Ulevo
Smash Master
EDIT: If people want to see revisions made to the proposed stage list, vote on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BearUNLV/status/828735205984739328
Hello.
In light of the recent events regarding the new ruleset being proposed for major tournaments, I wanted to detail some information that I thought was important to the discussion, and give a place where this can be talked about. I will be giving my thoughts on the matter in the opening post. As a Meta Knight player, much of my examples will be coming from my character experience, but this by no means only pertains to just these examples.
The original post by Tantalus detailing the changes can be found here.
The post of Tantalus talking about the feedback on the new ruleset that has been received can be found here.
I am not going to be talking about why having a three stage starter list is a problem because a poster by the name of remziz4 detailed a fine argument as to why this is an issue, which is detailed in this reddit thread.
For those of you who want to familiarize yourself with the stage dimensions, including their size, lengths, blast zone data, event intervals, refer to these specific threads:
Wii U Stage Blastzone Data
Stage Directory
First things first...
I will say this early on, this stage needed to be banned.
When evaluating a stage to determine if it should be included in the stage list, you need to consider whether or not the faults of the stage outweigh the benefits it provides by its inclusion. There was one problem in particular that has gone seemingly unnoticed but is the biggest reason for why this stage should be excluded:
This is a snapshot of Mario's up smash hitting a duck as it spawns from the grass. Why is this a problem? If all of the ducks are not killed in within the 16 second time frame that they are out before flying away, they spawn every 18 seconds at random. There is no way to know ahead of time where these ducks will spawn, and when hit will absorb the hitbox that was intended to hit the opposing player. Not only that, but the player that hits the ducks will be put into hit lag. A Mario up smash in this instance freezes the player for approximately 11 frames. As a Meta Knight player, I have lost tournament sets due to this issue, where my Shuttle Loop would connect with a duck spawning out of the grass, which would freeze my character for approximately 6 frames.
For those of you who have ever lost a game on Town & City or Smashville because you hit the balloon at the wrong time, imagine this potentially occurring every 18 seconds or less. You are potentially rolling the dice 20 times in a 6 minute match. Do you deem this acceptable?
Competitive players seek to reduce the impact that RNG can have as much as possible. This has been a big focus on the new recommended rulesets objectives, and is why Lylat Cruise, and even Town & City with its stretcher platforms have been brought in to question. This is the most prevalent form of RNG within the 7 legal stages we have had up until now, and it is my feeling Duck Hunt deserves to be excluded on this point alone.
Another issue with Duck Hunts inclusion on the stage list with the other six is that it saturated the stage list with too many flat oriented stages. On a side note, Town & City begins with the Town transformation for 30 seconds, which is a flat stage with high platforms, then goes through a 10 second transformation where it is entirely flat, then moves to a platform layout for 30 seconds, then takes another 10 seconds to transform back to Town in order to complete the cycle. This means Town & City consists of a flat layout 60% of the time.
With Final Destination being entirely flat, Smashville being a smaller version with a moving platform, and Town & City being a flat stage the majority of the time, having Duck Hunt burdened the stage list in favor of characters that like to play without platform concentration. Duck Hunt has approximately 27% more room to run on than Smashville. As much criticism there is for Dreamland 64 acting as a second Battlefield, Duck Hunt is a worse offender of stage redundancy. Assuming Smashville was played game one, the player favoring flat stages still has two options to pick after bans with the previous stage list, which is silly.
While these were the most important points, Duck Hunt has its usual problems that have already been addressed, such as promoting degenerative gameplay, and providing characters like Bayonetta and Sonic a massive advantage.
Moving on to the next order of business...
Here are some tournament sets of Ito vs Zinoto, both considered to be some of the best players of their respective characters:
Here is another example:
The trend here is that in this particular match up, like many in this game, platforms are important to offset the advantage that flat stages provide. Most of the games that Meta Knight won on were Lylat or the tri-platforms because the platforms provide relief from Banana pressure. Going into the new ruleset, there will be none of these because the opponent can remove them with a single ban.
