Challenging Conventional thinking about the Stage Ruleset (Ver.2)

[kupo15]

This has been a hot topic lately, some people are for it and others think the idea is ridiculous. Reading through Lajin's thread got me thinking objectively and critically about the way we handle stages in Melee and I think it has more to offer than ppl think. This thread's goal is NOT the same as Lajin's thread but is similar. Please hear me out.

THE GOAL: By examining the impact stage selection has on a match in relation to how tourney matches are formatted, we will make tourney matches more fair and competitive thus it will improve the competitive diversity of the cast. The main focus of this thread is on the neutral state of the first match, or lack thereof.
I will be analyzing how by overlooking the importance of stage selection our expectations of a fair match are not being met, the flaws of the current stage striking system and the relevance of banning stages during CPs. Lastly, while it’s not the main focus, I will explain how we are limiting our stage diversity unnecessarily.

Melee as a fighting game is in a unique situation compared to Traditional fighting games (TFG). TFGs are stuck with the tier balance given to them and the game's competitiveness stems solely from char's strengths and weakness. Melee has this as well however it has a core aspect that significantly affects its competitive qualities that TFGs do not: the stages.

Because Smash is fundamentally different, every char's strengths/weaknesses are enhanced depending on the stage. Some chars play better on:

• flatter stages
• platforms
• dual platforms
• tri-plat
• small stages
• big stages
• ledge stages
• no ledge stages

It’s because of this dynamic element that makes smash fundamentally different from TFGs and is why we can use it as a tool to help make tourney matches more fair and competitive which will in turn improve character diversity.

------------Main focus of thread--------------
The main problem with the current format of tourney matches is:

THE STARTER MATCHES ARE NOT ALWAYS NEUTRAL
We all can agree that what makes a game competitive is by a fair set of rules that starts off equal yet rewards the better player. We can also agree that in Smash, the first match of a set should be the fairest and most neutral match of a set. This is because giving one player a distinct advantage right from the beginning for no reason goes against the spirit of good competition. If this wasn't the general consensus of the Smash Community then there wouldn't be a stage strike system in place to try and help players reach a fair agreement for the starter and the stage choices for the starter wouldn't be separated from the CP stages either. The problem is that the first match isn't always as neutral as people expect and think it should be and this especially applies when the MU is between two different tiers. Cactuar confirms this by summarizing the intention of what a fair match should consist of:

Allowing stages that provide significant advantage for one player directly increases the importance of the first match of a set. This brings up the topic of individual match weighting. The majority of sets are played best of three. Given that the first set will be played on a stage that is struck to, we assume that the stage chosen for R1 is 50:50 (even if the matchup is a 70:30 matchup, this is still considered the 50:50 stage). R2, if the player who lost is able to take the opponent to a stage that changes it from a 50:50 to a 80:20 in his favor, the winner of R1 should be able to do the same in reverse for R2

This is the current format of a set where the first match is played with an “even” stage and the loser can take their opponent to stage that will benefit them in the subsequent matches. I want to focus on the first match and explain why the first match isn’t fair all the time and how depending on the MU the first match can actually act like a CP instead.

Using Cactuar’s logic, if you have a 70:30 MU playing on an alleged 50:50 stage, the MU is STILL 70:30 which is unfair and goes against the intent of the first match. This is why if we truly want sets to start off equally and neutrally, we need to rethink how we decide what map gets picked for the first match. This means that if the MU is 70:30, the stage for the first match should favor the player with the worse odds so that the set starts out as close to even as possible.

--------------------------end main focus ----------------------------------

STAGE STRIKING DOESN'T WORK (for starters)
If this is your counter to why the current ruleset works, think again. Remember that every character has their own stage layout preferences that work best for them so the Stage Strike feature doesn't address the core issues but instead attempts to Band-Aid it. For example, if your character needs a small stage to level the playing field with your opponent, of the 5 starters we have, only 2 of them are small (and I'm stretching that number by including BF). With the Stage strike system, your opponent can strike the two small stages and your first match won't be as even as it should. This is the inherent flaw of the current ruleset using stage striking.

BANNING "BANNING" (for CPs)
Through discussions in Lajin's thread, it is clear that banning stages during CP's goes against the point of a CP. The point of a CP is to pick a stage that will give the player who lost an advantage in the next round. Because the point of a CP is to give the losing player an advantage, why is the winning player allowed to limit their stage options? Doh articulates this very well:

My beef with the counterpicks is that with stage bans, the list becomes incredibly limited. In my set with PewPewU, I won game one on FD, and banned Yoshis. He CPs to stadium and wins and bans Dreamland. Now my only choices are to go back to his counterpick, or a tri-platform stage that gives his character an advantage. If the starter stages are as neutral and as winnable as they are articulated, then you shouldn't be able to ban them.

FREEING UNBANNED STAGES
Our stage list has become quite limited because previously legal stages such as KJ64, RC, Brinstar and Mute City are banned. Furthermore, we CAN afford to reintroduce some of the more radical stages that are banned without sacrificing the competitive integrity of the game. This quote from the anti-unban side clearly shows the wrong thinking our tourney’s have been subjected to.

The reason most stages are banned is Fox actually.
A shine on brinstar's depth is much more cruel than on the other stages. That and the ridiculously low ceiling when you're on the upper part.
Speaking of which, Yoshi's Island is not only about waveshine people around. The boundaries are really small, and Fox is definitely the one who takes advantage of that the most in that layout.

