Xif is the smartest player ever!

[ama(m/t)]

rainbow cruise is great for falco
exhibit a: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYvBZ8H5LoA

 

[Mike G]

TESvideos
1 year ago



All this match tells me is...
Tong is a troll.






lol

 

[zidane3015]

After making this thread and arguing about this Nicaboy counterpicked Trikrome to rainbow cruise and Spider Sense to Kongo jungle in a round robin tourney we did stating it was the smart thing to do...

Hypocrite much? lol

 

[nicaboy]

haters gonna hate

 

[Dr Peepee]

LOL why not take advantage of the ruleset if he can't get it fixed? He could at least show that he wants those CPs banned by doing gay things on them and "proving" their silliness.

I'm not crazy about CPs myself.

 

[theONEjanitor]

we play a dumb game series get over it lol

smash is like the original american Constituion.

kind of cool, but in order for it to actually work we needed to ammend it (turn off items, time limit, ban stages etc.)

but yo we've added dozens of ammendments
and thousands of supreme court interpretations of the law

and we still have lots of dumb **** in there. its never going away.

learn to play on counterpicks or go play street fighter lol

i hate cp's too. but i kind of hate melee's neutrals as well.

 

[nicaboy]

LOL why not take advantage of the ruleset if he can't get it fixed? He could at least show that he wants those CPs banned by doing gay things on them and "proving" their silliness.

I'm not crazy about CPs myself.

Basically im gonna make everyone see my point by taking them there . Tournaments should be neutral only.

we play a dumb game series get over it lol

smash is like the original american Constituion.

kind of cool, but in order for it to actually work we needed to ammend it (turn off items, time limit, ban stages etc.)

but yo we've added dozens of ammendments
and thousands of supreme court interpretations of the law

and we still have lots of dumb **** in there. its never going away.

learn to play on counterpicks or go play street fighter lol

i hate cp's too. but i kind of hate melee's neutrals as well.

I like your analogy man. But lets fix it for the better lol. I might be a hypocrite but my opinion still stands.

 

[SSJ6SephirothGogeta]

we play a dumb game series get over it lol

smash is like the original american Constituion.

kind of cool, but in order for it to actually work we needed to ammend it (turn off items, time limit, ban stages etc.)

but yo we've added dozens of ammendments
and thousands of supreme court interpretations of the law

and we still have lots of dumb **** in there. its never going away.

learn to play on counterpicks or go play street fighter lol

i hate cp's too. but i kind of hate melee's neutrals as well.

So basically lets create rulesets that make the game incrementally better and more balanced, but then stop halfway because, "LOL WHOOPS DA GAME IS STUPID ANYWAY ROFL" ... instead of just finishing the job.

great ****ing logic dip****

 

[MarsFool!]

Make green greens neutral, removed battlefield. I'm all about this topic.

 

[nicaboy]

Make green greens neutral, removed battlefield. I'm all about this topic.

dude you are picking green greens regardless of the rule set.

 

[Finch]

Counterpicks are gayer that Elton John and everyone knows it but we still have them around because most of the smash community likes gay things too much.

 

[MarsFool!]

dude you are picking green greens regardless of the rule set.

Hey man, do you want jiggs off top tier or not?

 

[GA Peach]

So basically lets create rulesets that make the game incrementally better and more balanced, but then stop halfway because, "LOL WHOOPS DA GAME IS STUPID ANYWAY ROFL" ... instead of just finishing the job.

great ****ing logic dip****

LOL, priceless.

Counterpicks are gayer that Elton John and everyone knows it but we still have them around because most of the smash community likes gay things too much.

true, so true.

 

[exarch]

What is "neutral" is a completely arbitrary decision.

That has always been the underlying problem with any of these arguments, and has never been understood by the proponents of neutral stages.

Saying that Rainbow Cruise isn't neutral because it continually moves and has many platforms so you can't 0-death chaingrab someone is LITERALLY EXACTLY THE SAME ARGUMENT as saying FD isn't neutral because it doesn't have platforms to escape combos and doesn't continually move. We only argue for FD because we haven't spent the past 7 years playing on Rainbow Cruise as a neutral stage and FD as a counterpick. Every. single. stage. is ALWAYS affecting the game.

This argument: "You might beat somebody because of the level rather than you just beating somebody because your better" is BUNK. If it's Fox vs DK and we're on FD, the level affects the match, by forcing Fox to fall into DK's combos. The lack of platforms forces an affect on the match. Fox vs DK on BF forces DK to have to tech chase on platforms. FD's passive effects are still effects.

If I could just get 1 more person to understand that, I'll have considered this post a success. This is also what SuperJason was trying to say at the beginning of this thread.

