The Official P:M Edmonton Thread!

[T-block]

It's probably not correct to say that we are attempting to "balance" matchups by implementing a stage ban. Rather, we are attempting to mitigate the advantage the loser gains on his counterpick.

At some point in Melee's development presumably we deemed the advantage to be too large without a ban (and interestingly enough, the Melee ruleset recently removed the stage ban with the shrinking of the stage list, no?) - whether we should be doing this, or when exactly an advantage becomes "too large" can be disputed, but is another issue entirely.

So Vic citing "matchups that are flat broke" captures the idea, but isn't the actual reason per se. In deciding whether we should have stage bans, we shouldn't give a **** about spacies on Halberd, or if Peach is absolutely horrible on Metal Cavern. What we care about is the general, overarching idea of making the advantage less extreme. In other words, saying "we need a stage ban because we have this stage legal, and this subset of characters is too strong on it" is, in my opinion, the wrong way to think about it. Instead, we should be saying "a stage ban lessens the counterpicker's advantage. this is DESIRED, therefore we should have a stage ban".

tl;dr Trying to boil it down to exact numbers has its place, but it's futile here. We should have a stage ban if and only if we feel that the loser would have too strong of an advantage otherwise (ie- it would hurt competition), without looking too hard at the specifics.

 

[Stevo]

right, and shouldn't we decide that after we try it without stage bans?

how do we have any idea how many bans we should give?

I'll concede the point that in the end it makes things more balanced, sure, especially under the assumption sticking to one character is what we are balancing around. However, it just seems so arbitrary right now.

 

[Stevo]

I guess we gotta start somewhere....

but I would err on the side of less bans to promote diversity and allow the metagame to evolve

 

[T-block]

I would agree, and I would also support trying no bans from an ideals standpoint.

But in reality, I would forsee many people jumping to blame the ruleset instead of blaming their own inability to figure something out, meaning such an experiment wouldn't do much good, which is what's preventing me from wholeheartedly recommending it...

 

[Stevo]

that's probably true.

 

[Crusayer]

With how some of the stages are, they are closer in resemblance back when mute city and brinstar were legal imo. But I am a spacey. We love ledges. We don't enjoy stages where our recovery options are essentially cut to 1/4 of the original. We die easy enough as it is.

Also, we're at a stage of character development. People haven't even figured out their own character, let alone, their character in a new (disadvantaged) environment. I'd like to figure out how to deal with ike as a whole before dealing with ike when i'm 90% screwed if i'm thrown off the edge on halberd.

 

[Stevo]

Halberd seems like a friendlies stage to me, but then again, I've probably played on it twice since brawl came out, the last time being like 4 years ago.

Halberd transitions and has hazards right? I'm not saying that automatically makes it bad, but it's not like we are hurting for legal stages....

Unless it is only really spacies that have much trouble there? I really wish I knew more about these brawl stages lol.

 

[Alphicans]

Why are hazards a reason to illegalize a stage? Halberd is a fine stage, and is pretty balanced imo.

 

[T-block]

i thought they removed halberd's hazards? o.o

 

[KlTHKlN]

If I'm allowed input here.

Honestly I feel the stage ban isn't necessary, I agree with Steve, for a competitive game, the stage list should just be balanced as best it can be, after that it shouldn't matter (relatively speaking)

HOWEVER, there are a multitude of stages currently legal, and as long as we want to keep the game fun, bans have to be included. That or reduce the stages to battlefield smashville only. Fair =/= fun in every instance, and thats why we DONT have character bans and stuff like that.

When melee was big, I remember how many tournaments I took people to rainbow cruise, or mute city, or corneria, or some other weird stage at the time they were legal. Some people were super excited to play fun stages, some people *****ed for days and either considered me a "scrub cheater" or just was super salty about it.

There will never truly be a balance, but I found the stages added a lot of fun, but in order to keep them, a ban is necessary, just looking at the stage list, I can tell you a number of stages I wouldn't want to play most of the characters on. Like in melee, I ban FD, every single set every, just because I think it's dumb, even if I have the advantage, it's just not a fun stage. But in serious fairness, I think that the stage has some stupid matchups, but is also perfect for others.

+1 ban vote. keep fun alive

 

[Alphicans]

i thought they removed halberd's hazards? o.o

They removed the claw, and reduced the bomb's damage/knockback (I think). The laser still exists, but as you know it's not much of a threat to anything.

 

[Stevo]

If I'm allowed input here.

