The Project M Ruleset - Stages

[DMG]

^^ To expand on that, the goal of the starter list isn't to *always* guarantee that you will find the most fair stage. There could be a MU in the game that was closest to reality on say Castle Siege. But for the other 90% of MU's, it may skew things one way or the other more than you would like. Putting Castle Siege on the starter list would then be a mistake, even if that particular MU now lost the "best" stage. You try to have a decent selection of stages that hopefully won't skew things too hard one way or the other, and in cases that they do you hope to have enough other viable alternatives that players can pick from. Reasons like that are why we don't strike/pick from the entire legal stage list Game 1 (hopefully). Once you get into CP stages, you start to get into stages that skew instead of contribute to MU balance, and by adding them you detract more by forcing additional strikes/avoidance.

 

[Oracle]

basically in an ideal world you would strike from the whole stagelist but obv thats dumb and time consuming, so they just pick the 7 or 5 least extreme stages with different attributes that would almost always be struck to anyways.

 

[trash?]

but even in that context, there's a lot better options than final "this was only a starter in melee b/c spacies sucked on it and we need one of those" destination

 

[Solharath]

Oof, that stagelist for Big House 3 is heartbreaking. I've grown very wary of the bottom row, and it's been a gnawing at me that we're looking at very few different stage types. I mean, looking at the bottom row you have

4 Triangle stages (BF, YS, DL, FoD*)
2 single tier platform stages (PS2, SV)
1 Flat stage (FD)
*FoD changes its design all the time, but it's more considered a triangle stage than not.

But you also have: six flat main platforms, and one stage with angled edges (YS).
You also have three static stages(FD, BF, PS2), and four changing stages (YS, DL, SV, FoD). Of these changing stages, only Smashville and Fountain really have a huge effect on gameplay at all times. Randall can be a guy, but otherwise he doesn't overtly affect the match at all times.

The rest of this post is just my own personal opinion.

For any tournament I run in the future, the starters would likely be:
Lylat Cruise(Angled edges, unique platform structure, but respectively fairly flat, with Melee Battlefield edges.)
Final Destination. (Wide, Flat)
Battlefield. (Traditional 3-tiered stage)
Pokemon Stadium 2. (A brilliantly flat design. 2-tiered, 2 floating platforms. Wide stage.)
Wario Ware. (Small blast zones, walls up the sides, 3-tiered, four floating platforms. Narrow stage)
Fountain of Dreams. (Moving stage. Asymmetrical. Psuedo 3-tiered, platforms rising and lowering means adapting strategies. Larger blastzones, narrow stage)
Skyloft. (Wide Stage, Asymmetrical. Small blast zones. Unique terrain can help keep the match flowing.)

And my picks for the Counterpicks would be
Dracula's Castle (Crazy platform shenanigans, wide horizontal blastzones, wide stage, lowish ceiling, walls that go on forever)
Green Hill Zone (Narrow stage, narrow blast zones, and a unique platform setup. Flat with Walls.)
Norfair. (Two tiered, flat, but unique side platforms and a large, central floating platform which can change up the game when.
Yoshi's Story (Three tiered, Randall, angled edges.)
Yoshi's Island (Angled main platform, angling floating platform.)
Dreamland 64. (Triangle, wind, large stage)
SSE: Jungle (three tiered stage, inverse trapezoid. Walls and narrow blast zones)

I'd probably run with three bans. I know it's a controversial stage list, but you can generally cover most stage types within these stages, with a couple noteworthy stages thrown in. Stages I didn't let in, like Metal Cavern, generally aren't chosen because their job is done better by other stages(in this case, Skyloft). They're both asymmetric stages with a higher right side over the left, but Metal Cavern is hella small. Personally, I'd really like to have added that 3-tiered, asymmetric Summit I see floating around on a lot of Wii's, as well as Frigate Orpheon(which would replace Yoshi's Island).

I really like Lylat Cruise now that it doesn't tilt, and am at least very glad it is a Counterpick at Big House 3.

 

[smashbro29]

My stage list is probably ridiculously liberal compared to most, I liked the idea behind banning groups of stages to avoid redundancy and allow for visual variety.

