Official Stage Legality Discussion: Philosophical

Amazing Ampharos · Aug 3, 2010

Use this thread to discuss the general principles by which stages should be legal or to discuss changes to stage selection procedure. There is an accompanying sticky thread to be used to discuss the virtues of particular stages. If you want to argue a particular stage should or should not be legal, take it to that other thread or be infracted.

Raziek · Aug 3, 2010

Glad to see this topic was made. I'd like to add something meaningful right now, but we've already been through most of the stuff.

Good work on the new list.

Budget Player Cadet_ · Aug 4, 2010

Jack Kieser · Aug 4, 2010

INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY, LEGAL UNTIL PROVEN BANNABLE.

If it's good enough for the legal system and the developed free world, it's good enough for SWF. That is all.

Grim Tuesday · Aug 5, 2010

While this will be incredibly difficult on a world-wide scale, I am going to attempt to gather data for this suggestion in SA:

Un-ban everything and play heaps. Ban anything that causes inconsistent results. Rinse and repeat until finished.

For some reason, everyone has this view in their mind that competitive smash means "Player vs. Player Skill with no interruptions". It doesn't. The idea behind making a game competitive is that it needs to be fit for competition i.e. players can compete to see who is better.

"Better" in this case is not just combat skill, but also adaptions to situations. We all realise this on a small scale, but no one seems to care enough to un-ban Banana Peels and Franklin Badges.

sunshade · Aug 5, 2010

With every single stage unbanned you would have consistent results.

The results would be the faster character wins.

Grim Tuesday · Aug 5, 2010

sunshade said:
With every single stage unbanned you would have consistent results.

The results would be the faster character wins.

Yup, cause the fastest character will win on WarioWare.

sunshade · Aug 6, 2010

You said ban anything that causes inconsistent results. I without saying it directly said that you would have consistent results on stages which cause circle camping.

I was trying to point out that simply banning stages for causing inconsistent results is not a useful standard as many stages will be consistent but horrendously imbalanced.

Grim Tuesday · Aug 6, 2010

sunshade said:
You said ban anything that causes inconsistent results. I without saying it directly said that you would have consistent results on stages which cause circle camping.

I was trying to point out that simply banning stages for causing inconsistent results is not a useful standard as many stages will be consistent but horrendously imbalanced.

Well, how is cicle camping any more imbalanced than what we have now? No matter what ruleset we use, characters will be favoured. Just because stages that cause circle camping give a LARGE advantage to certain characters, does not mean it isn't competitive.

sunshade · Aug 6, 2010

Circle camping causes all match-ups affected by it to become 100-0 match-ups where the only skill required is running in a circle. This will allow a player of any skill level to beat a player of any other skill level.

I am not a better player than m2k. My reaction time is slower, my prediction skills a lesser, my match-up knowledge is inferior, but I can sure as hell beat him in a match should I be able to circle stall.

Stages which allow circle stall make skill level irrelevant due to there being only one tactic that works in anyway.

Grim Tuesday · Aug 6, 2010

sunshade said:
Circle camping causes all match-ups affected by it to become 100-0 match-ups where the only skill required is running in a circle. This will allow a player of any skill level to beat a player of any other skill level.

I am not a better player than m2k. My reaction time is slower, my prediction skills a lesser, my match-up knowledge is inferior, but I can sure as hell beat him in a match should I be able to circle stall.

Stages which allow circle stall make skill level irrelevant due to there being only one tactic that works in anyway.

Fair enough, we also ban stages which result in skill not being important.

Budget Player Cadet_ · Aug 6, 2010

GrimTuesday said:
Fair enough, we also ban stages which result in skill not being important.

No, we only ban those (and the same rule should really apply to anything banned, such as characters). Actually there is a second criteria, which is "lowers viable choice to almost nothing" but I think that almost fits in there too. Think about it. Inconsistent results are counted here as well, they build a big part of it.
Is skill important on Temple? No, you just pick fox and go 100-0 with almost every character in the cast.
Is skill important on Eldin? Not really, you just go DDD and go 99-1 with about 2/3rds of the cast (walkoffs are debatable, but I'm willing to group them in because they lower character viability to the extent that unless you have the correct character combination, skill hardly matters)-it's not totally gone, but it's heavily mitigated like in the DDD-DK matchup.
Is skill important on warioware? Not really-the random events don't just disrupt gameplay, they potentially give one player a ridiculous arbitrary reward for doing exactly the same thing the other player did. And I mean ridiculous. Like, full stock ridiculous. There's no safe zone, there's no warning. It just happens. Without the rewards, or with consistent rewards? Probably a decent stage.
Is skill important on Norfair? Yes! The random events are there, but they give you a lot of warning, have safe zones, and offer you a chance to outplay your opponent by forcing him into it. After all, who is better off-the guy who camps the capsule when the big wave comes up, or the guy who pressures his opponent away from the capsule and into the wave? The former is gonna get sharked by disjoints pretty hard, the latter has a genuine advantage. It's critical to make this difference.
Whenever you go to ban a stage, try to think of it like this: "Could I beat a top player by just choosing the right character on this stage?" I could probably beat ADHD on Temple. In fact, I'm quite sure of it. I could take a few sets off M2K on Warioware just because of the randomness-it's that extreme (although, in retrospect, probably not-my luck with warioware is beyond bad