 

[Purple]

Same thing happens in street fighter when you put it that way, it's called being in a corner. lol. It doesn't make it 'neutral' is makes it more like a fighting game :S

 

[Mike G]

Thank you, Exarch.

 

[Laijin]

Exarch. That has been my argument for a loooong time. I completely agree 100%.

 

[Pi]

lol superjason

 

[SSJ6SephirothGogeta]

What is "neutral" is a completely arbitrary decision.

That has always been the underlying problem with any of these arguments, and has never been understood by the proponents of neutral stages.

Saying that Rainbow Cruise isn't neutral because it continually moves and has many platforms so you can't 0-death chaingrab someone is LITERALLY EXACTLY THE SAME ARGUMENT as saying FD isn't neutral because it doesn't have platforms to escape combos and doesn't continually move. We only argue for FD because we haven't spent the past 7 years playing on Rainbow Cruise as a neutral stage and FD as a counterpick. Every. single. stage. is ALWAYS affecting the game.

This argument: "You might beat somebody because of the level rather than you just beating somebody because your better" is BUNK. If it's Fox vs DK and we're on FD, the level affects the match, by forcing Fox to fall into DK's combos. The lack of platforms forces an affect on the match. Fox vs DK on BF forces DK to have to tech chase on platforms. FD's passive effects are still effects.

If I could just get 1 more person to understand that, I'll have considered this post a success. This is also what SuperJason was trying to say at the beginning of this thread.

I disagree 100%

And yes, I do understand your point clearly as well. You are right, every stage creates a different affect on the balance between character match ups.

But you are mistaken on two accounts:

1) One of the arguments I am trying to make is how the random aspects of a stage affect gameplay. With some stages having completely at random blocks, bombs, lava, etc. enter gameplay, it detracts from competitive gameplay. Randomness is something which puts the outcome of the match into the control of forces outside of the two competitors power. If we are trying to create a game which tries to embody the competitive spirit, then randomness only serves to hurt us. I can say then, with confidence, that trying to pick out neutral stages based on the criteria of removing elements of the game which work on randomness is certainly not arbitrary.

2) I would like to assume that the hopeful end result of any ruleset that we try to create is to bring more balance to the game. I define balance as the likelihood that any one character has a chance to win against the rest of the cast is as close as possible to everyone's. It's what I think any game strives for (all nonsense 'LOL PARTY GAME' arguments aside). I believe that is a tangible, concrete definition on how to define neutral stages. The argument can certainly be made that the definition of a balanced stage is subjective, but certainly not arbitrary. The issue is that there is no logical step by step proof for which stage benefits characters the most.

Now I understand that what you may be trying to say is that while even though one stage may even have the most theoretical "central" balance to game play, there may be other stages which benefit the lower half of the cast more so, but in return may make one or two outliers in the cast that are far better or far worse on a stage which throws whatever balance other stages may have had. This is an argument I'm sure we could have for days, but I still strongly believe that of the characters which may want or need the benefits of something outside of their character design in order to thrive, none of the counterpick stages give them a significant advantage to warrant their inclusion for the sake of balance.

PS: Superwavedash, yes, I am XIF. This is my other account. Seeing as how i'm probably not going to be in orlando nor do I care enough to do so for a money match, the fun is largely over. You're still a tool though, you should always be ready to put your money where your mouth is. I was talking that good stuff too to chaddd back in the day, but I was willing to follow through with the money match and even lost. You take it like a man.

Peace.

 

[Pi]

Smash, it's characters and it's stages, are unique to the series. It was and is up to us as a community to dictate to what degree a stages balance is warranted to be allowed in competitive play. Since you feel that FD is the most balanced stage, why isn't (or is?) your argument that FD is the only stage we should ever play on.

Diversity. To some extent you, and others, would like to see diversity amongst characters and stages. That is a luxury we have because of the design of our game. Rather than try and emulate other fighters to a T, we should be open and embrace the options given to us as much as we can while still retaining a reasonable degree of balance on the stages. Which I feel has been done with the current stage ruleset.

And you going to pound you trash talking peach playing ignorant 12 y/o name having pot/hot headed scrub? Best make a thread cause 20$ says I can wipe the FD's floor clean with that pretty little white dress of yours.

 

[Dark Sonic]

1) One of the arguments I am trying to make is how the random aspects of a stage affect gameplay. With some stages having completely at random blocks, bombs, lava, etc. enter gameplay, it detracts from competitive gameplay. Randomness is something which puts the outcome of the match into the control of forces outside of the two competitors power. If we are trying to create a game which tries to embody the competitive spirit, then randomness only serves to hurt us. I can say then, with confidence, that trying to pick out neutral stages based on the criteria of removing elements of the game which work on randomness is certainly not arbitrary.

This point is actually a valid point.


HOWEVER!!!