 

[Plum]

Brinstar Depths pls

 

[The_NZA]

Oof, that stagelist for Big House 3 is heartbreaking. I've grown very wary of the bottom row, and it's been a gnawing at me that we're looking at very few different stage types. I mean, looking at the bottom row you have

4 Triangle stages (BF, YS, DL, FoD*)
2 single tier platform stages (PS2, SV)
1 Flat stage (FD)
*FoD changes its design all the time, but it's more considered a triangle stage than not.

But you also have: six flat main platforms, and one stage with angled edges (YS).
You also have three static stages(FD, BF, PS2), and four changing stages (YS, DL, SV, FoD). Of these changing stages, only Smashville and Fountain really have a huge effect on gameplay at all times. Randall can be a guy, but otherwise he doesn't overtly affect the match at all times.

The rest of this post is just my own personal opinion.

For any tournament I run in the future, the starters would likely be:
Lylat Cruise(Angled edges, unique platform structure, but respectively fairly flat, with Melee Battlefield edges.)
Final Destination. (Wide, Flat)
Battlefield. (Traditional 3-tiered stage)
Pokemon Stadium 2. (A brilliantly flat design. 2-tiered, 2 floating platforms. Wide stage.)
Wario Ware. (Small blast zones, walls up the sides, 3-tiered, four floating platforms. Narrow stage)
Fountain of Dreams. (Moving stage. Asymmetrical. Psuedo 3-tiered, platforms rising and lowering means adapting strategies. Larger blastzones, narrow stage)
Skyloft. (Wide Stage, Asymmetrical. Small blast zones. Unique terrain can help keep the match flowing.)

And my picks for the Counterpicks would be
Dracula's Castle (Crazy platform shenanigans, wide horizontal blastzones, wide stage, lowish ceiling, walls that go on forever)
Green Hill Zone (Narrow stage, narrow blast zones, and a unique platform setup. Flat with Walls.)
Norfair. (Two tiered, flat, but unique side platforms and a large, central floating platform which can change up the game when.
Yoshi's Story (Three tiered, Randall, angled edges.)
Yoshi's Island (Angled main platform, angling floating platform.)
Dreamland 64. (Triangle, wind, large stage)
SSE: Jungle (three tiered stage, inverse trapezoid. Walls and narrow blast zones)

I'd probably run with three bans. I know it's a controversial stage list, but you can generally cover most stage types within these stages, with a couple noteworthy stages thrown in. Stages I didn't let in, like Metal Cavern, generally aren't chosen because their job is done better by other stages(in this case, Skyloft). They're both asymmetric stages with a higher right side over the left, but Metal Cavern is hella small. Personally, I'd really like to have added that 3-tiered, asymmetric Summit I see floating around on a lot of Wii's, as well as Frigate Orpheon(which would replace Yoshi's Island).

I really like Lylat Cruise now that it doesn't tilt, and am at least very glad it is a Counterpick at Big House 3.

I like everything about this list of neutrals and CPs except for maybe Norfair. Something about how high the top platform is and how close it is the ceiling makes me wary of it being legal. I'd much rather Jungle Japes or Castle Siege (wish this tilted less),

 

[SpiderMad]

No me gusta Norfair and Lylat cruise, probably because of the background/aesthetics

 

[DMG]

Lylat is fine without tilting. A different stage design than Triangle Platforms and flat stage

If ya eyes hurt, close them. Play with your mind. Nothing could go wrong

 

[Plum]

Got to Lee Sin that ****.
"Blindness is no impairment against a smelly enemy."

 

[Juushichi]

I should play on Japes more. It seems kinda fun everything considered.

The one thing I don't like about Lylat is that it has Melee Battlefield ledges and you can still bonk your head on it really easily and die for attempting to ledgedash on and stuff. It's really weird.

 

[The_NZA]

I should play on Japes more. It seems kinda fun everything considered.

The one thing I don't like about Lylat is that it has Melee Battlefield ledges and you can still bonk your head on it really easily and die for attempting to ledgedash on and stuff. It's really weird.

I think thats what makes battlefield in melee partly appealing. The caution associated with getting back on.

 

[Plum]

If you don't learn how to recover on Lylat then it's on you not the stage.
Recovery is harder from certain locations. That's a feature of the stage and something that sets it apart, but not a problem.

