The No-Johns Ruleset

[Bones0]

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=309421

The **** storm begins! Sadly, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this for any more serious events we have planned. I'll do what I can.

Boo $10 entry fees. Especially when you're doing an absurd experimental stage list that no one has any practice on.

 

[Kal]

Ah, I copied my old ruleset and forgot to change that. Thanks for reminding me.

Also, notice the lack of a venue fee. I'm doing my best here!

 

[Varist]

Varist, it's like you completely ignored the first post. Also, even given a different set of standards, simply summing up things which are bad about the stage without providing any analysis or interpretation isn't helpful. Even if I grant everything you say, you've done nothing but list things wrong with Green Greens. There needs to be some step going from:

These are the things wrong with Green Greens

to

Thus, Green Greens should be banned.

Nothing you've listed directly implies that the stage needs to be banned, even by a liberal standard of stage banning.

We're judging stages by the turnip threshold. I assumed everyone would keep that in mind when reading my criticisms. Apparently some did not.

 

[Kal]

We're judging stages by the turnip threshold. I assumed everyone would keep that in mind when reading my criticisms. Apparently some did not.

All you did was list things about the stage. How do those things make it surpass the Turnip Threshold?

 

[Varist]

I'll gladly expound on that for you.

The disruptions of play caused by the falling blocks on Green Greens surpass the Turnip Threshold because the tolerable level of randomness caused by those blocks during a match exceeds the tolerable level of randomness inherent to the turnips Peach pulls.

Unlike the other stages under the "Borderline" heading in KishPrime's leading post; Corneria, PokeFloats (which has no randomness and should be legal), Peach's Castle (which has insignificant randomness), and Onett (are the cars random? insignificant anyway, should be legal); Green Greens belongs in the "Should be removed" section.


The reasons for why I believe the blocks are too significant a source of randomness on the Green Greens stage were outlined in my earlier post.

 

[Bones0]

Giant Bullet Bills and random buttons that cause random platforms to appear (as well as cause massive hitlag whenever you touch them) don't surpass the "Turnip Threshold?"

Cars that slide across the entire bottom of the stage causing huge damage don't surpass it either? Hmmm, it's starting to seem like people are just arbitrarily picking stages they like and saying "yeah, doesn't pass the threshold, we're good."

 

[Kal]

The blocks cause many problems for mobile characters, most prominently Captain Falcon, who can't knee an opponent in the middle or on either edge when facing the blocks. If he does, he'll usually sail into the blocks after the knee and risk getting torched.

The walls and ledges next to the block containers are also very intrusive. Unintended wall jumps occur often enough to disrupt gameplay.

Grabbing those same ledges can also gimp you. If there is already a block in the center of the container, or a block falls into the nearest or center container, you cannot exit the ledge with a get-up attack (it will fail) leaving only a roll onto stage. The character on the ledge has far more options than they would have on the ledge of most other stages. Hence the character is easily punished (think Jiggs waiting for the ledge roll to Rest). The character cannot exit the ledge via manual ledge drop, they'll bump their head on the falling blocks above and plummet to their death with no second jump.

These three things do not really seem random. Also, it's important to keep in mind that Kish mentions "the significance" of the random event; this is (at least in my interpretation) more than simply the probability associated with any event. In some way, the actual impact of these random events needs to be measured across their respective probabilities of occurring.

Also, about every fifth time I play the stage, I get saved from a vertical kill by ceiling teching on falling blocks. It isn't as frequent as other things but it's random and certainly match-changing if and when it occurs.

First, consider that ceiling teching on a falling block still keeps you at a positional disadvantage. Thus, the frequency with which it actually changes the outcome of the match is definitely debatable. Second, it's at the very least able to be accounted for: if you see that there are missing blocks, then blocks may fall, and your best bet may be to not try for an off-the-top kill. It seems that, while it's random, it can be accounted for in some way.

Last and certainly least, the tree blows the usual gust of wind which may or may not disrupt play depending on the circumstance.

The gust of wind's impact is, in my opinion, quite minimal.

I would say that these things you've listed do not combine to any impact or significance more than Peach's Turnip. Of course, if you decide that "significance" means in fact only the randomness associated, I could see a convincing argument put forth for banning Green Greens.

 

[Varist]

Giant Bullet Bills and random buttons that cause random platforms to appear (as well as cause massive hitlag whenever you touch them) don't surpass the "Turnip Threshold?"

Cars that slide across the entire bottom of the stage causing huge damage don't surpass it either? Hmmm, it's starting to seem like people are just arbitrarily picking stages they like and saying "yeah, doesn't pass the threshold, we're good."

Too much hyperbole in this post for me to take it seriously. But I will anyway.

"Giant Bullet Bills" sounds imposing and very disruptive, but they aren't. Professional players will usually vacate the side of the stage the Bullet Bill is attempting to headbutt, and even though the Bullet Bills are technically random (chance to occur on every 1 minute mark, 1 to 5), they move so slowly and give so much forewarning that it's not going to catch anyone off guard and degenerate game play. Bullet Bills are a non-issue on this stage, and I think I could find someone else who agrees.

Secondly, the buttons. The buttons are random, yes, but the hitlag is not "massive", however it is significant. Whether the chance to have a button appear underneath your feet during a critical moment is above the Turnip Threshold or not is up for debate. And for that reason I think it should be encouraged to include it in the No Johns ruleset so that it can be played more frequently by professionals to gauge whether or not it is a significant problem. This works towards perfecting the No Johns ruleset.

Last, the platforms that appear are random, granted, but they're no bigger a problem than the FoD platforms. Players always have notice where they are before they come into play due to the hitlag, and can adjust their actions accordingly. These platforms are not a problem, and if you consider them as problems, then you are working against the policy of playing the game as naturally as possible.

--

Cars slide by, sure, but we have plenty of notice. If you're being drillshined into the wall then you've already got positional problems of another kind. The cars aren't any big deal to those familiar with the stage and how to maneuver within it.

 

[Varist]

These three things do not really seem random. Also, it's important to keep in mind that Kish mentions "the significance" of the random event; this is (at least in my interpretation) more than simply the probability associated with any event. In some way, the actual impact of these random events needs to be measured across their respective probabilities of occurring.

The chance of a bomb block being within the stack of blocks is random to my knowledge. However, I concede that for this stage risk to have an impact on gameplay one character must be in one of only a few positions, perform a certain move, and once that has been accomplished then risk being killed by the bombs. The chance of that happening seems insignificant now, so I concede that contention on the legality of the stage.

My second paragraph hasn't anything to do with randomness in and of itself, it just aims to point out the potential awkwardness of the stage in competitive play, which on second thought is not really in line with my aims. I'm open to awkward stages because it means that professional players will have to master them and play within the natural disruptions of the game without necessarily dealing with anything unfair.

I think the third paragraph was the strongest of this group of three, because it has more of a chance of happening than the first paragraph, is more affected by randomness with a more frequent significant impact on the match than the second or first paragraph's contentions. I maintain this issue with the stage.

First, consider that ceiling teching on a falling block still keeps you at a positional disadvantage. Thus, the frequency with which it actually changes the outcome of the match is definitely debatable. Second, it's at the very least able to be accounted for: if you see that there are missing blocks, then blocks may fall, and your best bet may be to not try for an off-the-top kill. It seems that, while it's random, it can be accounted for in some way.