More stages = Less balance guys, that's just the way it is.

Mahie states that most stages are banned because of Fox so increasing the number of legal stages will destroy the game’s competitive integrity. Well, if Fox is NOT a character picked...then why can't Yoshi's island be played? All of the reasons against Yoshi's being legal are moot since Fox is no longer in the picture. Furthermore, small boundaries are NOT a reason to ban it either. If the MU is against two weak characters like M2 vs Pika as an example, why can't Yoshi's be legal since neither character can exploit the boundaries since they are both weak??

So to summarize, if the characters in the MU can’t exploit any broken tactic on a level, then the competitive integrity of the game is not compromised!
This is what I'm talking about when I say that we have been limiting our stages unnecessarily

Note: Clearly banned stages will stay banned. While it’s true that Fox is the main reason for stages being banned it isn't the only reason. Just because Fox isn't involved in a particular match doesn't mean Temple should be unbanned because it has other problems like the cave of life and excessive camping...things that ALL characters can exploit.

 

[TheCrimsonBlur]

lol a matchup specific stagelist

you serious dude

 

[MountainGoat]

You expect everyone to memorize matchup specific stage lists? People can barely figure out the rules as is... If people can't figure out DSR then how are they gonna keep track of countless stage matchup lists?

 

[Keblerelf]

Too impractical because then people will have to decide on which stages will be on in whatever match ups you have. What if there's a match up that's almost never played?

Producing the current stage list took forever. Think of how long another stage list will take to compile.

Believe it or not, we already have been doing because the current stagelist is set up to cater to the top tiers.

No, it's not. it just seems like they're catered to the top tiers because they're top tier characters. They will be good on almost every stage compared characters lower on the tier list.

 

[Bing]

Nope. That would get ridiculous. You can basically leave the stage list as is, as much as I'd love more variety and diversity, **** that noise.

 

[kupo15]

I realize how ridiculous it must sound to suggest this MU specific stagelist and I can see how I made it sound worse than it could be. If instead of the MU specific list we can probably group character's together based on type that way it will be much more manageable. The MU specific idea primarily is focused for the starter game to make it more equal. We can still limit starter stages to the current 5 but slightly alter it depending on MU type instead of considering a ton of stages. I doubt there would be a vast amount of variation to the extent that it would be unmanageable like you are thinking esp. if we limit the possible Stage starters to the current 5. It wouldn't be that hard to remove FD as an option for starter for the IC vs Top tier MU.

If at the very least, I don't see how conditionally unbanning certain stages would be a problem. KJ64, Mute, Brinstar, RC are some stages people want to see back. If the char. that made these stages banned are not playing, why can't they be legal?

 

[Deleted member]

I like your level of critical analysis. So now I'm going to shoot you down.

The purpose of a rule set, and by extension the stage list, is to act as a mutually agreed-upon medium of competition. More specifically, the players that enter the tournament have decided prior to registration that these rule sets accurately represent player ability in pre-set conditions to a reasonable degree. This is the sole method to validate the tournament as "legitimate". The rule set does NOT attempt to re-balance the game, nor does it make any reference to balance to begin with. The rule set addresses the players and not the game state. This ultimately undermines your initiatives for changing the current system.

The FLAW is this: The stage list does NOT take into account the specifics of the MU but instead stages are labeled “Neutral or CP” based on their own merit which is imposed on the entire cast as a “one size fits all” rule.

The stage list does not take into account the specifics of the MU because it was never meant to. Stages are labeled as Starter (with striking) or Counterpick as "one size fits all" to maximize the utility curve where the ability to complete the tournament competes with the ability for the players to test one another on a strategic front. Character implications are never involved to begin with. For example, "Battlefield only" is certainly conducive to tournament completion, but it does not strategically test the players to the same degree. At the other end of the spectrum, tournaments with Jungle Japes and Corneria are very rewarding strategically but are not simplistic for tournament operation. Cutting the stage list to 9 stages like I did in 2009 was done to accommodate larger national events and not for any other reason.

In short using Cactuar’s logic, if you have a 70:30 MU playing on an alleged 50:50 stage, the MU is STILL 70:30 which is unfair and goes against the intent of the first match. This is why we need to have a stage specific list so that only stages close enough to 30:70 are viable picks for the Starter match in a 70:30 matchup to help close the tier gap. This means that certain MUs could only have ONE viable Starter stage.

If you're playing a 70:30 MU after stage striking, it is because you failed strategically in some manner. Either you were poor at striking stages, or you picked a poor choice of character (which is still strategic). To adjust for this as you're asking does not help tournament logistics in any way while still removing the strategic element. This outcome is strictly worse.

WE ALREADY STARTED DOING THIS
Believe it or not, we already have been doing because the current stagelist is set up to cater to the top tiers.

We absolutely do not. You are just factually wrong here.

FREEING UNBANNED STAGES
With this new approach to stage legality based on MU, we CAN afford to reintroduce some banned stages without screwing up the balance of the game.

Yes we can. However, this makes the TOs job MUCH harder given a high attendance.

I might come back to this more later. Many of the arguments and their counterpoints are redundant and I may not need to address them multiple times.

 

[Griffard]

Saw this post recently, wish I could credit the author appropriately, but here's my paraphrasing based on my understanding:
Melee is a game about reacting to a number of crazy situations. The top tiers are just the ones who have the best tools and highest likelihood to successfully navigate these situations. If you want to see a game/stage ruleset that REALLY favors top tiers, start throwing in nearly ANY of the other, currently non-legal stages.

