Stage Adaptation: Skill or Gimmick?

[bobson]

If that's your view, why ban stages at all? The banned stages were made in brawl so why can't we play on them? Because they give some characters an unfair advantage and playing on neutrals reduces those advantages to a bare minimum. If you use counterpicks that unfair advantage is more present...

That's not my view. It was a counterpoint to Kamikaze's statement that ICs were just meant to be better than Ganon.

 

[Kamikaze*]

Two points there:

1) "Flat with nothing in the way" is a pretty powerful stage influence. "Nothing in the way" is actually a lot in the way for many characters. Think of poor Ganondorf, Donkey Kong, and Meta Knight.

2) Brawl is not like other fighters. Never will, and never has. Whether it's FD or Wario Ware - the stage ALWAYS influences the match. There is never a neutral stage.



Switch the word "Ganondorf" with any character not MK/Peach/Jigglypuff/whatever.

How on earth does it hurt MK?

 

[Denzi]

How on earth does it hurt MK?

Because it takes him a whole extra second to get to you when he has to PS/jump over/dodge your projectile =/

I'm gonna say skill, as long as we assume that skill and knowledge go hand in hand.

 

[deepseadiva]

No stage is completely fair but the neutrals are the fairest and don't change match ups too much.

They still do unfortunately, which is why we need to balance it out by giving the loser a chance to have an advantage.

Firstly what are the chances that the ganon would be able to beat an ice climbers who could chain grab anyway.

Again, switch the word Ganondorf with Link, Game & Watch, Marth, etc. The point was that FD, this "fair and balanced stage", for the Ice Climbers is the equivalent of Rainbow Cruise to MK.

We're not gonna have sets start off with MK vs Ganondorf on Rainbow Cruise and then have the next two matchs go on Smashville and FD. Counterpicking is the attempt to be fair.

Being on FD doesn't change much which is why it is called a neutral. If you want a change in stage just use one of the other 4 neutral stages rather than a counterpick which gives a player an unfair advantage.

They're not called neutrals - they're called starters specifically because a neutral stage simply does not exist in Brawl.

Starters need to be thought of as "the least offensive counterpicks", NOT as "the closest thing to neutrals". There's a key difference.

How on earth does it hurt MK?

Many consider FD one of MK's worst stages.

 

[SpongeBathBill]

Don'tcha think that IC was probably MEANT to demolish ganny?

Not like they did a really great job at it, but I don't think that was quite what they were going for in regards to character balance, no.

 

[chandy]

They still do unfortunately, which is why we need to balance it out by giving the loser a chance to have an advantage.



Again, switch the word Ganondorf with Link, Game & Watch, Marth, etc. The point was that FD, this "fair and balanced stage", for the Ice Climbers is the equivalent of Rainbow Cruise to MK.

We're not gonna have sets start off with MK vs Ganondorf on Rainbow Cruise and then have the next two matchs go on Smashville and FD. Counterpicking is the attempt to be fair.



They're not called neutrals - they're called starters specifically because a neutral stage simply does not exist in Brawl.

Starters need to be thought of as "the least offensive counterpicks", NOT as "the closest thing to neutrals". There's a key difference.



Many consider FD one of MK's worst stages.

Ofcourse the starters aren't the fairest but don't you think they mean both the least offensive counterpicks and the closest thing to a neutral. THey're only called starters because as thingsexist at the moment they're the stages you play you're first match on. I admit a neutral stage doesn't exist in brawl and even FD can change a match up slightly. But it's been called a starter because it changes match ups the least of all the stages. If somebody has a problem with going on FD for instance then the next match s/he could chose a stage like smashville. FOr instance I play link and he is badly effected by the lip. If I end up losing the game then in the next one I should have the choice to choose another one of the starter stages that I think may prohibit my gameplay less. If you say Ice Climbers are good on FD then maybe they should go up on the tier list because they're good on one of the fair stages. If like me your character is bad on a certain starter then just use another one of them not a counterpick which will change a match up unfairly.

The loser is not necassarily the one who had the stage disadvantage. It could be because his character was just worse than that of his opponent or that he just got outskilled. Giving him a counterpick gives an unfair advantage in the 2nd leg meaning that if he ended up winning they both would only have won 1 match fairly but the loser of the 1st match got the advantage.

In that game you mentioned of MK vs ganondorf, if all 3 stages had been starters then there wouldn't have been any stage advantages to either character although the MK would have the character advantage. If you think a character like MK is at a disadvantage on FD then try to adapt to the best of your ability and in the 2nd and 3rd legs use another starter stage. I know you could say 'well why not adapt to a counterpick?' Because it is harder for most characters to adapt to it.

Not like they did a really great job at it, but I don't think that was quite what they were going for in regards to character balance, no.

Well that's how it turned out anyway, intended or not :/

 

[uhmuzing]

I dunno what to say. It takes time and a tad bit of skill to learn stages. I believe that it takes skill wherever you fight, but some of it may be luck...