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

[Bones0]

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.

I find this ironic because I constantly hear a bunch of *****ing from floaties about how they want MC and BS and how PS is totally unfair, but meanwhile spacies are forced to play on FD in bo5s, SOMETIMES TWICE, and I virtually never hear them complain. The people who call FD unbalanced are probably just basing that off of the fact that there's a lot of crazy **** that works on that stage and no other stage in the game. There's obviously advantages and disadvantages on the rest of the stages, but very few change the game nearly as much as FD, and if you can't see that then it's no wonder you're chalking it up to spacies complaining.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Guys
hey listen
guys
I found out a w-
guys listen
I found out a way to drastically increase character viability AND the number of available stages to play on
I hope you're ready for this

Spoiler

we all play SDR

Spoiler

no seriously if more people played SDR they'd get a lot better feedback on the characters

Spoiler

so if you have a problem with the way they're making the game, you can suggest things

Spoiler

eventually the game will have impressive balance without affecting the high/top tiers directly, not to mention additional stages hacked for neutrality

Spoiler

people just need to get off their lazy ***** and try to install the ****, just look at me, been trying to get homebrew working for 2 days straight and I plan to try more

Spoiler

just so I can have more good characters and help them improve them

 

[Bones0]

I lost interest in SDR as soon as I realized they were just going to change a bunch of crazy things without any regard for how it would affect the balance of the game. I have a lot of qualms with P:M's balancing, and it's a million times better than the direction SDR is going in.

 

[DrinkingFood]

I lost interest in SDR as soon as I realized they were just going to change a bunch of crazy things without any regard for how it would affect the balance of the game. I have a lot of qualms with P:M's balancing, and it's a million times better than the direction SDR is going in.

And the best way to solve this is by ignoring them and not helping them
Let's just ignore melee's only real chance at getting proper balancing and stage expansion
bones0 logic

Huge part of the reason I'm downloading it actually (well, trying to). I don't like some of the changes they're making, especially in terms of character design, and even though I don't have impressive credentials, I think it's worth a shot trying to get them to hear me out.

 

[n1000]

"I have an idea that has no bearing on the discussion at hand: play a different game" -DrinkingFood

Introducing complex rules may reduce the game's complexity. This is bad.

"Neutral state" is a pipe dream. Furthermore, it is not even desirable (hint 1: define your terms "neutral" and "better player." hint 2: Kal spelled this out already.)

Increasing the number of viable characters and legal stages does not necessarily improve a game.

 

[kupo15]

I wish I could respond fully to what was posted but being out of town on a 15 min limit public cpu won't allow me to do that. There are several things that I see clearer about what is wrong on my part that I'll state later and you guys are making me think more critically about my view points which is great! Atm I can only really comment on this

First of all, I haven't made any point to compare this to a traditional fighter. My reasoning is nothing like "it's good enough for them, it's good enough for us."

You are right and I didn't mean to insinuate as such, was merely trying to cover all the bases of what might have been thrown at me. Next time I'll wait for the comment instead of anticipating it

More importantly, it's not "for no reason" that someone is at a disadvantage the first match. If it were random, I'd think you have a point, but if you strike to a stage that is bad for you, that's your fault entirely. It's up to the player to avoid getting struck to a stage that provides his opponent an advantage, mostly by the stages he chooses to strike, but also by the character he chooses to play.

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).

I say "for no reason" in light of the way the current ruleset is. I understand both you that without the stages being factored into the equation at all that the game is not balanced and that players can give themselves a disadvantage for playing worse characters and they are digging their own grave in that respect which is fair. I totally get that.

However, something isn't clearly stated and agreed upon which will make it difficult to settle this point. Pretending as if stage striking doesn't exist and there is no bias or outside influence such as our experience running tournaments a certain way for many years, (this is purely on a "what a competitive smash first match should be" point of view) should the stage selection of the first match reflect the MU odds the players agreed to play based on their char choice or is it better competitively to have the stage skew the MU odds worse than what was chosen at the char select screen? Why or why not?

 

[Kal]

..........

 

[Bones0]

And the best way to solve this is by ignoring them and not helping them
Let's just ignore melee's only real chance at getting proper balancing and stage expansion
bones0 logic

Huge part of the reason I'm downloading it actually (well, trying to). I don't like some of the changes they're making, especially in terms of character design, and even though I don't have impressive credentials, I think it's worth a shot trying to get them to hear me out.

I'm not interested in solving their problem or helping them, primarily because they aren't going to listen to any one individual the same way the P:M team might. Development teams are going to do what they until there are droves of people complaining about a particular problem. The fact that you consider it Melee's only real chance at getting balanced is horrifying considering how miraculously balanced the game is. I swear, it's like people ignore the fact that top 8 at nationals frequently has 8 different characters. There's probably 2-3 more characters that have the potential to place that high as well. As far as I'm concerned, they've already made the balance worse than the original game, and they did it through ridiculous changes. It's hilarious you are putting it on a pedastal when you haven't even played it. If you think it has potential to be a good project, that's fine, support it all you want, but acting like it is the cure-all for character imbalance is just idiotic.

