Why do we stage strike?

[ParanoidDrone]

This shouldn't require a video, but it might given some of the responses I've seen here!

Walkoffs are banned primarily due to a concept called overcentralization and something called "variance" -- removing variance is essentially the entire point of a tournament. It's why we don't have items too. Random, or seemingly random, outcomes result in highly varied results. This is called "variance".

By themselves walk-offs aren't that bad. They are a high-risk, high-reward opportunity. If you get the grab, you get an early kill. If you get grabbed, you die early.

The issue is they are part of a game with percentages and stocks. If you are up a stock, chances are you're at a pretty high % against an even opponent. If you're at a high % and your opponent is at a low %, there's a chance that you could die but virtually no chance they could... unless you camp a walkoff! This means an optimal strategy is for the person who is a stock up is to camp walk-offs and hope for a low % gimp. This leads to overcentralization around that strategy.

So what ends up happening in practice is the game becomes overcentralized around walk-offs and results are fairly randomized. If you are in the lead or at a high %, your new goal is to camp the walk-off. Players take turns doing this with stocks disappearing quickly after 50/50 interactions.

Some people might bring up things like "you can be chaingrabbed off the side" or things like that, but that isn't why stages are banned. Specific techniques don't ban stages, at least not by good TOs. Stages are banned when they promote overcentralization or variance; this is connected to specific characters and techniques, but not limited.

So basically walkoffs are volatile? That's something I can get behind easier than just saying they're centralizing. It points to a specific property.

That said, I want to reiterate two questions:

• Is there video of this? Not so much for myself, but for future use because this question comes up a lot. A video we can point to and say "this sort of match is what walkoffs enable and we don't want that" will do a lot more good than any amount of debate.
• What about doubles? Would the presence of teammates diminish or enhance the effect?

 

[Overswarm]

So basically walkoffs are volatile? That's something I can get behind easier than just saying they're centralizing. It points to a specific property.

That said, I want to reiterate two questions:

• Is there video of this? Not so much for myself, but for future use because this question comes up a lot. A video we can point to and say "this sort of match is what walkoffs enable and we don't want that" will do a lot more good than any amount of debate.
• What about doubles? Would the presence of teammates diminish or enhance the effect?

There's not a video to my knowledge. I might make one more generally about stages.

Doubles often turns into singles, which brings the same issue, but there have been many "doubles only" stages. Often they are inevitably removed as well.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

There's not a video to my knowledge. I might make one more generally about stages.

Doubles often turns into singles, which brings the same issue, but there have been many "doubles only" stages. Often they are inevitably removed as well.

A bit further down the line when there's less going on, I may try and see if it's feasible to get some serious-but-not-really matches on some of the banned stages where me and the opponent agree to try and exploit the stage to its fullest. Maybe once replay sharing is a thing so I can have someone else make the video out of it.

 

[ぱみゅ]

I ****ABSOLUTELY*** loved the video, OS, but we already have a thread discussing this with virtually the same title.
Hey @ Budget Player Cadet_ , can I merge these threads and add the video to the OP?

 

[Raijinken]

A bit further down the line when there's less going on, I may try and see if it's feasible to get some serious-but-not-really matches on some of the banned stages where me and the opponent agree to try and exploit the stage to its fullest. Maybe once replay sharing is a thing so I can have someone else make the video out of it.

I'd be up for something like that, too. I remember having a very hard time understanding why Temple wasn't a desireable stage when I was learning, since my brother and I thought living to high percents made hits more exciting, and running away was a stupid boring way to play anyways. We still think that, but we can better understand why it's not a good competition setting.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I ****ABSOLUTELY*** loved the video, OS, but we already have a thread discussing this with virtually the same title.
Hey @ Budget Player Cadet_ , can I merge these threads and add the video to the OP?

Not a bad call.

I disagree with the notion that the starter stages should at best be "neutral" for all characters.
Some stages are more janky and interfere with the player versus player competitiveness we want to have and make it more to a player vs player vs stage thing.