 

[kupo15]

I like your level of critical analysis. So now I'm going to shoot you down.

Thanks! I look forward to having an intelligent discussion about this with you and I have no problem being proven wrong.

The purpose of a rule set, and by extension the stage list, is to act as a mutually agreed-upon medium of competition. More specifically, the players that enter the tournament have decided prior to registration that these rule sets accurately represent player ability in pre-set conditions to a reasonable degree. This is the sole method to validate the tournament as "legitimate". The rule set does NOT attempt to re-balance the game, nor does it make any reference to balance to begin with. The rule set addresses the players and not the game state. This ultimately undermines your initiatives for changing the current system.

Oh I see. My main focus was on the Starter match and limiting stages to help make that match as even as everyone expressed that they wanted. Maybe I said the wrong thing by claiming that the goal was to rebalance Melee instead of making tourney matches more fair?
Does this change anything about what you just said above? I don't understand how tweaking the Starter stage list to make every set start off on the most even state would make a tournament illegitimate.

The stage list does not take into account the specifics of the MU because it was never meant to. Stages are labeled as Starter (with striking) or Counterpick as "one size fits all" to maximize the utility curve where the ability to complete the tournament competes with the ability for the players to test one another on a strategic front. Character implications are never involved to begin with. For example, "Battlefield only" is certainly conducive to tournament completion, but it does not strategically test the players to the same degree. At the other end of the spectrum, tournaments with Jungle Japes and Corneria are very rewarding strategically but are not simplistic for tournament operation. Cutting the stage list to 9 stages like I did in 2009 was done to accommodate larger national events and not for any other reason.

I understand that the balance between accurately testing player's skills vs tourney logistics would be challenged. Because I'm more focused on making the starter match fair, would it be possible to maintain realistic logistics while still accurately test player's skills? Even if we limit the starter match to only Final Destination or Battlefield and one is chosen that would best make the starter match even, that would satisfy both conditions. The Starter match would be fair and logically feasible while the CP matches would test the players strategically.

If you're playing a 70:30 MU after stage striking, it is because you failed strategically in some manner. Either you were poor at striking stages, or you picked a poor choice of character (which is still strategic). To adjust for this as you're asking does not help tournament logistics in any way while still removing the strategic element. This outcome is strictly worse.

I disagree that stage striking is a good method to make the first match fair or that poor odds after stage striking means a player failed strategically. If the MU is 70:30 and only a flat stage will bring the odds the closest to 50:50, then there is nothing you can do about having FD banned and because its the only flat starter. One would be faced with poor odds from the start so you are not even given the chance to strategically fail.

I see what you are saying and I feel like here lies the biggest line to walk. On one hand, the general consensus is that the Starter match should be the most fair...otherwise there wouldn't be a stage strike system in place to try and help players reach a fair agreement for the starter and the stage choices for the starter wouldn't be separated from the CP stages either. Yet you claim that it is fair to have the starter match be 70:30 because of a player's poor character choice? That sounds a bit contradictory to me.

However, I completely understand your points about poor character choice being a poor strategic decision....but only as it relates to the CP matches not the Starter match. It sounds to me throughout your post that the main strategic element lies (or should lie) in the CP matches.

We absolutely do not. You are just factually wrong here.

I'll remove it. I thought I read this in the prev. thread and it wasn't refuted.

 

[liverymen]

Edit: I'll edit this later, no time.

 

[Vulcan55]

If you plan to let the lower tiered characters play their best map against, say, fox in game one, then don't they also lose their best counter pick come game 3?

 

[kupo15]

Edit: I'll edit this later, no time.

No problem!

If you plan to let the lower tiered characters play their best map against, say, fox in game one, then don't they also lose their best counter pick come game 3?

That is a great question, but no not quite and that isn't quite what I said. If there is a lower tiered character playing against say Fox like in your example, my idea would only allow available maps that would make the MU even for the 1st match only. It might be their best map but it might not because their best map might weigh the odds in their favor which would be unfair; thus it wouldn't be allowed for the 1st match.

But assuming that their best stage would make the Starting match equal, I would say that no, they would not lose the right to CP that map again in game 3. Reason being, to me, is that I feel like the Starting Match and the CP matches afterwards should be treated separately and be mutually exclusive.

Great question and I am curious as to your or anyone's thoughts on it.

 

[Bad Cupboard]

Matchup specific stage lists are a little silly

If you want more stages just add them to the CPs and add more bans lol
Stage striking/banning is fine

 

[kupo15]

^^Why do you say they are silly? If you think it might unmanageable then I'm sure there is something we all can do to accomplish the same goal

Stage striking is not a fair enough solution because it basically is like grasping at straws where someone will get the short straw and if that person is playing a lower tier char that will amplify the imbalance. A better solution would be some sort of negotiating where both players feel like the first match will be even.

Are you against the notion that the first match should be as even as possible and believe that its more competitive if one player starts with a significant advantage from luck?

Speaking of banning, I meant to add that which I'll do. Doh brought up a good point about that and I agree with him that there should be no banning.

 

[CloneHat]

Low tier characters could get more bans to prevent horrible counterpicks? Just a thought that would make this idea easier to implement.

 

[rokimomi]

tires don exit

 

[kupo15]

Low tier characters could get more bans to prevent horrible counterpicks? Just a thought that would make this idea easier to implement.

Possibly, though I could see a lot of people saying that would go against the point of a CP and I would tend to agree. If instead we gave lower tiers more stage strikes (if this mechanic is here to stay) then that could be a step in the right direction

I think I may have structured my OP a little unclearly but through people posting to this thread I am able to narrow down my idea more concisely. The biggest issue I have that prompted me to create this topic was the fact that the first match is not as even as fair as it should be. So even if we don't agree to go with a more dynamic list of stages to compensate for the tier gap, changing something so that that first match can be more even more often would accomplish something. The second half of the topic was to voice an option of unbanning banned stages for MUs where the broken tactic doesn't exist

 

[CloneHat]

Basically, some characters have fewer good stages than others, right?
You could give lower tier characters ban exemption in order to let them keep their stages, then.

 

[Kal]

..........

 

[kupo15]

Basically, some characters have fewer good stages than others, right?
You could give lower tier characters ban exemption in order to let them keep their stages, then.

I would agree with your first sentence specifically as it relates to a particular MU. For example, two equally low tiers most likely will have more stages that will cause the starting game to be equal while a low tier vs high tier most likely will have less choices.

As for your second, well my stance is that CP bans go against the point of CPing and should be removed. This thread is focusing mostly on the neutrality of the first match which doesn't involve the banning mechanic (unless you are talking about stage striking?)

There is a degree of strategy involved in picking a character whose chances are better in a given stage list. I think it's not only horribly impractical, both in formulation and implementation, to create a matchup-specific stage list, but I think it's also superfluous.

I completely agree. However isn't point of the first match to be as neutral as possible in which case character picking strategy should not even be a factor? As far as CP matches I completely agree that character picking strategy most definitely should be considered. This is why I've tweaked the focus of this topic so discussion of the first match is paramount.

But before we can make progress I feel like we need to confirm that it is true that the community's expectations of the first match is to be the most fair and neutral. This is true, right? Surely no one expects or wants the first match to act like a CP, right?

Also, I've revised my OP and removed all traces of MU specific stage solutions and just presented the problem. Hopefully we can discuss that and see if we can agree that the concerns are valid as a start. Then we can start discussion how we can make improvements that solve the problem. I hope you can skim through the second version and let me know your thoughts. I tried make my focus more clear and less confusing.

 

[UlyssesTheTrojan]

This is ridiculous. This ruleset is already designed to make the game as balanced as possible while not being a headache for every tournament newcomer. I appreciate the level of interest and how you are striving for some innovation but as many people have told you already this just can't work out like you would hope. The main reason this can't work is that its just to ambitious and to strengthen our community we need one unified ruleset with very little variation that is accessible enough for someone who has never been to a tournament before to have a smooth experience.


Just pick a better character, or work through the fact that the character you picked is bad.

 

[Acryte]

characters like M2 vs Pika as an example, why can't Yoshi's be legal since neither character can exploit the boundaries since they are both weak??

Kinda funny you chose M2 and Pika for that example. Its fair in the matchup between these 2 chars not because they are weak but because they are both strong LOL. M2's up throw is a powerful killing throw and m2 has decent grab when coupled with his fast wavedash and mixups with wavedash tilts. Pika has the strongest uncharged upsmash in the game and can combo thunder into it for even more effectiveness in killing off the top. Both of these chars can exploit the low ceiling of yoshi's with equal effectiveness.... the example was completely backwards in rationality.

 

[Kal]

..........

 

[EthereaL]

The irony of complaining that a stage list favors top-tier characters is hilarious.

 

[Isprayaxe]

I think it would be a bad idea that we make certain restricted maps playable with certain characters. Although it does make sense and would bring some nice changes, but when the community is at a peak i think a set of rules that is universal would be the better for the majority

 

[wqqqqwrt]

everyone should just play falco. I would gladly play against any character on any stage as falco. problems solved

 

[lemonlau36]

I'm actually really interested in why the community accepts banning stages during CP. It seems counter-intuitive to me that out of the accepted stage list, the losing player is actually unable to make a true stage CP. It seems to me that the player at advantage gets a further advantage for winning. Yes, it's fair in the event of a game 3 in bo3, but only in that instance.

 

[Cartilage0ne]

Good one OP.

 

[Mahie]

People don't agree on the matchups themselves, I don't think they'll agree on what stage their opponent gets.

Marth vs Falco : Fair only on FD. Because I say so.

Mewtwo vs whatever : Who are we listening to? Taj and him only ?
Same for Pikachu and Axe?

While in theory your idea is interesting, in practice it's just impossible to apply.

 

[Bones0]

Counterpicks should not be used for the purpose of giving the losing player an advantage in the next game. The purpose of counterpicks should be to increase stage variety. Striking to a stage for every game is fair, but it doesn't demand players to test their skills in multiple environments, therefore less skill is being tested. So instead of striking for the second game, we can use a counterpick. The simplest way of determining a counterpick is to allow one player to pick a stage. We could have the winner pick the next stage, but the winner is obviously going to pick a stage that he believes is in his favor. This would mean the player that wins game 1 would be likely to win the set. To make it more fair, we have the player that lost game 1 choose the stage (through whatever process). The player chooses a stage, and that stage is likely going to be in his favor, and this process repeats for the last 2 or 4 games of a set, or however many games it takes someone to win the set.

This system of counterpicking is not inherently designed to introduce advantages into the games after the first of each set. The system is designed to introduce different stages, and it just so happens that the best way of doing so is by allowing players to pick stages they feel are in their advantage. More complex rules such as banning stages that were previously won on (or in my ruleset, preventing players from banning the same stage twice) take this process of stage selection even further. They encourage the player that lost to pick not just their favorite stage every time they lose, but their 2 favorite stages, one after each loss in a bo5.

People need to stop viewing counterpicks as a way of balancing the game. It will never work because people are inherently biased, and most importantly, we don't know everything about this game. The metagame is still evolving, so trying to balance the cast with the ruleset may through the cast more out of wack down the line. If everyone believes spacies are too good and they should have to play on FD for the first game of every set, what happens if the metagame evolves to the point where people believe spacies are no longer very good? Is this because of them having to play FD all the time, or is it because they just haven't developed as well as other characters? This is why instead of trying to balance the characters, we should pick our stages that we believe test the skills we value most.

The current ruleset has 6 legal stages. We leave PS out of the striking process because of logistics. We strike from the 5 other stages to determine what game 1 gets played on, and then they cp from there on. The stages being chosen may be in 1 character's favor. For matchups like Fox vs. Kirby, every single stage will be vastly in Fox's favor. However, that is just Kirby being a bad character (when looking through the lens of our ruleset). Everything must be viewed through the lens of our ruleset because you cannot view the game in a vacuum. All of the abilities of characters are completely dependent on how we play the game, so if we play 1 stock, 1 minute matches, which characters are good or bad completely change. However, that doesn't mean we should try to get as many characters as viable as possible. I think there is some benefit to be had by banning stages that marginalize skill (banning Hyrule Temple to avoid circle camping), but I don't think those decisions should ever be made to balance the cast instead of to prevent tactics that take almost no skill compared to other stages.

 

[Cartilage0ne]

The current ruleset has 6 legal stages. We leave PS out of the striking process because of logistics. We strike from the 5 other stages to determine what game 1 gets played on, and then they cp from there on. The stages being chosen may be in 1 character's favor. For matchups like Fox vs. Kirby, every single stage will be vastly in Fox's favor. However, that is just Kirby being a bad character (when looking through the lens of our ruleset). Everything must be viewed through the lens of our ruleset because you cannot view the game in a vacuum. All of the abilities of characters are completely dependent on how we play the game, so if we play 1 stock, 1 minute matches, which characters are good or bad completely change. However, that doesn't mean we should try to get as many characters as viable as possible. I think there is some benefit to be had by banning stages that marginalize skill (banning Hyrule Temple to avoid circle camping), but I don't think those decisions should ever be made to balance the cast instead of to prevent tactics that take almost no skill compared to other stages.

You got the Lens of our Ruleset! Gaze through it to see mysteries that are invisible to the naked eye. Set it to stick5: to use it.

 

[kupo15]

For the posters before this one, I didn't ignore your posts. I read them but it seems like the majority feels the main point of my OP is impractical which is why I'm not going to fight against it. I am pleased that many of you at least acknowledge and appreciate the interesting different approach that I offered which is what I set out to accomplish at the very least. Thanks!

But I just want to respond to certain points for better understanding and clarification etc...

Counterpicks should not be used for the purpose of giving the losing player an advantage in the next game. The purpose of counterpicks should be to increase stage variety. Striking to a stage for every game is fair, but it doesn't demand players to test their skills in multiple environments, therefore less skill is being tested. So instead of striking for the second game, we can use a counterpick. The simplest way of determining a counterpick is to allow one player to pick a stage. We could have the winner pick the next stage, but the winner is obviously going to pick a stage that he believes is in his favor. This would mean the player that wins game 1 would be likely to win the set. To make it more fair, we have the player that lost game 1 choose the stage (through whatever process). The player chooses a stage, and that stage is likely going to be in his favor, and this process repeats for the last 2 or 4 games of a set, or however many games it takes someone to win the set.

This paragraph contradicts a ton of different view points as well as the currently establish opinion which you seem to agree with. You state:
"Counterpicks should not be used for the purpose of giving the losing player an advantage in the next game."

I seems like in actuality this is the way the current setup works and your statement goes against that. Cactuar's quote goes against your claim:

R2, if the player who lost is able to take the opponent to a stage that changes it from a 50:50 to a 80:20 in his favor, the winner of R1 should be able to do the same in reverse for R2

It sounds to me that smash matches are actually based around players fighting with stages moreso than by MU because on rare occasions do you see players switching characters; thus the MU odds don't change in that way. By allowing players to pick stages which give them an advantage, this is the most common way we see players attempt to tip the match in their favor. If this wasn't the case then players wouldn't be allowed to take opponents to more unfair stages.... period... instead of giving them a ban with the chance that they could still be taken to an unfair stage which happens. Doh's quote proves that.

Even if you don't buy into my reasoning that I just stated, here is the short proof of you contradicting yourself:
"Counterpicks should not be used for the purpose of giving the losing player an advantage in the next game."
"To make it more fair, we have the player that lost game 1 choose the stage...and that stage is likely going to be in his favor"

If you are against CP's giving the losing player an adv. why do you state that its fair for the losing player to do so?
----------------------

A second quote shows that you agree with a part of my OP otherwise you contradicted yourself again:
"The purpose of counterpicks should be to increase stage variety."

If this is purpose, then does that mean you are not against the notion to unban select banned stages that neither character can unfairly exploit?
----------------------

This system of counterpicking is not inherently designed to introduce advantages into the games after the first of each set. The system is designed to introduce different stages, and it just so happens that the best way of doing so is by allowing players to pick stages they feel are in their advantage. More complex rules such as banning stages that were previously won on (or in my ruleset, preventing players from banning the same stage twice) take this process of stage selection even further. They encourage the player that lost to pick not just their favorite stage every time they lose, but their 2 favorite stages, one after each loss in a bo5.

And why is this the case? Is it the general consensus that CP's not inherently be designed to introduce advantages or just your view of what it should be? Even if we remove the tool of stage bans for CP's, the CP system is still technically designed to be balanced, or should I classify that better as being Asymmetrically balanced. The loser is allowed to pick a stage that they believe favors them and the winning player can then switch to a new character that they believe will equalize the advantage the losing player tries to create for himself. So because it is balanced in this simplest form, why are CP bans even a factor since as this poster beautiful states:

It seems counter-intuitive to me that out of the accepted stage list, the losing player is actually unable to make a true stage CP. It seems to me that the player at advantage gets a further advantage for winning.

Once again, we are inherently playing with stages moreso than MU's by the shear fact of allowing variety in our stages.

People need to stop viewing counterpicks as a way of balancing the game. It will never work because people are inherently biased, and most importantly, we don't know everything about this game. The metagame is still evolving, so trying to balance the cast with the ruleset may through the cast more out of wack down the line.

It isn't about trying to balance the game, it is about trying to create a ruleset that is the most competitively fair. I understand what you are saying but if we still don't know everything about this game, how do we know that the current rules isn't the most fair thus being unbiased? Who knows that down the line this ruleset won't turn wack? How do you know that there isn't a better ruleset that we won't even consider just because? Its clear through Lajin's thread that a lot of people believes that there could be something better. Doh brought up a good argument for remove CP bans and a lot of people towards the end of the thread agreed that it should be something worth trying.

If everyone believes spacies are too good and they should have to play on FD for the first game of every set, what happens if the metagame evolves to the point where people believe spacies are no longer very good? Is this because of them having to play FD all the time, or is it because they just haven't developed as well as other characters? This is why instead of trying to balance the characters, we should pick our stages that we believe test the skills we value most.

Saying that spacies should always start on FD wouldn't work and isn't something I claimed because the IC vs Fox MU would still put the first match on FD in Fox's favor. But I'm sure you just meant that as an example. Anyway to answer your question, what if metagame shifts that proves the new ruleset worse? Well then we change it like we've been doing. At the earlier stages we had the random stage pick for the first round. The metagame evolved and so too did the rule set to the one we currently have now. While possible that the metagame could still evolve isn't it worth considering the fact that maybe we've reached a point where the metagame won't change that significantly anymore? And who knows, we are quite possibly stagnating the metagame because we are stubborn enough to keep our ruleset and tradition that has its roots from 06 instead of being open minded to re-evaluating it now?

____________
tl;dr
The tiers haven't change much in a while so isn't it worth considering that maybe we should revisit the stage ruleset and objectively see if the rules that have been in place since 06 are still relevant in today's metagame? DSR has been around since before melee's massive metagame evolution and the removal of "CP stage banning" appears to have quite a bit of support; enough to revisit and to reconsider its relevance. It was also explicitly explained that the distinction between Neutral/starter stages and CP stages is reminiscent of past conventions with random first stage picks. Are we sure that the stages that were chosen as neutral/starters still accurately apply in our evolved metagame? There seems to be quite a nit of controversy about keep YS in the starter category. This also prompts the question if there should even be a distinction between starter stages and CPs at all in the event of Mirror matches.

 

[Kal]

..........

 

[CanISmash]

I'm actually really interested in why the community accepts banning stages during CP. It seems counter-intuitive to me that out of the accepted stage list, the losing player is actually unable to make a true stage CP. It seems to me that the player at advantage gets a further advantage for winning. Yes, it's fair in the event of a game 3 in bo3, but only in that instance.

In the past there were TOO many counterpicks now they're none which is stupid.

Ideally I think 3 counterpicks would be perfect. 4 is kinda pushing it.

corneria, brinstar, rainbowcruise. alt: kongo jungle.

and for doubles mk2 brinstar corneria rainbow cruise kongojungle.

In the case of doubles Each player should probably get a ban or two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJIkk3dJ6P0 people might call that random, but all i see is a pro being aware of his stage selection, and optimizing the situations. #m2k was aware enough to tech, he could've rolled left or right.

#freeleffen

 

[Bones0]

Why not? So you think that having a ruleset that gives one player an advantage at the start for no reason produces the best competitive experience? I understand that TFG don't really have a choice in the matter without forcing the first match to be a ditto (which would be ridiculous) but I don't understand applying the same "its good enough for TFGs, its good enough for us" mentality when smash could do one better without demanding a ridiculous situation such as forced mirror matches

Neither player is getting an advantage for "no reason." Either player can pick any character and strike any stages. If you feel you have a disadvantage for game 1, either strike stages better or pick a character you think is better (or deal with the fact that your character will be disadvantaged in that matchup on game 1).

This paragraph contradicts a ton of different view points as well as the currently establish opinion which you seem to agree with. You state:
"Counterpicks should not be used for the purpose of giving the losing player an advantage in the next game."

I seems like in actuality this is the way the current setup works and your statement goes against that. Cactuar's quote goes against your claim:
It sounds to me that smash matches are actually based around players fighting with stages moreso than by MU because on rare occasions do you see players switching characters; thus the MU odds don't change in that way. By allowing players to pick stages which give them an advantage, this is the most common way we see players attempt to tip the match in their favor. If this wasn't the case then players wouldn't be allowed to take opponents to more unfair stages.... period... instead of giving them a ban with the chance that they could still be taken to an unfair stage which happens. Doh's quote proves that.

You obviously missed the point of my explanation. I'm not contradicting myself at all. Providing advantages is simply the means used to select stages fairly. The purpose is to provide stage variety. If we had 6 different stages that were all perfectly neutral no matter what matchup was being played, we would still have counterpicking. Players would just pick stages off of personal preference (something that happens in actuality despite there being a general consensus of some stages being more favorable than others).

Even if you don't buy into my reasoning that I just stated, here is the short proof of you contradicting yourself:
"Counterpicks should not be used for the purpose of giving the losing player an advantage in the next game."
"To make it more fair, we have the player that lost game 1 choose the stage...and that stage is likely going to be in his favor"

If you are against CP's giving the losing player an adv. why do you state that its fair for the losing player to do so?
----------------------

A second quote shows that you agree with a part of my OP otherwise you contradicted yourself again:
"The purpose of counterpicks should be to increase stage variety."

If this is purpose, then does that mean you are not against the notion to unban select banned stages that neither character can unfairly exploit?
----------------------

I'm not sure how you can read those two statements and think they are contradictory. The only part that sounds weird is "To make it fair", which you completely took out of context. I was obviously saying that having the loser cp first is more fair than having the winner cp first because if the winner cps first then he can just stack up wins. Counterpicks shouldn't be used to provide advantages, and that's never been the goal of a ruleset. If they were, we would be allowing hard cps that have since been banned, and even when we had those stages, we had bans in place to prevent players from gaining too much of an advantage. Our community's rulesets has fought to prevent huge advantages during counterpicks since the dawn of Melee tournaments. You need to look no further than the current ruleset. Bo3 sets have 1 ban per player, but bo5 sets have none. This ensures bo3s play on the 4 most fair stages since the 2 most radical cps get banned. In bo5s, we have opted to encourage playing 5 different stages by getting rid of bans but making sure players don't win on the same stage twice.

I am against giving the losing player an advantage when it's not necessary. I value stage variety over the small unfairness introduced when allowing players to cp stages. I state it's fair for the losing player to cp to a stage because their opponent will get to do the same the next time they lose. I am against unbanning stages because I think the stages are awful. It has nothing to do with balancing matchups, and while I enjoy stage variety, it doesn't mean I want different stages for the sake of it. I believe there are 6 stages that test the appropriate skills the best, and I think we should encourage players to play on as many of those stages as possible for each set. The stages that remained banned remain that way because they are awful at testing skill in a competitive environment, not because they provide some sort of advantage to certain characters too much. Your whole idea seems based entirely on the presumption that every stage has been banned because it benefited certain characters too much. Obviously some people believe that's why certain stages should be banned, and for certain cases like fast characters being able to circle camp on Hyrule, that makes sense. But aside from that, stages shouldn't be banned solely to balance a matchup.

And why is this the case? Is it the general consensus that CP's not inherently be designed to introduce advantages or just your view of what it should be? Even if we remove the tool of stage bans for CP's, the CP system is still technically designed to be balanced, or should I classify that better as being Asymmetrically balanced. The loser is allowed to pick a stage that they believe favors them and the winning player can then switch to a new character that they believe will equalize the advantage the losing player tries to create for himself. So because it is balanced in this simplest form, why are CP bans even a factor since as this poster beautiful states:

Once again, we are inherently playing with stages moreso than MU's by the shear fact of allowing variety in our stages.

I've already explained above how it is clear that counterpicks are not designed to provide advantages. That is the purpose of bans (to prevent too much advantage from cping). If you remove stage bans, your stage selection process will still be fair, but each individual match will be less fair because each stage will be a slightly harder cp than if both players had a ban. The goal of the stage selection process is to play on the 3 (or 5 in bo5s) most fair stages possible. These stages may seem unfair if one character does better on all of those stages, but that is a fault of the player's character selection.

It isn't about trying to balance the game, it is about trying to create a ruleset that is the most competitively fair. I understand what you are saying but if we still don't know everything about this game, how do we know that the current rules isn't the most fair thus being unbiased? Who knows that down the line this ruleset won't turn wack? How do you know that there isn't a better ruleset that we won't even consider just because? Its clear through Lajin's thread that a lot of people believes that there could be something better. Doh brought up a good argument for remove CP bans and a lot of people towards the end of the thread agreed that it should be something worth trying.

Saying that spacies should always start on FD wouldn't work and isn't something I claimed because the IC vs Fox MU would still put the first match on FD in Fox's favor. But I'm sure you just meant that as an example. Anyway to answer your question, what if metagame shifts that proves the new ruleset worse? Well then we change it like we've been doing. At the earlier stages we had the random stage pick for the first round. The metagame evolved and so too did the rule set to the one we currently have now. While possible that the metagame could still evolve isn't it worth considering the fact that maybe we've reached a point where the metagame won't change that significantly anymore? And who knows, we are quite possibly stagnating the metagame because we are stubborn enough to keep our ruleset and tradition that has its roots from 06 instead of being open minded to re-evaluating it now?