 

[DMG]

No, what makes BF appealing in Melee is that it's probably the most balanced stage overall for the cast, and the platforms add a lot of depth to the game. Most people you talk to don't like Melee BF's edges, because of silly stuff like recovering literally through/above the edge and not grabbing it.

 

[Solharath]

Personally I'd like to see Norfair changed to have a much higher vertical blastzone to help alleviate the lack of stages with high ceilings. However, Norfair just is so unique that I can't help but love the different recovery options the stage lends itself too, and the completely changed options of edgeguarding. It has a setup that lends itself to new ideas, and yeah, I'd like to see the blastzones reflect that. It should be a stage about utilizing edgeguarding to its fullest potential, but... people just get killed off the top a lot, yeah.

 

[batistabus]

I really wish the Wind Waker stage was viable. It looks fantastic and has the best music IMO.

 

[Juushichi]

Personally I'd like to see Norfair changed to have a much higher vertical blastzone to help alleviate the lack of stages with high ceilings. However, Norfair just is so unique that I can't help but love the different recovery options the stage lends itself too, and the completely changed options of edgeguarding. It has a setup that lends itself to new ideas, and yeah, I'd like to see the blastzones reflect that. It should be a stage about utilizing edgeguarding to its fullest potential, but... people just get killed off the top a lot, yeah.

the stage has a large/ wide bottom, so it could be good if they just kinda...

moved the stage down a bit.

 

[Rizner]

What's the general consensus on that SSE stage ? Too big ?
I've only played it a couple times, and even if the matches were significantly longer, I wasn't bored or even annoyed. Then again, as an Ivy main, I may be biased on the topic of camping :3

I really like sse. would prefer it to be cp in singles in addition to doubles. If you can have super small stages, why not larger ones ( especially after the 2.6 shrinking of it)

 

[trash?]

SSE's a real fun CP stage now that it isn't unreasonably huge
like I'd put it right beside skyloft for most fun counterpicks on the planet

 

[B.W.]

No. You can't do this. You absolutely cannot even begin to determine whether or not a stage is even generally neutral for 1190 matchups. The starter list is designed with the purpose of presenting a list of stages that, after each player strikes the most extreme ones until what remains is the most "Neutral" "Starter" for that matchup, the result is a fair starting stage for the set. It doesn't even pretend that each individual stage on the list are fair for every or most match-ups. That's what the strikes are for.

I'm gonna go back to this and say, this is entirely right at the moment.

I would also like to say, I'd really love to see stages handled differently in general. Like, I get the whole counterpick stage thing and why it exists. But the way the entire select stage, select characters things works right now could work better. It's been brought up a lot of the time that the general rules give a lot of power to the player that just lost.

I'd rather just see a list of an odd number of legal stages that both players strike, keeping both their current characters and their counterpicks in mind while striking, and play the entire set on that one stage.

The initial striking list would be bigger, but once you did it that one time it'd be done with.

More stages could easily be made legal like this as well.

 

[Strong Badam]

Being forced too play an entire set on one stage would ruin competitive smash forever

 

[B.W.]

I disagree. Partially because that tends to be what happens anyway, even with counterpicks and whatnot.

But people are too set on the current rules to actually experiment with other things regardless of whether or not the reasons for trying different things make sense.

 

[Strong Badam]

I've only seen that happen when a player is getting outplayed terribly and is salty about it. In PM, I've almost never seen a set play on the same stage the whole time.

 

[Nausicaa]

I've said something along these lines probably 20 times, but this is what we do in our region, and it works great. Obviously way better than the traditional set-up, but we've fine tuned it through various incarnations to get what we consider the best version of this rule-set for both functional and enjoyment purposes.

Something like this... but alter however you like. Quote from the Complete Stage List thread.


With so many more stages, the common methods of Stage Selection (Specifically the Striking Process) take too long and are inefficient. This is the method we use. The legal Stages in Singles vs Doubles is up to the host/whoever.


Stage Selection Phase 1
- Each Player (Team) Selects 5 (3 or 4 even) Stages with the Selection Order 1-2-2-2-2-1
- Each Player (Team) Selects 1 Stage from the Opponent's Selected Stage-List.
- Match 1 is Randomized between these 2 Selected Stages.

Stage Selection Phase 2
- The Winning Player (Team) Bans 1 Stage.
- The Losing Player (Team) Selects 1 Stage from the remaining Selected Stages, including both their own and their Opponent's Selected Lists.
- Match 2 is Played on that Stage.

Stage Selection Phase 3 (if Required)
- Repeat Phase 2

Special Selection Rule (This nullifies the Random (Dis)Advantage possible from Match 1)
- No Stage is to be played on more than once in a Single Set unless mutually agreed upon.

Due to Random playing a factor for Match 1, even though it's Selected by the Players, the balance of the Selection Process comes as the Set progresses.

- For Match 2, there will be 8 Available Stages (after 1 Ban and 1 Match) to Select from.
4 of which will be from the losing Player's own List if Random DID NOT Select theirs
Only 3 will be from the losing Player's own List if Random DID Select theirs.

- For Match 3, there will be 6 Stages Available (after 2 Bans and 2 Matches) to Select from.

4 of which will be from the losing Player's own List if Random DID NOT Select theirs.
Only 3 will be from the losing Player's own List if Random DID Select theirs.

So overall, if 'Random' Selects a Player's Stage for Match 1, they'll be 1 Stage shorter than their Opponents when it comes to Stages THEY initially Selected in Phase 1.
Having Random Select their Stage means they'll be short a Stage whether they win (they'll be short in Match 3 Selection) or lose (they'll be short in Match 2 Selection).

THIS IS JUST WHAT NATURALLY HAPPENS BECAUSE OF THE RULES
You don't have to do anything special to make this balancing work out, it just does because of the Stage Select process itself.





Just my suggestion to other tournament hosts, again.

 

[B.W.]

I haven't been keeping up with P:M or Melee tournaments lately. Mostly because I just can't due to work.

I'm not on some quest to change the rules or anything though. They're fine by me. I won't say that they're not broken in some ways, but they've never caused any actual problems.

 

[Oracle]

Smash is a platforming fighter, which is why its so unique. Shrinking the stage list or playing on one stage marginalizes that aspect of smash

 

[B.W.]

Who wants to play on one stage? Not I. I just feel like it'd be an easier process if every set was struck down to one stage to play on one set, while also possibly giving the loser less options to counterpick the winner. It's also a system that would allow two players to possibly happen upon stages such as Pirate Ship

But again, it's an argument I know I won't win.

I wouldn't say shrinking the stage list is what people want, but realistically the stage list size needs a limit because of the time banning, counterpicking, etc. would take if we didn't.

 

[Nausicaa]

Or, you know...

This.

 

[B.W.]

Main issue is you're making the players do more work than they'd want to.

Also I don't even understand that first part in the first rule.

"- Each Player (Team) Selects 5 (3 or 4 even) Stages with the Selection Order 1-2-2-2-2-1"

What does this even mean?

 

[Nausicaa]

Each player picks stages, in an order. Just like the striking phase, but SELECTING.
That's all that means.

 

[B.W.]

So they select 5 stages out of the entire list of stages/whatever is legal in the tournament while keeping track of what the other player turns on.

You pick a stage on your opponent's stage list that you'd prefer to play on and they do the same.

Random between the two.

If I'm wrong, then correct me. If I'm right though, the problem with this is that the stages aren't agreed on. Each player is going to have a list that caters to their own character vs their opponent's character. Even if you can pick out of the list of stages your opponent turns on you're still going to be picking a stage that caters to their character. In the end, that means that whatever stage gets randomly picked between the two makes the other player lose out right off the bat.

 

[Nausicaa]

Pick a better or different character for it. (if a match-up is that hindering, and the player knows how to abuse it, then lol)
Pick more stages in the selection phase. (this will allow further stages to chose from/less limited options for round 1)
It takes no time, and has dynamics to it. So far we've yet to have a single complaint when using this, as polarizing broken stuff in the system hasn't even been a factor enough/stood out enough to be hurtful in that sense (having a player feel like they're at a massive disadvantage in round 1, or anything like that)

 

[DMG]

I'd rather just see a list of an odd number of legal stages that both players strike, keeping both their current characters and their counterpicks in mind while striking, and play the entire set on that one stage.

The initial striking list would be bigger, but once you did it that one time it'd be done with.

More stages could easily be made legal like this as well.

More stages could be legal as a starter, just to get struck down anyways because honestly no one wants to start Game 1 on Brinstar or x stage. That's what happens 85% of the time: the extra stages get struck and people still go to BF/FD/SV/core stage.

When you add more janky stages to the starters, you AREN'T adding valuable material. You're adding striking "filler". It does more harm than good, because by their very nature CP stages aren't very "nice" for the overall cast.

If I made Brinstar a starter, maybe less than 5-10% of all MU's in the entire game would prefer that stage as the most reasonable/fair stage for the MU in question. For the other 90-95%, this would basically get stuck by the person with a disavantage.

For Game 1 of a set, the game we want to be as balanced as possibly, why would we include stages that are prone to lopside MU's more than other stages? We want starters that are probably OK for everyone, not try to make the list as accomodating/large as possible so that some MU's here and there might find a "needle in a haystack" fairest stage. We aren't trying to solve the millenium old problem of "Man I wish Bowser vs Luigi had jank town USA as a starter that's 50:50 for them!"

I disagree. Partially because that tends to be what happens anyway, even with counterpicks and whatnot.

But people are too set on the current rules to actually experiment with other things regardless of whether or not the reasons for trying different things make sense.

Melee has 1 stage syndrome. Project M really does not. There's a nice variety that goes on, and due to the larger cast/stage list, more CPing goes on than before. Even for Game 1, there's still decent variety on what stage people go to. BF, SV, and PS2 all seem to have the most popularity.

I've said something along these lines probably 20 times, but this is what we do in our region, and it works great. Obviously way better than the traditional set-up, but we've fine tuned it through various incarnations to get what we consider the best version of this rule-set for both functional and enjoyment purposes.



Just my suggestion to other tournament hosts, again.

If we are going to do the effort of striking stages, you might as well go all the way down to the wire so that you have 1 stage left. Making the stage selection a literal coin flip, after purposefully striking down, makes no sense. Not to mention it basically would add more salt if it gave the other team their stage.

Who wants to play on one stage? Not I. I just feel like it'd be an easier process if every set was struck down to one stage to play on one set, while also possibly giving the loser less options to counterpick the winner. It's also a system that would allow two players to possibly happen upon stages such as Pirate Ship

But again, it's an argument I know I won't win.

I wouldn't say shrinking the stage list is what people want, but realistically the stage list size needs a limit because of the time banning, counterpicking, etc. would take if we didn't.

Most stage lists are fine and do not consume too much time. If we were playing Brawl, this might be an issue (Brawl tournaments take ****ing forever to finish, been there done that). P:M generally speeds along quick enough that I'm not worried if every set took 5 minutes per phase to pick/ban.

 

[Nausicaa]

If we are going to do the effort of striking stages, you might as well go all the way down to the wire so that you have 1 stage left. Making the stage selection a literal coin flip, after purposefully striking down, makes no sense. Not to mention it basically would add more salt if it gave the other team their stage.

For sure, and we've tried variations of it, but no success so far, so we went back to this, which was completely agreed upon as the best rule-set to-date using the Selection method.

Any thoughts on how to have it come down to 1 stage after striking, when following a selection phase?
With excessive viable stages, everyone has been content with selecting 1 from the opponents list, as having enough selected can't nullify the options enough to break things, none to mention yet anyway. Though ideally, having 1 stage finalized for round 1 is the inevitable goal.

 

[DMG]

The problem is that if two teams/sides are picking from each other's lists, you're never gonna have a fair way to divide it up. You'll always have an even number of stages left over.You COULD try to solve this, with 1 "untouchable" stage that always gets to end. Like take PS2 away from other stages, and put it at the end. Then when both sides pick 1 stage from the other side, you have those 2 + PS2 and both sides can strike. If they don't like their choices, they get the "default".

If you wanna make it even more complicated, you could strike/select that one "guaranteed" stage and save it for later, then do your selection process. Kinda pointless, if you figure they strike to that stage they would probably want to play on it anyways... But still, the idea being that if you save 1 stage for later that's pretty neutral, you can toss that in when people get to the end of selection phase 1, and from there do a quick strike to see if both sides like what's there.



