But a better fighter, by definition, can take advantage of his surroundings. In any other setting, we praise the guy who notices things in his surroundings and takes advantage of them. Meanwhile, we slap the idiot who walks into a potentially messy situation without preparing beforehand. Ask anyone with a head for military tactics: it's not a competition between two armies over which can shoot straighter. Terrain is crucial. Why should Smash, a fighter series specifically designed to take this kind of strategy into account, suddenly discount it in favor of some kind of paladin-esque distortion of "fair fight?"
If you lost because of the claw on Halberd, then the other player was better than you on Halberd. So what if you can beat them on FD? That just means you can fight in a box. In that specific situation, they were prepared, you weren't, and they won out.
We play a game that tests your ability to fight on many kinds of terrain. If you can't accept that, as others have said, I would reconsider which game you play. Street Fighter is more your speed.
tl;dr the problem is in your definition of "lesser"
That person wasn't better than me on Halberd. I would easily beat that person every time he doesn't get lucky with the claw or the lazer. I've probably beaten him countless times on that stage.
You're making it out as if my opponent knew the stage better, or tried to play me into that trap, he didn't. That's exactly the problem with these stages, you can get huge, unnatural rewards (in that the char normally can't get them without stage interference) without even necessarily having to outplay the opponent.
I could have grabbed him five times during that stock, he grabbed me once and took a stock. Not because of his skill, or his char, but because he got lucky with an external interference. Even if negligence is involved, the injustice is that is the punishment is disproportionate and not indicative of who the better player was.
The more interference a stage commits, the more inconsistent the results between two opponents fighting on that stage multiple times become. For example on SV the better player will probably win every single time, or lose very few, but on more interfering stages, the results wouldn't be as imbalanced (although they'd probably still be in the better person's favour).
The military example is terrible. It isn't a competitive sport, where the means is as important as the end (in that you can't cheat, it's supposed to be fair). The military only cares about getting what it wants at any cost. A military mentality in smash would be to knock the controller out of the person's hand or something else completely unsportmanly like that.
I'd like you to answer my question about the martial arts fight. Given what you have said, do you think that the fighter who is getting dominated, and happens to grab the flamethrower first when it's throw in and uses it to win, is the better martial artist? If you don't think that analogy applies, please explain how so.
Also, more interfering stages are stages where stage knowledge becomes more important than pure fighting ability. Suppose a player played on a stage that he had never played on before against someone who knew it inside-out. If the stage was like a SV or BF and didn't interfere, then the newcomer would still win if he is the better fighter. The more the stage interferes, the lower his chance of winning is, despite being the better pure fighter. That just shows interfering stages detract from pure fighting.