Okay, so why play on them at all?

Seriously, this is a big problem.

You're saying that some stages are considerably less competitive. Why legalize them in the first place? Or, to put it another way:

Stages like Lylat, where you randomly get off the floor for a second, or get "randomly" destroyed from the stage, because it's really difficult to aim at the ledge while recovering, are not neutral enough to be picked (imo).

If Lylat Cruise is too uncompetitive to be played round 1, what changes in rounds 2 and 3 to make it viable there? This is not an argument for "this stage should not be a starter", this is an argument for "this stage should not be tournament legal". For what it's worth, I think Lylat is a completely valid stage with nothing about it that screams "uncompetitive". To my knowledge, it's also not random.

That is really limiting for players who don't want it, because you often don't know what your opponent might want to pick and then be forced to "waste" a strike on it.

Yeah, welcome to matchups. I have to "waste" a strike on FD, because it's one of the absolute worst stages for my character. That's not a "waste", that's using my strikes intelligently. Similarly, if you or your character cannot handle a viable tournament stage, that's not a "wasted" strike.

Then again, I'm also of the opinion that Smashville is the most neutral stage if you take matchups into account.

Yeah, this was really, really wrong in Brawl and I see absolutely no reason to accept it as dogma in Smash 4. We don't know anywhere near as much about the game as we ought to to make proclamations like this, and I know of several matchups where SV is right near the top of the "stages I'd ban" list (usually right below FD - kind of worrying when SV and FD are over half the starter list).

And also I'm not against these stages as counterpicks, since stage variety does help the game to keep it more fresh and interesting, and because the first stage will be "neutral", so the better played would have the advantage anyway.

If the better player would not have the advantage, the stage should not be legal. Again, these aren't arguments against stages being starters. These are arguments against the stage being legal.

 

[Luigi player]

luigi player I don't fully agree with your post. The truly "janky" stages are in the Banned section of our stagelists. And starters really aren't "neutral." I'd argue that Wuhu Island is less polarizing than Final Destination.

Depends on what you think is neutral. Like I said, I'm looking for stages that aren't too matchup-deciding and not too interfering with play. FD is a little special, since there are no platforms. Some might not like that or their character has some problems with it, but what about BF? The same can be said about it. The platform formation on that stage makes it so you can combo more easily (/more difficult to avoid juggles), it's more difficult to approach, you could end up being caught landing at the top platform and KO'd early, and not to forget, the blastzones for the stage are really far away, making it one of the stages where you live really long (which makes it seem a little weird, since on almost all other stages you don't live as long).
Smashville is just a really good middle-ground. It's not too interfering, still somewhat like FD, but with a platform so you can be safe from projectiles, play around with and use it or whatever your problem with FD was. You also can't camp below the platform like on BF, since it moves, making it pretty much perfect.
It was my obvious stage choice for Brawl and now it's still my goto option in Smash4. And that was and is because I feel the best there with every character. Why? (Pretty much) No janky stuff happens, and it's not as polarizing as FD or BF.

I really like Wuhu Island as a stage, it could be better than FD if you're trying to find a stage that makes for a good middle-ground for matchups / stagestructure, but moving stages just feel a little weird, since there are walkoffs, sometimes water, sometimes walls, and the moving aspect itself. So imo from a competitive viewpoint it makes more sense to me to play on FD than on Wuhu Island, because of no interferance.

Okay, so why play on them at all?

Seriously, this is a big problem.

You're saying that some stages are considerably less competitive. Why legalize them in the first place? Or, to put it another way:

If Lylat Cruise is too uncompetitive to be played round 1, what changes in rounds 2 and 3 to make it viable there? This is not an argument for "this stage should not be a starter", this is an argument for "this stage should not be tournament legal". For what it's worth, I think Lylat is a completely valid stage with nothing about it that screams "uncompetitive". To my knowledge, it's also not random.