*I dunno how to save your idea. It's not bad per se, but it's a bit of a headache*

 

[Oracle]

Simplicity is really important for rulesets. I can barely imagine how hard it would be to explain that stuff to a few dozen newer players at one of my tournaments, or even many veterans for that matter.

 

[Nausicaa]

It's really as simple as it gets, it's just not the norm.
We've tried the limited neutral pool, but it just adds extra fluff to stuff.

Another version that saved a lot of time, was a double-blind, having a player pick up to 3/4/5 stages (depending on the size of the List) at a time.
Then the other player picks their 3/4/5 stages.
If any match, they random between the ones they both selected.
If none match, they do the process again with the remaining stages are left.

We've done that, and it completely eliminates the option of a game being lopsided since it's collectively selected by both parties, and it's super fun.
It's also really quick. It requires a 3rd party though.
The players can mutually agree before the picking phase, how many stages they want to select in the batch (2/3/4 depending on the size of the given/remaining list.)

Edit: If that's hard to follow, I'll graph it out like a normal rule-set would look.

 

[DMG]

Well that's still doing random though. Like if I pick my 3 stages and my opponent picks 2 out of the same 3, we're picking random from them.

Random for Game 1, no matter how far we strike or let players choose, feels wrong. Nobody wants to lose Game 1 of a set to anything random, period. No flying cat to the face, no stage glitch that's 1 : 100 million, nothing. It's hard to argue that picking random of any kind, is preferrable to fully striking down to the wire.

I don't dislike your idea, but the random part will always be a turn off. There's no way to make random feel any better than striking fully. If we are asking players to choose so deeply what stage they would want to play on for Game 1, why not stick with that?

The other thing is that say you have 9 total stages in the starter list. Say you ask each player to pick 3 they want to play on. If they pick 3 different stages, and you move on to the last 3 stages, you're basically randoming from the 3 stages they DIDN'T want. Now that's an incredibly hard sell. Sure, that isn't likely to happen often, but if people are striking stages it should definitely be stages they don't want instead of ones they do: otherwise you could run into that kind of situation.

 

[DMG]

WHAT THE HELL SMASHBOARDS, EDIT THINGS PROPERLY!OI A9DHS89AD

 

[Nausicaa]

So far we haven't had any complaints with it, and it's fast and people have enjoyed that version more than our current set-up.

A few things to mention/work out.
In order too, yay!

1)
Going to a Stage nobody selected means they're also NOT going to a Stage their opponent wants, so it's as fair as it gets. Despite being counter-intuitive, it's actually exactly like Stage-Striking if there are no excessively gimmicky stages, which simply means the Stage-List has to be very solid. So far this isn't really much of a factor, given how good most stages can be/will be.
Still, this needs a solution!

2)
With a large Stage-List, it's bound to happen too. Going into a 2nd round of selecting is rare, sure, but it's possible. You need good Stages throughout, for one, but even if it does happen, it's 'potentially' not ideal for one player over another, if one of the player likes odd stages while the other doesn't.

3) The OTHER EXTREME, is having a LOT of Stages crossing over in the Selection. All 5 Stages even, and Random among 10 stages is silly beyond reason. Even with the way players can pick how MANY stages are in the first selection-phase, which deals with a lot of issues in itself, with a large Stage-List, if a player knows they have different tastes in Stages, they can decide to have a selection phase of 7 each, but that's a tricky thing to really get the feel of, between picking 2/3/4/5 in whatever picking phase/how many Stages are left.

That leads to this trick we've adapted.

Solution(s)
A) When 1, 3, or 5 Stages are collectively chosen, Striking is an easy phase to have, making it quick and narrow down to 1. It's essentially the best way to get a proper efficient Striking phase at all with a Stage-List of 15+
B) When 2 or 4 Stages are collectively chosen, the Selection process can be done again with a Single Stage, until an odd number is chosen. Unless the players mutually agree that either of the 2 Stages left (after Striking 1 each) are fine.


That^ has been the fastest and funnest way of narrowing the Selection Process down to a Single Stage. We've been doing the other version for a while, since in 2.5b we haven't used a modded version of the game with more Stages for the bigger Stage-List.