I have a huge problem with the current stage ruleset.

[leffen]

What these internet pseudo-intellectuals fail to understand is that an insult is not equal to an ad hominem fallacy.

Saying that someone's argument is invalidated because there he throws insults IS AN AD HOMINEM FALLACY. The insult is completely irrelevant to the soundness or cogency of the argument.


Moreover, an ad hominem fallacy can vary from a weak to a strong inductive argument, and we all value strong induction.

Exactly, I don't think most people realize what an ad hominem actually is:

from the wiki (shoutouts to beat)

"An ad hominem (Latin for "to the man"), short for argumentum ad hominem, is an argument made personally against an opponent instead of against their argument"

Examples of ad hominem:

"The Mayoral candidate's proposal about zoning is ridiculous. He was caught cheating on his taxes in 2003."
"What makes you so smart and all-knowing that you can deny God's existence? You haven't even finished school."

"If Dr. Smith is such a skilled heart surgeon, then why was he arrested for gambling?"
"Your fashion opinion isn't valid; you can't even afford new shoes."

In my case, the facts were highly relevant to my argument: and it always is. Strong bad, and Laijin, just use ad hominem, something they don't even understand, to escape answering legit points that everyone else don't use in fear of being to "rude".


edit: also, if a character is "bad" on more stages of the neutrals than he is "good" at, then thats the characters problem. What specific characters benefit from should not be considered (at least not at first) when deeming if a stage is legit or not.

 

[-ACE-]

The current stagelist is the best it's ever been.

There you have it.

A movement towards more "neutral" stages in tournament play will provide more viability to mid tier characters. Some may argue otherwise, but spacies (and falcon, jiggs, and a few others) can pretty much deal with any stage with ease. They are faster and better at avoiding obstacles, so the stage effects them less (and can help them in more cases). They can get to that platform that just appeared on rainbow cruise before their opponent and punish their opponent when they are forced to approach. A move towards more "neutral" stages should be a move towards having to deal with your opponent's characters' natural strengths and weaknesses and nothing more. I mean what do you accomplish, from a competitive standpoint, by including stages that drastically favor certain characters??? really? Is Fox vs Fox on rainbow cruise better than falcon vs marth on battlefield? lol. just sayin

 

[Dr. Wahwee]

I don't think Kongo Jungle should have been removed from the counterpick list

 

[telemaster]

shoutouts to old school midwest stage list

 

[Wobbly Headed Bob]

In my case, the facts were highly relevant to my argument: and it always is. Strong bad, and Laijin, just use ad hominem, something they don't even understand, to escape answering legit points that everyone else don't use in fear of being to "rude".

In your case, your facts were highly relevant to the subject, but they were still not deductive and they were focused on the opponent, not their argument. Thus your argument was strictly not valid, although it is far stronger than ad hominem where the attack is irrelevant.


In other words, saying "you're not good enough in smash, so your argument about smash is invalid" is fallacious. From him not being good at smash does not follow that his argument is not sound or cogent. He could be on your side and suck, but that doesn't mean that his argument is bad. It's just that it is less likely for him to understand the subject as clearly as someone with more adequate experience in it.

Your ad hominem argument could be cogent. However, it seems it was rather weak for this case considering (as someone has already pointed out), that the same ad hominem was used against people that intended to ban the stages you are opposing now.


In every situation, it's just better to explain in detail why an idea is bad rather than only saying that someone sucks and is wrong.

 

[KishPrime]

FC Legacy ran this year with Mute/Brinstar/Stadium on counterpick and I'm pretty sure one or two more. We had spectacular sets, and two of the hypest rounds of the tournament were on Mute City and Brinstar...Darkrain using that Midwest strategy.

It's 100% preference. The people who run tournaments generally get to run their preference. There's no internal logic to it. Pretty simple if you can remember those three things.

