The Unity Ruleset: Discussion

[AlphaZealot]

As of right now it is only US. However, there are some talks of expanding to Canada (maybe Mex). Personally I do not want to see this happen for at least a few more months once the ruleset has been used fairly often.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Different reasons.

- No Edges on Main platform
- Walk Offs (Not that important)
- Cars are very strong (If you deny that, you lie)
- Cars & landing places are a bit random (I know there is a pattern)

But it's mostly because of the missing edges and even more the cars.

Short answer: People are stupid/scrubby.
Long answer: most people are not willing to put in the effort to learn how to fight on a stage that is so different, and consider the cars and lack of ledges "gay". So they either say "This is gay, ban it plz" or make slightly more substantial, slightly less honest excuses to ban it.

DINGDINGDING

Nothing you just mentioned is a good reason to ban the stage. The walkoffs are temporary and about as dangerous as the ones on Castle Siege and Delfino. The lack of edges is fixed by the road beneath you (if you cannot mix up your recovery enough to at least make it back onstage after the second try, then I pity you). It is completely reasonable to expect a player to never get hit by the cars, as they are on a fixed track with a non-random speed and there are notable safe zones on each stop, and they all have reasonable warning as well. And while the landings are random, the cars are not.

Because I don't want to have such a strong impacting stage element?
You can't force people to learn how to deal with them, if they just don't want it.
Whats wrong with that?

Long answer: most people are not willing to put in the effort to learn how to fight on a stage that is so different, and consider the cars and lack of ledges "gay". So they either say "This is gay, ban it plz" or make slightly more substantial, slightly less honest excuses to ban it.

...Actually on second thought

Short answer: People are stupid/scrubby.

"I don't want to have to deal with spacing and zoning". You can play brawl without them, you know. It is possible. Just need enough extra rules... And yeah, it absolutely murders game depth.



You see, Akuma, there's a reason we don't necessarily listen to every random scrub who wants to ban things. There's a damn good reason we don't randomly ban things based on the will of the majority with no solid reasoning behind it (or hell, flimsy reasoning behind it). It's because of two things:
-What the majority wants is not always best for the game. What if the majority wanted to play on Temple, or ban every character other than Ganondorf? Would that be positive for competition? No, of course not!
-There's a conflict of interest present. Take for example Soren's example. I explained to him quite clearly how it was entirely his own fault for what happened (non-random event pwned him after he went into a high-risk, high-reward situation–one that he failed to recognize from the outset, like someone who has never heard of ICCGs storming the ICs head on–and failed), and why it was his own damn fault. He refuses to admit that this is the case. People are opposed to raising the workload to the top. It's a classic case of conflict of interest, like a ganon main demanding that ICs, Sheik, MK, and in fact everyone outside of Bowser, CF, and Ganon be banned.

There is a reason why we have a timer, people don't want matches to last forever.

No, because tournaments have to finish on time.

There is a reason we have an ~8 minute timer, because people don't want every match to go to time.

No, because it has shown that it offers the best balance between "finishing the tournament on time" and "not pushing a secondary win condition too far into the spotlight". Some places use 10.

And so there is a reason why people ban PTAD, because people don't want a stage that can kill you @50%. The cars force you to go the side of the stage which is a VERY risky place to be.
People don't want extremely risky situations BY THE STAGE at all, in this case every minute for about 5 seconds.

And people should suck it up and deal with it.

 

[Tesh]

I don't support PTAD, but I'd like to point out that Rainbow Cruise can also kill you at 50% or lower.....If you just stand there and let it. Some stages do punish certain characters VERY hard for little things.

I tripped on Delfino Plaza with Ivysaur as the stage was moving away, and I died.

 

[Blacknight99923]

I've tripped on PTAD running to teh sides away from cars


and I died

 

[Life]

You can jump over the cars.

Also, I tripped into the SV balloon and died.

 

[Lokinario]

I think that both JJ and PTAD are not worth banning. Yes, their hazards are absurd, but not game breaking.

Hell, I wouldn't even think RF is if it wasn't for characters with lame recoveries distance-wise (Bowser, Ganondorf, Sheik, etc) + characters with amazing recoveries distance-wise (MK, Kirby, Pit, etc).

 

[xDD-Master]

WHITE = Budget Player Cadet
My answers in red
http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=12610947&postcount=1442



DINGDINGDING

Nothing you just mentioned is a good reason to ban the stage.

Maybe not on it's own, but combined.
And it isn't just the cars themselves. It's how they are.
That means WHEN (Every Minute), WHERE (Half the Stage) and HOW (Very Strong killing you @50s)

The walkoffs are temporary and about as dangerous as the ones on Castle Siege and Delfino.

That's why these stages are counterpick. They have edges, and no cars at all.

The lack of edges is fixed by the road beneath you (if you cannot mix up your recovery enough to at least make it back onstage after the second try, then I pity you).

LOL no it's not.

It is completely reasonable to expect a player to never get hit by the cars, as they are on a fixed track with a non-random speed and there are notable safe zones on each stop, and they all have reasonable warning as well. And while the landings are random, the cars are not.

The cars are random, by saying that I don't mean when they appear, but how they appear. Sometimes there is does "slower car" in the end, which comes with a second of delay. Can be very tricky on some parts (Like the part where the cars come from the right... beside the fact that there only is one small safe part)




"I don't want to have to deal with spacing and zoning". You can play brawl without them, you know. It is possible. Just need enough extra rules... And yeah, it absolutely murders game depth.

No it doesnt. Brawl has enough depth by PvP. Hell, even playing only on 5-6 Stages would have enough depth that you could never ever reach it's end.
And yeah, that's the same kind of arguing like you do. Claiming things you can't back up.



You see, Akuma, there's a reason we don't necessarily listen to every random scrub who wants to ban things. There's a damn good reason we don't randomly ban things based on the will of the majority with no solid reasoning behind it (or hell, flimsy reasoning behind it).

Yeah thats true, but there is as well a damn good reason to ban PTAD, whatever you want to say, we don't want that strong stage elements = we ban it. Simple? Yes. Do you get it? No. Reason? Yeah, blinded as hell by his own opinion.
What's so hard to accept other opinions? I don't understand... really.

It's because of two things:
-What the majority wants is not always best for the game. What if the majority wanted to play on Temple, or ban every character other than Ganondorf? Would that be positive for competition? No, of course not!

