Stage policy and starter stages: my easy solution to stage rules

[Runic_SSB]

My thoughts exactly regarding your font colour choice.

edit: I just realized Smashboards Dark might not be the default theme so my criticism is highly ironic if people are using the white background theme. whoops

I'm using Tourmaline, so I can barely see yours.

Anyway, I'm liking this idea. Although, I'm not a big fan of PS2 and Wuhu, but that's a different discussion entirely.

 

[Ulevo]

Just posting to say this is probably how it should be done. It makes arguing about stage legality a lot less relevant and opens up more strategic options to players. I approve.

 

[cot(θ)]

I believe it would be 17 (every other odd number). Although 15 isn't too bad,

Could someone please educate me on why 17 is better than 15? Is there some nuance to the striking system besides just "take turns striking until there's one left" that makes this the case?

 

[Piford]

Could someone please educate me on why 17 is better than 15? Is there some nuance to the striking system besides just "take turns striking until there's one left" that makes this the case?

It's more fair to strike 1-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-1 than 1-2-2-2-2-2-2-1 because with striking the ladder (15 stages) it gives the player that goes second an advantage.

 

[cot(θ)]

It's more fair to strike 1-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-1 than 1-2-2-2-2-2-2-1 because with striking the ladder (15 stages) it gives the player that goes second an advantage.

Ah, I see - that does make sense.

 

[ATH_]

I am really happy an idea like this is up and people are liking it. I'm going to be running something similar to this for my online tournament. ^^

 

[LiteralGrill]

Hypest Team is seriously considering this for possibly being used in future events as well. We'll see how that goes.

 

[Jehtt]

Overall, I see no point not to at least try this for certain tournaments. Maybe it'll catch on, maybe it won't but there's only one way to find out.

 

[Mr. Escalator]

I wholly endorse this idea; I'll be running my tournaments with this stage rules setup once the new year rolls around.

 

[N00B64]

Idk, with the abundance of stages that we have, alot of them function similarly eneough for spicific charcters to excel on at least half of the 13 stages. I feel like people would just end up on BF or Smashville anyways.

Also this would cause time between matches to become much longer, and we already have trouble with time in larger tournyments. (BH4 we had to lower stocks to 3 to keep things on track.)

 

[KlefkiHolder]

Idk, with the abundance of stages that we have, alot of them function similarly eneough for spicific charcters to excel on at least half of the 13 stages. I feel like people would just end up on BF or Smashville anyways.

Also this would cause time between matches to become much longer, and we already have trouble with tome in larger tournyments. (BH4 we had to lower stocks to 3 to keep things on track.)

Did that happen at BH4?

I thought PM was always going to be 3 stock? However, with PM, pools had top 2 advance instead of top 3 I think because of a lack of setups. A lot of people pledged to bring setups and didn't, so adjustments had to be made, right?

BH4 was an on time tournament, I thought? Please correct me if I am wrong though.

 

[ぱみゅ]

Longer time between matches? Explain why it would create time issues, as I see it there is nothing in this system that can take longer (striking may only take few seconds more).


And PM looks fine at 3 stocks.

 

[Skull_Kid]

I like the idea and i'm "all in" for testing this.

We find our selves in the first steps of smash4's competitive scene. I'll go as far as to say that it is our duty to test and try new things before it's too late.

The only real "issue" (which really isn't one actually), is to come up with a procedure that everyone can agree too.

On a side note: just a couple of days ago in the Italian competitive community we opened up a discussion about stage legality. Here's what we came up with:

- Battlefield
- SmashVille
- Final&Omega
- Duck Hunt
- Windy Hill Zone
- Skyloft
- Kongo Jungle 64
- Castle Siege
- Halberd
- Lylat Cruise
- Delfino Plaza
- Town&City

So far, with the exception of Wuhu Island and PS2, the stage list looks pretty much the same as the one OP posted earlier.

Personally, I'd really like to see Windy Hill make it in the "official" list. I find it extremely under rated and viable for competitive play, definitely better than PS2 and Wuhu Island, two stages that pose issues that cannot be overlooked as they would disrupt excessively a competitive match.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Idk, with the abundance of stages that we have, alot of them function similarly eneough for spicific charcters to excel on at least half of the 13 stages. I feel like people would just end up on BF or Smashville anyways.

