- Joined
- Jul 21, 2005
- Messages
- 10,478
I think most of us saw the hazard toggle as a godsend for competitive smash. It can only be a good thing, right? It will convert many previously banned stages to perfectly reasonable ones!
While everyone is busy discussing which hazard mode of which stages ought to be legal, there is an important discussion happening underneath: there is talk of leaving hazards off for the entirety of the tournament. The reason for this is to reduce chance of human error: the hazard toggle is tucked away in the rule settings; it is not a quickly accessible mode the same way Omega or Battlefield are.
--- THEBUZZSAW OPINION BEGINS HERE ---
Do we support the tossing of stages to protect a setting from having to change?
While I can empathize with TOs wanting to keep things simple, I feel this is a big mistake. We continue to neuter competitive play by insisting that players should never have to adapt to their surroundings. To be clear, I'm opposing the idea that we ought to (for example) have hazards off for stages like Smashville or Lylat. The slow moving platform on Smashville is great how it quietly changes the situation for both players. Sorry, you can't have your completely straightforward edge guard opportunity! You have to read the opponent going for the platform instead! Are we worried about... matches taking too long?
I'll just reiterate: this is not a thread about whether specific (hazard-enabled) stages are competitively viable; it's specifically about this notion of keeping the hazard toggle set to one thing and never changed.
While everyone is busy discussing which hazard mode of which stages ought to be legal, there is an important discussion happening underneath: there is talk of leaving hazards off for the entirety of the tournament. The reason for this is to reduce chance of human error: the hazard toggle is tucked away in the rule settings; it is not a quickly accessible mode the same way Omega or Battlefield are.
--- THEBUZZSAW OPINION BEGINS HERE ---
Do we support the tossing of stages to protect a setting from having to change?
While I can empathize with TOs wanting to keep things simple, I feel this is a big mistake. We continue to neuter competitive play by insisting that players should never have to adapt to their surroundings. To be clear, I'm opposing the idea that we ought to (for example) have hazards off for stages like Smashville or Lylat. The slow moving platform on Smashville is great how it quietly changes the situation for both players. Sorry, you can't have your completely straightforward edge guard opportunity! You have to read the opponent going for the platform instead! Are we worried about... matches taking too long?
I'll just reiterate: this is not a thread about whether specific (hazard-enabled) stages are competitively viable; it's specifically about this notion of keeping the hazard toggle set to one thing and never changed.
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