Those the majority want this? No.
Who does know better what is best for the majority, then the majority itself o_O
You can try to change their opinion, if their is a logical mistake, or something like that. But if the majority likes basketball, you can't tell them that hockey is better and everytone should start playing & watching hockey. That's stupid and timewasting as hell.

-There's a conflict of interest present. Take for example Soren's example. I explained to him quite clearly how it was entirely his own fault for what happened (non-random event pwned him after he went into a high-risk, high-reward situation–one that he failed to recognize from the outset, like someone who has never heard of ICCGs storming the ICs head on–and failed), and why it was his own damn fault. He refuses to admit that this is the case. People are opposed to raising the workload to the top. It's a classic case of conflict of interest, like a ganon main demanding that ICs, Sheik, MK, and in fact everyone outside of Bowser, CF, and Ganon be banned.

No they don't. This Ganon mains probably are very bad players.
No good ganon main how does understand the game would want that.

No, because tournaments have to finish on time.

I guess you're right at that one, I forgot about that.

No, because it has shown that it offers the best balance between "finishing the tournament on time" and "not pushing a secondary win condition too far into the spotlight". Some places use 10.

Yeah probably, but if it all was about finishing the tournament we could as well play 1 stock 3 min matches, we don't, we prefer 3 stocks over 1. But yeah, again, I think you're right on this one. My comparism maybe wasn't the best, true.

But OK, we turned items off ("banned them") because we don't want them.
We put in a LGL because we don't want to see every match being 2 MKs planking each other (Yeah it's broken, that's the primary reason, but we tolerate broken things, if they aren't degenerate, which is the case here, and why? Because we don't like degenerate gameplay, just like why we ban stages with pema-walls)

And people should suck it up and deal with it.

hi

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

There's a reason I quote each paragraph individually when responding. Try quoting your post and you'll see why.

 

[xDD-Master]

There's a reason I quote each paragraph individually when responding. Try quoting your post and you'll see why.

I hope it now is more appealing to you

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

BPC, you forget the time when the BBR released the recommended ruleset 3.0. We had Pirate Ship, PTAD, JJ, and Pipes legal. You wanna know what happened? <5 people wanted to use it.

Why the **** would we do that to ourselves when the point of this ruleset is to get people to play?

I'm not just talking about EC btw, I never saw a single tournament in america with those rules.

 

[Flayl]

You also had like 12 people voting, most of which I bet were the theorycrafters.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Maybe not on it's own, but combined.
And it isn't just the cars themselves. It's how they are.
That means WHEN (Every Minute), WHERE (Half the Stage) and HOW (Very Strong killing you @50s)

That's why these stages are counterpick. They have edges, and no cars at all.

Basing stage legality on: "Yeah, I think this stage has enough broken stuff to be banned maybe" is not a good idea.

How about actually testing the stage in a tournament and seeing if it causes a problem? Unless we work under some banned-until-proven-legitimate system that I'm unaware of.

LOL no it's not.

Your opinion means nothing if you don't back it up.

The cars are random, by saying that I don't mean when they appear, but how they appear. Sometimes there is does "slower car" in the end, which comes with a second of delay. Can be very tricky on some parts (Like the part where the cars come from the right... beside the fact that there only is one small safe part)

Well it's not like you are blind, you can, y'know, watch the cars to see if one of them is going to hit you.

Again: If this is such a problem, why are we theory-crafting about it when it could be proven a problem with tournament data?

No it doesnt. Brawl has enough depth by PvP. Hell, even playing only on 5-6 Stages would have enough depth that you could never ever reach it's end.

So... what do you have against depth? Why is more depth worse in this situation? Because you don't like the stage?

Yeah thats true, but there is as well a damn good reason to ban PTAD, whatever you want to say, we don't want that strong stage elements = we ban it. Simple? Yes. Do you get it? No. Reason? Yeah, blinded as hell by his own opinion.
What's so hard to accept other opinions? I don't understand... really.

Right, so your argument boils down to "ban it because I don't like it". So what about all the people who do like the extra game-depth and effectively different scenarios this stage provides? You are effectively screwing over the players who like this stage, despite them having much better objective reasoning to keep it legal than you do to keep it banned.

Those the majority want this? No.
Who does know better what is best for the majority, then the majority itself o_O

You can try to change their opinion, if their is a logical mistake, or something like that. But if the majority likes basketball, you can't tell them that hockey is better and everytone should start playing & watching hockey. That's stupid and timewasting as hell.

The key difference here is choice. Anyone has the choice to play Basketball or Hockey, even if the majority prefer the former and hate the latter (or vice versa).

You are taking away the minority's choice to play on Port Town Aero Dive for no logical reason.

Yeah probably, but if it all was about finishing the tournament we could as well play 1 stock 3 min matches, we don't, we prefer 3 stocks over 1. But yeah, again, I think you're right on this one. My comparism maybe wasn't the best, true.

1 Stock, 3-Mins is less competitive than our current system because the chance of the better player winning is decreased.

But OK, we turned items off ("banned them") because we don't want them.

We aren't banning them anymore than we are banning Subspace Emissary. Playing with items is simply a different mode, we don't need justification so disliking them is a legitimate reason to turn them off.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

I'm asking for the players to figure it out above all. I don't see the problem with PTAD and I don't understand why anyone else would. It's not even retardedly campy, like some stages being advocated.

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

Heh, I remember having a discussion with all the other Midwest TOs when BBR 3.0 came out. God, there was so much hate towards it and honestly I can't blame them. Of course we can argue PTAD level of tournament viability until we are blue in the face but much like ESAM said, we are trying to get people to use the ruleset. For a lack of a better term..I'm pretty sure people thought the BBR was high when they allowed PTAD, Japes, Pipes and Ship to be considered all tournament viable on the same ruleset...lol No matter how professional and concise of an argument you can make to support those stages, its just one of those things the public is never going to agree on. A great deal of the public doesn't analyze stages in depth like you do BPC. Even then it doesn't mean that PTAD should legal.

What is the first thing people think of when they hear Brinstar?

Lava and virtually non existent blastzones.

Port Town Aero Drive?

Cars that kill you at low percentages.

This is considered a large hindrance to game play. It is possible to die half as early as you normally would via car death. That alone turns people off from the stage. I'm sure you understand what I'm saying.

 

[[FBC] ESAM]

You also had like 12 people voting, most of which I bet were the theorycrafters.

