You would have to be really bad to be putting more effort into surviving on any of those stages than against the opponent. 75m, Mushroomy Kingdom, Rumble Falls, and Flat Zone 2 aren't even very dangerous when compared to stages that are generally considered legal; have you actually played on them or are you just making stuff up? I'm going to guess you don't have much of any experience on them because you didn't even know the name of Rumble Falls.
Maybe I just fight easier enemys than most people who get to fully play profesional (Condem my broken rib), but for most of the kids that I fight Locally and on Wifi, most of the stages are more of an issue to them than I am. I know that some of them are Johning since they lose on every stage, but some of them that actually do have skill (who I'm convincine to join the Boards since they beat me as much as I beat them) do note that the stages do require a little more thought than whether to SpotDodge or Jump over my Smashes and deliver an attack of their own. I personally don't have the same issues, but plenty of "younger" and some times some of the "mature" players find that despite how few there are, the obsticals and stages provided do make them work harder on dodging or utalizing the stage itself rather than to just dirrectly fight. 75m, they are more focused on trying to find safe platforms away from the Fireballs, Moving Platforms, Springs and the Donkey Kong at the top than trying to actively kill me. On Mushroomy Kingdom, I've seen kids get blocked by platforms and walls, gimped by them, and they lose a stock just because of the screen flow or falling through the gaps. Rumble Falls (which I only called the Scrolling DK Stage because I occasionally mix up Jungle Japes and Rumble Falls, and I don't enjoy making such mistakes) is an issue because between some of the unjumpable walls, the occasional spikes, and the worry of getting themselves thrown away by the walls, kids will get freaked about the stage being more of an issue in combat. Flatzone2, despite the strategies you can use around it, one mistake (that in battles on stages like Yoshi's Island or Battlefield wouldn't be nearly as catastrophic), and the poor little kids find themselves knocked about uncontrolably by the Game&Watch people, or nailed by 1 hit killing them. I thought I mentioned Mario Bros as well, for all of the items, the fireball hazards, the inpregnable platforms, and the chaingrab/walkawaywalls. And trust me, I'm not as inexperienced as I seem. And unless my version of Brawl is different than others, I'm pretty sure I'm not making up anything about them. Maybe I worded wrongly what I ment to say about them and other stages like them. I just don't like stages that force a person to have to change their strategy at all. I like watching epic battles between great compedators, fighting at their best without a random explosion interrupting things.
The stages move and have hazards; this is true. However, even the most braindead players out there could, in the absence of the opponent, survive indefinitely without ever being hit. Boot it up in training mode, pick Bowser or Ganon or whoever, and see how long you can last without getting hit. If the answer isn't "forever", that's a sign you're a really bad player, but if you actually have the stage patterns memorized (which you had better if you want to discuss them in legality debates), then I would guess you could handle it. What this means is that the stage is only "dangerous" insofar as one player utilizes its features against the other player... which is what happens on every stage anyway. On Final Destination, Falco exploits the lack of platforms to pressure better with his laser. I'm sure you have some arbitrary mental barrier, but that's really NOT different from Snake camping behind the lion tamers on Flat Zone 2 chucking grenades save perhaps the magnitude of the advantage. There are actually multiple philosophies to determine stage rules, but let me outline what I feel is the best one.
I agree with this. Maybe I just need to move so I don't have to fight Braindead Players. The only thing I have to say is that I don't see how Falco laser spaming (which is easily punished through the air) on Final Destination can be compared to Snake using Grenades on the Lion Cage (which if you move wrong, you can be instantly killed). Again, I personally don't have a problem fighting on any stage (except Smashville, because it's coloring is too "Pretty" for my states, but I'll still fight on it), but against the people I currently battle (which if I could go drive to more tournaments or to meet more fighters, I would, but I lost both my ribs and my car in an accident) stages that interupt fights or that can put people in crap situations aren't really good ones. Personally, I'll fight anyone, anywhere, anything goes (except glitches). It doesn't matter too much to me, although lots of other people have problems with it.
If a stage is not broken either in terms of making certain characters unreasonably undefeatable or in terms of adding too much variance for matches between skilled players to be determined by skill, it should be banned. Otherwise, it should be legal.
I know you're giving examples of this, but can I ask that you explain it again? Maybe I need to ask my teacher to go over grammer rules, but the way this is worded to me, wouldn't a stage that's not broken either in terms of unfair advantages or variance in skilled matches be a reason for the stage to Not be banned?
A good example of unreasonably undefeatable is the Temple. Fox versus anyone who runs slower than Fox is a sure thing win for Fox. Pit versus a bunch of characters is a sure thing win for Pit if the Pit is clever about the various outer loops. It's really degenerate and awful, and whichever character is better at running away is pretty much assured to win. It needs to be banned.
The first time I saw that Temple was banned, I wondered why. Then I saw the way people can play this stage, and I completely agreed. Runners SUCK! ALL YOU PEOPLE NEED TO BURN IN HECK WITH YOUR LEGS BROKEN! But Temple is another stage that can completely change a strategy or change the way a match under a "fair stage" would normally be.
Variance may or may not be random actually. Let's start with random with WarioWare. On WarioWare, the stage randomly awards stars (and does other things, but let's keep the focus on stars). If a character bad at running away must fight a character with a star, he's sure to lose his stock. Any amount of unsafe attacks are fine to throw out with total impunity. Which player gets more stars or stars at better times would be the main determining factor of matches were WarioWare legal. It needs to be banned.