I hadn't looked at it this way. You're correct that the character who would have been killed, and has now survived, is still at a positional disadvantage depending on their descending aerial priority. I also hadn't considered that the missing blocks would be a cue to the attacking player to switch up their method of kill. I concede this point.

The gust of wind's impact is, in my opinion, quite minimal.

I agree. I was simply including it for posterity's sake. It does not even come close to the Turnip Threshold.

--

I'll have to review my issues with the stage again and decide whether to continue debating its legality. After this discussion it seems a lot less offensive than it did before.

 

[Kal]

I will further examine your third paragraph soon, once I have access to my PC. However, it's nice to see that you are debating in the interest of reaching a conclusion and not merely to push your point of view. Let me also apologize for my initial response, as it came off as somewhat rude.

 

[The Star King]

Don't forget about the apples

 

[Varist]

I intend to eventually examine all the stages KishPrime listed as "Borderline". I think that if any ruleset desires to be tournament-worthy it should be as decisive as possible.

**** I FORGOT ABOUT THOSE APPLES. GREEN GREENS HELLA GAY needs to be banned it's almost like items are on what kind of tournament leaves items on lol what a joke.

I think it's unlikely the apples will ever even be used. Consider that you have to give up use of your aerials, your tilts, and your grab when you pick them up. Not many characters on the roster would ever benefit from using the apples (in fact, I don't think any of them, off the top of my head) so their impact on gameplay is low. The only possible issue I see them presenting is characters accidentally picking them up, which could have a high degenerative impact, but until the stage is played frequently in a serious tournament setting we don't know exactly how frequently that will occur.

There might even be some definitive way to prevent yourself from ever even picking them up. I don't know. I'm not an expert on item manipulation.

 

[The Star King]

You serious bro? Peach's turnips are useful, and they have the pull-out lag, while the apples have none, and also have more knockback/damage I think.

When the apples fly out of the tree, they have a hitbox IIRC. I'm pretty sure you can actually get combo'd by the apples lol

Plus, apples sometimes ****ing explode. What the **** that doesn't even make sense. I think they sometimes heal, too, but I think that's only if food is turned on. Don't remember.

 

[Bones0]

Too much hyperbole in this post for me to take it seriously. But I will anyway.

"Giant Bullet Bills" sounds imposing and very disruptive, but they aren't. Professional players will usually vacate the side of the stage the Bullet Bill is attempting to headbutt, and even though the Bullet Bills are technically random (chance to occur on every 1 minute mark, 1 to 5), they move so slowly and give so much forewarning that it's not going to catch anyone off guard and degenerate game play. Bullet Bills are a non-issue on this stage, and I think I could find someone else who agrees.

Secondly, the buttons. The buttons are random, yes, but the hitlag is not "massive", however it is significant. Whether the chance to have a button appear underneath your feet during a critical moment is above the Turnip Threshold or not is up for debate. And for that reason I think it should be encouraged to include it in the No Johns ruleset so that it can be played more frequently by professionals to gauge whether or not it is a significant problem. This works towards perfecting the No Johns ruleset.

Last, the platforms that appear are random, granted, but they're no bigger a problem than the FoD platforms. Players always have notice where they are before they come into play due to the hitlag, and can adjust their actions accordingly. These platforms are not a problem, and if you consider them as problems, then you are working against the policy of playing the game as naturally as possible.

--

Cars slide by, sure, but we have plenty of notice. If you're being drillshined into the wall then you've already got positional problems of another kind. The cars aren't any big deal to those familiar with the stage and how to maneuver within it.

Ummm, they ARE giant.
http://www.mariowiki.com/Banzai_Bill#Super_Smash_Bros._Melee

Banzai Bills (also known as Magnum Bills) are a larger variety of Bullet Bills that first appeared in Super Mario World. These huge bullets are black-colored and have shark-like smiles. They were the largest Bullet Bill sub-species, until King Bills were introduced in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, in 2009.

Banzai Bills are a major threat in Super Smash Bros. Melee, where they appeared in the Princess Peach's Castle stage, randomly entering the battle, they would collide into the castle. Once burrowed into the wall, a Banzai Bill will detonate, causing massive damage to anyone caught in its explosion.

Obviously not really relevant, but even CASUAL players recognize how intrusive Bullet Bills are (I swear I didn't edit it lol). Sure, you can tell where they are coming from pretty easily, but avoiding them is a different story. Oh wow, you just got hit into the giant explosion? Sucks, take your 40%+ and instant KO. In the case of a standoff, one player could easily be forced to approach the other because of a Bullet Bill going towards him.

Button hitlag is huge, I just tested it. At the very least, it's certainly enough to make you miss an L-cancel, and timing simple stuff like running up and grabbing or attacking becomes impossible as you find the ground is littered with virtual trip mines that are just waiting to throw off your timing. The platforms appear randomly, and several of them cause large differences in how a player can possibly recover. It seems stupid that someone could survive one minute because the platform was available and someone in the same situation a minute later could have no options. This is completely different than FoD's platforms or even Smashville in Brawl, which have platforms that move in a predictable pattern, slowly. If FoD's platforms randomly appeared out of thin air, I'd say the stage would have to go. The green blocks that appear on the side actually go to the point of disrupting moves as you can't even simply go through them like platforms. "Damn, I would normally just Firefox upwards, but green blocks randomly appeared above me completely eliminating that option..."

Cars are basically the same as the Bullet Bills. Sure, you have plenty of notice, but it's impossible to make sure you won't get hit into them, and it's funny you brought up the situation of drill shining because I was thinking of it the other way. I would be pretty upset if a car randomly interrupted a drill shine I had going, or any combo at the bottom level for that matter. I also find that stages with walkoffs tend to lead to degenerate gameplay because there is so much fighting in the bubbles where you can't properly space attacks and the game begins to revolve around low % kill gimmicks.
Fox: "LOL GET WAVESHINED U DEAD!"
Marth: "DTHROW, YOU CAN'T TECH AWAY OR U DIE LULZ!"
Samus: "OH NOES, I ACCIDENTLY SUPER WAVEDASHED! D:"
DK: "TIME FOR A PIGGY-BACK RIDE, ******!"
Ness: "FTHROW, I'M TOP TIER NOW *****!"

Okay, so Ness abusing his fthrow is just awesome, but the rest are dumb, so hopefully you get the idea... I realize you'll probably just say "Yeah, but you can adapt to all those situations," at which point I'll respond saying that I shouldn't have to read the video game's mind in order to beat someone. Yeah pointless arguments! I knew I should have stayed out of this thread. :|

 

[Kal]

I like how your argument ends by summarizing your opponent's argument in a very trivial way before he even makes it.

 

[Bones0]

I like how your argument ends by summarizing your opponent's argument in a very trivial way before he even makes it.

I know, it's like I'm psychic or something.

 

[KishPrime]

I have nothing to contribute except:

Whenever I try to fight in the bubbles with a lead I lose my lead very quickly.

And <3<3<3 MKII

 

[Varist]

Ummm, they ARE giant.
http://www.mariowiki.com/Banzai_Bill#Super_Smash_Bros._Melee

I didn't mean they aren't giant lol, I meant they aren't disruptive.