We had closer to 30 actually, becuase most of the BBR at that time was inactive.

 

[xDD-Master]

White = Grim Tuesday
Red = Me
http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=12613445&postcount=1452



Basing stage legality on: "Yeah, I think this stage has enough broken stuff to be banned maybe" is not a good idea.

It is. It's the way I want to play the game. Simple.

How about actually testing the stage in a tournament and seeing if it causes a problem? Unless we work under some banned-until-proven-legitimate system that I'm unaware of.

Tournaments as testing playground is bad idea, especially when it is about money.

Your opinion means nothing if you don't back it up.

Well, you exactly do the same.


Well it's not like you are blind, you can, y'know, watch the cars to see if one of them is going to hit you.

No, not on the stage where they come from the right. And you should never forget: There is also an oppenant to look at.

Again: If this is such a problem, why are we theory-crafting about it when it could be proven a problem with tournament data?

But if we would try this, we would see that the stage is stupid, just like it happened often enough



So... what do you have against depth? Why is more depth worse in this situation? Because you don't like the stage?

It depends on the kind of depth.
Smashes could be performed by circling the control stick 5 times and pressing AAAABBBBBXYZ. That would indeed be depth, but it would be stupid as hell and nobody would play it.
Let's think of the reason we play brawl competitive -> It's fun.
Is PTAD fun? No, except for 1% of the people.



Right, so your argument boils down to "ban it because I don't like it". So what about all the people who do like the extra game-depth and effectively different scenarios this stage provides? You are effectively screwing over the players who like this stage, despite them having much better objective reasoning to keep it legal than you do to keep it banned.

Turn your Wii on, put in brawl disc, start game, choose characters, choose PTAD & play.
Was is that hard?
I can never stop you playing on it. I only can DQ you for playing it in my tournament.
You can play it as much in freeplay as you want.
And if it ever happens you play vs. BPC, there is this stage agreeing rule in nearly every ruleset, where you can still play on it.



The key difference here is choice. Anyone has the choice to play Basketball or Hockey, even if the majority prefer the former and hate the latter (or vice versa).

Make your own Tournament with your own rules, nobody stops you in doing it.

You are taking away the minority's choice to play on Port Town Aero Dive for no logical reason.

No we don't.
We just ban it at tournaments because it has bad impact on competitive play.
At least at that what WE understand as competitive.



1 Stock, 3-Mins is less competitive than our current system because the chance of the better player winning is decreased.

lol no. No, no and no again.
It's the same, even more, if we would increase from Bo3 to Bo9.



We aren't banning them anymore than we are banning Subspace Emissary. Playing with items is simply a different mode, we don't need justification so disliking them is a legitimate reason to turn them off.


You can see this also as a different mode.
I don't know if you are familar to soccer.
There is normal soccer, beach soccer & Indoor soccer.
It still is soccer, the just use different "stages" and modified rulesets, while the main things are the same.
Nobody complains about it.

I'm asking for the players to figure it out above all. I don't see the problem with PTAD and I don't understand why anyone else would. It's not even retardedly campy, like some stages being advocated.

Then you're just blind.

Heh, I remember having a discussion with all the other Midwest TOs when BBR 3.0 came out. God, there was so much hate towards it and honestly I can't blame them. Of course we can argue PTAD level of tournament viability until we are blue in the face but much like ESAM said, we are trying to get people to use the ruleset. For a lack of a better term..I'm pretty sure people thought the BBR was high when they allowed PTAD, Japes, Pipes and Ship to be considered all tournament viable on the same ruleset...lol No matter how professional and concise of an argument you can make to support those stages, its just one of those things the public is never going to agree on. A great deal of the public doesn't analyze stages in depth like you do BPC. Even then it doesn't mean that PTAD should legal.

What is the first thing people think of when they hear Brinstar?

Lava and virtually non existent blastzones.

Port Town Aero Drive?

Cars that kill you at low percentages.

This is considered a large hindrance to game play. It is possible to die half as early as you normally would via car death. That alone turns people off from the stage. I'm sure you understand what I'm saying.

I can just agree on everything

 

[Life]

The cars are random, by saying that I don't mean when they appear, but how they appear. Sometimes there is does "slower car" in the end, which comes with a second of delay. Can be very tricky on some parts (Like the part where the cars come from the right... beside the fact that there only is one small safe part)

There's a looooooooooot of stuff in this post I could talk about, but I'd like to just point out the factual error.

I've played on PTAD far more than you have (granted, not competitively, but enough to learn how the stage works) and I can inform you that this does not happen randomly. Either a transformation has a car that comes later (the first one is the only one I can think of off the top of my head, it has been a while since I last played PTAD) or it does not.

What MIGHT be random is the exact size of the hitbox of the car, since the cars come in different orders each time (but always in the same locations) and they're all slightly differently shaped, but I'm not sure if their actual hitboxes are different or not.

Not saying this discredits your whole argument, but watch more carefully.

 

[MK26]

if the old PTAD thread's info is correct, it's always the same car that comes last

 

[xDD-Master]

k, probably I was wrong at that, I never really studied the stage. But I played as well many matches, well I guess less then you ^^

 

[Lokinario]

Let's think of the reason we play brawl competitive -> It's fun.
Is PTAD fun? No, except for 1% of the people.

Oh man, don't say that kind of statistical stuff if you don't have any data to back it up. :/
Also, I don't think that every opinion has the same value.

And speak for yourself bro, not for others.

No we don't.
We just ban it at tournaments because it has bad impact on competitive play.
At least at that what WE understand as competitive.

We who? Please explain it a little more specifically.

You can see this also as a different mode.
I don't know if you are familar to soccer.
There is normal soccer, beach soccer & Indoor soccer.
It still is soccer, the just use different "stages" and modified rulesets, while the main things are the same.
Nobody complains about it.

Weren't you the one talking about majority choices? The majority thinks it's best to turn items off. It's VERY disruptive and game-breaking (e.g Assist Trophies, Pokéballs, Smart Bombs, etc.).
Thinking that items are ok but PTAD isn't is almost contradictory.

Then you're just blind.

Why? Explain to me why BPC_ is just blind, as I have the same opinion as him.

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

This discussion thread has turned into quite the source of entertainment.