I see where you're coming from, because while I was writing my post I was facing the same thoughts. But there are answers to that. You see, stage striking or starter/neutrals and counterpicks where always present in Smash. Neutrals because they weren't too janky, counterpicks because they were on the edge, but could still be useable for some matchups or if players agree.

To me the stage banning choices I have in the game save me from janky stuff that I don't want to happen, not stages that are bad for my character (like I said, I don't feel any character has too large of an advantage on any stage). This compensates nicely with still having them allowed as counterpicks. Since if I nor my opponent wouldn't mind them they could still be chosen.

Why do I not want them as a starter stage? Because they are a little more interfering with the gameplay than the "neutrals" ("neutral" = no interferance/randomness/broken stuff).
Why do I not mind them as CPs too much? I already answered that.
- if I'm better I can still win the set if I win on the stages that depend less on chance
- I can ban the worst ones if I want to
- they can be important for variety. Not too many like playing on the same few stages all the time. We have quite a few to choose from and we should definitely not let that go to waste. It's also to find some consensus between "conservative" and "liberal" stagelists.

Yeah, welcome to matchups. I have to "waste" a strike on FD, because it's one of the absolute worst stages for my character. That's not a "waste", that's using my strikes intelligently. Similarly, if you or your character cannot handle a viable tournament stage, that's not a "wasted" strike.

I can agree to FD being somewhat of a problematic stage for some matchups... in Brawl. In Smash 4 you don't have to be afraid of Falcos potentially camping you with lasers and getting easier landing grabs, Diddys bananas having freedom, ICs having an easier time to grab and CG you, or Dedede and other characters being able to chaingrab a lot of characters for polarizing MUs on that stage. Some characters just didn't like the stage at all like DK who gets camped out hard on it.

But in Smash4? The most fearsome thing on FD is Sheiks needles or something, which do like 5 % damage fully charged. Not saying they aren't far better there than on other stages, but they aren't as matchupbreaking as some of the previous things. FD might still be a little bad for some characters, but it's nowhere near as bad as before. I actually like FD the second most now, where in Brawl I didn't like to play on it at all. Well, anyway, you have to waste a strike on FD because it's a great competitive stage that doesn't interfere with player vs player, which should be the main focus by far if you want to play competitively.

Yeah, this was really, really wrong in Brawl and I see absolutely no reason to accept it as dogma in Smash 4. We don't know anywhere near as much about the game as we ought to to make proclamations like this, and I know of several matchups where SV is right near the top of the "stages I'd ban" list (usually right below FD - kind of worrying when SV and FD are over half the starter list).

If the better player would not have the advantage, the stage should not be legal. Again, these aren't arguments against stages being starters. These are arguments against the stage being legal.

Like I said above, I really cannot see any reason to ban SV by looking at MUs. If you don't like the stage... it's probably you. It is no coincidence that it is by far the most played on stage and is even used for CPs. It's not to get the super advantage there... it's to have an even playing field with almost no interferance plus nothing polarizing going on. Town and City has risen in Smash4 since it's somewhat similar in that regard. Some might prefer it to SV, because it is a little different than, but has very similar attributes to SV.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I really like Wuhu Island as a stage, it could be better than FD if you're trying to find a stage that makes for a good middle-ground for matchups / stagestructure, but moving stages just feel a little weird, since there are walkoffs, sometimes water, sometimes walls, and the moving aspect itself. So imo from a competitive viewpoint it makes more sense to me to play on FD than on Wuhu Island, because of no interferance.

But here's the thing. In Smash, even when you boil it down to just the "competitive stages", "no interference" is the exception, not the rule. Okay, Melee, but that's because they got ridiculously ban-happy. Indeed, funnily enough, stages that embody a great number of stage elements become far more representative of the "norm".

I see where you're coming from, because while I was writing my post I was facing the same thoughts. But there are answers to that. You see, stage striking or starter/neutrals and counterpicks where always present in Smash. Neutrals because they weren't too janky, counterpicks because they were on the edge, but could still be useable for some matchups or if players agree.