Obviously not really relevant, but even CASUAL players recognize how intrusive Bullet Bills are (I swear I didn't edit it lol). Sure, you can tell where they are coming from pretty easily, but avoiding them is a different story. Oh wow, you just got hit into the giant explosion? Sucks, take your 40%+ and instant KO. In the case of a standoff, one player could easily be forced to approach the other because of a Bullet Bill going towards him.

The thing with getting hit into a Bullet Bill is that it can be avoided by proper intelligent gameplay. Players can definitely camp when they want to, so all a smart player needs to do is play defensive until the bullet has done its stuff if that player feels like the other player can hit his opponent into the explosion more proficiently than he himself can.

You get a little over seven seconds' notice that the bullet bill is coming, from somewhere, and about three seconds notice of where exactly it's going to hit (unless it goes for the top, then you've got one second). Seconds in Melee are long. If your opponent has been keeping you in hitstun for more than seven seconds, so that you never got the chance to run away, then that's a player error. Something that can be improved, so that you can better yourself when playing on the stage. No Johns wants that, as I understand it.

Standoff? All right, a player who has been camping is now forced to approach. This is a dynamic gameplay change, and I think characters being required to approach every few minutes is healthy for a stage. If you disagree, tell me why.

Button hitlag is huge, I just tested it. At the very least, it's certainly enough to make you miss an L-cancel, and timing simple stuff like running up and grabbing or attacking becomes impossible as you find the ground is littered with virtual trip mines that are just waiting to throw off your timing. The platforms appear randomly, and several of them cause large differences in how a player can possibly recover. It seems stupid that someone could survive one minute because the platform was available and someone in the same situation a minute later could have no options. This is completely different than FoD's platforms or even Smashville in Brawl, which have platforms that move in a predictable pattern, slowly. If FoD's platforms randomly appeared out of thin air, I'd say the stage would have to go. The green blocks that appear on the side actually go to the point of disrupting moves as you can't even simply go through them like platforms. "Damn, I would normally just Firefox upwards, but green blocks randomly appeared above me completely eliminating that option..."

I agree that the button hitlag is a definite disruption. I agree that under the right conditions that leads to consequences for one of the players. But know that this hazard is an equal threat to both players until it happens, and both players will be playing a lot more safely on this stage, because they will both be assuming that they'll be the ones the buttons trip up. Then, you've got the Bullet Bills to make sure it doesn't turn into a zero-approach campfest. That's a healthy balance to me. Sure, Peach's Castle could never hope to be a neutral stage, but it can certainly become a competitive one.

I would be swayed if we found out how frequently these buttons liked to appear. In an eight minute match I only got four buttons to appear. These buttons are color-coded as you know, and correspond to a specific, predictable set of platforms. The buttons are random, the platforms are not. If you see the button on the ground, you already know what platforms will appear if you push it.

The platforms will definitely change recovery options. Just like Randall does. But they can be reacted to. You've got a nice camera view on this stage, you can see whether or not your opponent is about to press the green button to give you high platforms or the blue one to give you inwardly slanted ones. You have time to react, time to demonstrate your stage knowledge and recover appropriately. This is a plus.

Cars are basically the same as the Bullet Bills. Sure, you have plenty of notice, but it's impossible to make sure you won't get hit into them, and it's funny you brought up the situation of drill shining because I was thinking of it the other way. I would be pretty upset if a car randomly interrupted a drill shine I had going, or any combo at the bottom level for that matter. I also find that stages with walkoffs tend to lead to degenerate gameplay because there is so much fighting in the bubbles where you can't properly space attacks and the game begins to revolve around low % kill gimmicks.
Fox: "LOL GET WAVESHINED U DEAD!"
Marth: "DTHROW, YOU CAN'T TECH AWAY OR U DIE LULZ!"
Samus: "OH NOES, I ACCIDENTLY SUPER WAVEDASHED! D:"
DK: "TIME FOR A PIGGY-BACK RIDE, ******!"
Ness: "FTHROW, I'M TOP TIER NOW *****!"

I agree that walk-off stages like Onett are a special case. I think that having your combos interrupted prematurely, if you choose to do them on the bottom level, or your opponent DIs such that he forces you to finish them on the bottom level, is fair.

I'm not going to say it's easy to avoid waveshines, but this is a player action with an appropriate opponent reaction. If the opponent fails to guard himself against waveshining, while he is on the outer edges of the building next to the walk-offs... Get owned. That was a stupid place to linger when fighting Fox. Marth d-throws you, then don't tech away, tech in place or roll forward. You still have options there. If you're Samus and you're dumb enough to go to the walk-off and use your down-b, Samus's fault. Don't use YL's down-air off the stage. Same deal there. You can mash out of DK's grab in under two seconds. Ness has pitiful grab range, if they get grabbed while next to the walk-off, that was definitely their bad.

---

TBH I wasn't expecting an Onett debate, I always thought its legality would be a given in a ruleset like this. It really isn't that bad of a stage.

 

[Varist]

You serious bro? Peach's turnips are useful, and they have the pull-out lag, while the apples have none, and also have more knockback/damage I think.

When the apples fly out of the tree, they have a hitbox IIRC. I'm pretty sure you can actually get combo'd by the apples lol

Plus, apples sometimes ****ing explode. What the **** that doesn't even make sense. I think they sometimes heal, too, but I think that's only if food is turned on. Don't remember.

almost forgot to respond to this lol

Peach's turnips are hella useful. But Peach can throw items quickly. Characters who aren't fast item throwers (that's actually a character property, rofl) would take a risk picking them up against a character who can approach them aptly enough to make the apples a con instead of a pro. But I haven't tested every character's increased capabilities when equipped with apples so that's up for more debate.

You're right, those things don't have any pull-out lag. I tested the damage and it seems that they're about equal to Peach's turnips, but a little higher on average since Peach's turnip faces vary (and hence their damage).

Couldn't really gauge knockback that well, but apples can't kill like turnips can*, so I didn't bother looking too closely at it.

You're right, I got smacked by the apples twice when I was standing under the tree. Didn't stop and check whether or not they still did 12% when not thrown by a character, but the hitlag in itself is arguably dangerous.

Yeah, food has to be turned on. A non-issue for tournaments of course but the more you know.

*I didn't know they exploded. That's seriously gay. Exploding barrels were what ended item tournaments on WC iirc. Can they explode when thrown or on impact with the ground, or both?

 

[Bones0]

I didn't mean they aren't giant lol, I meant they aren't disruptive.



The thing with getting hit into a Bullet Bill is that it can be avoided by proper intelligent gameplay. Players can definitely camp when they want to, so all a smart player needs to do is play defensive until the bullet has done its stuff if that player feels like the other player can hit his opponent into the explosion more proficiently than he himself can.

You get a little over seven seconds' notice that the bullet bill is coming, from somewhere, and about three seconds notice of where exactly it's going to hit (unless it goes for the top, then you've got one second). Seconds in Melee are long. If your opponent has been keeping you in hitstun for more than seven seconds, so that you never got the chance to run away, then that's a player error. Something that can be improved, so that you can better yourself when playing on the stage. No Johns wants that, as I understand it.

Standoff? All right, a player who has been camping is now forced to approach. This is a dynamic gameplay change, and I think characters being required to approach every few minutes is healthy for a stage. If you disagree, tell me why.