You'd be hard pressed to find things that are actually random about many stages. For example, Green Green's blocks have set criteria for falling (there must be an absence of blocks in the first place, and afterwards they fall on a set timer). Pokefloats, Rainbow Cruise, and even Mute City all have predefined patterns. Randall the cloud on Yoshi's story follows a timer and even has a visual cue on the stage (though said cue desyncs after a few minutes of gameplay). Even the claptrap on Jungle Japes follows a timer.

So yeah, it's fair to try to remove random stages from our "neutral" stage list. So find me some random stages please?

2) I would like to assume that the hopeful end result of any ruleset that we try to create is to bring more balance to the game.

Says who? Who the **** decided that we're going to try to use the ruleset to balance the game? The ruleset only exists to make the game fair. Fair and balanced are two completely different things.

We play on stock with timer because to start with, we need a win condition. We could've played any of the game types, we just chose stock with timer (there is some justification to this choice but it's really not something I want to type right now). We banned items for various reasons (randomness in spawning mostly). We ban stages because they lead to degenerate tactics like circle camping or going for nothing but wallshine infinites. "Balance" is not agreed upon to be the goal of the ruleset. You can go ahead and argue that the ruleset should balance the game, but that's another issue.

I define balance as the likelihood that any one character has a chance to win against the rest of the cast is as close as possible to everyone's. It's what I think any game strives for (all nonsense 'LOL PARTY GAME' arguments aside). I believe that is a tangible, concrete definition on how to define neutral stages. The argument can certainly be made that the definition of a balanced stage is subjective, but certainly not arbitrary. The issue is that there is no logical step by step proof for which stage benefits characters the most.

Even though your premise was wrong from the start (the ruleset is not designed for balance, it's designed for fairness), I'm still going to argue against this point. Even with your definition, we'd have a lot more "neutral" stages than we have now. There are 26 characters in this game. Finding a "neutral stage list" that would give equal importance to all 26 characters and every possible matchup is not humanly possible in the first place. For example have you noticed that our current "neutral" stagelist heavily favors characters like Marth?

Marth does TERRIBLY on pretty much every counterpick. That's because he has trouble controlling space on large or uneven terrain (especially situations where he's forced to attack from higher ground), has a fairly linear recovery that can't make use of stage features, and overall has trouble moving large vertical distances. But has anyone ever thought that maybe these things just mean that Marth IS NOT AS GOOD OF A CHARACTER IN GENERAL?! These are very obvious character weaknesses, but OUR RULESET currently mitigates these weaknesses by giving Marth 3 of his best stages as starters! And this isn't like with Fox who's just good on lots of stages, it's Marth not having to worry about dealing with his obscene amount of bad stages because we've already banned them.

This is an argument I'm sure we could have for days, but I still strongly believe that of the characters which may want or need the benefits of something outside of their character design in order to thrive, none of the counterpick stages give them a significant advantage to warrant their inclusion for the sake of balance.

Just letting you know....the ability to use stage features is a character specific strength. The stage is ALWAYS a factor, so why are we subjectively deciding "how much" can a stage be a feature?





Here's my view for reference. Knowing how to play on different stages is part of playing smash. Playing Marth vs Fox on FD is extremely different from playing Marth vs Fox on Dreamland, which is different from playing Marth vs Fox on Yoshi's Story, ect, ect. Both players have access to all the characters, and both players know what possible stages they'll be playing on beforehand, so really....the stagelist is pretty fair from the start. Barring random features of stages, the players already have full control of the match (especially when you use stage striking, since now you can even control which stage you go to). So there are two main things that I think should apply to banning stages

Randomness

What we chose is an "acceptable" amount of randomness is kind of an arbitrary decision (I don't think we should ban game and watch for having a random move, but flatzone is pretty agreed upon to be...stupid). Here all you do is weigh the amount of depth you lose by banning said aspect against the amount of depth you gain. By banning game and watch because of his 9 hammer you lose a whole character. By banning flatzone you lose a stage that would've been banned for the section below anyway. Things like shyguys can potentially affect a match, but it's otherwise a unique stage with small boundaries, a wall to recover or tech on, sloped edges, randall the cloud, and a unique platform setup (the platforms being over the ledge itself does in fact make them unique), so we'd be losing a pretty good stage by banning it over shyguys. Next point


Degenerate tactics

Of course, while stages like Hyrule temple maybe technically be completely fair (both of you can chose Fox after all), it's not really entertaining, nor is it what we were trying to compete at in the first place. Tournaments are designed to rank the general skills of the players against each other, so any stages that come down to completely degenerate tactics should obviously be banned (since that's simply not what we were trying to measure in the first place). So here's where most of the stage bans in melee would apply. This is where we ban walk off stages, stages with permanent walls, and a couple others (you can do some hardcore camping in brinstar depths with Jigglypuff for example).