You ARE trying to balance the game. If you want the game to be competitively fair, every player should be treated the same. You are going out of your way to provide advantages to players that select worse characters. This ruleset is unbiased because it treats every player the same. Yours is extremely biased because it makes stage selection based on opinion of the masses which history proves is one of the worst tests of accuracy in the universe. How could stage striking from legal stages turn "wack"? If one character begins to reap advantages from all of the stages, that is just the character being better than the others. Trying to temper this evolution of the game is downright disgusting. If you view a game's competition as a species trying to evolve, then you can quite easily see how artificially buffing worse characters is equivalent to encouraging people with mental *********** to reproduce. You need to let the game evolve naturally. Trying to control matchups to make them even will just never work because humans are horribly biased creatures who are easily swayed by group-think. You will end up with minorities getting screwed over because the majority believes a certain character is stronger or weaker than he really is. You can claim that the ruleset will change once the metagame was, but it's quite possible that the community will never change their minds no matter how much the game changes.

The tiers haven't change much in a while so isn't it worth considering that maybe we should revisit the stage ruleset and objectively see if the rules that have been in place since 06 are still relevant in today's metagame? DSR has been around since before melee's massive metagame evolution and the removal of "CP stage banning" appears to have quite a bit of support; enough to revisit and to reconsider its relevance. It was also explicitly explained that the distinction between Neutral/starter stages and CP stages is reminiscent of past conventions with random first stage picks. Are we sure that the stages that were chosen as neutral/starters still accurately apply in our evolved metagame? There seems to be quite a nit of controversy about keep YS in the starter category. This also prompts the question if there should even be a distinction between starter stages and CPs at all in the event of Mirror matches.

The tiers are 3 years old and are not the law of the land, and trying to balance the cast based off of the tier list with the ruleset is the worst idea I've probably ever read on SmashBoards. Even someone who 100% agrees with the tier list should cringe at the thought of allowing Kirby to pick whatever stage he wants vs. Fox just because of peoples' opinions on the game. Imagine how ****ed our community would have been if we had built a ruleset around Jiggs being super low on the tier list when Mango broke out. Everyone would have dismissed his success as a result of the ruleset benefitting Puff, and then the new ruleset would actively fight against his character so all of his losses would be attributed to the ruleset as well. There is also little to no controversy about keeping YS or any other stage as a starter. A few people complaining on SmashBoards is the epitome of a vocal minority. Try banning YS at a tournament and see how many people take it seriously.

 

[N64]

Neither player is getting an advantage for "no reason." Either player can pick any character and strike any stages. If you feel you have a disadvantage for game 1, either strike stages better or pick a character you think is better (or deal with the fact that your character will be disadvantaged in that matchup on game 1).

This is pretty much exactly what I was going to say. I don't personally see the point in trying to force a 50:50 situation for the first stage regardless of matchup %, for a few reasons already mentioned:

1. It's rebalancing matchups using the stagelist, which I don't see as the point of a stagelist. I've always assumed the legal stagelist to be determined by a comfortable combination of allowing as much variety as possible without creating "anti-competative situations" (by which I mean not allowing stages where strategy becomes secondarily important to luck, or where there becomes a clearly dominant strategy where 1-3 characters are the only competatively viable choices for the stage). We aren't trying to balance matchups, we're trying to eliminate fringe-cases (so it's not puff vs puff on JankyStage3 every other match) and matches where one player dies twice to bob-ombs spawning on top of their ftilt.

2. People couldn't agree on a 50:50 stagelist for individual matches anyways. I remember the 4+ threads about a matchup grid that started and were given a significant amount of time, effort, and contributions from the community. There was some agreement and a lot of disagreement from pretty much everyone about pretty much everything. There is a notable amount of disagreement about our current stagelist, I only see there being significantly more if an array of matchup-based stagelists is introduced.

I don't see "fair" and "balanced" as being synonyms in this context. When I start a set with my opponent, things are fair. I am given no innate advantages over my opponent (besides the mostly-unimportant port priority). We both have the same character select screen in front of us, followed by the same stage pool to strike from. If he picks Sheik and I pick Pikachu, then that was my strategy (even if it's a bad strategy). The match will be unbalanced due our character choices, but it will be completely fair as both players have been treated equally by the ruleset.

 

[Exeggutorr]

If the main goal is to make the stage list more fair and competitive then I think the best option is one stage(Battlefield only). But the current stage list is much better IMO.

 

[Kink-Link5]

To be fair, the idea in OP would be alright if there were more decent stages in the game to begin with. But when your options are - A.) Have ****ty stages legal for variety in the guise of fairness or B.) Limit stages to the best of a bad situation - the second option will almost certainly be preferred.

I mean come on, we aren't dealing with 15 strong candidates for legal stages here, we're discussing "settling" on Brinstar and Rainbow Cruise. I hear enough of that keeping nonsense stages because SV, BF, FD is boring and "unfair" stuff on the Brawl boards. If the stages were worth saving, this would be worth more discussion, but we aren't dealing with a tough decision on which good stages to keep, but which ****ty ones aren't quite ****ty enough to get rid of (Hint: They're PS1 and FD).

 

[CanISmash]

i laugh everytime someone says fd is unbalanced.

i really wish we would stop allowing spacies to dictate the rules of melee.

we either alter all the rules in fear of them, or we say **** like fd isn't balanced to cater to their problems.

 

[Kink-Link5]

FD is plenty balanced.

That doesn't make it less ****ty.