I agree that the button hitlag is a definite disruption. I agree that under the right conditions that leads to consequences for one of the players. But know that this hazard is an equal threat to both players until it happens, and both players will be playing a lot more safely on this stage, because they will both be assuming that they'll be the ones the buttons trip up. Then, you've got the Bullet Bills to make sure it doesn't turn into a zero-approach campfest. That's a healthy balance to me. Sure, Peach's Castle could never hope to be a neutral stage, but it can certainly become a competitive one.

I would be swayed if we found out how frequently these buttons liked to appear. In an eight minute match I only got four buttons to appear. These buttons are color-coded as you know, and correspond to a specific, predictable set of platforms. The buttons are random, the platforms are not. If you see the button on the ground, you already know what platforms will appear if you push it.

The platforms will definitely change recovery options. Just like Randall does. But they can be reacted to. You've got a nice camera view on this stage, you can see whether or not your opponent is about to press the green button to give you high platforms or the blue one to give you inwardly slanted ones. You have time to react, time to demonstrate your stage knowledge and recover appropriately. This is a plus.



I agree that walk-off stages like Onett are a special case. I think that having your combos interrupted prematurely, if you choose to do them on the bottom level, or your opponent DIs such that he forces you to finish them on the bottom level, is fair.

I'm not going to say it's easy to avoid waveshines, but this is a player action with an appropriate opponent reaction. If the opponent fails to guard himself against waveshining, while he is on the outer edges of the building next to the walk-offs... Get owned. That was a stupid place to linger when fighting Fox. Marth d-throws you, then don't tech away, tech in place or roll forward. You still have options there. If you're Samus and you're dumb enough to go to the walk-off and use your down-b, Samus's fault. Don't use YL's down-air off the stage. Same deal there. You can mash out of DK's grab in under two seconds. Ness has pitiful grab range, if they get grabbed while next to the walk-off, that was definitely their bad.

---

TBH I wasn't expecting an Onett debate, I always thought its legality would be a given in a ruleset like this. It really isn't that bad of a stage.

Really not trying to be a ****, but you really COULD have just said, "Yeah, you can adapt to that stuff." Most of your above post simply reasons that you can adapt to Bullet Bills (you have a few seconds... LOL?). You can adapt to buttons (by playing MORE careful, oh, hmmm... I can't believe I never thought of just playing carefully). You can adapt to platforms appearing and helping or blocking recoveries (I still say you shouldn't have to react to the stage being random, obviously).

Only points I feel like addressing specifically are:

Standoff? All right, a player who has been camping is now forced to approach. This is a dynamic gameplay change, and I think characters being required to approach every few minutes is healthy for a stage. If you disagree, tell me why.

Incorrect. BOTH players are camping. ONE player is RANDOMLY chosen by the Melee gods to be attacked by a giant, rogue Bullet Bill. One player being randomly thrown to the wolves is hardly a fair or competitive way of preventing standoffs.

Onett and Other Walkoffs ****

Obviously the examples I gave were superfluous in how dire the situations were (the Samus one was really just for lulz >_>). I exaggerated the situations only to get my point across that the game revolves around walk offs when they are available, and playing in bubbles is pretty much impossible to do consistently because there is no concrete way of determining where they are.

There are a million little gimmicks that allow people to get insanely quick kills on walkoffs. It isn't comparable to edgeguarding gimps either. Obviously a Fox who just camps in the bubble going for a waveshine kill won't get it, but to say it'd be a bad idea for a Fox to fight near the walk off and wait for a waveshine opportunity is ridiculous. Camping on say the left side of Onett is already a huge advantageous position for a lot of characters. Fox camps on the left, opponent finally sees an opening to approach from above, but now that both players are on the side, they both need to play drastically different to avoid getting gimped by random gimmicks. There are simply TOO MANY ways to get easy kills on walkoffs. Fox can waveshine obviously, but he can also just uthrow bair. On almost any other stage the opponent would then get the opportunity to recover, but there is no recovering on walkoffs. Getting grabbed by almost any character near a walkoff will mean death at the top level of play. You mentioned people can tech in place or towards the center vs. Marth, but then he can easily regrab or fsmash, or w/e he wants. Getting grabbed by M2K is scary enough as it is, the last thing we need is to make it virtually a guaranteed kill because he can tech chase regrab into an fsmash that cannot be DI'd. Almost every character has a throw that could easily result in death at <50%.


I really think this entire thread is going about it the wrong way. Obviously I'm not too fond of the whole "NO JOHNS! PLAY ON ALL THE STAGES!" mentality, but if you guys ACTUALLY want to have the ruleset adopted, you should START with getting the 10 or so most fair stages legal, and then progress from there. Starting with a stage list of 20+ stages with some that a lot of people have literally not played in the past year is never going to work. If people are trying to get Brinstar and RC banned from tournaments, what chance do you have of getting more random stages? Working from this list:
- The 5 Neutrals
- Poke Stadium
- Brinstar
- Rainbow Cruise
- Kongo Jungle 64

Add from there. Personally I think Jungle Japes is more fair of a stage than all of the current counterpicks (pretty much even with PS), so if you could argue for that and one other stage to be added into the stage list, you'd actually have some potential PROGRESS. Hell, even I'd enter a tournament with this stage list:
- The 5 Neutrals
- PS
- KJ64
- Brinstar
- RC
- Jungle Japes
- Corneria

Anything beyond that and I would start to get a little frustrated with some of the stages. You would need 2 bans + Modified DSR, though. Otherwise you'll be playing on 1 fair stage, then each player would get to win on some wack stage that is too much in their favor.

 

[Varist]

Really not trying to be a ****, but you really COULD have just said, "Yeah, you can adapt to that stuff." Most of your above post simply reasons that you can adapt to Bullet Bills (you have a few seconds... LOL?). You can adapt to buttons (by playing MORE careful, oh, hmmm... I can't believe I never thought of just playing carefully). You can adapt to platforms appearing and helping or blocking recoveries (I still say you shouldn't have to react to the stage being random, obviously).

You do. You can hear the rumble of the bullet bill well in advance of it appearing on-screen. On second thought it's usually pretty loud at tourneys, but I don't know how to argue for or against that since it could vary wildly. Just put the T.V. on max volume when you strike to PPC? Just hope no one goes to it for grand finals LOL

Incorrect. BOTH players are camping. ONE player is RANDOMLY chosen by the Melee gods to be attacked by a giant, rogue Bullet Bill. One player being randomly thrown to the wolves is hardly a fair or competitive way of preventing standoffs.

Like I said though, buttons seem pretty infrequent. Both players could just play like normal. Or one could be more careful and the other just play. It's up to the players how they want to change their style, knowing that they could step on a button that'll change their recovery options and make them miss an L cancel.

I think you overestimate the scope of the Bullet Bills. If the bill goes for the far right, I can just move a little closer center and continue camping. If it hits right side of castle, I just move back to far right near the edge, and if the opponent wants to jump over the explosion and come try and gimp me in my less-than-adequate camping spot that's his business. If the bill hits top of the castle, nothing has changed.

Obviously the examples I gave were superfluous in how dire the situations were (the Samus one was really just for lulz >_>). I exaggerated the situations only to get my point across that the game revolves around walk offs when they are available, and playing in bubbles is pretty much impossible to do consistently because there is no concrete way of determining where they are.