 

[Life]

if the old PTAD thread's info is correct, it's always the same car that comes last

I could be wrong on this (again, it's been a little while) but I do think the exact car that comes in a given spot changes (they're just always in the same pattern). I'll go check on it sometime.

k, probably I was wrong at that, I never really studied the stage. But I played as well many matches, well I guess less then you ^^

I should clarify that most of my PTAD knowledge comes from screwing around with CPUs/wifi and not actual competitive play (tournaments run rarely in Pittsburgh, and we're pretty bad even then). So while I know things like this, I'm less credible on "sharking isn't broken here" and stuff like that. But arguing from authority is fallacious anyway, so point is moot.

 

[xDD-Master]

Oh man, don't say that kind of statistical stuff if you don't have any data to back it up. :/
Also, I don't think that every opinion has the same value.

And speak for yourself bro, not for others.

Well, ok, 1% sure isn't exactly, but the majority of the people is against PTAD, I'm pretty sure on that.
But OK, I live in Europe, so the people I have to do with aren't yours.



We who? Please explain it a little more specifically.


WE = The people that are against PTAD
WE = The people who like a 10-12 Stage List.


Weren't you the one talking about majority choices? The majority thinks it's best to turn items off. It's VERY disruptive and game-breaking (e.g Assist Trophies, Pokéballs, Smart Bombs, etc.).
Thinking that items are ok but PTAD isn't is almost contradictory.

I don't understand that point sorry ;x
The majority of competitive brawlers are against items @tourneys, just as they are against PTAD.


Why? Explain to me why BPC_ is just blind, as I have the same opinion as him.

Because you and him only see your own opinion.

I for example, can understand you. I'm able to think about a mindset, where PTAD is OK. It just depends on your reasoning for the selection of stages, which are different then ours.
I don't call you stupid, scrubby or whatever. But I like my mindset about stages more than yours, because I think it's better for competitive Brawl. That's all.
You on the other hand, try to prove, that my own opinion/mindset is wrong or whatever. THAT really is stupid.

There is nothing wrong with people playing only on FD, BF, SV.
There is nothing wrong with you playing on FD, BF, ..., JJ, PTAD.

It's just that I think it's the best to only play on lets say FD, BF, ..., FO.
The reasons are my personal criteria for why I think a stage is OK or not.

And when one of my criteria is "I don't want a stage that has Cars that deal 20% Damage and can kill you @50% while covering half of the screen" then you can't say anything against it.

 

[sunshade]

XDD-Master after skimming over your posts I think its easy to say that you need to step back and understand that we are making a ruleset and not playing casual games.

All of your points are based on the concept of how you personally want to play the game and not on the standard that everything is fair game because fun is subjective.

 

[Grim Tuesday]

It is. It's the way I want to play the game. Simple.

Read what Sunshade said.

Tournaments as testing playground is bad idea, especially when it is about money.

It's a much better idea than theory-craft, I can tell you that right now.

Sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good, though, ideally, we would've started off with all stages legal and slowly cut the list down.

Well, you exactly do the same.

Actually, no. I back my opinions up with logic and occasionally facts.

No, not on the stage where they come from the right. And you should never forget: There is also an oppenant to look at.

If a player is so bad that they can't concentrate on their oppenant and the cars, they really shouldn't be taken into consideration.

Fair enough though on them being less predictable when coming from the right.

But if we would try this, we would see that the stage is stupid, just like it happened often enough

Now you're just guessing again.

It depends on the kind of depth.
Smashes could be performed by circling the control stick 5 times and pressing AAAABBBBBXYZ. That would indeed be depth, but it would be stupid as hell and nobody would play it.
Let's think of the reason we play brawl competitive -> It's fun.
Is PTAD fun? No, except for 1% of the people.

Pressing extra buttons =/= extra depth.

Depth is just a word that describes the amount of effectively different situations in a game and how often they occur.

Adding in an extra stage which isn't over-centralizing in any way only serves to add more effectively different situations and thus, depth.

I don't play competitive Brawl because it's fun, I play it because I'm good enough at it to win money. Besides that though, see Sunshade's post.

Turn your Wii on, put in brawl disc, start game, choose characters, choose PTAD & play.
Was is that hard?
I can never stop you playing on it. I only can DQ you for playing it in my tournament.
You can play it as much in freeplay as you want.
And if it ever happens you play vs. BPC, there is this stage agreeing rule in nearly every ruleset, where you can still play on it.

Make your own Tournament with your own rules, nobody stops you in doing it.

I'd respond to this, but I don't think it really matters in the grand scheme of things, we'd just go off on a tangent.

We just ban it at tournaments because it has bad impact on competitive play.
At least at that what WE understand as competitive.

Right, and 1+1=3. At least, what I understand as the number 3.

Competitive isn't some word that you can apply your own meaning to. If something is competitive, it allows (for lack of a better word) for competition. Competition is 2 or more people trying to see who is better at a subject.

Something is UN-competitive only if it can't provide an accurate answer to the question: "Who is better out of these players?"

That's why a solved game like Tic-Tac-Toe is uncompetitive, while an unsolved game like Chess is the opposite.

In summary, PTAD is not uncompetitive.

lol no. No, no and no again.
It's the same, even more, if we would increase from Bo3 to Bo9.

...

Are you just arguing for the sake of arguing? The more matches you do, the more likely the better player will win due to human error and chance having less of an impact. How can you disagree with that?

 

[ぱみゅ]

Right, so your argument boils down to "ban it because I don't like it". So what about all the people who do like the extra game-depth and effectively different scenarios this stage provides? You are effectively screwing over the players who like this stage, despite them having much better objective reasoning to keep it legal than you do to keep it banned.


The key difference here is choice. Anyone has the choice to play Basketball or Hockey, even if the majority prefer the former and hate the latter (or vice versa).

You are taking away the minority's choice to play on Port Town Aero Dive for no logical reason.

Heh, I remember having a discussion with all the other Midwest TOs when BBR 3.0 came out. God, there was so much hate towards it and honestly I can't blame them. Of course we can argue PTAD level of tournament viability until we are blue in the face but much like ESAM said, we are trying to get people to use the ruleset. For a lack of a better term..I'm pretty sure people thought the BBR was high when they allowed PTAD, Japes, Pipes and Ship to be considered all tournament viable on the same ruleset...lol No matter how professional and concise of an argument you can make to support those stages, its just one of those things the public is never going to agree on. A great deal of the public doesn't analyze stages in depth like you do BPC. Even then it doesn't mean that PTAD should legal.