Honestly I feel the stage ban isn't necessary, I agree with Steve, for a competitive game, the stage list should just be balanced as best it can be, after that it shouldn't matter (relatively speaking)

HOWEVER, there are a multitude of stages currently legal, and as long as we want to keep the game fun, bans have to be included. That or reduce the stages to battlefield smashville only. Fair =/= fun in every instance, and thats why we DONT have character bans and stuff like that.

When melee was big, I remember how many tournaments I took people to rainbow cruise, or mute city, or corneria, or some other weird stage at the time they were legal. Some people were super excited to play fun stages, some people *****ed for days and either considered me a "scrub cheater" or just was super salty about it.

There will never truly be a balance, but I found the stages added a lot of fun, but in order to keep them, a ban is necessary, just looking at the stage list, I can tell you a number of stages I wouldn't want to play most of the characters on. Like in melee, I ban FD, every single set every, just because I think it's dumb, even if I have the advantage, it's just not a fun stage. But in serious fairness, I think that the stage has some stupid matchups, but is also perfect for others.

+1 ban vote. keep fun alive

Fun. Now there is something people don't bring up on these forums enough.

Eveyrone has some bias when looking at this. Some of my personal bias comes from the fact that I could never time someone out.
I just cannot do it.
I could also never run around in circles shooting with Foxes blaster.

In the end, I play this game for fun. There could be no money on the line and I wouldn't try less hard. In fact, I would personally most likely play better. I realize this doesn't fly for everyone. Some people will run away and shoot lasers for 8 minutes.

I think there is a big conflict here between fun and fair, as brad has brought up.
to be fair, the stagelist probably should be like only a few stages, and bans would not be necessary at this point of course, because we would not allow stages that would give a too great advantage to begin with.

I guess the smash community is a balance between fun and fair.

We want it competetive (fair), but we also want it fun. Finding that balance is probably pretty difficult. It would be much easier in the end if they were seperated. Melee's stagelist is shrinking for this reason. Those who still play melee are in it for the competition primarily. THAT is where they get the enjoyment. (However, people have differing opinions on what skills should be tested in the competition, but that is a completely different topic)

maybe a somwhat liberal stagelist with a few bans is the perfect balance to try to keep everyone happy.

but let's stop pretending that we are adding bans to the game to keep things balanced.

 

[T-block]

You guys are talking as if we have an absolute definition of "fair". In fact, you are presuming that "fair" is equivalent to "non-radical", but that's not the case. To be clear, STATIC =/= FAIR, DYNAMIC =/= UNFAIR

Smash is not a game where we can definitively conclude developer intention. It was not developed as a competitive game; it was molded into a competitive game by our community. That puts us in a unique position because we have a lot of flexibility in how we want to compete. However, that also means we do not have a starting point from which we can build a ruleset, and therefore no absolute definition of "fair". In fact, if anything, the most logical starting point would be to include all stages in the game =\

We can say that one ruleset contains more random elements than another. We can say that one ruleset more strongly promotes character diversity than another. But to say one ruleset is more "fair" than another is different from both of those, and is much harder to judge. Why should we think "hmm... starting from BF/FD/SV/PS2/YI/YI/FoD, if we add six stages, that buffs wario..."? Why shouldn't we think "hmm... starting from ALL the stages, if we cut down to BF/FD/SV/PS2/YI/YI/FoD that NERFS wario"?. In other words, we could easily say that restricting our stage list to only three stages HURTS the characters who do well on a variety of stages, because they are unable to capitalize on that advantage. Sounds pretty "unfair" to me.

So, no, it's not a balance between "fun" and "fair". It's not correct to say that we include Halberd because it's "fun", even if it makes the game less "fair", because "fair" =/= "static", which makes "fair" much harder to define.

 

[Stevo]

(However, people have differing opinions on what skills should be tested in the competition, but that is a completely different topic)

I guess I shouldn't have said it is a completely different topic lol.

I'm beginning to wonder how far we should break this down. I agree the most logical place to start for a game like melee would be to start with all stages allowed, items on normal, time battle etc.

I think in this case we are using competetive melee as our starting point, as Project:M is being molded after that. You can't come to an absolute definition of Fair, but I mean, how far are we willing to stretch this? (I'm asking myself the question too). The general consensus, at least in melee, is that we have only 5 or 6 stages because they are the most fair. Whether or not that is correct is obviously up for debate, but that is what we got to as a community.


Fun obviously can mean different things for different people too.

EDIT: lol I love how ugly my posts are, I guess I'll try to clean it a little.

 

[Stevo]

I think if we are to go towards a more absolute definition of "fair" (not that we could get there really), it would have to include something along the lines of "the better player would win a statistically significant majority of the time."