I never really thought of it as a bubble, because each player will imagine where their safe boundaries are depending on the character they're using or the character they're fighting.

There are a million little gimmicks that allow people to get insanely quick kills on walkoffs. [Fox's stage breakage explanation]

All right, you've illustrated quite well how dangerous Fox is when he's camping a walk-off. I can't combat that point. If I were going to say anything to try to deflate its significance, though, I would ask you to illustrate how many other characters could break the stage so effectively. Depending on the number, I would tell you to strike PPC if you're playing a Fox. Under this ruleset you've got plenty of stage strikes, and leaving Onett out just because of one character when Onett could stay legal with no further competitive detriment to speak of doesn't sound like it lines up with the aims of this rule set. Imo.

I really think this entire thread is going about it the wrong way. Obviously I'm not too fond of the whole "NO JOHNS! PLAY ON ALL THE STAGES!" mentality, but if you guys ACTUALLY want to have the ruleset adopted, you should START with getting the 10 or so most fair stages legal, and then progress from there. Starting with a stage list of 20+ stages with some that a lot of people have literally not played in the past year is never going to work. If people are trying to get Brinstar and RC banned from tournaments, what chance do you have of getting more random stages? Working from this list:
- The 5 Neutrals
- Poke Stadium
- Brinstar
- Rainbow Cruise
- Kongo Jungle 64

Add from there. Personally I think Jungle Japes is more fair of a stage than all of the current counterpicks (pretty much even with PS), so if you could argue for that and one other stage to be added into the stage list, you'd actually have some potential PROGRESS. Hell, even I'd enter a tournament with this stage list:
- The 5 Neutrals
- PS
- KJ64
- Brinstar
- RC
- Jungle Japes
- Corneria

Anything beyond that and I would start to get a little frustrated with some of the stages. You would need 2 bans + Modified DSR, though. Otherwise you'll be playing on 1 fair stage, then each player would get to win on some wack stage that is too much in their favor.

Don't have much to say about this yet. Only that I'm looking at the quote "but if you guys ACTUALLY want to have the ruleset adopted, you should START with getting the 10 or so most fair stages legal, and then progress from there," and thinking two things.

- Who are we trying to prove to that this is legal? THIS is a ruleset. It's already legal. Do you mean, try to get the MBR to legalize ten stages? That doesn't matter. Only the TOs matter. It's up to tournament hosts to adopt this ruleset as the standard. I know what you mean though. This ruleset's "new" additional stages need to be somehow integrated into competitive play gradually so that professionals have a significant amount of practice with them already, so that they won't simply be frustrated by the ruleset. But players read the tournament rules before they attend. They're well-informed already. If they don't think they're up to a No Johns ruleset tournament, they simply won't come. When and if they decide to acquire more stage knowledge, they will come. A lot won't care, they'll come for the novelty, and some will see the tournaments themselves as a chance to improve on these stages and "adopt" them.

 

[Manondorf]

Two questions:

1) Does anyone think it's viable to mod ssbm to make some stages fair enough for competitive play?
2) Is it viable to set up a tournament with modded versions of ssbm?

 

[Bones0]

I think you overestimate the scope of the Bullet Bills. If the bill goes for the far right, I can just move a little closer center and continue camping. If it hits right side of castle, I just move back to far right near the edge, and if the opponent wants to jump over the explosion and come try and gimp me in my less-than-adequate camping spot that's his business. If the bill hits top of the castle, nothing has changed.

Regardless of how you get away, a Bullet Bill is randomly going to put one player at a disadvantage. Having to grab the ledge because it chose your side is going to **** you once it's gone and your opponent is practically edgeguarding you.

I never really thought of it as a bubble, because each player will imagine where their safe boundaries are depending on the character they're using or the character they're fighting.

...I'm talking about the LITERAL bubbles your character is in. I guess they are technically magnifying glasses, but the game refers to them as bubbles ("Bubble Blast KO" special, for example). You can't tell WTF is going on when you or your opponent, god forbid both of you, are in a bubble. You occasionally see people jumping out to edgeguard people in bubbles, but the fact that they are just drifting towards the stage makes it much less complicated than trying to space attacks in the bubbles when you are both dash dancing and WDing all over.

All right, you've illustrated quite well how dangerous Fox is when he's camping a walk-off. I can't combat that point. If I were going to say anything to try to deflate its significance, though, I would ask you to illustrate how many other characters could break the stage so effectively. Depending on the number, I would tell you to strike PPC if you're playing a Fox. Under this ruleset you've got plenty of stage strikes, and leaving Onett out just because of one character when Onett could stay legal with no further competitive detriment to speak of doesn't sound like it lines up with the aims of this rule set. Imo.

Well I'd agree with you that EVERYONE is really dangerous on walk-offs. That's why I think they cause degenerative gameplay. Games start to revolve around getting just one quick gimmick kill each stock. It's like playing Super Sudden Death where the first hit/grab that lands leads to a stock, or probably more accurate, it would feel like playing on the legal stages where if you were able to get your opponent past the edge they die... at least in that scenario you can actually see what's going on though.

 

[Varist]

@Manondorf

The entire notion of radically patching and altering a game after its release may have many desirable properties, but it also has created an attitude among developers that they can release a somewhat buggy and imbalanced game and just patch it later. It is no surprise then that players of this type of game see differently than players of more “static” games on the issue of banning and altering a game. To players of my kind of games, banning is an ultra-extreme measure. To players of some internet games, the changing of game balance can be an everyday occurrence, as can the fixing of bugs.

The “constant patching” approach by developers also often leads to laziness on the part of the players; there’s less reward for trying as hard as you can within the given rules, because if you are successful, your tactic will just be patched into obsolescence anyway. You might be a footnote someplace, but you won’t still be winning. It gets worse in most massively multiplayer games, where you can actually be banned—permanently—for playing within the rules they created, but playing in a way they had not intended.

Excerpt from some of Sirlin's stuff. I think that modded versions of SSBM will ultimately fail. More because they're not all players have equal access to it, and it makes it harder for newer players to get into the scene. Also, as soon as that starts happening, there will be a dedicated faction against it, who believe that Melee is already a wonderful game and modding it disrespects that, among other things. Your question very off-topic though.

 

[Bones0]

Two questions:

1) Does anyone think it's viable to mod ssbm to make some stages fair enough for competitive play?
2) Is it viable to set up a tournament with modded versions of ssbm?

1) Yes, absolutely.
2) No, not until modding Melee becomes more accessible.

For now, I believe you have to go download Gecko or some **** onto an SD, put the SD into your Wii, then burn a copy of Melee onto a DVD (I think it's a DVD at least). Having enough setups is an issue already, so requiring modded setups wouldn't hold up very well. Even if you could get enough setups, especially for some of the smaller locals, you couldn't expect people to play on modded stages that they haven't been able to practice on if they don't have a modded setup of their own. Just with Action Replay you can stop PS from transforming, stop the wind on DL, and get rid of Shy Guys on YS. You can also get rid of the wind, blocks, and apples on Green Greens which makes it a completely viable stage, but no one will want to play on that in tournament because not everyone can practice on a modded Green Greens, and most people would not be willing to practice on default Green Greens.

