it's a general consensus that the point of using stage striking is so that, like you said, you don't randomly get a neutral that is "not really neutral". You said yourself: "We wanted as close to a fair stage as possible for game one and we're like 'stage striking yeaaaaaaaah'. The idea was they'd both strike the stages that were worst for them in the matchup and end with the best one available."

If it WASN'T, we'd all be playing on whatever stage whoever had the biggest megaphone shouted out because having a fair stage to start on is the only logical conclusion for a competitive ruleset


GAREAERALKWEJGKLAWGG

GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH

?????????

 

[ADHD]

It is pretty obvious to me that there has been absolutely no evidence that MK has been enhanced by the stagelist/ruleset and that the two MLG events so far have had below average MK results and average MK results.

Again, host a large tournament with this stage list containing normal TV's and you will clearly see the difference with the amount of metaknights on top. It's my belief the TV lag caused these upsets and caused the metaknights to not place as well as they should have and allowed randomly bad characters to blossom into very high placings. In fact, I am claiming your tournaments do not hinder metaknight whatsoever, they encourage randomness.

I now have two national tournaments worth of results to show you are incorrect in that MK will dominate with this stage list any more than the EC stage list.

I don't see the correlation between your point. You can't use one state as an example that has ALWAYS been known for it's metaknight usage when the 5 strike system has been used nationally (maybe universally, I wouldn't know) and there is no other evidence of this occuring.

If the future MLGs are rid of TV lag there will always be silly and unexpected upsets. Upsets are no longer upsets if they're happening constantly.

 

[AlphaZealot]

Again, host a large tournament with this stage list containing normal TV's and you will clearly see the difference with the amount of metaknights on top. It's my belief the TV lag caused these upsets and caused the metaknights to not place as well as they should have and allowed randomly bad characters to blossom into very high placings. In fact, I am claiming your tournaments do not hinder metaknight whatsoever, they encourage randomness.

I wonder if ESAM or NickRiddle wants to respond to their accomplishments being belittled as "randomness". You don't beat Tyrant and Ally back-to-back because of "randomness".

 

[AMKalmar]

So Overswarm, just to review the process, the back room keeps data on character match-up ratios for all stages. Relevant stages (stages that would be counter-picked by either of the characters in a match-up) are used to determine the actual character match-up ratios. Then the goal is for the first game in a set to occur on a stage that will accurately reflect this match-up ratio.

Yes?????

 

[Masky]

I wonder if ESAM or NickRiddle wants to respond to their accomplishments being belittled as "randomness". You don't beat Tyrant and Ally back-to-back because of "randomness".

deliberate namesearch baiting

 

[Judo777]

So Overswarm, just to review the process, the back room keeps data on character match-up ratios for all stages. Relevant stages (stages that would be counter-picked by either of the characters in a match-up) are used to determine the actual character match-up ratios. Then the goal is for the first game in a set to occur on a stage that will accurately reflect this match-up ratio.

Yes?????

That's the idea but i doubt its that organized because matchup ratio's are wrong on a ton of boards character boards. But yes stages are supposed to reflect the usual outcome of matchups.

 

[AlMoStLeGeNdArY]

All the people who are pointing to character diversity as a result of MLG I'll call be we've seen more diverse results at tournies like Apex, SIN, VC #7 and other such tournies. You don't need to expand the stage list in order for their to be character diversity there just needs to be good players playing =/.

 

[etecoon]

lol namesearch baiting

no surprise, AZ is roughly as good at this as ADHD(i.e. not at all) so might as well summon someone else to do it for you

regardless, yeah, when someone that isn't even #1 in their own state is taking down #2 and 3 in the world back to back, people are going to be suspicious of the circumstances

not that I agree with ADHD either, but his doubt isn't entirely unreasonable as far as the TVs go, there have been an abnormal number of upsets. I wouldn't call it random as it clearly affects some more than others, there is a pattern, but it does matter

 

[Overswarm]

We don't "keep records". We discuss it and attempt to come to a mutual consensus, at least those discussing it. Our matchup project is still ongoing.

You're talking like 9 starter stages was a successful tournament accepted standard at one point, but then a minority did not like this, so it was changed as a result of complaints.

It was. Know your roots. I was there when it was first implemented (California, Indiana, and to a lesser extent Texas) and then saw it get *******ized (East Coast). I was one of the people making it work and collecting data on it!

How do you know this? Have you ever considered the possibility *GASP* that some characters are simply better than others? Isn't that why there's a tier list?

Are you high? I'm one of the people that MAKE the freaking thing.

 

[ADHD]

I wonder if ESAM or NickRiddle wants to respond to their accomplishments being belittled as "randomness". You don't beat Tyrant and Ally back-to-back because of "randomness".

Top players will not perform as accurately as usual when there is lag over their shoulders.

Let's ask a melee player like mango what he thinks of TV lag, lol.

 

[PK-ow!]

I'm gonna plug a thread I made a while back in the Stage Discussion forum that received SOME attention, but not a ton, since very few people frequent it.

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=268086

In that thread, I discuss the pros and cons of a 7/9 starter list, and I gave my suggestions for stages to be used.

I've been running small biweekly tournaments in my area for a few months now (we're up to 6 so far), and I've had great success using 9 starters with Frigate Orpheon instead of Delfino. It's become quite common, and has stood the test of a good starter stage.

I can't see an argument working that could get Frigate Orpheon into starter and not Delfino, except for one which excludes Castle Siege along with Delfino from that category. I don't find a principled distinction between those two except for the permeable stage bottom.
But that would just be for if you revived that thread, which it seems like necroing now for me to do.



And... wow at the t.v. lag thing. The more I think about it, this point about lag is so critical.
It's not like we can throw out the results. Ally and Tyrant (and everyone else) accepted those conditions, so No Johns. But they were prepared for conditions of the game exactly as it appears on a normal t.v. That's what their skill is. They know how to see things and react. Laggy t.v.s not only removed the things they trained, it introduced interference and performance error. Learned behaviours and routines were less than ideal with lag, and could not be suppressed. Here's the big one: It suddenly counted against you, at MLG's venue, to have practiced more at the game.

It counted against you because of contingent facts about neurons and Human learning, but it counted against you nonetheless.

 

[Judo777]

are u guys referring to esam and Mcgriddle? because i seriously doubt that very many top players have alot of pika and zss MU experience. Thats what happens when players are really good with unpopular characters they do well because no one freaking knows the MU. At MLG i said like 5 minutes before the match started that Nick VS Ally the second time was going to be much different cause zss is one of those chars that alot of key parts of the MU can be learned simply by being told "hey do this alot." You could definitely tell that Ally did not know the MU and tbh it still didnt look like he knew what he was doing against zss the next set but I mean its ally he does ally stuff and ***** people.

 

[Overswarm]

You guys might be able to make an argument about the lag causing upsets if you didn't see the same top players in the top spots getting the same placements.

 

[ADHD]

You guys might be able to make an argument about the lag causing upsets if you didn't see the same top players in the top spots getting the same placements.

K.

Biglou, mcgriddles, esam, san, etc. The only consistent ones were M2k and Ally.

 

[Overswarm]

K.

Biglou, mcgriddles, esam, san, etc. The only consistent ones were M2k and Ally.

 

[sunshade]

ADHD if you really think the lag on the tvs was so bad that it caused the upsets and caused the Metaknight mains who entered the tournament to place poorly would you be willing to tell me three people who won because of the lag?

Would you be willing to walk up to these people and to there faces say "you only won because the tvs at MLG had 1-2 frames of lag."?

 

[AlphaZealot]

Yay! Sunshade gets it!

ADHD: please pick some specific people that won because of lag.