What is the first thing people think of when they hear Brinstar?

Lava and virtually non existent blastzones.

Port Town Aero Drive?

Cars that kill you at low percentages.

This is considered a large hindrance to game play. It is possible to die half as early as you normally would via car death. That alone turns people off from the stage. I'm sure you understand what I'm saying.

After reading most posts here, even though I'd like to debate and refute some, so far these two are best comments in the whole thread: they pretty much sums both -important- debating stances: the theorycrafter (that does not find enough criteria and questions a TO's resoning behind certain rules) and the TO (that thinks on attendance and popular preference, regardless if they consider it right or wrong).

 

[Grim Tuesday]

Which is why we should HFLSS. Lets the players make their own stage lists, so everyone can be happy.

How many times have I said this already? *Sigh*

 

[Maharba the Mystic]

i just think that the TOs should discuss the legality of the stages that are brought up the most out and let us know how the discussions are going and mayb make a thread for each stage so that people can lay out a broad "for and against" in each thread.

so far the stages that have had the most question in this thread as far as legality goes are:

jungle japes
norfair
port town aero drive
yoshi's island pipes

i don't think im missing any but let me know if i am.

so anyways like i said, there should just be a discussion for each of these stages made, and then, based on whose side is thouroughly supported by the most logical facts and statistics, decide whether each stage should be legal or not.

however to get the real answer's to this you would need to allow the TOs AND the general public in on these discussions. and hell if you wanted to go really into depth, you could have a filtered pole at the end of each discussion after the thread is closed. but if you do do a pole make sure it's at the end of the discussion as some people may change their minds to either side after the discussions are over.

IMO

 

[xDD-Master]

XDD-Master after skimming over your posts I think its easy to say that you need to step back and understand that we are making a ruleset and not playing casual games.

All of your points are based on the concept of how you personally want to play the game and not on the standard that everything is fair game because fun is subjective.

And still fun is what matters the most.

You can say what you want, nobody would play the game if it wasn't about fun to begin with. Sure, there are those money *****s, but they only can do it because the majority has fun playing the game (Potfillers more or less).



Read what Sunshade said.

OK done + answered

It's a much better idea than theory-craft, I can tell you that right now.

And still it's bad. Friendlies/MMs/Side-Events are Ok.

Sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good, though, ideally, we would've started off with all stages legal and slowly cut the list down.

Well, I do not totally disagree with that... even though the first tournaments should be done without money at all until we get at least an "idea" about how the "final" stage list should look like.

Actually, no. I back my opinions up with logic and occasionally facts.

Not always (See second sentence of your post), but OK, mostly it's true.



If a player is so bad that they can't concentrate on their oppenant and the cars, they really shouldn't be taken into consideration.

While this is true, you still can't say that it's easy too always avoid the cars.
You also know that off-stage is a bad place to be, and still, even the best players, land there sometimes and that on static stages! If that already happens on static stages, think about how this influences the match on stages with that much of interaction. You land off-stage? K, try to recover. You fly directly into a car at your last stock with 50%? K, ggs.

Fair enough though on them being less predictable when coming from the right.

Dunno @this.

Now you're just guessing again.

True.

Pressing extra buttons =/= extra depth.

Agreed, my fault.

Depth is just a word that describes the amount of effectively different situations in a game and how often they occur.

Adding in an extra stage which isn't over-centralizing in any way only serves to add more effectively different situations and thus, depth.

I kinda agree with that, anyway I think the cars bad. The are somewhat over-centralizing and broken as well. Matches on PTAD nearly always are about "Who can dodge the cars better or is able to bring the oppenant into the cars". It's true that the cars are only temporary, but when they appear, they have a very big impact.
It's not like Delfinos Landing places. It lands and you have to deal with the changed field. On PTAD you have to deal with the changed field + the cars.

I don't play competitive Brawl because it's fun, I play it because I'm good enough at it to win money. Besides that though, see Sunshade's post.

Nah, I don't believe you. Maybe you have not fun at playing brawl in the meaning of playing the game. But you have fun @ going to tournaments, felling the hype or just by having the competition.
There always is some kind of fun, even it's just having fun winning the money.
Without any fun at all, you would do something else.

I'd respond to this, but I don't think it really matters in the grand scheme of things, we'd just go off on a tangent.

Why? Because you know I'm right on that? At least I'm so honest, to admit your points, if they are correct. It's not like I'm all "Yeah I'm 100% correct and you are wrong raaawr".

Right, and 1+1=3. At least, what I understand as the number 3.

Tbh, that's one of the most fundamental philosophic questions that exist and it's not wrong to agree on that. Well... agree is not the right word, English =/= first language.

Competitive isn't some word that you can apply your own meaning to. If something is competitive, it allows (for lack of a better word) for competition. Competition is 2 or more people trying to see who is better at a subject.

True. And because most of the people want to play the game like this at tournaments it offers the most competition

It would be funny to see, if there are two parallel tournaments, one with PTAD, JJ and all the like and one without, which tournament would have the bigger attandance.

We can only guess, but I'm highly sure the one without PTAD and all the like.


Something is UN-competitive only if it can't provide an accurate answer to the question: "Who is better out of these players?"

That's why a solved game like Tic-Tac-Toe is uncompetitive, while an unsolved game like Chess is the opposite.

I agree on that.

In summary, PTAD is not uncompetitive.

Debatable, it depends on what question you have.
"Who is the best @ 1on1 without any stage impact" -> then every stage beside FD/BF could be argued as uncompetitive.
"Who is the best @ 1on1 on stages that doesn't interact too much, so that mastering the characters is more important then mastering the non-broken stages" -> small starter list, not many stages
"Who is the best @ 1on1 AND mastered every non totally broken stage" -> probably no difference between starter/cp and many stages

Well, I don't want to go into detail, I think you get that point.
If the question only is "Who is the better player" we don't need any ruleset at all.

...

Are you just arguing for the sake of arguing? The more matches you do, the more likely the better player will win due to human error and chance having less of an impact. How can you disagree with that?

Sorry, don't understand that as well :x

1 stock, 3 mins, Bo9 would nearly give the same results as 3 stocks, 8 mins, Bo3 (Beside Lucario & ZSS players lol)


I hope you understand me better know. Really, all I'm trying to say is, that you never will be able to create ruleset which is objectively the best and that seems to be what you don't understand IMO
We can talk about what you think is better. And you can probably show me why some stages or OK for you, while they aren't for me.
But it's sad that you don't understand when I have different stage criterias then you.

And you didn't answered to that points at all...

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

Okay, I feel like this discussion is going in a circle.

So I personally would like to know what each of you specifically want to see from the BBR RC. What issues do you think we should really be paying attention to/require the most attention to. I personally just want to get a feel for what everyone's concerns.

 

[Maharba the Mystic]

i just think that the TOs should discuss the legality of the stages that are brought up the most out and let us know how the discussions are going and mayb make a thread for each stage so that people can lay out a broad "for and against" in each thread.

so far the stages that have had the most question in this thread as far as legality goes are:

jungle japes
norfair
port town aero drive
yoshi's island pipes

i don't think im missing any but let me know if i am.

so anyways like i said, there should just be a discussion for each of these stages made, and then, based on whose side is thouroughly supported by the most logical facts and statistics, decide whether each stage should be legal or not.

however to get the real answer's to this you would need to allow the TOs AND the general public in on these discussions. and hell if you wanted to go really into depth, you could have a filtered pole at the end of each discussion after the thread is closed. but if you do do a pole make sure it's at the end of the discussion as some people may change their minds to either side after the discussions are over.

IMO

i would personally like to see japes and norfair legal over the other 2, but im not against having a broader stagelist. i find diversity to be epic fun. also as a player i feel that jungle japes and norfair help certain characters out against the ever looming metaknight. falco has japes, pit has norfair (yes im biased towards this one due to my main but i can back up that bias), the other 2 make certain lower tier list characters a bit better too.

if you want a wall of text about my reasons for having them be legal i will provide one for the ones i can (japes and norfair) and unlike most people's texts ill include the otherside's arguements in my posts. not to refute them, just to see if i can shed some light on some topics. also i can list more reasons for them character wise than just pit.

 

[Sinister Slush]

And still fun is what matters the most.

You can say what you want, nobody would play the game if it wasn't about fun to begin with. Sure, there are those money *****s, but they only can do it because the majority has fun playing the game (Potfillers more or less).

The game is not the least bit "Fun". Most likely more than 90% of the community play it for the Players/People, The experience and as you stated, Money
With a mindset while going to tournaments paying venue + entry and saying "I'm only here to have fun" is like If we had a job and only went to it Every weekday to have "Fun"
We're not ****ing Spongebob Squarepants here.

And still it's bad. Friendlies/MMs/Side-Events are Ok.

....

Well, I do not totally disagree with that... even though the first tournaments should be done without money at all until we get at least an "idea" about how the "final" stage list should look like.

If you Drive to a tournament and Walk into the Venue, you've put yourself in the situation of wanting to Pay good money to be in the tournament.
Unless you drove say... 3 hours to this tournament just to play Friendlies the whole time.

While this is true, you still can't say that it's easy too always avoid the cars.
You also know that off-stage is a bad place to be, and still, even the best players, land there sometimes and that on static stages! If that already happens on static stages, think about how this influences the match on stages with that much of interaction. You land off-stage? K, try to recover. You fly directly into a car at your last stock with 50%? K, ggs

Would you like to be a ZSS main and play against King Dedede on this stage?

I kinda agree with that, anyway I think the cars bad. The are somewhat over-centralizing and broken as well. Matches on PTAD nearly always are about "Who can dodge the cars better or is able to bring the oppenant into the cars". It's true that the cars are only temporary, but when they appear, they have a very big impact.
It's not like Delfinos Landing places. It lands and you have to deal with the changed field. On PTAD you have to deal with the changed field + the cars.

First you're saying it's okay to play on PTAD even with the cars killing everyone at 0-50%, and now you're saying it's bad?
Make up your damn mind!
If I wanted too, I could probably type up a more productive arguement if I just slammed my face onto my keyboard multiple times!
Plus, Delfino has random moments where people go Through the floor and most of the time, Lose a stock.

Nah, I don't believe you. Maybe you have not fun at playing brawl in the meaning of playing the game. But you have fun @ going to tournaments, felling the hype or just by having the competition.
There always is some kind of fun, even it's just having fun winning the money.
Without any fun at all, you would do something else.

I don't even know how to respond to such... Screw it next.

Why? Because you know I'm right on that? At least I'm so honest, to admit your points, if they are correct. It's not like I'm all "Yeah I'm 100% correct and you are wrong raaawr".

-Rips his veins out-

True. And because most of the people want to play the game like this at tournaments it offers the most competition

It would be funny to see, if there are two parallel tournaments, one with PTAD, JJ and all the like and one without, which tournament would have the bigger attandance
We can only guess, but I'm highly sure the one without PTAD and all the like.

Of course the tournament Without PTAD and JJ would have less attendance. Cause the competitive scene are Smart enough to know for A Fact that Playing on say, Smashville is much more safer then playing on a stage like Jungle Japes against a Snake Main.

Debatable, it depends on what question you have.
"Who is the best @ 1on1 without any stage impact" -> then every stage beside FD/BF could be argued as uncompetitive.
"Who is the best @ 1on1 on stages that doesn't interact too much, so that mastering the characters is more important then mastering the non-broken stages" -> small starter list, not many stages
"Who is the best @ 1on1 AND mastered every non totally broken stage" -> probably no difference between starter/cp and many stages

Well, I don't want to go into detail, I think you get that point.
If the question only is "Who is the better player" we don't need any ruleset at all.

It doesn't matter if Player Q is better than Player Soup on stage Candy Mountain, You also need to factor in the characters they play, Skill, and their Playstyle. Also, I have yet to see Anyone Master Every stage, People are not perfect and we shall always make mistakes that could cost a Stock or just have us lose the lead by Percentage.
For an Example, at MLG Dallas Dojo killed himself on Brinstar (I believe) Twice cause he used Tornado where the stage splits in two. Despite being a Smart and Skillful MK main, he made A Human Error which cost him the game.

Sorry, don't understand that as well :x

1 stock, 3 mins, Bo9 would nearly give the same results as 3 stocks, 8 mins, Bo3 (Beside Lucario & ZSS players lol)

No, It would not give the same results. Maybe if you ever host your own tournament you can have this foolproof Ruleset of Best of 9, 3 minutes, and 1 Stock. Tell us how that goes when you get the chance.