To me the stage banning choices I have in the game save me from janky stuff that I don't want to happen, not stages that are bad for my character (like I said, I don't feel any character has too large of an advantage on any stage).

And what of the players who like these stages? I love me some transformations; they lead to the stage rewarding a player's ability to repeatedly establish stage control and beneficial positions over simply getting them and keeping them. It forces more situation resets. The better player is still going to win, but you have to deal with more different situations and adapt.

Why do I not want them as a starter stage? Because they are a little more interfering with the gameplay than the "neutrals" ("neutral" = no interferance/randomness/broken stuff).
Why do I not mind them as CPs too much? I already answered that.
- if I'm better I can still win the set if I win on the stages that depend less on chance

So does game 2 not matter or something? See, this bugs me - if the better player isn't winning, the stage ought to be banned because it's degenerate or random or both. And otherwise, the better player should still win. Forgive me for reading you into this, but it seems to me like you just don't like stages that move around.

- they can be important for variety.

But why does variety matter? Street Fighter has one stage and it's perfectly fine.

Well, anyway, you have to waste a strike on FD because it's a great competitive stage that doesn't interfere with player vs player, which should be the main focus by far if you want to play competitively.

Every stage in the game "interferes" in one way or another. Good at stage spikes? Boy, if only FD wasn't there to spike me off! Great a juggles? "Man, I wish we weren't on the only stage in the game without platforms". If only we were on Mario Circuit or Halberd! And of course, Smashville has moving parts like many other stages - I've been saved by the Smashville platform a couple of times as Little Mac, and seen Esam do some dumb **** to Warios on that stage based entirely on where the platform was and how close it gets to the blastzone.

Again, if we considered this such a big issue, we'd be banning stages. But we aren't. And of course, we can't really see any one of them as the "default". Each character has a different tool set, and some characters have tools which work better on some stages than others. This plays into the single most important misconception in all of Smash:

Like I said above, I really cannot see any reason to ban SV by looking at MUs. If you don't like the stage... it's probably you. It is no coincidence that it is by far the most played on stage and is even used for CPs. It's not to get the super advantage there... it's to have an even playing field with almost no interferance plus nothing polarizing going on.

If every other stage in the game is better for my character, then it doesn't matter that "nothing is going on". It's still one of the worst stages in the game for my character. We can't see this as a sliding scale, where SV is always "0" and every other stage in a matchup orients itself around that. We have to set the scale up based on the rest of the list. If the only legal stages are Kongo, Smashville, and FD, then Smashville is the best stage in the game for Zero Suit Samus (in most matchups) by a fairly wide margin. If the only legal stages are Smashville, Delfino, and Halberd, then Smashville is the worst stage in the game for Zero Suit Samus (in most matchups) by a wide margin.

Again, "nothing happening with the stage" is the exception, not the rule. If I have to fight Shiek round one on Smashville, and she has 10 stages that worse for her and I have 2 (this is not even an exaggeration - against Shiek in the Munich stagelist I'd ban FD and Kongo, and I'd expect her to counterpick me to Smashville), she just got handed a huge advantage for no good reason. And this is okay because... The stage doesn't transform? Why is that a criteria? What does that have to do with anything? The point of round one is to have an even, fair playing field. Not one that's flat and doesn't move. And if we end up striking to Castle Siege or Wuhu Island, guess what: the better player still wins. The skillset asked for is only slightly changed, the focus of the match is only slightly changed, and the better player will be able to adapt. If the randomness is bothering us, then we should ban the stages.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Not a bad call.

Ans so it was done.

 

[bpjk27]

So basically walkoffs are volatile? That's something I can get behind easier than just saying they're centralizing. It points to a specific property.

That said, I want to reiterate two questions:

• Is there video of this? Not so much for myself, but for future use because this question comes up a lot. A video we can point to and say "this sort of match is what walkoffs enable and we don't want that" will do a lot more good than any amount of debate.
• What about doubles? Would the presence of teammates diminish or enhance the effect?