)!

Vyse · Aug 6, 2010

The only way a stage list can ever EVER be agreed upon is if we come up with a set criteria that is more extensive than what we have generally now.

Right now we have something in the realm of:

1) No permanent walls
2) No walk offs on both sides
3) No stage loops
4) No excessively game altering mechanics (Wario Ware, Rumble Falls)

Forget about stages specific to the game.
What do we value? What don't we?
But be careful. There is serious potential for a slipper slope.

You could have:

5) Stages should not excessively alter any perceived matchups due to the existence of certain, permanent or regularly re-ocurring stage elements

6) Stages should have ledges at all times

7) Stages should not contain elements that are excessively abusable for the purpose of victory (camping in unreachable areas)

8) Stages should not excessively punish players for not avoiding a stage hazard

But then comes the harder task of deciding whether the implementation of these last 4 criteria is even necessary.

You have to ask to each of them, 'So what?'.

Ultimately, it comes down to character choice too. So the first question before any of this needs to be considered is:

"To what extent should a player be punished for their character choice?"

@AmazingAmpharos: Good stuff making this thread.

Budget Player Cadet_ · Aug 6, 2010

Vyse said:
The only way a stage list can ever EVER be agreed upon is if we come up with a set criteria that is more extensive than what we have generally now.

Right now we have something in the realm of:

1) No permanent walls
2) No walk offs on both sides
3) No stage loops
4) No excessively game altering mechanics (Wario Ware, Rumble Falls)

Forget about stages specific to the game.
What do we value? What don't we?
But be careful. There is serious potential for a slipper slope.

You could have:

5) Stages should not excessively alter any perceived matchups due to the existence of certain, permanent or regularly re-ocurring stage elements

6) Stages should have ledges at all times

7) Stages should not contain elements that are excessively abusable for the purpose of victory (camping in unreachable areas)

8) Stages should not excessively punish players for not avoiding a stage hazard

But then comes the harder task of deciding whether the implementation of these last 4 criteria is even necessary.

You have to ask to each of them, 'So what?'.

Ultimately, it comes down to character choice too. So the first question before any of this needs to be considered is:

"To what extent should a player be punished for their character choice?"

@AmazingAmpharos: Good stuff making this thread.

Well, if I pick Ganondorf, I am going to lose. Badly. If I pick Zelda, I am probably going to lose. If I pick DK, I can expect to get destroyed by DDD. Also, 1-3 are unnecessary and 4 could be argued, but I agree with it to an extent, simply because gameplay on those stages isn't moderately changed like it is on stuff like Norfair or PTAD, it's completely different-it's like picking up a completely different game (Mario Bros could be a fair counterpick; after all, the whole cave of life thing is not as effective if you recognize the ridiculously potent projectiles and hazards make the circle in the middle slightly less of an issue... But it's just a completely different game). I'll respond to this in more detail when dad doesn't want me out the door ASAP.

UberMario · Aug 6, 2010

Mario Bros will never be tourney legal, it would be Fox's and Wolf's perfect CP because their reflector will always reflect the creatures [if thrown] without breaking, meaning they have to do virtually nothing since they can't be grabbed if the other person is holding a Mario Bros enemy and could just move to somewhere else if they felt uncomfortable. Mario's cape and Falco's reflector are less effective but can do it aswell, Pit's mirror doesn't do much so Fox and Wolf would clearly have the upperhand. (Strangely, whenever I use Pit or Rob's reflecting side B the enemies usually break through)

sunshade · Aug 6, 2010

Let me give my opinion on what is bannable. Things which marginalize skill to an excessive extent are unacceptable in a competitive environment.

It is because of this standard that stages with walk-offs and circle camping are banned.