 

[Maharba the Mystic]

you guys argue too much crap. just respond to the guy whois in the BBR RC and let your facts and statistics that they approve of lay out the guy you are arguing with. and you all wonder why the people in charge here never respond, it's because the few times they give you all a chance to do something with your opinions and respond to them personally, you waste it by arguing something dumb with someone else and ignore your chance to actually matter.

@BBR RC guy, my earlier post is actually a response to yours so please read it before these guys ruin it's chance to be read.

 

[xDD-Master]

Well I'll stop posting here anyway
If you want to see people getting killed by cars, krocs, acid and stuff like that just go on, we don't. GGs :D
And if that's a problem for you, I don't really care

I'm not living in the US anyway so ~~~


@Technical_Chase: I'd advise you to establish your ruleset first. That means, no changes at all for the next months. I think this would be best, since then changes will very likely be accepted.

But other then that, you probably should make some polls regarding different stages and other topics.
But the way your handling it atm is good, I mean trying to find a compromise which is everybody can atleast agree on.

And I think it's a good idea to try to spread to Canada and Mexico, probably in the future Europe as well, but thats not very likely because Europe is more conservative than the US. So yeah, I think you're doing it right atm, even though I personaly don't fully agree with your list (Picto... Brinstar... rest is OK)


I'm finally out, not wasting my time anymore to those blinded PTAD lovers.

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

i would personally like to see japes and norfair legal over the other 2, but im not against having a broader stagelist. i find diversity to be epic fun. also as a player i feel that jungle japes and norfair help certain characters out against the ever looming metaknight. falco has japes, pit has norfair (yes im biased towards this one due to my main but i can back up that bias), the other 2 make certain lower tier list characters a bit better too.

if you want a wall of text about my reasons for having them be legal i will provide one for the ones i can (japes and norfair) and unlike most people's texts ill include the otherside's arguements in my posts. not to refute them, just to see if i can shed some light on some topics. also i can list more reasons for them character wise than just pit.

Okay I'll bite. Please provide your argument for Jungle Japes and Norfair being tournament viable stages. Please exclude character bias from your post also as (you seem like you'd know this already) it would weaken your argument. I like hearing all of the possible arguments regarding these matters. If anyone else has anything to contribute to this particular topic feel free to. I just ask we keep things civil.

 

[MK26]

@maharba: green greens as well, though it hasnt really had much discussion

@Tech Chase: the final position that i'd absolutely love to see is a 9-stage starter list with japes, norfair, and greens legal, and picto banned. i consider that reasonable, though potentially a large change, so i think at the very least the next revision to the ruleset should have a change in the number of neutral stages (7 is alright) and japes legal

I can argue for all of the stages i mentioned, but not right this morning

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

so far the stages that have had the most question in this thread as far as legality goes are:

jungle japes
norfair
port town aero drive
yoshi's island pipes

i don't think im missing any but let me know if i am.

Scratch YI. And probably PTAD; it's accepted almost nowhere (even though it's really legit).

Okay, I feel like this discussion is going in a circle.

So I personally would like to know what each of you specifically want to see from the BBR RC. What issues do you think we should really be paying attention to/require the most attention to. I personally just want to get a feel for what everyone's concerns.

I think that the BBRRC should do the job that the BBR couldn't do: slowly pushing the smash community in the right direction (right = more stages, larger starter lists, more stage bans, etc.). It has smart people in it and an at least notable sphere of influence. It should slowly but surely start adding stages like Japes, ones that are considered "borderline" but are still accepted in several regions. It should start pushing for larger, more diverse starter lists (seriously, you guys could deliver a death knell to this ******** tradition of 5 starters with FD, BF, and SV; Chibo's argument against it is wrong on many levels). It should just slowly start pushing the smash community in the right direction. Gradually, of course, but still achieving something! I mean, obviously, pushing BBR 3.0 on the general populace is a stupid idea, but at least the kind of rulesets that do see play in Texas or the like...

Above all of this, I think the most important issue for the BBRRC should be addressing the scrub mindset that plagues the smash community, and attacking that via better-designed stagelists (as pretty much everything else is, well, pretty much dealt with). The BBRRC is full of very smart people ('cept Xyro lulz) with a fair amount of influence. If you guys tackle this issue right, it will work.


And Akuma? You are wrong, and you will not be right until you redefine "competitive" to suit your own needs. "I don't like this" basically is an argument that could be applied to anything–it was almost applied to a character a while back, although with a little more substance behind it. And while the death of the smash community through "bad" (read: "unliked") rulesets is a bad situation, it's hardly a realistic one if the BBRRC does it slowly.

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

Okay I'll bite. Please provide your argument for Jungle Japes and Norfair being tournament viable stages. Please exclude character bias from your post also as (you seem like you'd know this already) it would weaken your argument. I like hearing all of the possible arguments regarding these matters. If anyone else has anything to contribute to this particular topic feel free to. I just ask we keep things civil.

Well, let's see here...

First of all, it's worth mentioning that stages essentially need to be legal until proven broken/excessively random. This "innocent until proven guilty system" is very important, as it is simply impossible to gather solid proof of a stage's "innocence" without it already being legal at tournaments, plus "prove that it's legitimate in tournament play" is very subjective/impossible to prove, while "prove that it's broken/excessively random" is a hell of a lot easier.

Add to this the fact that most legal stages add competitive depth and variety to the game (one is inherently positive for competition; the other is usually positive for interest in the game), and you see a very good reason to legalize virtually every stage that isn't demonstrably overcentralizing/broken/excessively random, and keep them legal until they are demonstrated as broken.

Now I'm going to start with Japes, as I have slightly less secure knowledge of Norfair (I have heard that certain stalling tactics are very powerful, but I have never seen them abused). Japes as a stage is considerably different from almost every other stage, and has potential to add depth. It has been legal in several regions (including Texas, one of the better regions of the states overall) without enough complaint to ban the stage. The main complaints about the stage boil down to two things:
-Falco camping/CG->klaptrap
-DK water camping/cargo->spike

Now, it's worth noting that I have never seen either abused in practice (I live in europe, everywhere except finland banned this stage before I showed up on the scene). However, I'd like to page San to the thread, as he seems to be perfectly fine against falcos on this stage. As Ike. The basic camping strategies that falco has are simply not that enhanced by the platform setup; and you can time yourself so that he can't cg you into the klaptrap.
DK... I honestly have no idea what the problem is. So he lives forever? I don't quite get it, and I have seen absolutely no videos showing what is meant. Have you seen it happen? Has anyone actually looked in to it and tried to counter it? It seems like a DK camping in the water down there is basically begging, "SPIKE ME". And the cargo throw->spike thing? It's like any abuse of cargo throw: not quite as good as you'd think because you can just, well, hold the up button.