Which means we would have to decide how we know who is the "better player". Putting more hours into practicing the game certainly will help you become a better player, but how do we quantify someones skill anyway?

I really think we have to go with the general opinion here, and that is that dynamic and/or random is less fair, and static and/or predictable is more fair (don't shoot the messenger)

 

[Alphicans]

Why is that fair? How could we ever determine that? What defines a better player?

 

[Stevo]

yeah exactly.
but that is the subjective fair we strive for is it not? (and fail to achieve)

what would be your definition of fair then?

is fair everyone has the exact same chance to win?

 

[~Firefly~]

The laser still exists, but as you know it's not much of a threat to anything.

Yeah, Mike knows better than to ever get messed up by the laser.

 

[Stevo]

I think we should all just play friendlies, and everyone votes who won the tournament.

I personally will be voting for whoever hits the most balloons.

 

[T-block]

Yeah, Mike knows better than to ever get messed up by the laser.

yeah but then it frame trapped you into a lucas u-smash at like 150 so we're even

EDIT:

Yeah, Stevo, we're getting into a grey area that I've discussed to death with others and I'm pretty tired of it lol

I think most would agree that taking fair to mean "the better player wins" is a solid definition. And there's absolutely nothing in that definition that implies the stage has to be static. And if you're going to claim that tamer stages are better at evaluating who is better, then, well, that's the futile discussion I don't want to get into, because, as you said, it just comes down to a difference in values.

But it bothers me that even in your post, "dynamic" is being grouped with "random", and "static" is being grouped with "predictable".

Anyways...

I'm pretty excited to play you guys once I move back. Hopefully you haven't gotten too far ahead of me by the time that happens.

 

[Stevo]

lol it's probably true that they should not be so quickly grouped like that.
I apologize lol.

but yeah, it's obviously going nowhere so we'll just drop it. I think melee should have more legal stages such as mute city and brinstar etc. I can't comment on brawl though.

 

[Crusayer]

I don't really want to imagine how horrific Armada CPing a spacie to mute city would be. 100% death rate once he touches you.

Or Hbox.

 

[Stevo]

depends what section of the stage you are currently on, but yes, they would most likely be very good on that stage lol

 

[KlTHKlN]

I think we should all just play friendlies, and everyone votes who won the tournament.

I personally will be voting for whoever hits the most balloons.

I'm gonna be doing that even if we use normal rules.

 

[victra♥]

http://www.smashmods.com/forum/thread-5732-post-112471.html#pid112471


CREW MODE FOR PM NOW.

AW YUSSSSSS

 

[Taste]

http://www.smashmods.com/forum/thread-5732-post-112471.html#pid112471


CREW MODE FOR PM NOW.

AW YUSSSSSS

That's actually pretty cool.

I was going to cp unsuspecting species to halberd. Perhaps that's mean of me looking at this? Is there a quick and easy cping system you guys'd recommend for our tourney sat?

something like loser bans a stage, winner picks three, loser chooses one? I dunno

 

[victra♥]

Smash Tomorrow on Campus? Anyone interested?

I booked a room in the Health Sciences Library, second floor, that has a tv. We just need 1 Wii and we can set up and play.

Let me know if youre interested!

 

[Stevo]

interested

 

[Limeee]

i can get driven there after i get my flu shot taken

:009

EDIT: ill bring my setup

 

[victra♥]

no worries ron will have his

 

[Frio]

You really let me down today luke with that Yakal match. Should've forced game 4.

 

[SinisterB]

That would've been hella greeze, they both agreed it was whack anyways.

Luke ***** though damnnnn.

Although I guess yaks did nut pretty early.

 

[Alphicans]

In all honesty I should've. Don't celebrate too early

 

[Stevo]

So, with 2.5 coming out soon and Brawl players starting to get annoyed with Project M getting in the way of their brawling, who wants to organize a Project M monthly or something?

It's all fine and dandy just having a random smashfest every now and then, but personally the more things are planned ahead, the better. My friend Travis will also be able to attend but has a new-born baby right now so he would also need more heads-up.

What do you guys think? I think those little rooms in the library work... but there has got to be a better option.


Who would attend a Project M monthly?

and where would we hold one?

 

[Kuraudo]

I would attend a Project M monthly. For sure!

 

[Stevo]

awesome!
I think we can get enough people to make it worth while.

 

[Alphicans]

We can just have them in the same room as the brawl monthlies. Just go and take the room.

 

[T-block]

lol do we still not book the room officially?

 

[Alphicans]

Nope .

 

[T-block]

life on the edge