I hated this stage the second this happened. I don't even attack people when I get stars. It's cheap, and again, the stage makes it so that a strategy can change completely.
An example of non-random variance is Mushroomy Kingdom 1-2. On this stage, a very powerful tactic is to camp the top of the stage and go for up throws. This is relatively even character wise (everyone can kill with up throw), but the problem is that if one player decides to utilize this strategy, the whole game is likely to come down to "land three up throws". Even at the highest levels with players of high and similar but not identical skill, this incredibly short and degenerate gameplay will not produce consistent results. Especially in light of the other problems this stage has, it's an easy choice to ban.
I completely agree with you here. Again, I probably worded my thoughts wrong. This stage and the scrolling DK Stage (Rumble Falls) aren't really that dangerous at all... It just messes up fights too much for my liking.
Where does Big Blue fit into this? Character advantages are pretty big, but I do not believe it would be an honest claim to say the best characters on Big Blue are unreasonably undefeatable. Everyone can survive landing on the track in general, and every character has some ability to make and react to the aerial approaches favored on this stage. Big Blue's platform layout is indeed very random, but it doesn't actually decide matches very often at all. The general structure of the platforms is always similar, and only very, very rarely does it shift to a form that really screws you. If this isn't convincing, consider Fountain of Dreams in melee. It too had very random platforms, but obviously every individual position was reasonable with the general structure being homogeneous enough that players could just react to it. Big Blue is less homogeneous than that, but it's still within the realm of reasonable to react to. The last question is whether the non-random variance on the stage is too great, and while it would indeed seem that way when you watch players pick up Big Blue for the first time, I find that after gaining a great amount of experience on the stage, it's not any more unpredictable than the other stages in terms of results. The only "problem" is that both players have to know it very well or else the games will look "bad".
Except for the Fountain of Dreams part (which I'll honestly never see a simularity between this stage's slightly moving platforms and the moving platform's formations and car changes on Big Blue), you actually have me very well convinced. I still think that stages like these that can interrupt the flow of battle for all but the most elite of pros or those that have the stage and it's possible styles committed to memory aren't really too good of stages...
Big Blue is definitely a very "different" stage like I was saying. There are a large number of strategies that only work on Big Blue and not the other stages, and there are a large number of strategies that work on the legal stages in general but not on Big Blue. While no character becomes broken, character bias is bigger than usual, including actually making life really rough on some very highly tiered characters (specifically Snake, also Olimar and Ice Climbers). I can see why people with different philosophies would be very strongly in favor of banning this stage. As a person who favors minimal bans, this is definitely a stage I would put near the top of my "I'm willing to compromise" list; of the stages that can reasonably be legal, this is definitely near the bottom of the barrel in terms of fairness. However, I'm not going to lie to people and further the rumors that this stage is degenerately unplayable; it's really a far more interesting stage than your doubtless limited experiences and some forum posts would lead you to believe.
Again, I'm more experienced than I seem, and I'm sorry if I seem like the people who actually have issues with these types of stages and more, and want then banned for such. Actually, in a true-game environment, I don't see any stage deserving banishment (although Smashville needs better coloring omg ;.; ). The only things I truly dislike in this game are the chaingrabs that people can do, and other glitches like the Cape glitch (which are usually limited in game play and/or character specific anyway). Strategy wise, I just prefer matches that are straight up slug fest bewteen players, using their own skill, rather than NEEDING to manipulate the stage to their advantage.
About Ike/Ganon vs Wario/Falco, if you consider character quality at all, you'd make that claim on any stage. For Ike in particular, Big Blue wouldn't be a bad stage to use at all against Falco actually. He can avoid lasers fairly easily by crouching on most cars, and in jumping around games he's really not at that big of a disadvantage. You'd have to be pretty confident in your Ike to pick Big Blue, but I suspect it would return handsome dividends if you were. Wario is even somewhat limited here since he can't exploit his full aerial mobility if there's not another car to pull back and land on. The factor here isn't aerial mobility (which Falco isn't good at either; why do people keep bringing him up?) so much as aerial approach ability, specificially on small platforms. That's why Meta Knight (who has AWFUL aerial mobility, despite what some people in this topic seem to think) is good here.
Might I ask what you mean by Character Quality? I don't really understand what you mean by that. And it seems easier for the big, lumbering, air-handicaped people to fight on stages that they don't fear being nearly instantly killed by a missed or gimped jump than having to fight on such a stage. And Ike v Falco on Big Blue? A big juggernaut who risks falling into the abyss or being run over by a jump or recovery that doesn't work nearly as well on this stage, verses an bird of prey that can reach any platform almost at will, with virtually no problems, just being able to wait for the enemy to get close and get gimped? I tried Youtubing videos of such matches, and I couldn't find a single one. Maybe I'm not searching enough. And Wario seems to excel on any stage where there are lots of aerial platforms, and between the mass of them at the top of the stage, to the moving cars that are the only thing saving people from instant death on the road, Wario seems to enjoy this stage quite well. Maybe this is too specific (since it seems to be mainly the people that I know that I fight). But it seems to work out that way quite well.
I gave you such a lengthy and wandering response since you echo a lot of sentiments that really stem from having very little experience on the stage or stages in general. Big Blue does have some legitimately and worrysome problems, but "being more dangerous than the opponent" is most certainly not among them (nor is it among the problems for any stage).
But seriously now, my responces will be the colored ones.