While not a competitive video of a walk off stage, I think that dabuz vs nairo from Apex shows a volatile aspect of walkoffs. Unfortunately I can't post the link. It should be on Team Spooky's YouTube channel on the Day 2 Singles Top 16 playlist.
If you go to around 7: 20, nairo takes dabuz's first stock then camps the walkoff to get a back throw ko on dabuz at 1%.
Note that dabuz could have waited for the transformation to end, and that I am not arguing against Delfino as a competitive stage.
Also, I don't know if it's been brought up but while Smash 4 lacks chaingrabs, there is the rage effect. I think this can help the walkoff camper at high percents.

 

[T0MMY]

I never called you or anyone crazy but ok. I think very few people took most of the things you said as polite, hence their heated responses, that was my point.

That was in response to the previous post from your account (bolded for emphasis):

"I'm sorry but I have to say this: your posts hurt my eyes. I don't think anyone in their right mind would read that and assume you're joking."​

Just passing some helpful info that implicating craziness probably doesn't get someone to be more agreeable. Usually they get quite offended and see it as what you may have called a "heated response"

I for one am an advocate for a full stagelist, and on my next tournament I host I'm going to implement a full stagelist from round 1 and will be experimenting with various banning patterns to find out what feels most comfortable.

Good luck with that - one thing I found that resulted was the attendees were upset at rules being changed from the more "standard" rules of the bigger tournaments. Sometimes people complain about one thing and if you change it, they'll complain about the other. Can be a catch-22 as a result - hope the best comes out for you since it's pretty much the same path I've taken.

 

[Unclesatan]

That was in response to the previous post from your account (bolded for emphasis):

"I'm sorry but I have to say this: your posts hurt my eyes. I don't think anyone in their right mind would read that and assume you're joking."​

Just passing some helpful info that implicating craziness probably doesn't get someone to be more agreeable. Usually they get quite offended and see it as what you may have called a "heated response"


Good luck with that - one thing I found that resulted was the attendees were upset at rules being changed from the more "standard" rules of the bigger tournaments. Sometimes people complain about one thing and if you change it, they'll complain about the other. Can be a catch-22 as a result - hope the best comes out for you since it's pretty much the same path I've taken.

Honestly that was more me saying that someone would have to be crazy to assume you were joking with some of the things you said considering you're incredibly proper with everything you say, except those jokes apparently. Not a big deal and I'm not trying to start anything, just giving you my perspective here.

Anyways the tournaments went over quite well, most Smash4 rule sets aren't even set stone and in most areas people have little experience with large Smash4 tournies, so a change in rule sets is theoretically not a huge deal. Only complaint I got was from someone hating Delfino but that isnt a big deal either because it's widely accepted as a legal stage.

Actually people complained more about another tournament I ran for Smash4 that included starter/counter pick stages, because "the counter pick list was quite a b it larger than the starter stage list." Weird I know but what can you do.

 

[Kenjin]

Didn't read the whole topic, but in my opinion, the main goal is diversity.
If our only goal was to play balanced stages, we would play Final Destination all the time. And the game would be boring as hell. We, as players, really need some extra stages. We need diversity. It's not only a competitive matter.

 

[Pazx]

Didn't read the whole topic, but in my opinion, the main goal is diversity.
If our only goal was to play balanced stages, we would play Final Destination all the time. And the game would be boring as hell. We, as players, really need some extra stages. We need diversity. It's not only a competitive matter.

If you don't read the whole topic, read this: Final Destination is not a balanced stage in the wider context of the entire game. It was not in Melee and it was not in Brawl, and it is not in Sm4sh. If FD was literally the only stage in the game your argument would hold water, but it's not.

Also, regarding our typically legal stages, FD is usually considered to be only the 4th "most deserving of being legal" and is certainly not anywhere near the most balanced in terms of individual matchups and gameplay.

