Official Stage Legality Discussion

[PK-ow!]

I'd like to ask a bold question, and I was wondering if even I shouldn't make a new thread for it.

The question is this:

What is the reason for believing neutral stages exist?

You could ask the different but deeply related question: What is stage neutrality?, except this one might presuppose that the quality is logically consistent, which I do not want.


So stage neutrality... simply put, we have our system of Starters and CPs. What would be the fairest system would be an assignment of stages to Starter and CP that - trivially - make the rule set fair. But there are two more steps taken, and actually I can question both of them. One, that the stages which belong to Starter for this purpose are all and only "the neutral" ones, and two, that the neutral stages are {some nonempty set of stages}.


I think whether or not good debate comes up for this question, unless someone would like to educate me in a science of stage neutrality, I want to experiment with an alternate rule set...

 

[Linkshot]

I think the real reason there's "Starter & Counterpick" instead of just "Legal" is that Stage Striking would take far too long (although, with all legal stages on, it would yield the best results rather than just the Starters)

Tourneys just don't have the time to do that...apparently. I don't think it takes that long to Stage Strike, honestly.

 

[bobson]

A truly neutral stage cannot exist in Smash; any stage barring truly random stages (which we neither have nor are capable of making) will inevitably favor one character over another simply because the cast is so highly varied. As such, stage "neutrality" is a comparison of which stage has less "unfairness" than another, with "unfairness" defined as anything not found on other stages which would give certain types of characters solid advantages over others. E.G. Smashville is less unfair than Jungle Japes, while Jungle Japes is less unfair than Hyrule Temple. The starters, then, are the stages found to be the most lacking in unfairness compared with the other available stages.
("Unfairness" is also comparative. Because most stages have ledges, a stage without ledges is considered unfair to characters who rely on ledges to recover, whereas if most stages didn't have ledges, it would be rather considered a natural weakness of the character.)

Obviously, there is a lot of room for debate with these definitions--which is why we have differing stage lists with three starters, five starters, seven starters, and even the official SBR stagelist contains the wishy-washy "starter/counter" section--, but it's the best and the most accepted we have at the moment, and it's pretty unlikely to change.

Another thing I'd like to add is that the degree of randomness is also a factor in considering "neutrality." In general, the starter stages are meant to provide the least interference from the stage upon the match, and while it can be argued that things like the scrolling platform on Smashville "interfere" with the match in that they give opportunities that wouldn't be there if they didn't exist, strictly random effects which give one player an immediate advantage or disadvantage without any means of activation by the players themselves are overall considered worse. (E.G.: You can get chaingrabbed across the moving platform on Smashville by Dedede, but you can predict where the platform will be and avoid it when threatened by this, whereas the laser on Halberd is completely out of your control and gives you the immediate disadvantage of being forced to dodge it while your opponent is not.)

Counterpicks are separate barrel of monkeys, and are mostly determined by the philosophy you run by. Some players (me) believe that all stages are innocent until proven guilty by merit of simply being in the game, while others (Kamikaze) believe that stages are allowed strictly because they have to be, and that the players shouldn't have to deal with the borderline ones. Others are inbetween. Stage legality debates are very often a clash of philosophies rather than a clash of criteria between agreeing philosophies, and as such they tend to end up akin to religious debates and very rarely actually solve anything.

 

[deepseadiva]

Amazing summation of this thread Bobson. Particularly the final paragraph.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Starters aren't really well agreed upon philosophically. I maintain that starters should be comprised of the set of states that produces the most fair results when the stage striking procedure is applied to them; considering "interference" seems just silly (not that it means anything). Like, we can talk about the Halberd's laser and how it might be unfair to some characters (maybe?), but just as an abstract thing taken to be balance neutral it doesn't seem problematic (it doesn't really increase the variance of match results to an appreciable degree). Of course, regardless it has to be considered alongside another set of stages; arguing for a single stage to be a starter seems more silly the more I think about it since starter lists work as a unit, not as single stages.

As per neutrality, you're correct that it's a phantom. Even a totally random stage would have the natural "bias" that it's unfair to high tier characters (more on that point later). I'm quite of the opinion that neutrality is simply not a useful concept at all when discussing stages; you won't find a stage in any smash game for which I won't be able to find at least one matchup that's clearly unfair on it because of the stage geography really benefiting one side. It wouldn't even be possible to make such a stage no matter what your resources since certain things really have to go one way or another. Like, if the main floor of the stage can be passed through, it's great for Meta Knight and Mr. Game & Watch and obnoxious for, say, Diddy Kong. It's not "neutral" to force MK and G&W to fight on stages that have floors constructed in that way against their interests, but it also isn't to force Diddy Kong to go the other way. There's not even a theoretical compromise; you just have to have stages with both.

I'd also caution the use of the term fairness. In a sense, every stage list is fair insolong as all players are allowed the same opportunities in the selection process. You could use any character so no stage list is objectively biased against you personally; thus it's fair. Of course, we also do have fairness in the sense that the stage is "even" in matchups, but what does that really mean? Falco v Ganondorf is a good example; Falco wins on every stage. What is your most "fair" stage? Is it the one closest to the average expected result or the one on which Ganondorf loses the least? Then you have randomness which is going to be a factor in the game regardless of your ruleset; having a philosophical approach to such things is important. It's natural to call one player getting 4 stars in a row on WarioWare unfair, but it's important to be sure of why it's unfair if you want to use that fairness analysis to draw conclusions. Most people just skip out on this sort of rigid definition, but a solid ruleset will stem from a solid theoretical underpinning.

 

[Linkshot]

The "fairest" stage can be determined by turning all stages on and having multiple matches (all isolated from one another) stage strike for the matchup for their character's best interest.

The one left last the most would be deemed, statistically, the fairest stage for that match.

Yes, this includes even banned stages. Dedede does not exist in every 1v1 matchup; only 36.

 

[bobson]

Why would considering interference seem silly? There's a clear upper limit for how much stage interference can be tolerated in Wario Ware, and if something can cause a stage to be banned, it seems silly to not consider it when attempting to gather an optimally fair selection of stages to use as starters.

The problem is not that the laser favors some characters over others, but that it's entirely out of the players' control and offers an immediate disadvantage to the player it targets. It's a very controllable disadvantage, which is why the stage isn't problematic, but to me it's akin to allowing Mr. Saturns to spawn on low and worth considering when trying to determine whether your starter list should include Halberd or Castle Siege.

 

[Linkshot]

Quite the contrary. It offers an immediate advantage to the player it targets since they can utilise it as stage control.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I usually like to poke at Smashville's balloon in jest here, but here's a much more real example. Halberd's laser is relevant to matches occasionally, but it's seriously not a big deal. Do you know what is a much more significant stage factor that is random? The support ghosts on Yoshi's Island (Brawl) are far more significant. If I meteor someone in that area, they might live or might die, and I have no way to predict it. In fact, when I can't recover there as Mr. Game & Watch, I hold my parachute out and drift over the spawn point hoping for salvation (and am sometimes rewarded!). I've even seen it randomly kill Ness and Lucas trying to do a Pk Thunder recovery; it pops up beside them and steals their thunder. The laser on the Halberd, at mostly predictable times in the stage progression, randomly bestows a very small positional advantage which is even debatable whether the targetted or non-targetted player is the winning one at any given time. The support ghost appears at any time and changes the outcome of entire stocks.

Of course, I don't think Yoshi's Island (Brawl) should be disqualified from being a starter. It's exceptionally rare that such factors actually "ruin" matches; we could say the variance on the stage isn't big enough to significant enough to corrupt it as a competitive stage to such an extent as to be ban-worthy. If it shouldn't be banned, then it should be legal and we can only ask whether it's a part of the most fair stage striking set to determine whether it's a starter or counterpick. Traditional analysis tends to include Yoshi's Island (Brawl), and my experiences don't suggest including it produces poor results. Of course, the Halberd is infinitely more like this. The factors on it are infinitely less corrupting than the ones on Yoshi's Island (Brawl), and having it as a part of a stage striking list has, in my experiences, done much to advance fairness. The type of analysis that excludes stages like the Halberd is really just incomprehensible to me. Is such "interference", which isn't even consistently opposed, really so significant as to accept consistent biased results in favor of characters like the Ice Climbers and against characters like Mr. Game & Watch?

Of course, more thorough investigation of matchup fairness across assorted starter lists would be interesting, but it's long and tedious work that would be contentious regardless. You'd basically need people who understood a wide assortment of matchups to look at assorted stage lists, do a stage striking procedure, and then examine which list produces the best stage results. Of course, at the same time, that's even tough since personal biases tarnish the groundwater. Like, maybe Halberd is objectively good for your character but you personally dislike it. If you strike it a lot, it's really not indicative of anything but your own distaste but could color the results of your analysis.

 

[Linkshot]

The one reason people dislike Halberd is that it has damaging hazards, and for some reason, even if it's a ridiculously rare occurrence, they find it to be a reason to automatically put it down to counterpick.

As I've mentioned before, I strongly believe that, since we have Stage Striking procedure now, we put all legal stages on at the start and strike them all until the "fairest" is chosen for the match.

Sure, people will complain this takes a long time, but in reality, it actually doesn't. Sure, an extra 30 seconds, maybe.

 

[AvaricePanda]

Two problems I have with this:
1. The neutral stages aren't so much the most fair for the matchup, but the stages that provide the absolute least interference from the stage. The person who wins the first game generally has the advantage throughout the set, so the neutral stages aren't supposed to have stage interference, even though it could be avoidable. Even though Pictochat may be the most fair stage to start on for the matchup, someone could trip or be thrown into a rocket or a spike and ultimately lose the first game and have a disadvantage because of this. And the reason was purely because of the stage choice.

Granted, I realize that some characters are a lot better on neutrals than others. Snake, Falco, and Fox, for example, camp much better on FD because of the long space. However, that's only one stage-dependent influence, and honestly length of stage is one thing that you can't remove from any stage, so it's not as weighty. On a stage like Halberd, not only is there a shorter stage, but you can also attack under the stage, and there are hazards that albeit avoidable, do have an impact on the actual match.

On "neutrals", the only stage dependent things that really impact the match are the length and if it has platforms.

2. Using all of the legal stages and striking from there may not even provide the most fair stage to start on, matchupwise. Consider this stage list:

Battlefield
Final Destination
Smashville
Yoshi's Island (Brawl)
Lylat Cruise
Pokemon Stadium 1
Pokemon Stadium 2
Halberd
Delfino's Plaza
Frigate Orpheon
Norfair
Distant Planet
Pictochat
Rainbow Cruise

Now consider ICs vs. MK. MK strikes first, and strikes FD, ICs strike RC. MK strikes Smashville. ICs strike Norfair. MK strikes Battlefield. ICs strike Brinstar. MK strikes Battlefield. ICs strike Distant planet. MK strikes Yoshi's Island. ICs strike PS2.

Now there's Halberd, PS1, Delfino's, Pictochat, and Frigate Orpheon. MK would most likely strike Pictochat, ICs would most likely strike Delfino's.

The 3 remaining stages, for this matchup, are all good for MK. On Halberd, MK can not only quasi-platform camp, but on the floating stage he can go under the stage and Uair/tornado/shuttle loop/whatever. On PS1, the special transformations let MK camp around platforms along with the main transformation, although on the main one it's a little more fair. And on Frigate Orpheon, the slopes + MK platform camping + lack of ledge on the right side = yeah...

Granted, that wasn't the greatest example, but it shows how the stage that's chosen isn't always the fairest for the matchup, no matter if you leave only-neutral-strikes or all-stage-strikes.

I don't have a huge problem with letting all of the stages be allowed to be striked at first, but honestly it's more time consuming, can lead to a not great stage for the matchup, and really doesn't help any more than neutral-only-striking does.

 

[fkacyan]

The one reason people dislike Halberd is that it has damaging hazards, and for some reason, even if it's a ridiculously rare occurrence, they find it to be a reason to automatically put it down to counterpick.

Actually, I dislike it because it has a disgustingly low ceiling, you can attack through the stage making character like MK gain a significant advantage (Disjointed hotboxes + multiple jumps! Yay!). The hazards are icing on the counterpick cake.

 

[ShadowLink84]

Actually, I dislike it because it has a disgustingly low ceiling, you can attack through the stage making character like MK gain a significant advantage (Disjointed hotboxes + multiple jumps! Yay!). The hazards are icing on the counterpick cake.

A number of characters can take advantage of the flooring.
As for the stage being small, well how does it make it ban worthy? Does any character there absolutely win 100% of the time?

 

[JigglyZelda003]

sharking exist on delfino too

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I don't see how a pass-through floor is somehow any more "counterpick" worthy than a floor you can't pass though. Why is one somehow more "standard" than another? In any case, it's a pretty tame feature, no more radical than absolutely no platforms (Final Destination), uneven ground (Yoshi's Island Brawl), a moving platform (Smashville), tilting (Lylat Cruise), or temporary walls (Pokemon Stadium 1). You also have to consider that Halberd gets extra points for being a transforming stage (which frequently has a solid floor!); that means the joys of non-static advantages.

The ceiling is barely lower than normal. The average death is about 6% lower if I recall. Ceiling heights are, for the most part, not that radical in Brawl (Mushroomy Kingdom, Corneria, and Jungle Japes are the only outliers really, discounting silly stuff like New Pork City). I mean, Yoshi's Story was always accepted as a starter in melee, and it has size issues that are orders of magnitude more noticeable than on Halberd.

Do notice that none of the multi-jump characters, the natural benefactors of the pass-through floor, are good at killing upward and generally prefer high ceilings (except King Dedede, but given how he falls like a rock, under the stage isn't the place for him). They get some and lose some. On the other hand, most of the low ceiling loving crew (guys like Snake and Olimar) really don't find a pass-through floor all that cool. Really the only character I can think of who likes both of those aspects on the Halberd is Mr. Game & Watch, and it's not Diddy Kong or Ice Climbers on Final Destination or probably even Marth on Battlefield.

I agree with the second half of what you're saying AvericePanda (other than the part about PS1 being an unfair stage in ICs vs MK), but I think the first part isn't really on the button. Like, you never really have to deal "less" with the stage no matter where you play because you're always interacting with it. The general structure of it is what enables you to do everything, and it's extreme enough that I can very easily say I play a lot differently on every stage. The degree to which my play varies between even the most conservative starters isn't even that small compared to the general variance. I mean, sure, I change things up a lot more than normal on some cool stage like Norfair, Green Greens, or Luigi's Mansion. But do I really have fewer stage specific shenanigans or extra needed precautions on Smashville than I do on PictoChat, Brinstar, or Pokemon Stadium 2? I really don't, and I definitely approach games on it a ton differently than I do on Yoshi's Island (Brawl).

Maybe my perspective on one issue is uncommon, but I am going to say that absolutely every match I have ever lost was in the end simply due to my own lack of skill relative to my opponent in terms of addressing the circumstances of the match. Every match I've ever won was due to just the opposite. I have never felt as though somehow any match outcome was "wrong"; if the other player deserved to win, he would have. Like, let's say I lose because I get uthrown into the Pirahna Plant on PictoChat. The absolute last thing I think is "it's the stage's fault!". I instead am probably thinking "taking that risk by trying to uthrow him into the Pirahna Plant backfired". Those sort of features don't bother me at all since I can just learn them and even use them to my advantage. Systemic biases in stage selection though (which is admitted to with "some characters are a lot better on neutrals than others") are a much bigger problem since I can never turn that to my advantage, I can only deal with the constant disadvantage better. I of course still deserve to lose, but my mistake becomes selecting a character who is hurt by the stage rules which doesn't seem like the kind of mistake I should be able to make.

It also seems like a very wrong thing to make stage rules that change the natural balance of the game any more than we have to. I mean, some things obviously have to go (Sonic's natural advantage on loop stages isn't something we can preserve and still have a game worth playing), but it seems like something that should be avoided as one of the highest goals of a stage list, definitely secondary to concerns over which types of already legal stages you'd like to play the first match on.

 

[otter]

Do recent tournaments sway one way or another regarding the latest counter/banned stages?

Distant Planet
Green Greens
Luigi's Mansion
Port Town Aero Dive
Yoshi's Island (Pipes)
Norfair

I have an upcoming tournament and the organizer doesn't play smash. He just said (go with what smashboards says) but smashboards doesn't have an opinion here lol.

Halp!

 

[deepseadiva]

Distant Planet
Green Greens
Luigi's Mansion
Port Town Aero Dive
Yoshi's Island (Pipes)
Norfair

There's heavy opinion on both sides. Excluding Port Town and Pipes (which are usually banned), everything else is either very legal, or very banned depending on the region.

Actually, if you notice it might even depend on character popularity.

Lots of MKs? Ban Luigi's and Norfair.

Lot's of Dededes? Ban Green Greens and Distant Planet.

If you happen to know the character popularity in your region Otter, actually you might wanna follow the above to diffuse strife beforehand.

Anybody remember Apex's stagelist?

 

[JigglyZelda003]

i thought DDD couldn't CG up the slope on DP or maybe it was just Yoshi...... either way you can just camp out on the otherside till it rains, or throw toys at him, he can't grab w/ toys in his hands

 

[GwJ]

He can still CG most characters uphill there.

 

[JigglyZelda003]

He can still CG most characters uphill there.

oh ok then.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Most is a misleading term. He can chaingrab more characters than not that he could chaingrab beforehand, but he chainthrows less than half of the total cast up the slope. Here's the list for the slope on Distant Planet.

Grabbed:

Mario (no standing chaingrab either way on slope), Peach, Bowser (standing chaingrab only works downhill), Donkey Kong (no standing chaingrab either way), Wario, Link, Ganondorf, Toon Link, Samus (standing chaingrab only works downhill), R.O.B., King Dedede, Wolf (it should be noted that he's a massive pain to grab on this slope), Ivysaur, Charizard, Lucario, Snake, Sonic

Not Grabbed:

Luigi (no standing chaingrab either way, not tested explicity but pretty sure), Diddy Kong, Yoshi, Pit, Ice Climbers, Captain Falcon, Marth, Ike, Ness, Lucas

I don't think Distant Planet is even a very good King Dedede stage; the structure naturally discourages being in a position to be chaingrabbed anyway.

And yeah, the stages are by region. From what I've seen, Norfair is allowed pretty much everywhere but Atlantic North with the others being far more controversial.

 

[AvaricePanda]

Plus, because the slope is only on one side, D3 has no way to actually force someone to CG up the slope.

However, Mansion is just stupid without MK or with MK.

But the whole "pandering to region" thing seems good. Here in the MW, Norfair isn't and has never been a problem. We don't have many MKs or Jigglypuffs, and even then the stage is hardly abused. Many people here like the CP for other character matchups. Thiocyanide has told me how in Atlantic North, teh_spammerer heavily abused the stage with Jigglypuff and it's been banned ever since.

 

[deepseadiva]

So, I've come to the conclusion that Distant Planet should be banned - if only just.

Forget the slope.

I've been using at as a counterpick on AiB for awhile now, and it definitely has a light circle.

 

[fkacyan]

So, I've come to the conclusion that Distant Planet should be banned - if only just.

Forget the slope.

I've been using at as a counterpick on AiB for awhile now, and it definitely has a light circle.

Spoiler

So, now somebody who disagreed with me on this point in the last thread now agrees with me!

God, it's like play experience tends to agree with me.

I do want to mention something about the slope; at low percents it gives some characters changrabs they wouldn't normally have that at that high a percentage, or at all. Lucario and a few others are guilty of this.

 

[deepseadiva]

It's really, really light. Not to mention it's only one way.

It's entirely possible my opponent have no idea what to do, and enjoy being on the top side for some reason. Thus making the circle very effective against stage-nubs.

Plus there's stage-generated objects to help you out even.

Dammit. I'm conflicted again.

 

[Underload]

Well, I just played on Distant Planet 5 times with 5 different characters, and I think it's a legitimate counterpick. The walkoff to the left is a nuisance and a hazard, yes, but and player in their right mind would just stay on the right side of the stage if they have a disadvantage there. The ceiling's a good height, there's space beneath for recovery, the only thing that needs to be resolved is the sloped walkoff on the left.

Also, it's a disgustingly good Peach stage.

 

[JigglyZelda003]

meh, distant planet isn't all that for Peach, its an ok stage though

 

[MarthFanatique]

Also, it's a disgustingly good Peach stage.

Really, I hate that stage, and I main Peach (though I see where you are coming from). Then again, I just don't prefer that stage in general...

 

[DRK]

What's your opinion on paused/reversed stages for tournaments? I'm thinking about hosting a tournament in my area soon, and I wanted to know if it would be OK to use a reversed WarioWare and a paused Pokemon Stadium 2 as neutrals.

 

[deepseadiva]

PS2 is good naturally. There's really no reason to pause it.

What's this "reversed" stuff though?

 

[demonictoonlink]

Any hacks for tournaments are bad...
Also, HI MENO!!!

 

[DRK]

PS2 is good naturally. There's really no reason to pause it.

What's this "reversed" stuff though?

Reversed just means that the background can wiggle.
And PS2 becomes a neutral if paused instead of counter/banned... I think.

Any hacks for tournaments are bad...

Why? With hacks, you can have unlimited replays with tags and default settings, so they don't have to be changed no matter what. And what about Brawl+ tournaments?

 

[deepseadiva]

Reversed just means that the background can wiggle.
And PS2 becomes a neutral if paused instead of counter/banned... I think.

Lol @ reversed. That sounds so useless...

And well, if you go by that thought, everything can be a neutral if you just pause it. I honestly think we have enough natural ones anyway.

Why? With hacks, you can have unlimited replays with tags and default settings, so they don't have to be changed no matter what. And what about Brawl+ tournaments?

I see no problem using hacked stages in a Brawl+ tourney, but they shouldn't be used in a vBrawl tournament. Some of the lighter hacks, like unlimited replays, default settings, and no tripping are passable because they have virtually no negative effects - but some of the harder stuff, like hacked stages can severely affect matches.

Take for instance, I've never played on a frozen stage. I'd wreck me to have it counterpicked against me.

 

[DRK]

OK, thanks. That makes sense. The frozen PS2 would probably still be OK though, even by your qualifications... but I'll forget it anyways.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Pokemon Stadium 2 is recommended counterpick, not counterpick/banned. Even if not though, I can't say that there seems to be much argument to ban it; it's such a weak counterpick that it almost never gets picked (people prefer to pick stages that give them bigger advantages).

 

[Kamikaze*]

We should seriously look over Japes. I don't understand why one should be punished so heavily just because your opponent abused the croc and threw you into the water when the clock hit 7.

 

[bobson]

I don't understand why one should be punished so heavily just because your opponent abused their up-B to stage spike you while you were hanging on the edge.

 

[Kamikaze*]

I don't understand why one should be punished so heavily just because your opponent abused their up-B to stage spike you while you were hanging on the edge.

It's different because your opponent did all the damage, where the stage does no damage. This is why infinites are okay. Your opponent is the one doing everything, where the stage does nothing.

 

[JigglyZelda003]

you could also just not hang around that area at that time

 

[bobson]

It's different because your opponent did all the damage, where the stage does no damage. This is why infinites are okay. Your opponent is the one doing everything, where the stage does nothing.

And this is bad because?