We actually kind of already do this, and where we draw the line is just a difference of opinion on what constitutes a "degenerate" tactic.

More tomorrow (maybe)

 

[nicaboy]

lol jason i love you and all man but im not so sure if you can beat xif so soundly like that.

He is pretty good. just saying but ya good luck to you both with that.

 

[Pi]

lol jason i love you and all man but im not so sure if you can beat xif so soundly like that.

He is pretty good. just saying but ya good luck to you both with that.

Lol I know he's good and all, but the only part of his post I agree'd with wholeheartedly was the last part.

Besides, I got time, just need some FL peach training and I'll have no trouble makin that GA punk tap

 

[SSJ6SephirothGogeta]

I don't understand how in the world smash players have no problem with standing by and watching brokeness in a game go on around them when the goal of almost every game developer that creates competitive titles (Capcom, Namco, Blizzard, etc.) is to release a game, and polish it further and further until the characters are all reasonably balanced.


Dark Sonic, I agree with you on such a fundamental level it's almost shocking. I almost feel that we are not even arguing about games anymore, but should be debating our very existence.

I really had no intention on arguing specifics in this topic at all. I just wanted to point out to Thomas that this was far from an arbitrary decision. I've been arguing about stages and why most do not belong in smash for 5+ years, and I've already made pretty much every point I've ever wanted to dozens of times.

To be honest, I got pretty salty about the whole matter when I was in the back room and was arguing it for years, and then Hax and some other people came about and made the same points I was but finally got people to listen and then they got all the credit for the pound 4 rule set.

Made me mad as hell actually.

 

[Эикельманн [РУС]]

Hm. When was the pound 4 ruleset decided for american use in the mbr, xif?

Because the "pound ruleset" has been used in Europe for a while. I remember when I was over there, and they tried telling me about it, I had never heard of it.

Many European countries also use neutrals only, with no stage bans, such as France, Spain, Finland, Norway, and Italy. The others only have few counterpicks, such as RR, floats, etc.

 

[Purple]

Lol I know he's good and all, but the only part of his post I agree'd with wholeheartedly was the last part.

Besides, I got time, just need some FL peach training and I'll have no trouble makin that GA punk tap

Xif is considered FL

 

[Pi]

Xif is considered FL

FL
GA
XL

idc
i got this.

 

[MarsFool!]

Hes gonna **** you cause you suck bro. Real talk.


If youre referring to Apollo as your training, hes good and all but not close to Alex Campos level =/

 

[Pi]

don't need to train with a peach of equal skill level to beat said peach
there are more factors involved the simply matchup/playstyle knowledge

i'll wreck xif, you, or anyone with the ballz to challenge me to a MM

 

[nicaboy]

Yo calm down hot shot

 

[MarsFool!]

don't need to train with a peach of equal skill level to beat said peach
there are more factors involved the simply matchup/playstyle knowledge

i'll wreck xif, you, or anyone with the ballz to challenge me to a MM

You wont wreck me babycakes.

 

[Pi]

lol foxes think he's something special

let me tell you about foxes

until you're great, your a scrub

you all approach the same, you all whine the same when i thwart your approaches, and you all regress to laser camping after that and when it doesn't work you call my character gay

lmao

 

[AfroQT]

lol foxes think he's something special

let me tell you about foxes

until you're great, your a scrub

you all approach the same, you all whine the same when i thwart your approaches, and you all regress to laser camping after that and when it doesn't work you call my character gay

lmao

I'll MM you for a dollar if your ever at zp.

 

[Pi]

heard
next time i'm down i'll hit you up
mo money mo problems
& i aint got enough stress in my life so help a playa out!

 

[exarch]

Alex/Xif: Basically what Gabe/DS said. He basically wrote my response for me when I wasn't available to do it. I've also done all that thinking before, but was trying to get the major point across, rather than point out the small semantics regarding randomness/balance. Note my examples are "neutral" in lacking randomness. That's not an accident. Just didn't want to make it TL;DR.

I personally agree with the trying to make the game more balanced, but I know we disagree about what makes it more balanced. IMO DK is not hurt by platform stages at all. He can tech chase very well on platforms, and is assisted against floaties by giving him a castle to climb as he combos. Mario is hurt by platforms. But so many other low tiers need them to as an opportunity to escape high tier combos (Marth/Sheik/CF,) overall I think the balance is better on platforms. But like I said I know we disagree.

For the fact that it is subjective and the amount of randomness we allow is subjective, the idea of making things neutral is also completely subjective. Or in my desperation to make the point, arbitrary. (I suppose I shouldn't use them as synonyms.) I just tried to argue the skeleton of the point as much as I could.

Also, why'd you have to go and get yourself banned again?