"Lylat Cruise - This stage is objectively broken, and it is a matter of time before it costs someone big time. Objectively Broken being this: the stage's platforms have gaps in them which can cause a variety of issues depending on how the stage is tilted. You can sometimes SD, sometimes fall through the stage, and sometimes even make it back when you wouldn't be able to normally. We'd be happy to generate evidence if you're interested.
- Tantalus"
Evidence should be provided if you are proposing to change the status quo, not provided after your proposal is brought into question, but I digress.
As I explained previously, a stage's inclusion or exclusion needs to be considered with both its problems and its merits within the list to make a proper decision. A lot of the issues with this stage can be remedied by simply being informed as a player.
Here is a video showcasing the kinds of things that can happen on Lylat, and what happened at the MLG Finals 2015 with Mr. R vs Scatt:
This should be obvious, but the reason Scatt failed to recover was because he missed the ledge snap and went underneath the stage, hoping that the wall would slide him up to auto snap. As a Meta Knight player who has plenty of leniency when recovering on this stage, I can tell you even characters with good recoveries are not immune to this if you recover carelessly. You can still get caught under the stage, and you can pass through it the underside. However, if you make the effort to deliberately aim for the edge and not the underside you will rarely have issues recovering.
The point here is not that Lylat Cruise is without its problems, but that the issues present with the stage can be factored into and reasonably avoided with proper stage knowledge.
The merits to the stage also far outweigh the cons it presents. We have already played with a 5 starter list with Lylat included before, and it helps to avoid the problems detailed by remziz4 regarding a 3 starter list. It helps to counter balance the presence of flat stages within the list. It also has unique counterpick characteristics. The tilts help alleviate projectile pressure, the platforms help with combo extension and vertical pressure without the same congestion that Battlefield and Dreamland have, making it easier to land, and there are many character specific techs on this stage that make it a valuable addition, such as Pikachu's QAC, or Villager's Lloid Rockets travelling along the tilts on the base floor.
As you can see, there are a lot of ways in which Mario can abuse this stage versus Meta Knight, all of which involve ladder combos and combo extensions. This is possible because of the average ceiling height in tandem with the platforms. However, Battlefield would not allow for these combos to kill the majority of the time, if at all.
In contrast, I as a Meta Knight player will ban Dreamland in tournament because it affects my ability to ladder my opponent, while Battlefield does not. On Dreamland, if you do a short hop up air into a double jump up air, you land on the lower platforms without the ability to double jump a second time. If you do a full hop up air, double jump up air, you also cannot do a second double jump without landing on the middle platform. This makes laddering some characters to death on this stage difficult despite its average ceiling height, and so I leave Battlefield open.
Another example would be Zero Suit Samus. Versus Zero Suit Samus, rage excluded, there is no possible way for her to kill Meta Knight on Battlefield if the Meta Knight player DI's her up air combos properly. However, on Dreamland, this indeed becomes possible, which is why I ban Dreamland against every Zero Suit Samus I play in tournament. The only other stage these types of combos have the potential to kill through the ceiling is Town & City.
The tri-platforms existing in the same starter list have been criticized primarily because of the prevalence of ladder combos and vertical kill confirms, however Battlefield's higher ceiling often prevents these situations in the first place. Additionally, it is arbitrary to decide that ladder combos need to be artificially restricted while consequently deciding that characters who excel on flat stages should have free reign to do so.
Dreamland 64 is not without its issues. The wind specifically presents a problem from time to time when the camera angle is panned out of the view of Whispy, such as this:
In these circumstances, it can be difficult to ascertain when the wind is blowing, which can disrupt spacing, effect kill confirms, push a player towards their opponent on the ledge, and even save opponents from shield breaks by pushing them off the stage.