 

[Deleted member]

People that glitch out and confuse etiquette with reasoning are just another pollutant to humanity's collective intellect. It would be significantly less objectionable if you merely said "I refuse to talk to offensive people in order to cater to a more civilized discussion however burdensome that may be to some" instead of making a bunch of self-defeating accusations and claims that don't hold up.

actually, he already did this to me. here:

Not starting a discussion with you. You don't know how to have one without making me overall dislike you more, and there not many people in this community I actually don't like.

noirscythe, i think your posts are abrasive, as are my own. this is just an honest evaluation as i see them, you're obviosuly already aware of it. however, i do not see any ad hominems in your posts. and i personally agree with your rationale completely.

if you can't get over yourself long enough to consider a stance, you're not worth talking to. go get offended elsewhere.

 

[RFrizzle]

Kish run another FC PLEEAASSE

 

[Laijin]

FC Legacy ran this year with Mute/Brinstar/Stadium on counterpick and I'm pretty sure one or two more. We had spectacular sets, and two of the hypest rounds of the tournament were on Mute City and Brinstar...Darkrain using that Midwest strategy.

It's 100% preference. The people who run tournaments generally get to run their preference. There's no internal logic to it. Pretty simple if you can remember those three things.

I love the ruleset for that tournament. It should be the official ruleset for EVO.

 

[Jockmaster]

Umbreon

How can you justify having more and more jank stages in a competitive environment? Can you come up with an answer besides "because back in the old days" or "variety is fun"?


The way we look at stages and what is legal or not is very similar to the way many humans view "morality". Technically, there is no objective morality (all religious texts aside). There is no true morality in human society. Things that we perceive as "right" and "wrong" really are simply constructs of our society and what we have come to decide is best for society and makes life as livable as possible for as many people as possible.

The stagelist we subscribe to now, along with every one we have ever used in the history of the metagame, are all different views of what lends itself to a competitive environment best without taking too much away from the original soul of the game. This is a very hard balance to strike, and for us to do so we must set clear and logical guidelines (which we have come closer and closer to defining). When it comes down to it, when most people play melee in a competitive environment they prefer for the rules to be ones that promote as pure of competition as possible. In the end we must ask ourselves if it is ok to sacrifice variety in tournament play for pure competition, and in the end the only correct answer is YES.

If you want variety, go out and play friendlies till your goddamn fingers fall off. When it comes down to it, if you are going to ban ANY stages for their lack of competitive viability, you must ban ANY stage that clearly displays variation from the standard upon which competitive play is based. Whether the stage is 9 Cactuars of jank or 6 Cactuars of jank, it's still a stage that's identity is based in its jankness and is not something that any self-respecting competitive community should desire.

The way I see it (inb4 LEL you random **** dat guy), the only stages we should use are Battlefield and its clones Z+ FD. We have as a community over many years come to the conclusion that these stages are lacking in jankness compared to the rest and that it is nigh impossible to decide which is the most neutral.

I am not re-reading this post so hopefully it makes sense

 

[Madic0]

As scatter-brained as this thread has become, maybe people will see the main flaw in all of this...

Right now, and pretty much since ever, we've picked stages based upon popular opinion; I don't mean opinions on what stages to have, per se, but what people want out of the game in general. People have failed to realize that the stages they end up liking is a direct result of other things in the game that they want to see more or less of, which these stages amplify.

Common preferences include:

• banning stall tactics for characters who have other viable options
• the elimination of random number generators and stupid-fast hazards from affecting gameplay
• matchup/game depth

...among others.

Obviously there will continue to be differing opinions on what Melee is all about, but the community really needs to sit down and make a list of all the best and most preferred characteristics of our game, then create a stage list that caters to it.

...

So what do we really value most about Melee?

 

[S0FT]

I always viewed the stage list as another level of depth in melee. Knowing how to use a stage vs your opponent always seemed similar to knowing character matchups.

I feel like people overstate how winnable or unwinnable a matchup is, in the same way they overstate how much stages affect matchups. Countless matches in tournament are won by a person playing the character with the believed disadvantage, due to him either being a better player or having greater knowledge of the matchup (stage). I think you can use the same logic that most people in this thread have used about stages to say that you should ban characters to make the game more balanced.

The fact is most stages never reached a point where someone was consistently beating a much better player with more knowledge of the stage just because they were playing a specific character. To me that would be a broken stage, but it was mostly speculation, theory, and players not valuing stage knowledge that led to stage bans. This has always made me a little sad.