 

[Kenjin]

Haha. Who said that? Of course Final Destination is the most balanced stages on ALL SMASH GAMES. Including Melee.

Of course, the random part of stages like BattleField is so tiny that it wouldn't be worth it to ban it. But still, that's the first time I see someone saying that if we kept ONE stage, it wouldn't be FD. That's really funny, and completely wrong.

 

[HeroMystic]

Haha. Who said that? Of course Final Destination is the most balanced stages on ALL SMASH GAMES. Including Melee.

Melee is when FD was the least balanced.

 

[Kenjin]

Well maybe not melee.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Haha. Who said that? Of course Final Destination is the most balanced stages on ALL SMASH GAMES. Including Melee.

I don't play a whole lot of Melee. From what I've watched, however, I see a lot of things on FD that you just don't see on most stages. Players like M2K and PPMD make it look like if you can get one grab with Marth on a fastfaller, you can almost guarantee a zero-to-death. It's possible, but much, much harder on almost every other stage in the game due to the platforms. That's... balanced, I guess?

What I did play a lot of, though, was Brawl, and I can say with confidence that FD was not only not the most balanced stage, but that after RC and Brinstar were banned, it may very well have been the least balanced stage. Stage selection and banning data from an MLG major showed that people banned FD more than any other stage. This in a tournament where Norfair, Rainbow Cruise, Brinstar, and Green Greens were legal. Even if you ignored the metaknights who banned FD (and keep in mind this really skews the data hard, because this keeps all the times people banned brinstar against metaknight in the data), the stage was still a close second behind brinstar, by a whopping 3%. 12 characters banned FD more than any other stage. Expand it to "top 3 most banned stages" and you end up with 19 - almost half the cast.

Now, I don't know about you, but when a stage tweaks so many matchups so hard that players feel the need to ban it in such large numbers, I don't consider that particularly "balanced". Yeah, it's flat. It's non-random. It's also the only stage in the game that is anything like that. Every single other tournament-legal stage has at least one platform. Almost every single other tournament-legal stage has some moving element. And this is a significant disadvantage to many characters who rely on platforms, or who are good at dealing with neutral situations but not great at keeping pressure on. I will almost always ban FD as ZSS, because I really like having platforms around - they help trap enemies, they help make my kill setups work at earlier %s, and they generally are a nice thing to be able to abuse.

Of course, the random part of stages like BattleField is so tiny that it wouldn't be worth it to ban it. But still, that's the first time I see someone saying that if we kept ONE stage, it wouldn't be FD. That's really funny, and completely wrong.

You need to lurk in stage discussion more often, you might be surprised. If I had a pick for "one stage to keep" in Smash 4, it'd be Pokemon Stadium 2. FD is not and never was a particularly well-balanced stage. I'm not sure what you think is "random" about Battlefield.

Melee is when FD was the least balanced.

Really? In Brawl, it was the go-to counterpick for half the top tiers and the go-to ban for half the rest of the cast. I mean, I realize that some chaingrabs on spacies are kinda ridiculous on FD, but less balanced than Brawl? I find that a little hard to believe.

 

[HeroMystic]

Really? In Brawl, it was the go-to counterpick for half the top tiers and the go-to ban for half the rest of the cast. I mean, I realize that some chaingrabs on spacies are kinda ridiculous on FD, but less balanced than Brawl? I find that a little hard to believe.

Tech-chasing is the most powerful on FD and often lead to 0-deaths due to the lack of anything that could help any character survive from a disadvantaged state.

 

[popsofctown]

FD is an extremum, but not necessarily an outlier based on ban data. The stages in each game are on a spectrum from most platformy and aerially to least platformy and aerially, and FD is always at the bottom. Some characters just are counterpicking to get as low on that spectrum as they can. If FD wasn't a stage, the second flattest stage would be a very common ban instead.

Well, incidentally the second flattest stage and the third flattest stage are a lot closer in how flat they are. But that's not information that's implied by the ban data.