These are considerations that need to be made for whether or not Dreamland should be included. However, Dreamland is not without its benefits, and the fact that it has been decided to be lumped together with Battlefield in the same list needs to be scrutinized. It should be treated as a separate stage, or removed all together.
- Tantalus"
A handful of tournament organizers decided they knew what would be best for the entire national competitive player base, and assumed that if people had a problem with the new changes, it fell on the players to validate their arguments. Tournaments are ultimately for the players, not the organizers, and it is the players who should have the final say.
It is my feeling that a conservative change should be made to the ruleset in which Duck Hunt is banned from the stage list, we revert back to the original five starter list of Smashville, Battlefield, Final Destination, Town & City, and Lylat Cruise, with Dreamland as a counter pick. We cannot make proper assessments of the meta with these stages included like Tantalus is suggesting because the meta without platform stages will be totally alien from what we have been playing with until this point. With such drastic changes being issued, stage bans should be treated one at a time until we can get a unified ruleset most people can agree on. I also do not think entertaining the idea of stages like PS2 being legal are healthy at this time because it distracts from the main issues we currently have with the stage list. If stages like PS2 are going to be considered, it should be after we have a more stable rule set.
Lastly, here are videos from Dabuz and ESAM detailing their perspectives on the stage lists, which I think have valid arguments:
If you have a problem with this ruleset, voice your opinions, otherwise we could be dealing with the consequences for a long time. Vote and discuss.
Hello.
In light of the recent events regarding the new ruleset being proposed for major tournaments, I wanted to detail some information that I thought was important to the discussion, and give a place where this can be talked about. I will be giving my thoughts on the matter in the opening post. As a Meta Knight player, much of my examples will be coming from my character experience, but this by no means only pertains to just these examples.
The original post by Tantalus detailing the changes can be found here.
The post of Tantalus talking about the feedback on the new ruleset that has been received can be found here.
I am not going to be talking about why having a three stage starter list is a problem because a poster by the name of remziz4 detailed a fine argument as to why this is an issue, which is detailed in this reddit thread.
For those of you who want to familiarize yourself with the stage dimensions, including their size, lengths, blast zone data, event intervals, refer to these specific threads:
Wii U Stage Blastzone Data
Stage Directory
First things first...
DUCK HUNT:
For those of you who are not properly informed as to how this stage actually functions, here is a detailed video from My Smash Corner explaining the stage in great detail:
I will say this early on, this stage needed to be banned.
When evaluating a stage to determine if it should be included in the stage list, you need to consider whether or not the faults of the stage outweigh the benefits it provides by its inclusion. There was one problem in particular that has gone seemingly unnoticed but is the biggest reason for why this stage should be excluded:
For those of you who have ever lost a game on Town & City or Smashville because you hit the balloon at the wrong time, imagine this potentially occurring every 18 seconds or less. You are potentially rolling the dice 20 times in a 6 minute match. Do you deem this acceptable?
Competitive players seek to reduce the impact that RNG can have as much as possible. This has been a big focus on the new recommended rulesets objectives, and is why Lylat Cruise, and even Town & City with its stretcher platforms have been brought in to question. This is the most prevalent form of RNG within the 7 legal stages we have had up until now, and it is my feeling Duck Hunt deserves to be excluded on this point alone.
Another issue with Duck Hunts inclusion on the stage list with the other six is that it saturated the stage list with too many flat oriented stages. On a side note, Town & City begins with the Town transformation for 30 seconds, which is a flat stage with high platforms, then goes through a 10 second transformation where it is entirely flat, then moves to a platform layout for 30 seconds, then takes another 10 seconds to transform back to Town in order to complete the cycle. This means Town & City consists of a flat layout 60% of the time.
With Final Destination being entirely flat, Smashville being a smaller version with a moving platform, and Town & City being a flat stage the majority of the time, having Duck Hunt burdened the stage list in favor of characters that like to play without platform concentration. Duck Hunt has approximately 27% more room to run on than Smashville. As much criticism there is for Dreamland 64 acting as a second Battlefield, Duck Hunt is a worse offender of stage redundancy. Assuming Smashville was played game one, the player favoring flat stages still has two options to pick after bans with the previous stage list, which is silly.