 

[Europhoria]

Just bring back Jewstar

 

[Mr. Happy :)]

Brinstar Depths only so nobody is happy. Fair?

 

[Madic0]

Brinstar Depths only so nobody is happy. Fair?

Best username combo ever.

 

[Soft Serve]

If we're bringing back KJ2 and rainbow cruise, we need MKII also. that stage is the ****.


But for real, other than brinstar and maybe Mute city, most other stages are just overly intrusive. I enjoy playing the game for the immense depth of it, particularly in the neutral game between the two players. Establishing stage control and positioning is an incredibly important part of the game that people learn and are good at on simple stages. Throwing them onto KJ2 or Cruise changes the game immensely. At that point it imo the game is closer to playing tag than a fighting game.


Now let this thread die please.

 

[outofphase]

ps needs to go. the normal cofiguration is awesome, but spacies shouldnt get a solid and almost universal counterpick with that much jank if youre not gonna allow brinstar. i would be down for bf and fd only but i feel that would be unpopular cuz everybody hates fd. i think that would not only solve the problem of jank (outside of bf's ledge if you consider that jank lol) but would be well balanced for all relevant characters. obviously the balancing comes second though. just have those 2 stages, go random. loser picks stage, winner picks character, then loser picks character. you could argue that the random first stage hugely alters sets, but i wouldn't say there are any hugely altered matchups on fd as far as who wins. it just alters the way the matchups work.

 

[KishPrime]

if you are going to ban ANY stages for their lack of competitive viability, you must ban ANY stage that clearly displays variation from the standard upon which competitive play is based. Whether the stage is 9 Cactuars of jank or 6 Cactuars of jank, it's still a stage that's identity is based in its jankness and is not something that any self-respecting competitive community should desire.

This is ridiculous, in that a number of banned stages are perfectly viable in "competitive viability." There is no internal logic as to why the randomness of Yoshi's Story is preferable to the randomness of Brinstar - if anything, the randomness of Brinstar is easier to predict and handle, and 8-10 stages beyond what are available now were never proven to be significantly worse than what's on the current list. It is 100% the preference of the people in charge, which is always a blend of top players and TOs. If you want to get intellectual about it, one should generally try to keep the things that make a game unique rather than eliminate what we think shouldn't be in there. Not that you can't take the latter tactic, but then you're taking control over the spirit of the game.

This is how you define a ruleset with internal logical consistency: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=308701

It has goals, key value drivers, and it follows the rules it sets up for itself. Is it perfect? No, but it gives a foundation for game theory discussion where everyone knows what the foundation is. The current ruleset has no such basis - it's simply an amalgamation of "what people want" and "no jank." If it has been defined somewhere, then I would like to see it.

Again, there's nothing wrong with that, but let's not pretend like there's anything intellectually pure about it.

 

[bËst^]

Nice hos this whole conversation had good points at the beginning but after first page of text it ended up simply here: "No one would demand you to learn other stages than regular 6 and neither to learn play character that fits better on the chosen stage". I thought pro's were pro's because they are good player. And what I didn't know is that if you are able to handle punch of different stages and c-pick character on those stages you are not pro. You are just relying on getting advance by other means...

But seriosly. Discussion on the first page lead nowhere and I really felt that there was no valid argument to say, why stages like KJ and RC are banned.

Maybe time to read other pages too ------>

 

[Mahie]

FD/BF only sounds like a way to make Marth top tiers again.

FD doesn't alter the way the matchups are played. They give legimate and easy to perform zero to death options to characters like Peach and Marth on spacies. Boiling it down to 'platforms' and 'no platforms' is not the way to go.

PS would be a great stage if not for the transformations.

 

[Laijin]

This is ridiculous, in that a number of banned stages are perfectly viable in "competitive viability." There is no internal logic as to why the randomness of Yoshi's Story is preferable to the randomness of Brinstar - if anything, the randomness of Brinstar is easier to predict and handle, and 8-10 stages beyond what are available now were never proven to be significantly worse than what's on the current list. It is 100% the preference of the people in charge, which is always a blend of top players and TOs. If you want to get intellectual about it, one should generally try to keep the things that make a game unique rather than eliminate what we think shouldn't be in there. Not that you can't take the latter tactic, but then you're taking control over the spirit of the game.

This is how you define a ruleset with internal logical consistency: http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=308701

It has goals, key value drivers, and it follows the rules it sets up for itself. Is it perfect? No, but it gives a foundation for game theory discussion where everyone knows what the foundation is. The current ruleset has no such basis - it's simply an amalgamation of "what people want" and "no jank." If it has been defined somewhere, then I would like to see it.

Again, there's nothing wrong with that, but let's not pretend like there's anything intellectually pure about it.

This post this godlike. Its going in the OP. Thanks for the input.

 

[BSeeD]

I always viewed the stage list as another level of depth in melee. Knowing how to use a stage vs your opponent always seemed similar to knowing character matchups.

I feel like people overstate how winnable or unwinnable a matchup is, in the same way they overstate how much stages affect matchups. Countless matches in tournament are won by a person playing the character with the believed disadvantage, due to him either being a better player or having greater knowledge of the matchup (stage). I think you can use the same logic that most people in this thread have used about stages to say that you should ban characters to make the game more balanced.

The fact is most stages never reached a point where someone was consistently beating a much better player with more knowledge of the stage just because they were playing a specific character. To me that would be a broken stage, but it was mostly speculation, theory, and players not valuing stage knowledge that led to stage bans. This has always made me a little sad.

+1000 to the whole post.
Besides theory, nothing justifies all these banned stages.
Sure you can camp more with Peach on KJ64, you can go faster to new platforms with Sheik/Fox/Falco on RR, you can live longer if you pick Brinstar...

But as SOFT says, it will never be true enough to become a rule.
No bad player would consistently beat a good player by picking fox on Brinstar nor beat a good player by picking falco on RR, same way no bad Marth would consistently beat a good Fox on FD.

The thing that makes me smile everytime is that we play this game coz it's different from other fighters, and when it comes to stages, we try our best to reduce it to a "classic" roster.
Physics, comboes, movements, goal... can all be different from other fighters, but not the way we apprehend stages ?

Don't misunderstand me, I have no problem with it (even if I'm a "the more stage the better" guy), but as Kish says (and yeah, nice post btw), I think the most important thing is to be aware that this choice of stages is not what it is because it's the best, or the most logical, but only because it reflects what the community in its majority wants right now.

 

[Laijin]

I think the most important thing is to be aware that this choice of stages is not what it is because it's the best, or the most logical, but only because it reflects what the community in its majority wants right now.

Thats not even the case right now. The current stage selection is only what a small handful of the community wants or at most a little under half of the community, but definitely not majority.

 

[Jockmaster]

Kish

Yoshis is not defined by its jankness, its defined by its size and volatile blastzones. Yes Shy Guys and Randall are jank, but they hardly ever cause a match to be decided. They are so uninfluential that people hardly think about them through the course of a match.

Brinstar, on the other hand, is absolutely defined by its pool of ****ing lava that covers 80% of the stage at times and its awkward structure. Brinstar is in a whole other tier of jankness. I'm surprised you would even say that the two stages are comparable.

Let me put it this way: why should we ever want any more than one stage in this competitive metagame? Hypothetically, the variable of the stage seems like it should be removed in a purely competitive environment. "Variety" has no validity as an argument for having more stages, its simply an arbitrary desire that has nothing to do with benefiting the competition as a whole. There is no logical argument for more than one stage except for those who feel that knowing how to play on a stage and knowing who is good on what stage is a valuable skill in this game.


And as I said earlier, just as morality is a social construct, so is our view of what makes the best metagame. We kind of have to just take everything as it comes, there is no objective right and wrong. All we can do is take the meaning of true competition and try to apply it to our meta as best as possible

 

[Cactuar]

I've said everything I care to say on the topic. I still see no support coming from any high or top level players, and I can't justify spending time on this without that evidence of change being wanted.

This topic is brought up pretty regularly. The No Johns Ruleset is honestly the best alternative that has been presented, and the thread died after 10 pages. You have all the tools you need to create whatever game environment you want, publish said environment, and gather support. I don't know what else you want.