 

[DrinkingFood]

Thanks for putting words in my mouth. I can't believe I left all those things out despite actually being the underlying meaning of my post.

If you think 8-10 tourney viable characters is reasonable, then there's a problem. It might be high by standards of other games, but it's not acceptable in the least. It shows how stuck to vMelee you are and how stubborn you will be about it. Usually I'm the one to defend melee as is, but pretending is doesn't need some serious balancing fixes is nonsensical. There's like a good 2/3s of the cast that is relatively unexplored because exploring them isn't really worth it, and you're okay with that? If not, why not take the opportunity to be one of the many it will take to convince the SDR team to rethink their balancing philosophies? That's the only real way the game is going to get beyond the general unanimous "~6 viable stages, ~10 viable characters" mindset. You aren't really convincing anyone here to use a larger stage list, it's pretty much been the current six for awhile and the biggest tournies, where it matters, don't really show signs of changing. The complaints about many of those stages are also very sound. But they don't have to be...

Spoiler

also the SDR guys nerfed pretty much every character who got changed from demo 1->2, so it looks like they're coming to the understanding that they have gone overboard on some things

 

[kupo15]

It doesn't make any sense to even discuss the matchup odds outside of stage choice. There is no game to play without first picking a stage. Your reasoning is circular.

And that is the inherent obstacle we have with finding the fairest ruleset for smash. In TFG, you can accurately discuss MUs and create an accurate tier list based on the natural strengths/weaknesses characters have but with smash you can't. Because the stage is so influential, even considering this simple experiment where over 12 years you allow one metagame to evolve using the "Battlefield only" ruleset and another metagame to evolve using the "Final Destination only" ruleset will yield two completely different tier lists...and this difference is a result of using the two most neutral stages in the game!

With this being said, how do we know the current rules are the most fair if our tier list is a result of the stages we chose to use instead of the stage list being the result of an accurate tier list? Its like smash's version of the chicken and the egg problem.

This is the main point of this topic I (unsuccessfully) tried to convey: to spread awareness of this problem and to start a discussion to revisit our ruleset to see if it really is the best or if it can be improved so that we can increase the number of viable characters/stages. I believe there is room for improvement.

 

[N64]

It still sounds to me like you want the stagelist to balance matchups, which is never what it was made to do (and I don't believe should be its purpose).

Bad matchups are allowed to exist.

 

[n1000]

You haven't spread awareness of the problem because you are failing to articulate why it's a problem. You (and DrinkingFood, even though he's posting about some completely irrelevant BS) seem to think that more characters and stages is good a priori.

You go on and on about fairness without even attempting to define it, and continually dodge the blatantly obvious circularity of a tier list coming prior to stage selection.

I can specifically address one of your BIG LIES, check this thread. Your concept of "completely different" battlefield and FD only tier lists is a fabrication. It is a product of your imagination.

Furthermore there isn't an "accurate tier list" which satisfies your purposes anyway, so what are you proposing?

I'll answer that for you: You want to make the rules more complicated in order to create more work for people on the forums and more work for TOs to get an untested version of melee which is both strategically dissimilar and very likely WORSE than the game we're already playing in a misguided attempt to achieve what is inherently impossible in a fighting game with more than one character.

You had a bad idea and articulated it poorly. It's over, go home.

 

[Kal]

..........

 

[kupo15]

I hope both of you guys (Not Kal since he ninja'd) are responding to my recent posts and not the OP or how what I'm saying might have conflicted with it. I presented an idea in the OP and my view on that has been changing due to everyone who posts which is great! I enjoy having my views challenged and forcing me to think even more critically about what I originally said.

However, there is no point in responding to you two because of how I respond to Kal....

In reality, I don't think any stock stage? ruleset will increase the number of viable characters from what we have now. I think, even with something as awesome as KishPrime's ruleset (featuring no fewer than five hundred stages), we would still have roughly the same tier list. This is why I called your point superfluous in the first place; anything past including the striking system is just needlessly making the rules more complicated, as the increase in "fairness" (by which I assume you mean balance) will be marginal at best, and even claiming it will be marginal is a statement I take with a lot of skepticism.

Just to be clear, I don't mean "balance" when I mean "fair." What I meant as fair is this, if MU is 60:40 before it gets to the Stage selection, then to keep it fair would mean to not include stages that would make that MU anything worse than 60:40 (ie: 70:30). And while you believe that you can't say what odds a MU has w/o considering the stage I believe you can have a pretty accurate idea what those odds are. The mere fact that you say that any change in a stage ruleset will "represent roughly the same tier list" goes against your claim.

But this doesn't really matter because I'll give in based on your next quote ...

This is not even addressing how hopelessly impractical your suggestion is. Three hundred and fifty-one matchups, of which we can only be certain twenty-six are neutral everywhere, would mean an absurd amount of discussion. And we would probably start the discussion off with whether you're allowed to switch from Zelda to Sheik on a stage where Sheik isn't allowed to fight her opponent. So **** that. Let's just unban Big Blue and all main C. Falcon.