Norfair... I have heard rumor of stalling tactics, circle camping, etc... I have, again, seen absolutely no proof. Remember, this stage was legal at MLG. At the very height of competitive smash, this stage was legal, and it was not abused to the extent that anyone saw fit to cry foul. That in and of itself should make you think about it being banned. I honestly think that it, like PTAD, has a bad rep mostly because people are too stupid to deal with the semi-random hazards that give you plenty of warning and have an approximate pattern.

I mean, just look at how good EC is at dealing with the stage (in case you're too lazy to watch/miss the point, they do horribly when dealing with the hazards!). Wouldn't you want to ban a stage that you had to learn if you didn't already know it and it was just one more thing you had to wrap your head around? IMO this is another case of clear conflict of interest when someone like ADHD says "ban this plz".

 

[Maharba the Mystic]

Okay I'll bite. Please provide your argument for Jungle Japes and Norfair being tournament viable stages. Please exclude character bias from your post also as (you seem like you'd know this already) it would weaken your argument. I like hearing all of the possible arguments regarding these matters. If anyone else has anything to contribute to this particular topic feel free to. I just ask we keep things civil.

alrighty then. now that im awake ill bust these 2 out for ya. im gonna be doing these in order of general cons, then pros, and reasonings on what and why for both sections.

Jungle Japes

neutral facts:
- it has an incredibly high ceiling
- the klap trap appears whenever the second section on the game timer is at 7
- it has a smaller sideways blast zone near the stage edge
- this stage buffs projectile game due to the platforms being hard to approach (most noted is falco)
- the grounded fighting parts of the stage form a trapezoid shaped fighting area
- it has 3 platforms. one in the middle and two on the sides
- it sure does look cool when someone is spiked into the klap trap and then is Ko-ed at the blast zone under the water

cons:
- the klap trap can kill people early on. this is bad because one simple mistake can cost you your entire stock at relatively early percents.
- getting stuck in the river can mean death even at 0% in some cases. this is also a small mistake hard punish scenario.
- the high ceiling makes character's who are based off star ko-ing less able to kill.
- falco is buffed to a major degree at this stage against most characters. seeing as how he has the advantage on over half of the cast already, it is hard to accept a stage that makes him even better against many characters

pros:
- character's with instant momentum changing recoveries or long horizantal recoveries whether the recovery itself is very good or not (DK's rofl copter and ZSS's side tether for example) have a stage where they do not need to worry about recovering on. (even falling in the river early, DK's recovery will always be able to get him back to the ledge or the stage)
- while it is hard, the klap trap is can be influenced by SDI and it can be teched
- it provides a legit CP against metaknight for character's with strong projectle game. also due to the stage dynamics, character's like snake and falco wouldn't be getting gimped near as much by shuttle loop if they learn how to use the river to recover.
- character's who have a hard time getting star ko's but are good at getting horizantal kills would fare better at this stage against said star ko-ers. (most noted is snake for star ko chars so this could be used as a CP against his kill power persay)
- characters with good juggle games and platform sharking games (marth for example) benefit from the platform layout of the center of the stage.
- the center of the stage is also good for people with strong inside games since it only leaves the platforms to run to. and since not every character has a projectile, chasing is not that big of an issue.

so my reasoning on why i think jj should be legal are:
1. basically because it provides certain characters an actual game changing CP on metaknight. since you don't really get gimped here, it buffs profectile game to a high degree, and since MK is just as succeptible to early stage death as anyone else, it can really level the playing field for those with strong projectile camping games and help with the MK dominance.

2. it gives people with horizantal ko power a cp on star ko-ers. for example, snake and fox are based off star ko. that option is much more limited do the ceiling height and DI capabilites. So this stage provides character's like Wolf and Kirby more CPs against those who would base their kill tactics off star Ko-ing.

3. it's hazards are avoidable with skill, and they are never ever random due to one being constant and one being on a set timer.

hey ill post the one on Norfair in a little while. i gotta go run some errends.

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

@Tech Chase: the final position that i'd absolutely love to see is a 9-stage starter list with japes, norfair, and greens legal, and picto banned. i consider that reasonable, though potentially a large change, so i think at the very least the next revision to the ruleset should have a change in the number of neutral stages (7 is alright) and japes legal

First of all, it's worth mentioning that stages essentially need to be legal until proven broken/excessively random. This "innocent until proven guilty system" is very important, as it is simply impossible to gather solid proof of a stage's "innocence" without it already being legal at tournaments, plus "prove that it's legitimate in tournament play" is very subjective/impossible to prove, while "prove that it's broken/excessively random" is a hell of a lot easier.

Add to this the fact that most legal stages add competitive depth and variety to the game (one is inherently positive for competition; the other is usually positive for interest in the game), and you see a very good reason to legalize virtually every stage that isn't demonstrably overcentralizing/broken/excessively random, and keep them legal until they are demonstrated as broken.

Well the idea of thoroughly testing a stage IN TOURNAMENT before labeling is as "unfit for competitive play" is totally understandable it would raise a lot of questions and doubt toward us. It could be argued that if people really want to see "Stage 45" legal, they should start hosting their own set of tournaments and record tournament sets with said stage. Before branching out into what would be considered a more liberal stance towards a stage list, proof should be submitted. The issue is adding new stages in question to a what is supposed to be considered a "universal/standard" stage list without enraging people. Moving towards a liberal stance will automatically start a fire. Moving towards a more conservative stance will do the same thing. Personally I would love to see 2 top level players playing a match on Japes for example. Not because I think the stage should be legal (I'm not going to state my own personal view on this stage..its counterproductive) but just to see what actually happens. I prefer evidence over theorycrafting anyway. I think the last time I ever played a set on Japes was last summer personally...so it's been a while. But what we've done so far was attempt to establish a middle ground. It may need to refinement but the point was to avoid leaning into either extreme.

As far as these arguments for stages. Keep them coming. I'm reading all of them. I am not going to refute anything (unless its blatantly stupid) because I'm here just to see what the public has to say in specific about these topics.

Though we've been focusing on stages for a WHILE now. I do want to hear about other topics of concern. Just a heads up.