Also this would cause time between matches to become much longer, and we already have trouble with tome in larger tournyments. (BH4 we had to lower stocks to 3 to keep things on track.)

Like I said in the first post, I saw 10/13 stages come up in game one at one event (not a huge one either, 26 entrant), and I wasn't seeing every set played so it could have been more. The variety is real, and the differences between stages get pretty big (there is certainly no stage that is just swappable with Skyloft, and even stages like SV vs Town and City have different sizes and platform lay-outs that end up mattering more than you'd think). It's not just an immature game; we run 9 starter locals in Brawl which is an old game at this point, and I see all 9 get used for game one (FD and Castle Siege are a bit rarer than the others but do happen). You just have to look around the room and see that different players pursue different things.

Like in my personal 4 matches under 13 stages at that event, I ended up on Kongo I think half of the time because I apparently overvalue it (it actually worked pretty well for me!), but I didn't see Kongo picked game one for anyone else. The way the striking system allows both sides to expressively tilt the game toward their favored stages and you seem to always end up on a stage both sides legitimately like is what makes it such a cool system. Like if you just use 5 stages and pick 5 like FD/BF/SV/T&C/Lylat, I know I'll end up on a stage I think is kinda lame, but since I as a player strike FD/SV/T&C early most of the time, I'll get very different results out of 13 stages but also consistently one my opponent also likes since his least favorite stages will be struck early by him in the same way I'm striking my least favorites.

I also addressed the time. It doesn't add significant time; once you're striking anyway, striking from 5 stages versus 13 is a very trivial time difference. This has been our experience locally actually using larger strike lists; it just doesn't make a difference to time. Certainly removing a stock has a way bigger effect, like probably 100 times bigger, than how many starter stages you have (and tight TOing in which people who aren't where they're supposed to be when their sets are called get DQ'd saves radically more time than anything else, but that's another topic).

 

[smashmachine]

Like I said in the first post, I saw 10/13 stages come up in game one at one event (not a huge one either, 26 entrant), and I wasn't seeing every set played so it could have been more. The variety is real, and the differences between stages get pretty big (there is certainly no stage that is just swappable with Skyloft, and even stages like SV vs Town and City have different sizes and platform lay-outs that end up mattering more than you'd think). It's not just an immature game; we run 9 starter locals in Brawl which is an old game at this point, and I see all 9 get used for game one (FD and Castle Siege are a bit rarer than the others but do happen). You just have to look around the room and see that different players pursue different things.

Like in my personal 4 matches under 13 stages at that event, I ended up on Kongo I think half of the time because I apparently overvalue it (it actually worked pretty well for me!), but I didn't see Kongo picked game one for anyone else. The way the striking system allows both sides to expressively tilt the game toward their favored stages and you seem to always end up on a stage both sides legitimately like is what makes it such a cool system. Like if you just use 5 stages and pick 5 like FD/BF/SV/T&C/Lylat, I know I'll end up on a stage I think is kinda lame, but since I as a player strike FD/SV/T&C early most of the time, I'll get very different results out of 13 stages but also consistently one my opponent also likes since his least favorite stages will be struck early by him in the same way I'm striking my least favorites.

I also addressed the time. It doesn't add significant time; once you're striking anyway, striking from 5 stages versus 13 is a very trivial time difference. This has been our experience locally actually using larger strike lists; it just doesn't make a difference to time. Certainly removing a stock has a way bigger effect, like probably 100 times bigger, than how many starter stages you have (and tight TOing in which people who aren't where they're supposed to be when their sets are called get DQ'd saves radically more time than anything else, but that's another topic).

this may be true, but you know some top players will just option select Smashville and bypass the whole thing lol

 

[N00B64]

Did that happen at BH4?

I thought PM was always going to be 3 stock? However, with PM, pools had top 2 advance instead of top 3 I think because of a lack of setups. A lot of people pledged to bring setups and didn't, so adjustments had to be made, right?

BH4 was an on time tournament, I thought? Please correct me if I am wrong though.

It did go on time due to lowering the stocks. Pm usually runs with 4 stocks. Anyways the point is, every player doing this each twice per set would increase time.


A way to have a similar set up with less time would be for each player/team choose 3 stages that they can use as their pick/counterpicks. Instead of "banning" a stage you don't want, you choose it first to deny the other player its use, however you may be forced to choose it at some point during the set, creating a risk reward to the "meta".

All without the risk of losing time.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

this may be true, but you know some top players will just option select Smashville and bypass the whole thing lol

Pardon my ignorance, but...what top players? Smash 4's been out for either 3 months or 3 weeks depending on which version you're talking about. I'd say that's not nearly enough time to establish a pecking order.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

Even if you could, so what? If some players want to make bad decisions in striking, that only affects them. Why hurt everyone else for no gain to the SV agreement team? Rules need to work for all of the players, and most players actually strike.

 

[S2]

Here's a thought if we end up with 14 or so stages and people start bickering over striking and wanting to drop 1. I'll just preface this with the plea to read both of the next two paragraphs before getting a knee jerk reaction.

Why not take Final Destination (or battlefield) out of the striking phase if we're over 13 stages. Prior to striking players can ask to gentleman's agreement it if they want, if not, striking occurs as normal with the 13 other stages. This way if you have 14 or more potential stages you aren't left with having to cut one for the sake of a better striking number.

Before someone freaks out because I suggested taking out a traditional starter from striking, the thought process behind singling out FD (or maybe Smashville/BF) is that it's such a popular stage that it will probably get picked as the first stage a lot regardless of whether it's placed in the strike pool or listed as gentleman's agreement only stage for the first round. This doesn't put FD in much worse of a situation if a player declines a gentleman's agreement to play it than if it were left in striking and that declining player had struck it out. It's still there for the loser of a round to choose as their counter stage pick.

And of course, this is only in the event that we're stuck with 14 stages and people aren't agreeing on which to drop. If a vast majority agrees on 13 then the whole thing is a non-issue. I promise you I don't hate FD or something, under any other circumstance I wouldn't dare suggest taking it out of the strike list.

 

[Pazx]

It's more fair to strike 1-2-2-2-2-2-2-2-1 than 1-2-2-2-2-2-2-1 because with striking the ladder (15 stages) it gives the player that goes second an advantage.

I don't see how P2 has an advantage in the second set any more than P1 has an advantage in the first set.

The benefit is always with the person who gets to pick from the two remaining stages. With a 5 stage list, it's the first striker, with a 7 stage list it's the second striker.

 

[Piford]

I don't see how P2 has an advantage in the second set any more than P1 has an advantage in the first set.

The benefit is always with the person who gets to pick from the two remaining stages. With a 5 stage list, it's the first striker, with a 7 stage list it's the second striker.

With 7 stages list, Player 2 essentially gets to pick after player one each time, so he gets the benefit every single time and the final decision. With 5, Player 2 gets to pick against Player 1, but Player 1 gets the final decision.

 

[KlefkiHolder]

It did go on time due to lowering the stocks. Pm usually runs with 4 stocks. Anyways the point is, every player doing this each twice per set would increase time.


A way to have a similar set up with less time would be for each player/team choose 3 stages that they can use as their pick/counterpicks. Instead of "banning" a stage you don't want, you choose it first to deny the other player its use, however you may be forced to choose it at some point during the set, creating a risk reward to the "meta".

All without the risk of losing time.

Yeah, I don't think thats why it went on time. Looking at the tournament thread, it was always 3 Stock PM.

Also TBH4 ran on time even with having all of Melee Top 32 on stream, right? Really, time is not an issue here it seems.

 

[smashmachine]

Here's a thought if we end up with 14 or so stages and people start bickering over striking and wanting to drop 1. I'll just preface this with the plea to read both of the next two paragraphs before getting a knee jerk reaction.

Why not take Final Destination (or battlefield) out of the striking phase if we're over 13 stages. Prior to striking players can ask to gentleman's agreement it if they want, if not, striking occurs as normal with the 13 other stages. This way if you have 14 or more potential stages you aren't left with having to cut one for the sake of a better striking number.

Before someone freaks out because I suggested taking out a traditional starter from striking, the thought process behind singling out FD (or maybe Smashville/BF) is that it's such a popular stage that it will probably get picked as the first stage a lot regardless of whether it's placed in the strike pool or listed as gentleman's agreement only stage for the first round. This doesn't put FD in much worse of a situation if a player declines a gentleman's agreement to play it than if it were left in striking and that declining player had struck it out. It's still there for the loser of a round to choose as their counter stage pick.

And of course, this is only in the event that we're stuck with 14 stages and people aren't agreeing on which to drop. If a vast majority agrees on 13 then the whole thing is a non-issue. I promise you I don't hate FD or something, under any other circumstance I wouldn't dare suggest taking it out of the strike list.

no, why would you take a stage out because of that?

 

[ParanoidDrone]

Instead of debating which stage to remove from the list of 14, why not look to the rest of the stages and see if there are 3 that could be added?

 

[thehard]

This is really important. I'm sure plenty of people just blindly accept neutral/cp rulesets but this is so, so much better.

Instead of debating which stage to remove from the list of 14, why not look to the rest of the stages and see if there are 3 that could be added?

I like to think players would accept MKU and Mario Circuit over time, but I'm not sure on a third.

Edit: http://smashboards.com/threads/stage-analysis-discussion-thread.367708/page-65#post-18236022

 

[ParanoidDrone]

This is really important. I'm sure plenty of people just blindly accept neutral/cp rulesets but this is so, so much better.



I like to think players would accept MKU and Mario Circuit over time, but I'm not sure on a third.

Edit: http://smashboards.com/threads/stage-analysis-discussion-thread.367708/page-65#post-18236022

Luigi's Mansion seemed fairly well received too. Everyone I fought there agreed it was fun. Or maybe Norfair? That one's also workable IMO but I don't think it's quite as well liked.

 

[Amazing Ampharos]

I was at a tournament yesterday with 17 starters and 6 stage bans per side before counterpicks. It was unwieldy to the point that it was obvious I was being a pain in the rear end trying to do the procedure (to be clear, it wasn't my ruleset, but I make a habit of actually using the rules at an event instead of agreeing to stuff). 13 is the limit to what's practical as a starter list; it works well, but 17 does not. 6 stage bans is also WAY too many and makes things super hard (was not my idea, was at least good data to see in action, didn't work well at all); we're going to be running 13 starters and 2 bans going forward which should be infinitely more workable. This should be a caution to the current line of thinking in this topic; yes more starters is generally better, but 13 really is a limit and eventually it does geet cumbersome.

I want to clarify another point though. When I say cumbersome I mean it's annoying to the players. I don't mean it makes the event actually run late. The TOing was effective and we ran ahead of schedule even with the most tedious stage procedure you could ask for (AND customs legal for those who have the silly idea that's a time problem when it's not in any way at all). Stage rules don't make tournaments run late; they never have, and they never will.

 

[ParanoidDrone]

I was at a tournament yesterday with 17 starters and 6 stage bans per side before counterpicks. It was unwieldy to the point that it was obvious I was being a pain in the rear end trying to do the procedure (to be clear, it wasn't my ruleset, but I make a habit of actually using the rules at an event instead of agreeing to stuff). 13 is the limit to what's practical as a starter list; it works well, but 17 does not. 6 stage bans is also WAY too many and makes things super hard (was not my idea, was at least good data to see in action, didn't work well at all); we're going to be running 13 starters and 2 bans going forward which should be infinitely more workable. This should be a caution to the current line of thinking in this topic; yes more starters is generally better, but 13 really is a limit and eventually it does geet cumbersome.

I want to clarify another point though. When I say cumbersome I mean it's annoying to the players. I don't mean it makes the event actually run late. The TOing was effective and we ran ahead of schedule even with the most tedious stage procedure you could ask for (AND customs legal for those who have the silly idea that's a time problem when it's not in any way at all). Stage rules don't make tournaments run late; they never have, and they never will.

Does that also imply 13 is the upper limit when doing FLSS or similar procedures that pick from the whole stage list?