While these were the most important points, Duck Hunt has its usual problems that have already been addressed, such as promoting degenerative gameplay, and providing characters like Bayonetta and Sonic a massive advantage.
Moving on to the next order of business...
Removing Lylat Cruise & Fusing Battlefield/Dreamland 64:
As I mentioned previously, Duck Hunts inclusion saturated the stage list with flat oriented layouts. With the new ruleset in play, this problem has gone from bad to worse. With Lylat Cruise gone, and Battlefield and Dreamland 64 acting as the same stages for player bans, this means that the only options a player can choose from are Smashville, Town & City, and Final Destination. This is a huge problem.
Here are some tournament sets of Ito vs Zinoto, both considered to be some of the best players of their respective characters:
Ito vs Zinoto Winners Semis:
Ito vs Zinoto Grand Finals:
The set count plays out as such. Winners Semis, Ito wins game 1 on Smashville. Zinoto wins game 2 on Final Destination. Zinoto wins game 3 on Town & City. Ito wins game 4 on Dreamland. Ito wins game 5 on Smashville. In Grand Finals, Ito wins game 1 on Smashville. Game 2, Ito wins on Battlefield. Game 3, Zinoto wins on Battlefield. Game 4, Ito wins on Dreamland.Ito vs Zinoto Grand Finals:
Here is another example:
Zero vs Abadango Grand Finals:
Going into the set, Abadango goes to Battlefield as Mewtwo against Zero's Diddy and loses. Game 2, Abadango counterpicks to Lylat Cruise as Meta Knight and wins. Game 3, Abadango loses on Smashville. Game 4, Abadango wins on Dreamland. Game 5 takes place on Battlefield, and Zero manages to take the set killing Abadango at 183%.The trend here is that in this particular match up, like many in this game, platforms are important to offset the advantage that flat stages provide. Most of the games that Meta Knight won on were Lylat or the tri-platforms because the platforms provide relief from Banana pressure. Going into the new ruleset, there will be none of these because the opponent can remove them with a single ban.
Lylat Cruise:
This stage has received a lot of criticism due to bugs that can cause players to pass through the stage at any one given time.
"Lylat Cruise - This stage is objectively broken, and it is a matter of time before it costs someone big time. Objectively Broken being this: the stage's platforms have gaps in them which can cause a variety of issues depending on how the stage is tilted. You can sometimes SD, sometimes fall through the stage, and sometimes even make it back when you wouldn't be able to normally. We'd be happy to generate evidence if you're interested.
- Tantalus"
Evidence should be provided if you are proposing to change the status quo, not provided after your proposal is brought into question, but I digress.
As I explained previously, a stage's inclusion or exclusion needs to be considered with both its problems and its merits within the list to make a proper decision. A lot of the issues with this stage can be remedied by simply being informed as a player.
Here is a video showcasing the kinds of things that can happen on Lylat, and what happened at the MLG Finals 2015 with Mr. R vs Scatt:
The point here is not that Lylat Cruise is without its problems, but that the issues present with the stage can be factored into and reasonably avoided with proper stage knowledge.
The merits to the stage also far outweigh the cons it presents. We have already played with a 5 starter list with Lylat included before, and it helps to avoid the problems detailed by remziz4 regarding a 3 starter list. It helps to counter balance the presence of flat stages within the list. It also has unique counterpick characteristics. The tilts help alleviate projectile pressure, the platforms help with combo extension and vertical pressure without the same congestion that Battlefield and Dreamland have, making it easier to land, and there are many character specific techs on this stage that make it a valuable addition, such as Pikachu's QAC, or Villager's Lloid Rockets travelling along the tilts on the base floor.