If they can ever figure out some way to get AR codes or modded Melee embedded on to GameCube memory cards, I'm sure we'd start to see it become tournament standard. Until then, I think the best bet is simply using the few mods I mentioned only for GFs sets or something because they aren't big enough changes that you would have to practice for them, but they'd only help to reduce randomness.

 

[Varist]

Regardless of how you get away, a Bullet Bill is randomly going to put one player at a disadvantage. Having to grab the ledge because it chose your side is going to **** you once it's gone and your opponent is practically edgeguarding you.

Think you misunderstood, you don't have to grab the ledge at all, just go near it. You can easily run back up to your previous spot the instant the blast has cleared. I'm not denying it disrupts one player randomly, but that disruption is nothing in the situation we described. It's insignificant.

...I'm talking about the LITERAL bubbles your character is in. I guess they are technically magnifying glasses, but the game refers to them as bubbles ("Bubble Blast KO" special, for example). You can't tell WTF is going on when you or your opponent, god forbid both of you, are in a bubble. You occasionally see people jumping out to edgeguard people in bubbles, but the fact that they are just drifting towards the stage makes it much less complicated than trying to space attacks in the bubbles when you are both dash dancing and WDing all over.

LOL I feel like an idiot. So off the mark. Wow. I'm kind of embarrassed.
Bubbles always felt like Melee's one definitive flaw to me. Panning the camera over and just having like, a literal visible line where the blast line is would be better competitively, but they put those bubbles in for stylistic reasons and it kind of pisses me off but at the same time it makes Melee Melee, so. Anyway, that's another one of the reasons walk-offs are special cases, but I mean, maybe instinctual character control is a skill to be built up to fight under bubbled conditions. But that's reaching for too thin a string. I think bubbles are wonky too, so not going to say anything more about it.

Well I'd agree with you that EVERYONE is really dangerous on walk-offs. That's why I think they cause degenerative gameplay. Games start to revolve around getting just one quick gimmick kill each stock. It's like playing Super Sudden Death where the first hit/grab that lands leads to a stock, or probably more accurate, it would feel like playing on the legal stages where if you were able to get your opponent past the edge they die... at least in that scenario you can actually see what's going on though.

Walk offs are definitely very dangerous, and they change your entire perception of the situation when you fight in them. I feel like that's another aspect of Melee though, it's like familiarizing yourself when fighting on the edge, but much more dangerous and much more severe when you screw up and get punished.

BUT, thinking in line with the No Johns ruleset, realize that we are no longer debating randomness anymore. We're now debating playstyle. And shifts in playstyle on a stage are fine to me, no matter how severe. If players try to get a lead and camp the walk off, that sucks, some characters will have a way to approach that camping character if they've got good timing, the lower-tier characters might not. In those cases, stage strike the walk-offs, as those might pose the most danger to your character. That's what stage striking is about, eliminating stages that are good for your opponent and bad for you. In all other cases, the walk-offs are fair, but present a very big shift in strategy. I look at it as flavor.

 

[Bones0]

@Manondorf



Excerpt from some of Sirlin's stuff. I think that modded versions of SSBM will ultimately fail. More because they're not all players have equal access to it, and it makes it harder for newer players to get into the scene. Also, as soon as that starts happening, there will be a dedicated faction against it, who believe that Melee is already a wonderful game and modding it disrespects that, among other things. Your question very off-topic though.

I don't think it's very off topic. If it's seems like a lot of people are nit-picking at the stages you guys are arguing for, it's because most people are. Personally, I'd really have no issue with most stages if it weren't for a few small changes. Get rid of the water and Klap Trap on Jungle Japes and I would consider it a neutral. Same goes for disabling PS transformations. Same goes for getting rid of the wind, apples, and blocks on Green Greens. We could easily expand our 5 neutrals to 8 with just a few minor mods. I wouldn't be upset if PPC became a counterpick if the Bullet Bills and buttons were disabled.

 

[Varist]

I look at this ruleset as an attempt at playing Melee in a more natural way, and including a little more of the game in competition where possible and where fair. Modding stages disregards and negates this ruleset's purpose. I do see the parallels between the two topics, they are very involved with each other, but I think that the discussion of modding stages adds nothing to the discussion of the No Johns ruleset. That's why I look at it as off-topic. So this is the last post I'll make in reference to it regardless of where this thread ends up going :x

 

[Bones0]

LOL I feel like an idiot. So off the mark. Wow. I'm kind of embarrassed.
Bubbles always felt like Melee's one definitive flaw to me. Panning the camera over and just having like, a literal visible line where the blast line is would be better competitively, but they put those bubbles in for stylistic reasons and it kind of pisses me off but at the same time it makes Melee Melee, so. Anyway, that's another one of the reasons walk-offs are special cases, but I mean, maybe instinctual character control is a skill to be built up to fight under bubbled conditions. But that's reaching for too thin a string. I think bubbles are wonky too, so not going to say anything more about it.

Walk offs are definitely very dangerous, and they change your entire perception of the situation when you fight in them. I feel like that's another aspect of Melee though, it's like familiarizing yourself when fighting on the edge, but much more dangerous and much more severe when you screw up and get punished.

Yeah, that's definitely reaching if you're going to ask players to visualize spacing. Someone could WD, and the only possible way to determine which way they went is by looking at which side of their feet the most dust is on... Essentially impossible for human expectations. Spacing is such a crucial part of Melee's metagame, to demand players to play in an area where you have to space blindly is stupid, especially when even the smallest spacing errors could lead to shield grabs, which, on walk-offs, usually lead to unstoppable deaths.


BUT, thinking in line with the No Johns ruleset, realize that we are no longer debating randomness anymore. We're now debating playstyle. And shifts in playstyle on a stage are fine to me, no matter how severe. If players try to get a lead and camp the walk off, that sucks, some characters will have a way to approach that camping character if they've got good timing, the lower-tier characters might not. In those cases, stage strike the walk-offs, as those might pose the most danger to your character. That's what stage striking is about, eliminating stages that are good for your opponent and bad for you. In all other cases, the walk-offs are fair, but present a very big shift in strategy. I look at it as flavor.[/QUOTE]

If you're going to acknowledge that walk-offs deteriorate gameplay significantly, but must be dealt with on a character to character basis, I don't know why you wouldn't feel the same about stuff like timing out on Hyrule. It could be argued that circle camping on Hyrule is just as "fair" as walk-offs or as Battle Field. If you aren't going to draw a line for what type of gameplay is degenerative for the metagame, then you must allow everything, and allowing everything sucks ****. You could keep Hyrule legal and just tell people to strike it vs. characters faster than them, but most people accept the fact that players should not lose because someone can run away the whole game. Similarly, people have accepted the notion that the game should require more than quick-gimp gimmicks on walk-offs. If you think walk-off gimmicks should just be considered part of the game, why not timing people out with circle camping? Just for the record, I haven't mentioned character bias as any reason for getting rid of walk-offs. How stages affect characters' placings on the tier list are irrelevant to me when determining a stage's legality (i.e. I think Brinstar and Mute City are bannable stages because the stage hazards randomly interfere, not because they have extreme sizes which could benefit certain characters over others). Similarly, the fact that Fox is really good on walk-offs isn't why I think they're degenerative. It's the fact that all of the characters are really good near walk-offs because almost everything kills so quickly.

 

[Stevo]

what if you don't agree with the turnip threshold?

we should test the opposite end of the spectrum too.

Battlefield only
Peach, G&W, Luigi banned for randomness

who's in?

actually, who are we kidding? crowd pleasers only.

Fox, Falco, Marth, Falcon only

 

[Bones0]

I look at this ruleset as an attempt at playing Melee in a more natural way, and including a little more of the game in competition where possible and where fair. Modding stages disregards and negates this ruleset's purpose. I do see the parallels between the two topics, they are very involved with each other, but I think that the discussion of modding stages adds nothing to the discussion of the No Johns ruleset. That's why I look at it as off-topic. So this is the last post I'll make in reference to it regardless of where this thread ends up going :x

Regardless of what many people have given as the purpose of this thread, I perceive the purpose of this thread simply as: "Expand the stage list." You can say that the thread wants Melee to be played more "purely" or whatnot, but what I feel it really comes down to is playing more stages. Obviously they are related, but this thread seems mostly created in response to the banning of more and more of the counterpick stages. If the goal of the thread is to simply play more stages, then modding some of the stages is obviously a very effective way at doing so. The whole "No Johns!" part of the ruleset is rather silly to me. No johns is a mindset to have when competing, not when designing a game or ruleset. If people had this mindset all the time, then games would be horrible. Let's say you have a FPS where one team spawns on a side with a bunch of good weapons and good cover and the other team spawns behind a truck in the middle of an open field. If that is the FPS you have created, you can simply go "Oh, well, No Johns to the players. They need to man up and overcome the obstacle of getting shafted by the game's randomness." Obviously no one is going to be competing with your FPS, though.

Same goes for Melee. Saying people who want to ban stages are just johning is ridiculous, especially when virtually everyone considers SOME stages unfair. If I consider Brinstar unfair I'm johning, but if I consider Hyrule unfair I'm not? It's quite the double standard. Perhaps the best way of looking at it is, what if the game had a casual and competitive version of each stage? Would you be johning to want to play the stages designed to be more fair? Obviously not. Unless you think some of the stages would actually be MORE competitive with their hazards than without, there's no logical reason to want to play on non-modded versions as opposed to the modded ones. I'll agree that the topic would be best off with it's own thread, but for someone to ask in this thread instead isn't too off topic considering it is almost a perfect compromise (in fact, very little is being compromised by either side). People who want more stages get them, and the people who dislike certain properties of banned stages get them removed. It's almost a perfect win-win.

 

[Varist]

If you're going to acknowledge that walk-offs deteriorate gameplay significantly, but must be dealt with on a character to character basis, I don't know why you wouldn't feel the same about stuff like timing out on Hyrule. It could be argued that circle camping on Hyrule is just as "fair" as walk-offs or as Battle Field. If you aren't going to draw a line for what type of gameplay is degenerative for the metagame, then you must allow everything, and allowing everything sucks ****. You could keep Hyrule legal and just tell people to strike it vs. characters faster than them, but most people accept the fact that players should not lose because someone can run away the whole game. Similarly, people have accepted the notion that the game should require more than quick-gimp gimmicks on walk-offs. If you think walk-off gimmicks should just be considered part of the game, why not timing people out with circle camping? Just for the record, I haven't mentioned character bias as any reason for getting rid of walk-offs. How stages affect characters' placings on the tier list are irrelevant to me when determining a stage's legality (i.e. I think Brinstar and Mute City are bannable stages because the stage hazards randomly interfere, not because they have extreme sizes which could benefit certain characters over others). Similarly, the fact that Fox is really good on walk-offs isn't why I think they're degenerative. It's the fact that all of the characters are really good near walk-offs because almost everything kills so quickly.

I didn't see the parallel between walk-offs, where the risk is high and the stock could end quickly, and a stage like Temple, where the risk is low and the stocks don't end. I feel like walk-offs have far more competitive merit in them than circle stages, however, even if they don't support competition as a neutral would.

I want to say that next to a walk-off edge, when the match-up is relatively even, both players are balancing great risk for potentially great reward. I don't get that feeling when trying to approach someone running around Temple. I feel more helpless.

The No Johns ruleset seems like it's trying to judge the degrees of unfairness posed by each stage and weight them against the unfairness the community already accepts (turnip), so the defense I have against the Temple analog would be that the drastic gameplay change posed by walk-offs is more supportive of competition, to a greater degree than circle camping, but that's heavily tied to player ability and playstyle. I don't think I can go further, maybe someone with a different perspective could vouch for or against Onett in a more concrete way.

Spoiler

going to bed

 

[Bones0]

what if you don't agree with the turnip threshold?

we should test the opposite end of the spectrum too.

Battlefield only
Peach, G&W, Luigi banned for randomness

who's in?

actually, who are we kidding? crowd pleasers only.

Fox, Falco, Marth, Falcon only

Battlefield and FD have random backgrounds. It's very distracting, so they should be banned.

No items.

Fox only.

No destination.

 

[Bones0]

I didn't see the parallel between walk-offs, where the risk is high and the stock could end quickly, and a stage like Temple, where the risk is low and the stocks don't end. I feel like walk-offs have far more competitive merit in them than circle stages, however, even if they don't support competition as a neutral would.

I want to say that next to a walk-off edge, when the match-up is relatively even, both players are balancing great risk for potentially great reward. I don't get that feeling when trying to approach someone running around Temple. I feel more helpless.

The No Johns ruleset seems like it's trying to judge the degrees of unfairness posed by each stage and weight them against the unfairness the community already accepts (turnip), so the defense I have against the Temple analog would be that the drastic gameplay change posed by walk-offs is more supportive of competition, to a greater degree than circle camping, but that's heavily tied to player ability and playstyle. I don't think I can go further, maybe someone with a different perspective could vouch for or against Onett in a more concrete way.

Yeah, rereading what I wrote I think I got caught up in a comparison that doesn't really make sense in the big picture. I guess what I was getting at is if you can ban Hyrule for promoting gameplay based around running away, then you should also be justified in banning stages that promote gameplay based around getting walk-off related kills. The two are pretty similar in that they both have significantly lower skill gaps than Melee on neutrals. Anyone can run away all game, and although to a lesser extent, almost anyone can camp in the bubbles on walkoffs and use a handful of gimmicks at their disposal to get quick, easy kills.

 

[KishPrime]

Yeah, rereading what I wrote I think I got caught up in a comparison that doesn't really make sense in the big picture. I guess what I was getting at is if you can ban Hyrule for promoting gameplay based around running away, then you should also be justified in banning stages that promote gameplay based around getting walk-off related kills. The two are pretty similar in that they both have significantly lower skill gaps than Melee on neutrals. Anyone can run away all game, and although to a lesser extent, almost anyone can camp in the bubbles on walkoffs and use a handful of gimmicks at their disposal to get quick, easy kills.

Again, I don't really have time to keep up with all this conversation (which is cool), but I disagree with this point. There may be less useful tools on the edge, but that does not inherently degrade gameplay. A degradation of gameplay would happen if camping the edge became a low-risk, high-reward strategy. However, this is not the case. Someone camping a walkoff edge is putting himself into a high-risk position to have a chance to earn the high reward, and one mistake by the person on the edge will get them killed, too. Yeah some characters are better there than others, just like any spot on the stage.

Good gameplay depth does not just come down to the number of options, it also comes down to how they are weighted.