 

[Lukingordex]

I really like this idea, but I think your guys are exaggerating a little.

I mean, some of those stages are terrible lol, like Windy Hill Zone.

I would reduce the number of counterpick stages a little.

 

[Asdioh]

(AND customs legal for those who have the silly idea that's a time problem when it's not in any way at all).

How were customs done at this one? Did they set it up with your 3DS way, or what?

I spent a good half hour or more grinding customs last night, got 2 new ones! So only about 100 more to go.

 

[[Deuce]]

So the stage striking procedure would be applied for each match during the set? I'm guessing the loser's advantage is an additional 2 strikes?

 

[Piford]

So I was thinking of a way to make this work but save more time (since that seems to be the main issue). What if striking happened on round 3 instead of round 1? So round 1 player 1 picks a stage, round 2 player 2, and if there was no winner than round 3 strikes to a stage. This means if there is an obviously better player, they don't have to spend time striking.

 

[Uniit]

This also makes the set more revelant, because for two player at the same level, the 1st game is very likely to decide who'll win, as game 2&3, the counterpicked player is likely to lose, resulting in a 2-1.
This solution is like : "who can win at disavantage ?" and if nobody wins like that, final game is "neutral".

As far as i like and support this, i don't think it would be the norm as people don't want the system to change.

 

[Asdioh]

I like that idea, only problem I can think of is that people will generally want to be the first to pick. Even though you'll get to pick your stage second game, if you lost game one you'll already be feeling serious pressure. I guess the same is true for our current system, and if you do manage to win then game three is on an equal playing field, but it sems to me like second pick is at quite the mental disadvantage since they have to win 2 in a row or they're out, what do you think?

The "obviously better player" bit is true though.

 

[Piford]

I like that idea, only problem I can think of is that people will generally want to be the first to pick. Even though you'll get to pick your stage second game, if you lost game one you'll already be feeling serious pressure. I guess the same is true for our current system, and if you do manage to win then game three is on an equal playing field, but it sems to me like second pick is at quite the mental disadvantage since they have to win 2 in a row or they're out, what do you think?

The "obviously better player" bit is true though.

But if the person with the second pick wins the first round now they have the mental advantage because they are playing at a physical advantage. I think it won't really differ from the current system in terms of pressure, it might actually be better since you know that you'll be playing neutral game 3 instead of at a disadvantage.

 

[Asdioh]

True. Now we just have to get people to try it :D

...you know how well that usually goes

 

[Uniit]

@ LiteralGrill please a test tournament !

Joke aside, there was a thread not too long ago about stage picking methods, what about making a thread on how a set should go ?

 

[LiteralGrill]

You joke @ Uniit , but if people wanted me to I could do FLSS for game three, players pick first 2 stages testing tournament if there was a demand for the idea. We use FLSS for our 3DS tournaments already, and have been heavily considering its use for Wii U already, so hey if this was popular enough to be tested and people could write up something nice to explain why it's a nice system I'd go for it.

Also, the mental advantage of game one? I'd take the stages they both chose and put them on random after selection, that way whoever gets the advantage game 1 was chosen at random. Seem nice?

 

[[Deuce]]

You joke @ Uniit , but if people wanted me to I could do FLSS for game three, players pick first 2 stages testing tournament if there was a demand for the idea. We use FLSS for our 3DS tournaments already, and have been heavily considering its use for Wii U already, so hey if this was popular enough to be tested and people could write up something nice to explain why it's a nice system I'd go for it.

Also, the mental advantage of game one? I'd take the stages they both chose and put them on random after selection, that way whoever gets the advantage game 1 was chosen at random. Seem nice?

Excellent idea, but then that brings up the issue of stages vs character pick order. Usually characters are chosen with a particular stage in mind especially if it is their turn to counterpick. I figured stage pick priority would be decided by coin toss prior to character selection; otherwise you would be reintroducing that random element of old where stage striking served to eliminate

 

[Piford]

Characters will be chose after stages on games 1 & 2. Round 1 player 2 picks first, and vice versa round 2. Round 3 can be a blind pick and characters are chosen first.