Considerations on Dreamland 64:
It should be pretty obvious to everyone by now that Dreamland 64 and Battlefield are not the same stage. One of the criticisms brought about by Dreamland 64 and Battlefield existing within the same list is that they saturate the list with tri-platforms, and that if you ban one, your opponent will use the other. However, as players like @Dabuz have pointed out in their video critiques for the proposed ruleset, there is often more similarities with Town & City and Dreamland then there is with Battlefield.
Mario can KO MetaKnight from almost any point on Dream Land 64. Set ups. Combos. Kills. Complete option coverage. DI mixups. Frame Traps. pic.twitter.com/LxeXmQ5loh
— OneSmash.net (@0neSmash) December 10, 2016
As you can see, there are a lot of ways in which Mario can abuse this stage versus Meta Knight, all of which involve ladder combos and combo extensions. This is possible because of the average ceiling height in tandem with the platforms. However, Battlefield would not allow for these combos to kill the majority of the time, if at all.
In contrast, I as a Meta Knight player will ban Dreamland in tournament because it affects my ability to ladder my opponent, while Battlefield does not. On Dreamland, if you do a short hop up air into a double jump up air, you land on the lower platforms without the ability to double jump a second time. If you do a full hop up air, double jump up air, you also cannot do a second double jump without landing on the middle platform. This makes laddering some characters to death on this stage difficult despite its average ceiling height, and so I leave Battlefield open.
Another example would be Zero Suit Samus. Versus Zero Suit Samus, rage excluded, there is no possible way for her to kill Meta Knight on Battlefield if the Meta Knight player DI's her up air combos properly. However, on Dreamland, this indeed becomes possible, which is why I ban Dreamland against every Zero Suit Samus I play in tournament. The only other stage these types of combos have the potential to kill through the ceiling is Town & City.
The tri-platforms existing in the same starter list have been criticized primarily because of the prevalence of ladder combos and vertical kill confirms, however Battlefield's higher ceiling often prevents these situations in the first place. Additionally, it is arbitrary to decide that ladder combos need to be artificially restricted while consequently deciding that characters who excel on flat stages should have free reign to do so.
Dreamland 64 is not without its issues. The wind specifically presents a problem from time to time when the camera angle is panned out of the view of Whispy, such as this:
These are considerations that need to be made for whether or not Dreamland should be included. However, Dreamland is not without its benefits, and the fact that it has been decided to be lumped together with Battlefield in the same list needs to be scrutinized. It should be treated as a separate stage, or removed all together.
Concluding Thoughts:
"I think it is important that we let this bake in competition for a bit before we go and make another abrupt change, because current criticisms need to either be debunked or validated by hard facts, and there is no better way to get that than holding events.
- Tantalus"
A handful of tournament organizers decided they knew what would be best for the entire national competitive player base, and assumed that if people had a problem with the new changes, it fell on the players to validate their arguments. Tournaments are ultimately for the players, not the organizers, and it is the players who should have the final say.
It is my feeling that a conservative change should be made to the ruleset in which Duck Hunt is banned from the stage list, we revert back to the original five starter list of Smashville, Battlefield, Final Destination, Town & City, and Lylat Cruise, with Dreamland as a counter pick. We cannot make proper assessments of the meta with these stages included like Tantalus is suggesting because the meta without platform stages will be totally alien from what we have been playing with until this point. With such drastic changes being issued, stage bans should be treated one at a time until we can get a unified ruleset most people can agree on. I also do not think entertaining the idea of stages like PS2 being legal are healthy at this time because it distracts from the main issues we currently have with the stage list. If stages like PS2 are going to be considered, it should be after we have a more stable rule set.
Lastly, here are videos from Dabuz and ESAM detailing their perspectives on the stage lists, which I think have valid arguments:
If you have a problem with this ruleset, voice your opinions, otherwise we could be dealing with the consequences for a long time. Vote and discuss.
Last edited:
