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Tournament Organizers: Select Your Stages Carefully

EdreesesPieces

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but then you would have to go for banning infinities in their entirety. and where do we draw the line? down tilt infinites? stand grab infinites? how many times can you hit or regrab the opponent before it's considered illegal?

the less you ban the better imo. takes away from the game.
Agreed, that's why stages with walls should not be banned just because people can infinite there, with your entire post the reason why. The less we ban the beter I'm in total agreement, that's why I'm for more stages.
 

mikeHAZE

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nothings wrong with stages with a wall, just, i dont think it's good to have too many, such as green greens, corneria, and so on. even though they may be playable, it gives too much advantages to certain characters, so limiting the amount of stages are more reasonable than banning infinites.
 

Eggz

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You guys should just use the justice that SKYPAL instituted long ago

No infiniteble walls, walk off edges, cielings, or unavoidable random garbage
 

EdreesesPieces

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nothings wrong with stages with a wall, just, i dont think it's good to have too many, such as green greens, corneria, and so on. even though they may be playable, it gives too much advantages to certain characters, so limiting the amount of stages are more reasonable than banning infinites.
The reason I favor alot of stages is because it will give EVERY character a good counterpick to work with. It is my opinion that the current stage selection in Socal heavily favors just a few select top tier characters, unlike the EC stage selection that balances it for pretty much any character.
 

The Great Leon

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It would be foolish to say that wall infinites have to be an either/or for banning stages. When considering a stage, you have to take more than one factor into consideration.

Take Shadow Moses for instance. Its banned because of the high ceiling and the dual walls. It has the immortality thing going on (one of the reasons Temple is banned, but not the only one) and matches tend to take too long. But another reason is that the walls are so unavoidable that you can guarantee that a wall infinite is going to happen at least once per match. Remember that one infinite is one stock.

DeDeDe's wall grab is generally more prominent in the mind than a D-Tilt spam because it is easier to set up. I'm all for infinites being legal, provided the stage selection is balanced while keeping them in mind. Deciding the stage list is more or less deciding how the meta-game will unfold. Say, if we allowed both Green Greens and Shadow Moses, amongst many other changes to the current state of affairs, DeDeDe would be an even better character than he appears to be now. The many mid-heavy weight characters couldn't ban both stages for counter-pick, and the match would pretty much be decided before it starts. I'm only picking on DeDeDe because his infinite occurs more often than the others.

Which leads me to my next point: infinites don't happen that often in tournament play. One reason for this is that the stages with walls are rapidly changing, or, don't feature inescapable walls. Rainbow Cruise, Pictochat, and Delfino are all 'morphing' stages. There are walls, but only temporarily. While they are present it is up to the players and their characters to either try for an infinite, if they have one, or to play it safe if they do not have one or are unsure of themselves in executing. But this dilemma will only last for a little while, and the walls will dissapear, and the match can continue on unhindered.

Example: R.O.B. vs DeDeDe on Delfino. The stage gets to the part with the wall. DeDeDe can wall grab R.O.B. until the stage change, and it would be pretty easy to do so. R.O.B. could D-Tilt DeDeDe, but it might not be a good idea to try it, due to the variable levels of difficulty. Result, my R.O.B. would just camp until the stage changes, or stay in a safer location.

Corneria has a wall, but only on one side. Under the fin is certainly a danger zone, but it doesn't decide a match at all. If a heavyweight was versus a DeDeDe on Corneria, they could stay on the top section (safe) or keep De between them and the wall (not so safe.) While there would probably be a lot of camping in this scenario, camping is a play style, while infinites tend to hamper game play. If the DeDeDe is up a stock, and camping the wall, the heavyweight will have to descend into the danger zone, or lose to a time-out. I feel, that this leans more to the Counter-Pick status than the Banned status. (As for banning Corneria itself, more factors need to be taken into consideration. There are occasional hazards, but more importantly really close ceilings and walls.)

Onett is similar to Shadow Moses, in that the walls can present an 'immortality' effect, the hazard has killing potential, there are close side off-screens, and infinites will happen more often than not. Again, walls being present (in regards to infinites) isn't a deciding factor, but one of many.

If I may make a comparison, DeDeDe's chain grab should have a similar effect on walls as it does regarding walk off stages. One reason to ban them is that everyone knows they're gay. Another is that one grab can equal death. Bridge of Eldin, Yoshi's Island (Pipes), and Onett all take that into consideration amongst being too big/small and what not. Not so much Onett.

Castle Seige is allowed for the same reason Defilno, Pictochat, and Rainbow Cruise are allowed. The stage morphs, so the walk-off is avoidable. There are plenty of platforms to camp on until the walk-offs go away. The stage changing animation is a walk-ff itself, but it doesn't really last long enough to get chain grabbed off the stage.

Though I guess we don't want to admit it, keeping one or two techniques in mind while determining what stages to ban should be a valid concern. Its up to us to decide whether DeDeDe becomes a 'broken' character with easy kills on walls/walk-offs, or a still good character without them. Wall infinites are more balanced within themselves, as many people have them and often times both opponents could trap one another. If not, its up to the disadvantaged person to stay safe and play smart for the duration of the match.

A counter-pick stage has to have a certain amount of balance to it. Frigate Orpheon is a great counter-pick stage against tetherers, or characters with bad recoveries. One side of one of the stages has no ledge. This is a pretty big disadvantage, but it is not unbeatable. A smart player would put great priority on staying away from that place. And once the stage flips, it is no longer a worry (until it flips again.) Port Town Aero Dive would be an imbalanced counter pick against those same characters. The main platform has no ledges, so they're pretty screwed once they get knocked off.

Green Greens crosses the line between counter-pick and banned stage. We should take into consideration the inescapable walls when determining What category it belongs in. In regards to the walls, infinites would happen too often and would reduce the quality of gameplay to MvC2 status (yeah I went there.) The stage itself punishes approaching too much and matches tend to be really long, campy, and boring. The blocks can be pretty stupid and can kill characters caught under them, especially ones like Lucario and Olimar. Also, the bombs are a bit too in the way with such a cramped stage. While seperately, many of these aspects sound good for a counter-picking stage, put together I think they manage to tip the scales in favor of being a banned stage. Keep in mind that for a stage to be banned it doesn't have to be 'stupid,' it just has to be imbalanced.

Edrees, sorry for writing so much.





-Preemptive Response-
"You said that camping was good on Corneria but bad on Green Greens."

Only in regards to walls and infinites, Corneria remains balanced enough to warrant counter-pick. I'm not going to touch on the closeness of the stage-off's and the hazards. If both characters have wall infinites, play on. But in the scenario where one character does and the other does not, there is clearly a difference in advantage. The disadvantaged character will have to stay away from that one danger zone. If they are up a stock, they will never have to descend. If they are down a stock and the winner is camping the wall, they will have to descend. The match could go either way, and the outcome is not decided from the start. Also, projectiles can influence the effectiveness of camping the top or bottom of the stage. Camping the turret in front of the stage would be more along the lines of stalling, but simply having neither character approach is more or less accepted. Especially when the person up a stock says to the other "You know I'm not going down there..." and the inevitable approach is forced.

Green Greens punishes both characters for approaching, all the time. Corneria's camping game is influenced by many factors, but Green Greens' is not. You pretty much have to jump in if you want to get a hit in. Characters with projectiles have an advantage on this stage, and that was more or less balanced in melee. But with brawl being such a defensive game it is no longer acceptable. Approaching is already more punishable than it melee, and Green Greens exemplifies this. The two are different games, and should have different ban lists.

Overall, Green Greens is worthy of a ban. In the majority of this post I have been indifferent to Corneria's final resting place upon the list. I have only discussed its wall.





tl;dr
Ban Green Greens. I'm sorry Edrees.
 

EazyP

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Naw

I didn't know about the lack of tether recovery on Aero Port, so I'm fine with that one being out

Also, Lylat Cruise can eat a ****, I've never met a single person that likes that stage, it might be close to neutral but it's just so god **** stupid with how much it moves. I guess Falco has to have an effective stage to get gimped on. I usually end up banning it since I don't have a problem with anything else allowed at the moment

Corneria I'm not sure about, the wall isn't much of a problem to me. I've played plenty of people as Dedede on it and they usually do a good job of not going into no man's land down there. The biggest problem is how close the sides and how low the ceiling is

Distant Planet I just don't understand how anyone could think this stage is suited for serious play. The terrain advantages are too much once you control the center. Anyone who tries to get in has waaaay to big of a problem. There's a huge chunk of stage missing that is giant mushroom-dinosaur-abomination town, and is the left side of the stage a walk off? Also random projectile items

Pictochat is a savior of new stages though. The random houses, trampolines and what not effect the stage little, unless it's a weapon. Whale and a few other things can set up for temporary wall infinites, but don't last long at all, not near as long as say Pokemon Stadium 1 walls. The sides are close for easier horizontal kills with a higher ceiling that usual that makes a good balance and a nice counter pick. The damaging rockets, fire, ect. won't kill unless you're already at a fairly high percent and set up some nice impromptu territory battles. Good times forever
 

Jmex

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Corneria does have small sides ;)
 

Shmooguy

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My 2 cents:

The following should be banned:

Norfair should be banned, a few lucky hits or simply being closer to the safe area when the lava comes can make a huge difference. It's more of a battle to stay alive rather than fight. Yes, you can see lava coming just like Brinstar, but it's much more difficult to avoid and the whole stage layout in general is ******** in the sense that one person always has position advantage over another (unless both are at the very bottom platform, but that will never last long)

Green Greens should be banned, random bomb blocks falling is really lame and makes a big difference in a match.

Distant planet should be banned, there's only one part of the stage you can legitimately fight on. That weird thing that eats you on the right side and the water messes with you more than it really should. Again, you're always fighting for specific positioning and trying to hit them into annoying stuff, not necessarily trying to figure out their playstyle.

Pirate ship should be banned, but mostly because of the low-gravity part. Bombs are gay but can be avoided if you simply look up, also that switch thingy should be easily avoided too, it's not invisible, you can see when it's gonna flip. Dying in the water to a boat is pretty stupid though, that seems more random than anything.

Yoshi's island (pipes)
should definitely be banned, you can tech off the blocks, people suicide on the middle blocks a lot, that alone should be enough to ban it.

Skyworld and Pokemon Stadium 2 should also be banned, I don't see how there's any discussion even happening on either of these, they force you to fight the stage more than your opponent, just abusing certain stage aspects without having to mindgame your opponent at all.

Pictochat should be banned, stage changes can **** your percent and your stock if you happen to be in the wrong spot. You can't always avoid these either, they take up a lot of the screen which limits a lot of what you can do.

Halberd and Castle Siege
should be banned, parts of the stage with no edges, random **** shooting at you, and stage changes when everything looks like it's falling are pretty dumb. They both have really bad parts of their stages but if they are allowed I won't complain.

Luigi's Mansion is an obvious ban, it's got the whole Hyrule Temple thing going on (stay inside so you never die, get some percent and run away all game).



These stages are fine:

Port Town Aero Drive seems fine to me, the only questionable thing is the wall on the left side that owns you but I don't think people die to this very often. I always wondered why this stage was banned personally.

Corneria should be okay, it's a really gay stage and I hate playing on it but there's nothing too broken other than ships shooting you and the camping that happens because of the fin, but nobody really complains about ships shooting you and it's not that hard to get around camping on this stage.

The rest are fine as is.
 

Praxis

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nothings wrong with stages with a wall, just, i dont think it's good to have too many, such as green greens, corneria, and so on. even though they may be playable, it gives too much advantages to certain characters, so limiting the amount of stages are more reasonable than banning infinites.
Green Greens is a good counterpick for many other reasons than just the walls though. The short sides and ceilings makes it an amazing equalizer for characters with poor recovery, since long range recovery on characters like ROB, Metaknight, and even G&W no longer gives them a survival advantage, and lightweight characters with good recovery are suddenly put at a disadvantage.

It's my favorite counterpick for ROB/Meta/G&W, and the walls have nothing to do with it. I can't think of another thread that accomplishes it's purpose as well either- there's nothing else that puts Meta or G&W at a slight disadvantage.

Meanwhile, Luigi's Mansion lets you live forever and encourages spamming attacks like tornado. It's like Hyrule Temple, but it also destroys projectile games with those walls that absorb hits, letting people live even longer.

I understand not wanting to have too many with walls, but haven't we already banned EVERYTHING with walls except for Delfino?

Green Greens should be banned, random bomb blocks falling is really lame and makes a big difference in a match.
I really haven't had the bomb blocks make that big a difference in matches. They're easy to avoid if you're not dumb about it, and they don't launch you that far unless you already have very high %. Hardly as offensive as, say, the pirate ship bombs, or Norfair's lava.
 

Shmooguy

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I really haven't had the bomb blocks make that big a difference in matches. They're easy to avoid if you're not dumb about it, and they don't launch you that far unless you already have very high %.
People could be accidentally DI-ing poorly and have bombs kill them and they're not easy to avoid, they are completely random when they fall. If you want to get to another part of the stage you have to cross over the falling blocks and one of those could be a bomb, you never know. The fact is that it's completely RANDOM and that's why the stage should be banned.
 

Praxis

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Right, but generally you can see them coming unless you're travelling along the very tip top of the screen. Just pay attention when you cross over the falling block region- or better yet, blow up the blocks before you pass them.

The only times I've been gimped by falling bombs is when opponents knocked me into the line of their fall.

I think the stage is a very viable strategic counterpick, and there's very few stages with a negative effect on Metaknight and G&W otherwise.
 

JTB

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Yeah, I need Green Greens to use again gay characters that don't die :(
 

mikeHAZE

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Green Greens is a good counterpick for many other reasons than just the walls though. The short sides and ceilings makes it an amazing equalizer for characters with poor recovery, since long range recovery on characters like ROB, Metaknight, and even G&W no longer gives them a survival advantage, and lightweight characters with good recovery are suddenly put at a disadvantage.
the ONLY reason you're saying that is because you've never had to camp a dedede for 8 minutes on this stage, like me.
 

Shmooguy

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Lol mike i know what you mean

i really don't want it to be allowed but i can't think of a good reason why it should be banned

i'll just ban it, np
 

mikeHAZE

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he can infinite. and i now someones going to say 'you can destroy the boxes.' but in all reality they only need one bock there iirc
 

The Great Leon

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Pictochat does have hazards. IIRC the bombs and fire have set knockback though. Piranha plant and spikes do kill though. Phanna says that stage changes last for 13.33 seconds with 13.33 seconds of a blank stage. And theres a good vid of all of the stage changes here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfJgtq_MwFA

Halberd is fine.

Castle Siege is kinda gay, but you can't really ban it.

Port Town Aero Drive has no ledges. The road underneath the ledge randomly dissapears, and walls are randomly present. The other day I should have died 3 times but I kept hitting random walls.

Other than that I agree with Kira's list.
 

Lovage 805

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Pictochat cycles through all 27 sketches (picking each one once) every 12 minutes. They are evenly distributed with 13.33 seconds per sketch, and 13.33 seconds of blankness. The same sketch can start one set that had ended the previous set. The missiles come in at various heights (same general layout though), and have fixed knockback like the flames. The other hazards knock you farther with more percentage.


-phanna
 

HyugaRicdeau

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Slippi.gg
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Hanenbow should be banned because it's too hard to approach campers in the upper or lower left. I mean, it turns the game into who can get a % advantage and camp there the best, if both people know how to play the stage. You don't get much in terms of fundamentals of gameplay. I think it would be a fun stage if it weren't for those stupid leaves there.

As far as Pictochat, like I've said, no matter how deterministic or balanced the stage may be, the fact that you have to deal with hazards almost the entire time detracts too much from the game. It becomes too much a test of that junk and not of fundamentals.

Green Greens is a horrible stage. I think it should have been banned in Melee, and if anything it's worse in Brawl, now that wall infinites happen. The randomness of the bomb blocks exploding in people's faces, and of falling blocks SAVING people headed to their doom is too much. It would be one thing if that stuff happened in some corner of the stage, but it happens in 2 places in an already small and cramped stage.

Corneria might be OK, because although there is a wall, it's only a wall in one direction. You don't HAVE to go down under the fin. And even if you do, I've found that camping under the fin is harder than it is in Melee. I still think people should ban it, but I wouldn't complain too much if someone wanted to keep it on, or at least not as much if they wanted to keep on Green Greens.

Norfair WOULD be a cool stage if you couldn't grab ledges on all 3 platform heights. I think the lava stuff pushes gameplay in an interesting direction, but since you have 3 ledges on one side, a dedicated platform camper simply has far too many options (it's bad enough with 1, but it is possible to punish ledge camping) for the attacker to be able to handle.

Pirate Ship...I think it's OK because all the hazards are pretty obvious and avoidable, and generally getting hit by one of them won't swing a match. If you have enough time to see something coming, the fact that it may be random is irrelevant. I think Halberd's hazards are about the same level as Pirate Ship's, but it's a more straightforward stage to fight on.

PS2 the only thing that REALLY bothers me is the stupid wind transformation where everyone is falling HELLA slow. The conveyor one is really such a simple alteration that I don't think it's too much of an interference, even though it is annoying. I'd ban it, but I'd respect the decision to leave it on also.

I think Port Town is pretty bad, because the cars are harder to see coming and are way more powerful than they were in Mute City, and Mute City is kind of the standard that I used to judge stages; by that I mean Mute City was the most "game-changing" stage that I think people should reasonably have to put up with.
 
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