In the typical brawl match if you want to win you need to read your opponent about 20-30 times per match.

On stages which allow circle stall you need to read your opponent once and then you can enter an auto win advantage by running away. This changes the odds to you need a single read they need all of them.

In the case of walk-offs when a player preforms walk-off camping it becomes 1 read = one kill. So 3 reads = the end of the game which is 1/10th that of my estimate for a typical match.

In other cases such as Corneria, where there is an incredibly strong tactic the issues is that prediction can be made unimportant as a single option eliminates all opposing options (over centralization). When this single tactic (corneria's case fin camping) is used the the skill of the two parties is irrelevant as the advantage allows any player to defeat the other (similar to how whoever goes first in tic tac toe can only win or tie).

Budget Player Cadet_ · Aug 6, 2010

Good read sunshade.

And this...

UberMario said:
Mario Bros will never be tourney legal, it would be Fox's and Wolf's perfect CP because their reflector will always reflect the creatures [if thrown] without breaking, meaning they have to do virtually nothing since they can't be grabbed if the other person is holding a Mario Bros enemy and could just move to somewhere else if they felt uncomfortable. Mario's cape and Falco's reflector are less effective but can do it aswell, Pit's mirror doesn't do much so Fox and Wolf would clearly have the upperhand. (Strangely, whenever I use Pit or Rob's reflecting side B the enemies usually break through)

...is completely unproven. Sure, in theory it works. In practice... Well, I'm scared ****less of this one guy's threat to take me there as diddy.

T-block · Aug 6, 2010

Haha BPC... yeah I'm not really scared of Fox on that stage... I'd play Diddy against him. Reflector is obviously very strong, but I doubt it's unbeatable. If he sits in his reflector, glide toss towards him, throwing your item upwards and grab.

Anyways, back on topic, I think criteria such as the existence of walls, lack of ledges, walkoffs etc. don't need a separate case, and it's actually wrong to give them special mention. They can be placed under another criterion, as features that enable overpowered tactics. This way we look at all the features of a stage together, instead of banning a stage because it has walls, without even looking at whether the existance of walls is broken.

sunshade, no mention of excessive randomness?

Budget Player Cadet_ · Aug 6, 2010

I guess it's a special case? There's only one stage remotely banworthy because of excessive randomness, and that is Warioware. Every other stage is likely to give more or less consistent results.

T-block · Aug 6, 2010

Well... I guess I should have said variance rather than actual randomness. Cave-of-life is bad because it leads to excessive variance in results. That kind of thing.

Budget Player Cadet_ · Aug 6, 2010

I guess it's a special case? There's only one stage remotely banworthy because of excessive randomness, and that is Warioware. Every other stage is likely to give more or less consistent results.

sunshade · Aug 7, 2010

I didn't say excessive randomness because it only applies to wario ware and arguably green greens. I also just happen to have forgotten at that moment.

I personally feel that green greens and wario ware are both bannable due to randomness however I happen to have a very low tolerance for randomness in a competitive environment. Pictochat also happens to be my least favorite stage in the entire game if that gives you any idea.

T-block · Aug 7, 2010

And what are your thoughts on Yoshi's Island =P

Supermodel From Paris · Aug 7, 2010

You can use my logic to argue for the legalization of a lot of banned stages. The only times I believe a stage should be banned is when a single strategy is so pervasive that banning the stage is required for the success of a competitive gaming venture. This is similar to the requirements often cited for banning a character.

For instance, I'm not even sure Rumble Falls should -be- banned. When we ban a stage it is because of pervasive or overpowered strategies when relating to a stage (hence the Smashville controversy) and not because you could die early to a hazard or because you don't like the way the stage makes you play the game. To this end, this is the best stagelist to date (although I think Pirate Ship could be legal; I've heard a lot of opposing viewpoints when it comes to "rudder stalling" and I don't know all of the facts).

An example of a stage that cannot be legal is Temple, because the "cave of immortatlity" is a pervasive, required strategy. This stage -must- be banned. 75m has similar problems, as well as New Pork City. These stages come with strategies that are so strongly integrated that the stages must be banned.

From the rule list 3.0 thread. This is sort of how I feel on the subject.

I'm for the legalization of quite a few banned stages (including a few controversial ones like Bridge of Eldin).

UberMario · Aug 7, 2010

Budget Player Cadet_ said:
...is completely unproven. Sure, in theory it works. In practice... Well, I'm scared ****less of this one guy's threat to take me there as diddy.