The ruleset that gets used by EVO should be the one that is most popular with the community as a whole, proven by common usage in tournaments throughout the past 2 years. The MBR didn't choose to push the stagelist to be smaller. It was the result of what the players wanted. Arguing with each other on the boards will not accomplish anything. You need support. Get that, and I'd be more than willing to push for the changes you want.

 

[BSeeD]

Jockmaster, you should watch closely every top player match played on YS and see if Randall and Shy Guys are not :

1) Used by some as ways to mess with timings/positionning
2) Bothering people quite often

I really don't get how people can say that Randall "doesn't affect a game that much".
Yeah, it does not consistently and on every game affects the outcome, but please stop saying YS sheananigans aren't influential.

Please.

 

[bËst^]

As far as I know, Randall / Shyguys and the variation on pokemon stadium form changes has caused more damage for competetive gameplay than stages like RC or KJ will ever cause (for reminder: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=0osuNxURlzE#t=994s). If those stages allows some chars to became better in certain match ups, why not to take advantage out of it? Like said before; same funktion exist in current stagelists. It is no suprise that Jig/peach players like to play their matches on DL as well as fox always c-picks PS against floaties.

Don't get me wrong; I prefer current stagelist pretty much. I just would like to have some serious explanations why some stages got dumbed. Once there was an argument that falling through seel on PF was enough to ban the stage, it made me laugh. More situational than getting ***** by randall / Shyguy but no one has ever said anything that therefore YS should get banned.

Honestly I feel, that everything bases on topplayers making the decisions about stages. I seriosly think, that they are not pros just by accident. Therefore learning stages like KJ and RC shouldn't be a problem. Some carefully explained reasons behind those stages getting banned while Stages like FoD, YS and PS are fine. Or even FD. FD offers so many chars even better advantage than KJ will ever allow. If KJ getsfeedbavk about being campy; let me remind that camping is also happening in DL64 in certain match ups. So it seems same reasons won't go with every stage. And that leads to fact that the whole ruleset is manipulated by players those got more power.

 

[Cactuar]

The ability to interact with the opponent is valued over the ability to interact with the stage. Many of the stage interactions on the stages that are banned are frowned upon because they interfere with our ability to interact with the opponent or encourage a playstyle that is intentionally non-interactive (stall tactics).

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

I was gonna make this thread after watching APEX 2013. Laijin beat me to it. I was wondering what happened to all the good stages.

Let me put it this way: why should we ever want any more than one stage in this competitive metagame? Hypothetically, the variable of the stage seems like it should be removed in a purely competitive environment. "Variety" has no validity as an argument for having more stages, its simply an arbitrary desire that has nothing to do with benefiting the competition as a whole. There is no logical argument for more than one stage except for those who feel that knowing how to play on a stage and knowing who is good on what stage is a valuable skill in this game.

Then restrict it to one character too. Why stop at stages? If we "really" wanna see who the "best" is, we need to have Fox only on Final Destination.

People are presenting strong logical arguments; you are simply electing to ignore them. It looks like all the haters ended up being right about Melee. I used to proudly proclaim to those haters that it was easy to strike Final Destination (which I often did) and that I fought there in a tiny minority of tournament matches. It looks like we're gravitating back toward the mindless grind of who can use space animals the best.

As has been mentioned already, stage variety is good just as character variety is good. It is an extra layer of complexity that adds beauty to the competitive element in this game. Stop comparing smash to other fighting games. If you like other fighting games so much, go play other fighting games. Personally, I am here because Melee is so different. The freedom to move about the stage is fantastic and makes for epic competition.

 

[Kink-Link5]

Shouldn't that be a pretty obvious answer? If I'm playing Young Link vs (insert any character here), why wouldn't I want more space to throw my projectiles at them? So I'd ban FD/Yoshi/(insert small stage here) and counter pick a level that gives me plenty of space to camp(Dreamland, Kongo Jungle 64, Rainbow Cruise, etc etc).

Some characters perform better on some stages, while others on other stages. That is a pretty obvious answer.

--

The stage list is not, and should not, be made to balance the roster.

That being said, MKII is acceptable in doubles

#freebirdo

 

[Laijin]

The ability to interact with the opponent is valued over the ability to interact with the stage. Many of the stage interactions on the stages that are banned are frowned upon because they interfere with our ability to interact with the opponent or encourage a playstyle that is intentionally non-interactive (stall tactics).

The ability to interact with the stage is what makes melee, well..melee. Knowing how to navigate around a level and interacting with it is just as important as interacting with your opponent. You really do have to admit, stall tactics are EXTREMELY rare and almost never happen. They are just as common as they are now with the current stages as they were in the past, so why even bring that up as an argument?

That is basically like saying "oh man we gotta take preventive measures on voter fraud and make it harder for people to vote even though we have literally zero proven cases of voter fraud in the past well...forever".

 

[BSeeD]

The stage list is not, and should not, be made to balance the roster.

That being said, MKII is acceptable in doubles

#freebirdo

But unbalancing it by reducing the number of accepted stages among the years is okay ?
Cause let's face it, that's what happened, giving top tier more advantages and low tier less chances.

You talk like this is a defined rule. So, I guess there must be a reason you're gonna explain to me ?
Cause personally I totally see why the stage list would be widened in order te rebalance things.

 

[Kink-Link5]

The current stage list was not made to unbalance the roster.

 

[Cactuar]

You are entitled to your opinion, and I disagree with it. I don't care about how well the person I'm playing against can move around on Poke Floats or how effectively they can use the magic carpets on RC to defend their position. I care about how well they can use their character's movement and tools to fight with me.

Stall tactics is an example of a non-interactive strategy, not the entirety of the concept.

 

[BSeeD]

The current stage list was not made to unbalance the roster.

No, you're right, the current stage list was made on no logical basis at all.

I still don't see why rebalancing the roster won't be a better reason than no reason.

 

[Sox]

To say one has "an advantage" on a certain stage is simply a matter of opinion based on how they play the game/matchup. The game hasnt been broken down into a science enough yet to determine whether or not one stage is inherently an insta-win for a particular character. Like, ya, marth vs peach on yoshis clearly favors marth with the perfectly spaced platforms and small blast zones, but thats not to say that a peach cant create situations where the marth fishes for these advantages and exploits this predictability. I think scar said something sometime about 'figuring out why you lost, and not just jump to stage that gives a clear advantage'. what i'm trying to say, and i have no idea if it's coming across or not, is that creating winning situations is what will win sets, not just autopiloting on a stage where your character has an advantage. this is why i think there should be more stages in play RC,Brinstar,KJ64, and possibly more. (The timer might need to be reduced to 6 minutes or something for a few stages).

-Written by a Scrub who hasnt slept for 3 days. if anyone reads this im interested in knowing whether or not i made any sense.

P.S. I wana be a Mute City Main

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

You are entitled to your opinion, and I disagree with it. I don't care about how well the person I'm playing against can move around on Poke Floats or how effectively they can use the magic carpets on RC to defend their position. I care about how well they can use their character's movement and tools to fight with me.

Stall tactics is an example of a non-interactive strategy, not the entirety of the concept.

But you are exaggerating the extremity of the "problem". Fights on Brinstar are fantastic. When the lava comes up leaving just that tiny little platform, the players are forced to interact. Meanwhile, Dream Land is huge and static. The neutrals do not exactly promote character interaction.

 

[Cactuar]

Forced interactions are not a good thing, I don't recommend building an argument around it...

 

[Kink-Link5]

I would hardly call even long matches on DL non-interactive in the slightest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNCPGgZ_3ak

 

[KishPrime]

You are entitled to your opinion, and I disagree with it. I don't care about how well the person I'm playing against can move around on Poke Floats or how effectively they can use the magic carpets on RC to defend their position. I care about how well they can use their character's movement and tools to fight with me.

Stall tactics is an example of a non-interactive strategy, not the entirety of the concept.

People on the other side say that they ARE fighting with you by establishing and defending superior position using their character's movement and tools. You do the same thing on Battlefield. It's no different conceptually on RC.

Stall tactics are an interactive strategy so long as the opponent CAN reach you and there is a time limit forcing interaction. Depends how you're defining stall tactics. If either of those conditions aren't true, THEN it's non-interactive.