I don't see how block saves on Green Greens are any different from Randall on YS. Seems to me in my playing that it has roughly the same effect. But that's me.

One last point - if you want to debate the Turnip Threshold, then you're implying that you would consider banning Peach. The point to the Turnip Threshold is that, since no one wants to ban Peach for her randomness, we can use that as an approximate "randomness quantity" that competitive players consider tolerable.

 

[Bones0]

Again, I don't really have time to keep up with all this conversation (which is cool), but I disagree with this point. There may be less useful tools on the edge, but that does not inherently degrade gameplay. A degradation of gameplay would happen if camping the edge became a low-risk, high-reward strategy. However, this is not the case. Someone camping a walkoff edge is putting himself into a high-risk position to have a chance to earn the high reward, and one mistake by the person on the edge will get them killed, too. Yeah some characters are better there than others, just like any spot on the stage.

Good gameplay depth does not just come down to the number of options, it also comes down to how they are weighted.

I don't see how block saves on Green Greens are any different from Randall on YS. Seems to me in my playing that it has roughly the same effect. But that's me.

One last point - if you want to debate the Turnip Threshold, then you're implying that you would consider banning Peach. The point to the Turnip Threshold is that, since no one wants to ban Peach for her randomness, we can use that as an approximate "randomness quantity" that competitive players consider tolerable.

If the high-risk, high-reward gameplay occurred on a legitimate area like a ledge on other stages there wouldn't really be an issue. The problem with walk-offs is that players have to fight in bubbles and there is no concrete way of playing correctly when you can't space properly. This leads to a situation where a player who knows he isn't as good as his opponent can force the battle to go to the walk-off where outplaying someone is much more difficult, and one mistake can lead to a death. Like I said before, it's comparable to Super Sudden Death. A bad players is much more likely to win in SSD than he is to win in default Melee. It's simple probability.

I don't see how you can compare GG blocks to Randall. Randall moves slow, in a predictable pattern, and covering the option to land on Randall has just become an accepted part of edgeguarding on YS. The blocks on GG are not visible at the time you choose to kill your opponent off the top, and they are not based on a set pattern. Blocks on GGs guarantee you survive, but landing on Randall usually just leads to the opponent hitting you back off and edgehogging like normal. Lastly, getting saved by the blocks takes no skill (outside of DIing above the block areas, I guess), whereas landing on Randall is a very difficult task on its own, let alone landing on Randall in a way that will actually lead to you surviving.

 

[KishPrime]

If the high-risk, high-reward gameplay occurred on a legitimate area like a ledge on other stages there wouldn't really be an issue. The problem with walk-offs is that players have to fight in bubbles and there is no concrete way of playing correctly when you can't space properly. This leads to a situation where a player who knows he isn't as good as his opponent can force the battle to go to the walk-off where outplaying someone is much more difficult, and one mistake can lead to a death. Like I said before, it's comparable to Super Sudden Death. A bad players is much more likely to win in SSD than he is to win in default Melee. It's simple probability.

I don't see how you can compare GG blocks to Randall. Randall moves slow, in a predictable pattern, and covering the option to land on Randall has just become an accepted part of edgeguarding on YS. The blocks on GG are not visible at the time you choose to kill your opponent off the top, and they are not based on a set pattern. Blocks on GGs guarantee you survive, but landing on Randall usually just leads to the opponent hitting you back off and edgehogging like normal. Lastly, getting saved by the blocks takes no skill (outside of DIing above the block areas, I guess), whereas landing on Randall is a very difficult task on its own, let alone landing on Randall in a way that will actually lead to you surviving.

My only case is that their resultant random effect is roughly equal - periodic stock saves that aren't enormously common as a random effect (players placing themselves in position to take advantage of the falling block zone, for example, would be taking advantage of stage properties as opposed to it being a random effect). Blocks do fall in a set area, in a set zone of the stage. In fact, one could make the case that it is easier for players to leverage the use of blocks to their advantage because of those traits compared to Randall. Still, the amount of skill required isn't really relevant to the argument, as it pertains to the stage selection criteria. I completely agree that the randomness pushes into the Turnip Threshold line, as I mention in the first post.

I kind of follow your walkoff argument, and I think the bubble piece is the most interesting. However, high-risk, high-reward play is common on other stages at places like the ledge, and even during some approaches. Your theory that bad players win more often comes down to sample size - battles are shorter, therefore there is more of a chance for a bad player to win by that alone. This is true, but I don't feel that it is as extreme of an effect as you suggest. Again, though, none of these are really relevant within the original criteria. Walk-off edges are a part of multiple stages in Melee, so it is an intended design element that tests a different skillset contained within the game. It just so happens that MKII is one of the only stages that doesn't have other fatal flaws.

 

[Bones0]

My only case is that their resultant random effect is roughly equal - periodic stock saves that aren't enormously common as a random effect (players placing themselves in position to take advantage of the falling block zone, for example, would be taking advantage of stage properties as opposed to it being a random effect). Blocks do fall in a set area, in a set zone of the stage. In fact, one could make the case that it is easier for players to leverage the use of blocks to their advantage because of those traits compared to Randall. Still, the amount of skill required isn't really relevant to the argument, as it pertains to the stage selection criteria. I completely agree that the randomness pushes into the Turnip Threshold line, as I mention in the first post.

Randall doesn't result in periodic stock saves. I can't remember the last time I saw a top level player get saved by Randall. He's such a small target to land on, and even when you do you are easily hit right back off of him. I acknowledged that blocks do fall in designated areas, but that hardly makes them consistent in terms of how often people are saved. They aren't always falling, and with two people getting KO'd into the same area above the blocks, one could survive while the other doesn't, and neither player has any control over whether or not they're saved. The skill required IS relevant, because it correlates with the randomness of the event. Landing on Randall takes a lot of skill, and thus, almost never happens randomly. Aside from DI'ing into the area of the blocks (which is a risky decision in its own right; most people would opt for DI'ing normally rather than hoping to get saved by blocks), there is no player control on either end from people getting saved.

Blocks:
- Random
- Influence the match without being visible
- Little player control over whether or not you are saved
- Stopping a would-be KO has a large impact on a match

Randall:
- Based on a set timer
- Moves into the field at a slow pace, making reacting to him more reasonable
- Difficult to land on means very few scenarios where you land on him due to pure luck
- Does little to aid recovering players

 

[BigD!!!]

i see people recover onto the cloud in like 1/3 of the matches i see on yoshis, and definitely see it happen by accident/when the person would have died. not to mention the fact that the mere presence of the cloud forces people to edgeguard differently due to the possibility of people recovering toward it. in fact, i dont see why a slow moving, predictable target would be considered hard to land on/not a factor.

that cloud saves me like every match i play on yoshis, just practice actually landing on it.

edit: all this being said, i think green greens is a little too wacky with the blocks really covering a considerable portion of the stage if you consider any place they could potentially be, plus the apples are really strong

 

[Kal]

Blocks are random, but they can only fall when the blocks aren't already full. Moreover, if a KO is stopped by the blocks, the person who would have normally died is in a very bad position, save for a few of the characters with really powerful downward priority.

It's similar to the example in the first post. You see your opponent saved by the blocks and think "man, my bad luck." I think "considering that the block stack wasn't full, I probably shouldn't have tried for an off the top kill in that particular position."