Yes practicality is a big enough issue to shut down my thoughts. But answer me this, why are we allowed to ban CP's? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that since several ppl are saying that stages are not meant to give the losing player an adv and that all stages should be neutral that bans are in place to prevent a player hard countering with a stage?

If this is the case then here is an idea that would follow that logic, expand the stagelist AND be practical. Mirror matches have access to an extended stagelist. Since this is the only truly even matchup in the game, any stage they play on will also be truly even. This also means that there is no point in CP bans or even a separation of Starter vs CP stages (unless of course its desired) which means that all legal stages could be picked at any point in the game. And because it is an even MU, there is the possibility you could even go as far as making the starter match a random pick instead of a stage strike since there isn't a worry of an unfair stage being picked.

This would add a freshness to the least interesting MU in the game. Thoughts?

 

[Kal]

..........

 

[N64]

Pretty much everything Kal said.

For the dittos suggestion, it's an interesting idea to try adding variation to the game, but ultimately too complicated to implement. If you did it for all matches in a set, then you have to select chars before stages (which we would then have to apply to all sets, not just dittos) for this to make sense. Even if you did it only for the initial stage in a set, you run into a number of issues. If it's random-select from the entire stagelist, you can end up with stages that were banned at least in part for reasons other than balance/dominant strategies. I don't think much of the community would like to see the first (arguably the most important) match in a set being decided on Icicle Mountain. If you strike to one stage instead, then you're adding an extra 2 minutes to every ditto and will often end up on a starter anyways. And then...

We already have the "gentleman's agreement," which means players can agree to any stage. As far as I can tell, any reasonable implementation of this rule you've created would fall under the gentleman's agreement anyway.

 

[kupo15]

Banning counterpicks is becoming more controversial as we reduce the stage list further. Originally, it was to prevent your character from being forced to play on his worst stage, thus ensuring that your opponent would not get any "free wins," but most players agreed that a single ban would have very little impact on results. As for your rule regarding dittos: even if I granted this rule (which I wouldn't), how would you implement it? You generally select the stage before making a character choice, with the exception of the first match.

Can you elaborate as to why you wouldn't allow it anyway?

In regards to how I would implement it, there would be a few different options depending on what the communities opinion is (ie: first match is random vs striking or (not)allowing CP bans), it would go something like this:

• players pick both chars (since its the first match) which ends up as a ditto
• The stage list automatically extends to allow more possible stages, separation of Starter vs CP is not needed as all legal, fair stages are fair game
• Players either stage strike the extended list or its picked at random (one or the other depending on the communities opinion. This means you could have an even stage choices for the starting match)
• After the first match the losing player CPs with a stage they are comfortable with. If the stage picked is from the extended list and the winner stays that char. that stage can be played. If the winner decides to switch chars. then the loser would have to re-pick a stage from the normal list

We already have the "gentleman's agreement," which means players can agree to any stage. As far as I can tell, any reasonable implementation of this rule you've created would fall under the gentleman's agreement anyway.

Yes we do however the gentleman's agreement isn't a forcing rule ( for lack of a better word since forcing is a bit strong) because if a player wants to play on a banned stage it can easily be denied thus the gentlemen's agreement most of the time has very little power and doesn't get used. However by making it a rule that addition stages are legal in the special result of a Mirror match, there isn't the option of denying a stage because they "don't feel like it" especially if we decide to also remove the ability to ban during CPs. If you think about it this wouldn't be an unfair rule because since the stage doesn't give either char. an adv. the responsibility ultimately falls on the preparation of the players.

Pretty much everything Kal said.

For the dittos suggestion, it's an interesting idea to try adding variation to the game, but ultimately too complicated to implement. If you did it for all matches in a set, then you have to select chars before stages (which we would then have to apply to all sets, not just dittos) for this to make sense.

I don't understand your reasoning, why would it have to apply for all sets and not just dittos? I also don't understand why its too complicated, if the match is a ditto then additional stages are allowed to be played on, if not then nothing has changed and you resume the normal rules.

Even if you did it only for the initial stage in a set, you run into a number of issues. If it's random-select from the entire stagelist, you can end up with stages that were banned at least in part for reasons other than balance/dominant strategies. I don't think much of the community would like to see the first (arguably the most important) match in a set being decided on Icicle Mountain. If you strike to one stage instead, then you're adding an extra 2 minutes to every ditto and will often end up on a starter anyways.

You are kinda putting words in my mouth. Just because I said that there is an extended stage list available for dittos does not mean I'm suggesting to unlock all of the stages. The community would come up with that stage list which sounds like at the very least you would see KJ64, MC, RC, and MKII be the first stages considered being added. And as I said before, because stages are not a factor in mirrors, there is no reason other than personal preference to NOT force the first match to be random instead of striking if the community agrees to that. This would definitely be an additional and fair element to judge whose the better X char.

And then...

my response above from kal

 

[Kal]

..........