For obvious reasons I have very few matches there, much less competitive ones, so what, exactly, makes Diddy so powerful at Mario Bros?

Also, what is it about circle camping and walkoff camping which keeps it defined as camping versus stalling? A lot of perfectly good stages are banned because of that, even when it isn't actually camping half-the-time (unless they are Fox, Falco, Pit, Rob, or Snake, maybe Ness too if you count PK Thunder's long distance properties).

sunshade · Aug 7, 2010

UberMario said:
For obvious reasons I have very few matches there, much less competitive ones, so what, exactly, makes Diddy so powerful at Mario Bros?

Also, what is it about circle camping and walkoff camping which keeps it defined as camping versus stalling? A lot of perfectly good stages are banned because of that, even when it isn't actually camping half-the-time (unless they are Fox, Falco, Pit, Rob, or Snake, maybe Ness too if you count PK Thunder's long distance properties).

When you are circle camping you are not making the game unplayable, you are simply moving to an advantaged position, over and over again.

Walk-off camping is no different than king dedede standing nearby a wall so that he can chaingrab you into it if you make a mistake.

T-block said:
And what are your thoughts on Yoshi's Island =P

My policy on randomness is that if you are able to react to it then it is a perfectly acceptable element of competitive play. If you cannot react to it then it must be less than or equally game changing as tripping.

@everyone: Please don't say that cave of life is a reason for banning a stage, thats more or less the same as saying that king dedede's chaingrab is a reason for banning a stage. Instead you should say that "in the event of a stock lead it is nearly impossible to lose the advantage and the advantage given to the leading player is so great that the stage is unacceptable in a competitive environment."

T-block · Aug 8, 2010

@UberMario: Diddy isn't really super powerful at Mario Bros, but he can beat characters with reflectors there. Circle camping cannot be labelled as stalling because any attempt to do so would not be discrete. The perpetrator could easily continue running the circle, at each point claiming that he's looking to get to a better position. Attempting to ban circle camping so that some stages could be legal would require a very difficult judgement on the TO's part, and opens up a huge mess that isn't easy to deal with.

@sunshade: There's nothing really to react to... either the platforms save you or they don't. You can always aim to fall above where the platform would be, but there's no way to influence whether it actually appears. Also, if randomness that can be reacted to is acceptable, why do you hate Pictochat so much?

sunshade · Aug 8, 2010

I know you cant react to the platform on yoshi's island which is why I included the line about how it must otherwise be less than or equal to as influential as tripping.

I hate pictochat because I am personally bad on the stage

no legitimate claims against it just person bias.

ADHD · Aug 8, 2010

Do u cz that in a conservative ruleset char variety is bettar?
OLIMAR WON.

Xyless · Aug 8, 2010

I want the Japanese stagelist official in America now. So legit.

uhmuzing · Aug 9, 2010

Xyless said:
I want the Japanese stagelist official in America now. So legit.

What is it?

Xyless · Aug 9, 2010

dragonblooded said:
What is it?

I heard from the stream that they only have 3 stages for tournaments, all of which are neutral. These stages, I believe, are...

-Battlefield
-Yoshi's Island
-Smashville

It's actually surprising how minimalist it is, and yet how effective it'd probably be.

Or at least get rid of Rainbow Cruise, for the love of God.

uhmuzing · Aug 9, 2010

How the hell did they prepare for the stages at Apex?

Xyless · Aug 9, 2010

They probably found the stage list and trained a ton to get ready, similar to how the Europeans train for NTSC Melee.

Amazing Ampharos · Aug 9, 2010

How effective it would be at what? If your goal is to have a small number of somewhat similar stages, it's doubtless very effective. If you have other goals, it may be less effective. For instance, an approach that seeks to maintain diversity and play the "natural game" as much as possible would doubtless find that stage list completely ineffective. It ends up going back to the same old question about what the stage list should be accomplishing in the first place.

On a side note, I'm pretty sure the Japanese don't use stage striking. The version I heard is that for every tournament round, the TOs call out a stage, and every game in that round plays on that stage. The version I heard also had Final Destination instead of Yoshi's Island (Brawl) though, and it was a while ago. Unfortunately, we have very little information about the Japanese and how they play, and we have even less ability to discuss these matters with the Japanese themselves. We can consider individual rule sets of course, but I'd be very hesitant to give any extra weight because we believe it may be used in Japan.

ADHD · Aug 9, 2010

Amazing Ampharos said:
How effective it would be at what? If your goal is to have a small number of somewhat similar stages, it's doubtless very effective. If you have other goals, it may be less effective. For instance, an approach that seeks to maintain diversity and play the "natural game" as much as possible would doubtless find that stage list completely ineffective. It ends up going back to the same old question about what the stage list should be accomplishing in the first place.

On a side note, I'm pretty sure the Japanese don't use stage striking. The version I heard is that for every tournament round, the TOs call out a stage, and every game in that round plays on that stage. The version I heard also had Final Destination instead of Yoshi's Island (Brawl) though, and it was a while ago. Unfortunately, we have very little information about the Japanese and how they play, and we have even less ability to discuss these matters with the Japanese themselves. We can consider individual rule sets of course, but I'd be very hesitant to give any extra weight because we believe it may be used in Japan.

Legitimately--those who practice ACTUAL 1v1 frequently without stage interferences are obviously going to exceed farther in tournament..

And even under extreme liberal stagelists they will still excel. THAT'S WHY WE MEASURE "STREET FIGHTER" PLAY. If we measure the reveresed way around, there's nothing we're actually measuring and it yields really inconsistent results.

Budget Player Cadet_ · Aug 9, 2010

ADHD said:
Legitimately--those who practice ACTUAL 1v1 frequently without stage interferences are obviously going to exceed farther in tournament..

And even under extreme liberal stagelists they will still excel. THAT'S WHY WE MEASURE "STREET FIGHTER" PLAY. If we measure the reveresed way around, there's nothing we're actually measuring and it yields really inconsistent results.

Hmm. So let me get this straight. If you practice actual 1v1 frequently, you're good. However, liberal stagelists don't bother players who never practice on them because they require very little adaptation. Hmm.... So let me get this straight, we shouldn't use liberal stagelists because it makes it harder to get better at the game once you've reached the highest level of competitive play?

ADHD · Aug 9, 2010

Budget Player Cadet_ said:
Hmm. So let me get this straight. If you practice actual 1v1 frequently, you're good. However, liberal stagelists don't bother players who never practice on them because they require very little adaptation. Hmm.... So let me get this straight, we shouldn't use liberal stagelists because it makes it harder to get better at the game once you've reached the highest level of competitive play?

You can twist words however you like, but we shouldn't use liberal stagelists because they interfer with the highest level of competitive play.

And OBVIOUSLY, the players that are best at 1v1 would beat out the bad players on any stagelist. ROFL. It's when two good players are on a stagelist that the character wins because that one's floatier. This DOESN'T happen when using a conservative ruleset.

Jack Kieser · Aug 9, 2010

ADHD, of course they interfere. This is a game about interference. This is what you don't get. You are literally complaining because the game itself isn't designed along your narrow worldview of what competitive gaming is. It'd be like if I walked into a WoW tournament and yelled at all the PC gamers because the REAL way to play competitively is CS:S deathmatch. It's like Chess players *****ing at Checkers players. It's like the EVO guys turning their noses up at US.

You are complaining about the most nonsensical thing you can possibly complain about on these boards. Sometimes, I swear you're a plant from the EVO people still pissed about 2K8, sent just to troll us into believing that our game isn't the "right kind of fighter"

Let's try to explain this one last time. You don't like stage interference. You have a very, VERY narrow view of what "1v1 fighting game" means. Brawl, and Smash in general, does not fit into this very narrow worldview, because Brawl, and Smash in general, has a different definition of what "1v1 fighting game" means. Because it was designed in the way it was, Smash's competitive worldview is wholly incompatible with yours.

Which one should change first? Should the entire game's premise, mechanics, design... should Super Smash Bros. Brawl's very competitive worldview change entirely, altering the playfield for literally thousands of players...

...or should the worldview of one player, who isn't even THAT important be the one to change? Are we going to force everything that Brawl is to change just because YOU don't like it? Because your narrowly defined worldview of what "1v1 fighting game" means is NOT THE ONLY VIEW TO EXIST, NOR HAS IT BEEN PROVEN TO BE THE OPTIMAL WAY TO DO THINGS.

What say you, ADHD? You, or the game? Which one is more important? Because, I can tell you what most of our community will choose, and the answer YOU choose will say volumes more about you, as a player, than it will about anything else.

ADHD · Aug 9, 2010

No, it's about having the better player win..

And the better player isn't the one that chose metaknight on norfair. We play the game how we want to because we feel it's best competitively, so I don't see how YOUR view being "the game" (even though it's not, when you still ban stages and items) matters when the game allows us to be shaped to our desires.

And heck, most of you in here don't even compete.

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